Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot idea.
.:Kylo Ren:.
Chapter Five: Hidden Change
Supreme Commander Snoke was not impressed.
His gaze roamed over a dark, bowed head; over broad, relaxed shoulders and a solidly supporting arm. Pale fingers fanned against a dark platform, the hand's twin hanging loosely from Kylo Ren's bent knee.
But where there had once been fear - where once burning eyes had glared, desperate for glory - there was only dead, unreadable regard.
No... Supreme Commander Snoke was not impressed. He was curious.
His holographic form wavered and fizzled as the massive Sith leaned forward, eyes narrowing to scrutinize the young man before him. Large, skeletal fingers tapped a thoughtful tune upon the side of his throne, and Snoke hummed a deep note.
"Something troubles you, Kylo." He observed aloud, admiring the way his voice resounded off of his apprentice's body - the way his might surrounded the weaker creature.
A pale face turned upward to face him, free of its mask (as was usual in their private meetings), and Snoke's attention snapped to the dark eyes that watched him in return. He looked eagerly for the wariness- for the edge of frustration and the hint of bitterness that his apprentice was steeped in-
-but it wasn't there. He was rewarded with a coldness that was both surprising and intriguing, and a thin, humorless smile.
"Nothing troubles me, Master." Kylo Ren answered him. The boy's voice was steady and deep, but more importantly, it was honest.
Snoke frowned, leaning back with a whoosh of displaced air that transferred from his surroundings to Kylo's. "Then you have learned to control your surroundings - to destroy the weakness that cripples you." It wasn't a question, but he expected an answer nonetheless.
Kylo gave it to him, again with the steady, truthful respect of before. "No, master." The dark eyes were like magnets, and the boy's aura was like a vacuum. Snoke knew there was importance in this, but...to his frustration, that importance eluded him. Before he could unleash this irritation, Kylo continued.
"You told me that I needed to shed my past in order to accept my future- to destroy the ties I had to the Light in order to become one with the Dark. That's what you said, isn't it, Master?"
Snoke nodded, stroking his chin in suspicion. "Yes." The word fell smoothly between them, drawn out by the Master's predatory caution.
The apprentice smiled a crooked, alien smile, and his black curls fell low as he bowed.
"You were right." It was a rasped whisper - a strange contrast to the smoothness of his question. "And I have." The eyes flicked up, and despite himself, the Sith master felt as though he were being skewered by the penetrating gaze. He stiffened, returning the look with thoughtful, cold regard. Kylo elaborated without prompting, ever word echoing in the space around them.
"I feel I should report to you that your apprentice, Ben Solo, is dead. The girl, Rey of Jakku, killed him in the forest."
There was a heavy silence. Snoke stared at Kylo Ren, and for a brief moment considered the possibility that his unstable apprentice had finally lost his mind.
Ben Solo had taken the name Kylo Ren upon becoming Snoke's apprentice. They were one and the same; both desperate, emotional, and tempestuous. Ben Solo took comfort in the identity of Kylo Ren, hiding from his fears and refusing to face the difficulties of Solo's past. Kylo Ren was a crutch for the apprentice; a mask he assumed to protect his fragile self.
And now Ben Solo, Kylo Ren, was claiming they were not only distinct, but one of them was dead.
Snoke leaned forward, folding his long fingers and wishing that massaging one's temples was a more dignified practice.
"Explain yourself." He rumbled, glaring down at the troublesome creature before him.
Kylo's head tilted, and his expression became more blank.
"It's a difficult thing to explain." He finally began after a moment's pause. "I...don't think I'm quite accustomed to it yet myself. All I know at the moment is that..." The young man paused, looking oddly intent and yet at the same time thoughtful. "...I don't care, anymore."
This statement was no more understandable than the first. Snoke snorted, leaning back and allowing the shadows to shade him. "You do not care." He repeated, mulling the words over in his mind. "What is it, precisely, that has lost your personal investment?"
Kylo Ren gave an unusually casual shrug. "Everything... almost." The last word was added quietly - thoughtfully. The boy seemed to seek out Snoke's gaze, and the Sith master realized at that moment that his apprentice was trying to read him just as he was trying to read his apprentice.
As though he heard this realization for himself, Kylo Ren gave a slight, cruel smirk.
"I think the only thing that holds my investment now, Master, is victory." He said.
The words were too cryptic to be satisfying to Snoke. He could sense very little of the boy's mind- could read only what was meant to be seen. In the past, Kylo had been all but an open book to his master. Now...
...Now, Supreme Commander Snoke's eyes narrowed to slits, and his scarred lips tightened in a sneer. "We shall see..." He replied, hissing and fisting the fingers of one hand. "Continue your course. Assist Commander Hux in everything he does, but ensure that your return to my fortress - both of you - is expedient."
He waited for the affirming nod - felt slight satisfaction when it came - and with that, he allowed his holographic form to vanish from Hux's ship. Surrounded once more by the darkness of his fortress, Snoke propped his mouth upon his knuckles thoughtfully.
That had been a strange meeting; the first time he had not been able to understand his apprentice's intentions, and the first time he had been disappointed by the lack of Kylo Ren's mask.
Then again, perhaps the boy hadn't removed his mask after all. Perhaps the mask itself was Kylo Ren's new face, and the flesh beneath was the mask, ready and waiting to be underestimated...
No matter what the boy intended or had become, there was one thing that was certain in Snoke's mind.
Kylo Ren would not be as easy to manipulate as Ben Solo... the boy was hiding something from it, and more worryingly, he was doing it very well.
"Commander Hux."
The officers and soldiers aboard the ship's bridge stiffened at the sound of the familiar tone. The buzz of conversation and relayed orders faded, replaced by staring, watchful eyes and hunched shoulders, all directed at the dark figure who strode easily up the main walkway.
