Ben Solo faces Snoke - again. At this point, he doesn't know the creature's name. Likewise, he doesn't know Rey's (or Kira's).
"Darkness rises and a Light to meet it".
But every time he steps into the Light, there is a Darkness that follows.
Another familiar voice appears in his mind mere seconds after he leaves the unknown girl to her peaceful sleep. The voice he knows since his childhood – first overlooked by his parents and tutors as a mere case of „imaginary friend", and then... then he learned to keep silent and just listen. The voice comes and goes, disappearing sometimes for months on end and then re-appearing, but never leaving his side altogether. His mother was the only one who ever trembled over this influence, waking up in the middle of the night with a short yell he'd hear even before it resounded through the halls.
"Something is amiss," she told Luke, unaware it was her son who was listening too. "Something is wrong with my boy. I cannot pinpoint what it is, but it is there, I can feel it, Luke."
"It is nothing," the Master Jedi said, with his usual light countenance. "Everyone is capable of reflecting both the Dark and the Light Side. Don't worry. It's your empathy that confuses you; that, and your love for Ben, Leia. And knowing what Vader did to you, it's only to be expected."
He cups her shoulders in reassurance, but she is still visibly shaken.
"Don't worry, sister," the man smiles. "I'm here. I'll always be here. Whatever happens, I'll help you. I always have."
"Yes, you always have," she smiles faintly, and the daily routine and his busy schedule takes her away.
Again.
„You grow stronger with each passing day, young Solo," the old voice says and a low roar rolls over his name like a stroke.
Ben springs to his feet as if scorched. He doesn't block the voice, but he doesn't answer either.
He knows perfectly well where this voice is coming from, and its owner doesn't hide its origins, not for a second. It's the Dark Side.
The twilight is grey by now and he can almost feel Luke wiggling in his light sleep, ready to jump to his feet and start the morning lessons in less than one hour. He has to hurry. He has no inclination of cleaning the water closets until the end of his padawan days.
„What do you want?" He asks the voice in his mind.
The creature smiles with a twisted, guttural laughter.
„Me? I want nothing," he says. „I am not so unlike your Jedi ways, young Solo. I am... unattached. Except, I seek an apprentice still. Someone to pass my wisdom and my strength to. Someone to exhalt when my time comes to an end."
Ben frowns.
„It is impossible," he growls. „There are no compromises with the Dark Side."
It is the scholar in him that likes these exchanges. He always wandered what happens beyond – Luke erased all the memory of the Sith and the Dark Side so thoroughly that it left one big gaping hole in the history of the whole galaxy.
And there was something else – the pull to the Dark Side was enticing. The murmuring promise of glory, and power and fame and war. It stirred his bone marrow. It appealed on some deeply burried impulses he was taught to hold bolted down and locked.
The creature laughs again with dark satisfaction.
„And yet," he says. „Here you are. Talking to the Dark Side like it is nothing."
It would be easier if he could see the creature behind the voice. The air before him swirls and tenses. Ocean appears unruly and ominous. The creature is gathering its strength from afar, Ben can feel it acutely. He reaches out instinctively to Anakin's saber and the cold metal feels like burning his flesh, but he doesn't flinch.
„Oh," the voice exclaims, mock-sorrowfully. „You still want to kill me? Perhaps, if you come, you'll have your chance. You'll kill someone who has the powers of many powerful Sith combined. Perhaps then you'll have my strength, but – who knows? Your Jedi master certainly doesn't."
That swirling wind moves to Luke's cabin like a mocking index finger.
„He hates you, you know he does," the voice continues examining Ben's deepest fears. „Each time you grow beyond what he expects, he fears you even more. And that fear pushes him into hatred. You can't realize your full potential here, young Solo. Not while he is still alive."
Ben shudders. He knows there are deep differences between him and his uncle. But murder? Hatred? Betrayal? The Dark Sider is way out of line here.
„That is enough," he growls back and focuses all his attention so he might break the bond.
But creature is far too powerful and Ben soon feels a throbbing pain in his temples. He almost staggers to his knees and releases a small painful yell.
„Now, now," the voice almost purrs. „I didn't intend to hurt you, apprentice. I want you to know the truth – it will liberate you. But first you must come to it willingly. There is a change in the air – can't you feel it? The hypocrysy of the Jedi will soon be shattered and you'll see the truth behind their lies."
„What will you do?" Ben gasps, feeling like parts of his brain matter are being scattered, then again assembled in his skull.
„Me? I'll do nothing," the voice replies and Ben senses genuineness in these words. „The Jedi will be their own undoing, as they always were. Their hubris will be their downfall."
„I warn you, apprentice," the voice continues. „I don't want to see you fall along with them, with their sinking ship. You're too unique and too powerful to be laid to waste by incompetent fools. But wait and see. And tell me if I deceived you."
The bond finally snaps and Ben is left with a lingering uneasiness, deeper than any kind he felt before.
He scrambles to his feet and rushes back to his cabin, rubbing his pale face with cold water from the refresher, changing his sweat-drenched clothes.
He slacks off the whole day, forgetting the words of Jedi incantations, answering absent-mindedly, making ridiculous conclusions that send Irin, Dorn, and Rennek snickering behind his back; dragging his feet in the sparing, losing his saber mutliple times, letting Jessa (the small albino from Tatooine) to beat him time and time again. Perhaps it's the fatigue, and perhaps it's his anxiety he'll see exactly what the voice promised he would see in his Master's eyes – envy, fear and hatred.