"Your mother is dead, Brendol." Brendol Hux Senior spoke clearly but coldly, as usual. "As are her foolish fantasies, ideas and bedtime stories. She is no longer a distraction to you. She was nothing but a hindrance to you but that part of your life is over now." Pity nor compassion didn't seem to be in this man's had made success for himself by being vicious and calculating and now he expected his son to do the same. After all, was that not the whole point behind Alaria in the first place? To beget a legitimate son to carry on the legacy he had striven to build? He had no interest in the girl.

She was a means to an end and now she was gone having fulfilled her duty. He had no desire to repeat the experience unless something happened to Brendol. Nor did he feel any need to say goodbye to his wife. He had been informed of her passing before he had left for the villa so he saw no point in putting himself out when Brendol could be brought to him. A screaming child wasn't high on his priority list.

"You are to forget her, do you understand me? You will not grow if you do not." His father glowered over his desk at the simpering seven year old that had been hauled before him. The child felt his bottom lip start to quake but he couldn't cry, not in front of his father. He just wanted his mother back. To lie in bed with her, feel her arms securely around him; hear those comforting, loving whispers and the strokes to his hair.

It didn't seem real. He struggled to put the pieces together but they refused to fit. Not even twelve hours after his mother's death and Brendol Junior still had trouble grasping what had happened and even where he was now. It was cruel. But still, young Brendol nodded understandingly though it was disheartened.

"Yes, father."

"Yes, sir!"

"Yes, sir…."

"You will be shadowing me from now on." The Commandant continued as if speaking to a grown, willing recruit not a heartbroken child. His heartbroken child. "Training drills, meetings, lectures; you will be present at them all. You will sit quietly, watch and listen. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll make a man out of you yet, Brendol. With any luck the damage she's done can be reversed. You'll be destined for great things if I have anything to do with it." At least he and his wife had agreed on that much. Hux Senior stood from behind the desk, his height imposing on the little boy but he did his best to hold himself fast, keeping his posture as much as he could as his mother had always told him.

"Breakfast is at 06.00am. You will be outside my quarters by 06.30am and ready to begin tomorrow morning. I will send a droid to fetch you for the first few mornings." He sat back down and returned to what he was doing, as if he hadn't just radically changed his young son's life. "You are not permitted to speak to anyone, Brendol. Dismissed."

Brendol was shown to his room by the promised droid. It wasn't very talkative or interested so he followed it half-heartedly. His room was bare, cold and metal rather than the warm brick of his room back at the villa. There were no pictures on the walls, none of the warm, colourful fabrics he was used to on his bed. The droid left him to his own devices without even a goodbye. Brendol had never felt so lonely as he climbed into bed and lay there alone. He just missed her so desperately.

He tried to imagine her arms around him, her nose buried into his hair, her breath tickling his ear as she fell back to sleep. He couldn't. There was not even a window where he could look out at the stars. He looked across at the shelf beside the door; there were no storybooks. Not as such. Instead, there were history books, seemingly biased towards the Galactic Empire. The Clone Wars: An Empirical Tale of Heroism. And The New Republic: A Case Study of Weakness to name but a few.

The titles were a clue but Brendol didn't fully understand the concept of propaganda yet. He ignored the books for now. He had already descended into helpless little sobs, finally releasing what he had pent up in front of his father. His pillow was soaked almost through by the time morning came and the droid came to collect him.

As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months and eventually, the months into years, Brendol slowly started to fit in with life at the Academy. He became his father's shadow, watching and listening intently and the more he did so, the more this way of life started to make sense. When he returned to his quarters every evening after dinner, he started to pull out the books and familiarize himself with their content and their message, he probably would have struggled if it wasn't for the exceptional intelligence he'd been told he had from a young age.

His vocabulary grew as did his fascination with the Galactic Empire. The more he read, the more his disdain grew for the Republic and his obsession with the Empire grew. The Death Star, Darth Vader, The Clone Wars; he soon became an expert on it all. He was slowly starting to mould into what his father wanted.