At his position near the front of the path, Commander Hux stood stiffly at attention, every muscle taught enough to snap. The thin man seemed ready to throttle Kylo Ren's approaching figure, but seemed just enough in control to think better of it (or maybe it was wariness that restrained him).
"Yes, Lord Ren?" He bit out smoothly, turning to regard the Sith apprentice.
Ren had reclaimed his dark robes and leathery armor. A black hood sent his familiar and battered mask into shadow, and free-flowing, inky cloth billowed behind him. His boots landed heavily; surprisingly solid for a man that had spent the past two days recovering from the brink of death.
When he spoke, the Sith's voice echoed; so silent and attentive was his audience. "Change course. Set it for Jakku." Ren seemed oblivious to any but the man he addressed; unaffected by the combined stares of the entire bridge staff.
Hux frowned, looking as though he was caught between anger and confusion - a common enough expression in his case. "I was under the impression Supreme Commander Snoke had ordered a regrouping at home base." He argued, arms folding in front of his thin chest.
The Sith apprentice regarded him, black robes rippling eerily. "Snoke did not give this order, Commander Hux. I did."
Shock bristled in the air. None of the surrounding officers were foolish enough to intervene, but their eyes watched unblinkingly now, and a few shifted nervously.
Commander Hux raised a single, slim eyebrow, and his expression became as icy as a looming glacier, and twice as foreboding. "Did you now..." He all but purred, eyes slitting dangerously. "And why might that be, Lord Ren?" The token term of respect and relatively smooth tone were only a mask - menacing heralds of what was to come; the equivalent of a dog's bristling hackles. Hux was not to be trifled with, despite some appearances.
In the face of this chilly wrath, Kylo Ren did not so much as flinch. He remained disturbingly unresponsive; deadened and inactive. To the many who had seen his destructive temper, this was an unnerving sight.
"Supreme Commander Snoke," Ren began calmly. "Is no longer of use." Though his eyes were invisible behind the black glass of his mask, it seemed as though the Sith's gaze narrowed. Where his first words had hung like strange, lazy notes of a tuneless song, the next fell like warped thunder, threatening and dark. "If you or any of this crew disagree, Commander Hux, you are welcome to swim your way through space into his arms.
"As of this moment, I am taking charge of this vessel and of the First Order. We will reclaim our scattered forces, and we will claim the victory that should be ours."
Inky, rippling glass cast an unseen, unrelenting gaze over all of them as the dark helmet turned on powerful shoulders. Silence answered the announcement, and from Hux to the janitor in the corner shadows, every eye was wide with shock.
It was Hux who finally broke from the spell of surprise.
The Commander moved like lightning, lips baring in a snarl as he snatched at the blaster on his hip. "Traitor-!" He roared.
It happened in a moment; a split second of motion and speed.
One second saw Commander Hux leveling a sleek, glossy blaster, its end glowing with ready charge; Kylo Ren opposite him, dark and immobile.
The next, the blaster backfired, its poisonously green bolt shattering in the barrel - sparks flying and filling the air with the stench of scorched metal. Hux's scream rang loudly for an instant before it was strangled into silence - the Commander dangled, suspended in midair, mouth gasping desperately for air, hands scrabbling at his own throat.
For his part, Kylo Ren stood as still as a statue; strangely casual and at ease. His position had not changed, save for a slight twitch against his robes - the fingers of his right hand clenching into a fist beneath the shroud-like cowl.
Soundlessly, the rest of the bridge watched - too shocked to assist their commander, and too intelligent to disregard that shock. A few troopers shifted subtly back from the scene, lowering hands that had previously lunged for their own blasters, helmets ducking submissively.
The battle between both leaders had built over many months - all of them had seen it. They had watched as Kylo Ren, young and desperate, had demanded both their obedience and their respect - their fear. They had watched eagerly as Commander Hux rose to the occasion, putting the youthful relic of a dilapidated practice in his proper place; proving their own strength to be greater than the so-called Force of their ally. They'd seen the smoldering, childish rage of the apprentice - but more importantly, the lack of retribution on his behalf.
Now they watched, unable to tear their eyes away, gripped by a morbid fascination, as that same Commander received a reaction he (and they) had thought would never come.
Hux's body shuddered in the air, and finally a woman's voice broke the silence with a scream. "You're killing him-!" Lieutenant Halifax shrieked from her cowering position at a security monitor, stating the painfully obvious in her panic.
Kylo Ren did no more than tilt his head in her direction, no doubt taking note of her identifying rank and name-plate.
The surrounding troopers and officers did not assist their Commander. They were each frozen by the terrible inactivity of their fellows - as subject to indecision as any other soldier whose commanding officer was suddenly and soundly defeated.
Before any decision could be made, Hux's body fell suddenly to the floor, landing in a rolling, spasming heap. The Commander flailed weakly, desperately attempting to rise to his knees. He was vulnerable, and Ren did not hesitate.
A few steps brought the usually distant Sith to close quarters, and an easy lunge allowed black-gloved fingers to snatch at Hux's exposed collar, hauling the man into Ren's hold with frightening ease.
His wounded prey obtained, Kylo Ren nodded his hood to the remaining staff simply, ignoring their stunned expressions, and departed from the bridge, dragging Hux's choking form behind him.
"Set the course I described." He called out as he passed through the main doors. The silvery panels slid shut when the last of Hux's twitching boots vanished around the corner, their sealed surface cutting off both the Commander's heaving breaths and Ren's heavy steps. In the dimness of the bridge, uncertain and dumbfounded, the remainder of Commander Hux's staff was left alone.