He used to be a small, frail child but as the years wore on, he grew both in height and strength, in discipline and determination. He still spoke to no one. He used to get sympathetic glances as a child when he passed people in the corridor, usually from female staff but he ignored them or stared them down. It seemed they knew now not to interact with him.

He had forgotten all about his mother. Her name was never mentioned nor the fact that he had had a mother at one point. Even on his records, there was a blank space where her name should have been. He had not been allowed to keep anything of hers. Not that he thought about her. But it appeared that the short years she had spent devoted to and loving him unconditionally were in vain. He had become the same cold blooded creature his father was.

He did not remember her face, or her voice or her scent. Nothing. She was now this nameless and faceless entity that had birthed him. Nothing more. Nor did he press the issue. His father had told him once upon a time that she was a hindrance to him, a distraction and the more he became immersed in life at the Academy, the more he realized (or believed) that to be true.

His father's rule of not speaking to people had been enforced with the purpose of making Brendol callous, to teach him not to rely on other people and most importantly: the lives of a few were nothing compared to the greater good. This new hardened exterior would serve him well in years to come.

"Do you think you're ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"It will not be easy."

"I'm aware, sir. If it were easy, it wouldn't be worth it, sir." Brendol was fifteen now. Tall and broad, clean shaven with the same carefully styled red hair and icy eyes his father had. His uniform and his posture were of an exceptional standard and keep. He was like him in more than looks. He was driven and motivated, he obeyed orders quickly and efficiently without question. He was punctual and direct; everything a military man should be.

"I've been on the side-lines for too long, sir. I feel ready to contribute. It would be an honour to do so under you, sir." Brendol Senior surveyed his son with something akin to pride though he'd never admit it. He had fashioned his son the way he wanted, to become what he had always needed him to be.

"Do you remember when you were brought here, Brendol? When you were seven?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you remember what I said to you?"

"Yes, sir. You said I was destined for great things."

"That's correct, I did. It will not be easy nor are you to expect special treatment. You may keep your own quarters but that is the extent of it. Welcome to the Cadets."

"Thank you, sir."

"Today is the end of the Republic! The end of a regime that acquiesces to disorder! At this very moment, in a system far from here the New Republic LIES to the GALAXY while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance. This fierce machine which you have built, upon which we stand, will bring an end to the Senate! To their cherished fleet! All remaining systems will bow to the First Order! And will remember this… as the last day of the Republic!"

He stood atop his weapon. His weapon. All the striving, the determination and exertion had paid off. He was a General now. Thirty four years of age and a General of the First Order, the soon to be replacement of the Empire, the elite that would wipe out the Republic. He spat his hatred to an army of thousands of waiting Stormtroopers, throwing the bile at the servants that would bring about the new age of Imperialism.

And here he was at the forefront. Just like he'd dreamed when he grew in the confines of the Academy; just like he'd fantasized about when he read those books in his quarters. His father was proud; Brendol had succeeded and had even surpassed his father's expectations. But Alaria's beloved son was unrecognizable. The first shot was fired, it lit up the coldness in his eyes and he knew this was a whole new chapter. The very beginning of a new Galactic era. Or was it?

That first shot sent a chain of events in motion. Not necessarily favourable ones. True, the Republic was gone but in a matter of hours so was the Starkiller Base. He found himself trudging through the snow looking for his temperamental colleague and racing against time as the planet threatened to collapse. He had his orders and even in the face of death and destruction, he would follow them.

To find Kylo Ren and deliver him to Snoke was his priority. He found the fallen Jedi and dragged him back to the ship before the ground cracked and the ship was almost swallowed. With his dark haired counterpart delivered, Hux was excused. The pilot's console was quiet as he thought back over the happenings of the past twenty four hours or so. And for some inexplicable reason, he started to think about her.

"You're destined for great things, my love." It reverberated in his head with a voice that he didn't seem to recognize. What would she have said if she saw him on the Starkiller Base? Or at all in the last twenty seven years since she'd been gone? The more he thought about it, the more he realized he wanted, no….. needed answers. It seemed the only intelligent choice for him now was Arkanis.