Welcome back, my friends, to the final chapter of this Saga. We have come a long way and seen many deeds both great and terrible. Everything has led up to this wondrous conclusion, so listen closely one more time as I weave the end of this tale.
The dead speak! It has been almost a year since the world heard a mysterious broadcast with the threat of revenge in the sinister voice of the late Emperor Palpatine.
General Leia Organa has dispatched secret agents to gather intelligence while Rey, the last hope of the Jedi, trains for battle against the diabolical First Order.
Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren rages in search of the phantom Emperor, determined to destroy any threat to his power.
The Star Destroyer Steadfast steamed across the predawn blackened World Sea. Clouds of ash high overhead blocked out the moons and stars leaving only the light spilling from the Steadfast to interrupt the darkness. The brightest of these lights was from the rear of the ship's superstructure where behind a panoramic window of triangular glass panes sat the white walled throne room of the First Order's Supreme Leader.
Kylo Ren sat slumped in his throne, clutching the side of his head with a gloved hand. The last year had robbed him of what little sleep he had before he became Supreme Leader. Dark circles surrounded his bloodshot eyes and his pale complexion had become even moreso.
As it so often did, his fatigue addled mind summoned another hallucination, this time of Rey.
"I see it, and I cannot turn my back to it. The Darkness is rising in you, but you still have a choice. We all have a choice. We belong to the world, and it is a welcome place, if you choose to accept the Light within you.
"If your rage and hate consume what is left of the compassion in your soul, I will meet you face to face and defend the spark of hope that has ignited across the world. I will not let you destroy that which so many have fought for and persevered. Hope will survive.
"It is not too late. I believe there is good in you. I need you to believe it too. Show me I am right. Show me that my faith in kindness is not misplaced. There is but one path forward if peace is to prevail. We can lead the way, together. Or I will do it alone and mourn the day you were lost forever."
Kylo tightened the grip he had on his head, fingers tugging on his long black hair. This hallucination was a memory from months ago and Rey's words echoed in Kylo's mind now as they had then.
With everything that had transpired since they had first met, Kylo couldn't stop his mind from thinking about Rey on a daily basis. He was angry with her, and he was angry with himself for being angry with her. The desire to have this mysterious girl at his side had become his obsession and created a void within him that he vainly sought to fill with his conquest.
If he couldn't have Rey, he would have the world and not even the Emperor would stand in his way.
"Supreme Leader?"
Kylo snapped his head up to look at his addressor. "What?!"
"Forgive my intrusion, but we are coming up on Mustafar."
Kylo kept his reddened eyes on the ship's captain for a second before standing from his throne. "Prepare my airship," he growled.
"Of course, Supreme Leader."
Kylo glanced at the charred and disfigured helmet of his grandfather atop its black marble pedestal. Its skeletal faceplate seemed to grin back at him as though it knew it was nearly home.
The Hellscape of Mustafar had changed quite drastically since the Empire's rise and fall. Much of the volcanic island had cooled with lakes and rivers of lava giving way to ash bogs, fens, and fledgling copses of ironwood trees. Much of the burgeoning life can be attributed to Darth Vader and his misguided attempt to harness the power of the Bright Star that had corrupted the land in the first place.
Crumbling ruins of blackest stone stood as haunting reminders of the atrocities committed by the Empire. What few Mustafarians survived their subjugation had to contend with cultists who worshipped Vader and made his caldera castle into their temple.
As the first ember of dawn burned on the horizon, the Steadfast dropped its anchor near the flooded ruins of the Fortress Inquisitorius. Kylo Ren stared at the black island in the distance through the window of his throne room.
Kylo mused that of everyone in the world who hated Palpatine, his grandfather was perhaps the one with the most desire to seek his death. If there was anything that would aid Kylo in maintaining his power in the face of the Emperor's return, it would be in Castle Vader.
General Armitage Hux waited at the bottom the boarding ramp of Kylo Ren's sleek black airship. His red hair had greyed slightly; a change that he blamed on Kylo's chaotic leadership.
Kylo stormed into the hangar with his blood red cape billowing behind him. Hux straightened himself but kept his scowl firmly in place. "The Allegiant General does not expect much resistance from the natives but I think it prudent to bring a security detail as the occupation troops won't arrive for... You aren't even listening to me."
Indeed, Kylo ascended the ramp without sparing half a glance at the General. Hux sighed and followed the Supreme Leader. He had grown bitterly accustomed to such treatment since the Battle of Crait. Ren had made Enric Pryde Allegiant General soon after that disaster, effectively demoting Hux in all but title. The insult of such treatment burned the General, but he dared not directly oppose the Supreme Leader. He also knew that Kylo thought of him as expendable enough to bring along without an escort.
Hux nodded to the airship's captain as soon as he and Kylo had taken their seats. With the push of a lever, the ascension rotors engaged and slowly lifted the vessel from the hangar floor.
Kylo couldn't tear his eyes away from the island as the airship ferried him towards it. A chill ran down his spine. This was the island that forged Darth Vader. Opposing parts of Kylo's soul beckoned him to the island and urged him to stay away.
The closer he drew to Mustafar, the more details Kylo could make out of the island's dawn framed silhouette. A column of ash rose from the island's secondary caldera while the harsh angles of an artificial structure towered out of the primary caldera.
Kylo was already standing before the airship touched down on the old docks. He marched down the boarding ramp with his Lightblade already in his hand.
Black grass and succulent plants with spiked maroon leaves grew from between the cobblestones but Kylo didn't notice. His attention instead was on the ruins of an ironworks in the distance, precariously perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking a dead river.
"Please, Anakin," a ghostly echoing feminine voice said on the edge of Kylo's hearing. "Please stop! Come back! I love you!"
The voice startled Kylo and chilled him to his core. He tightened his grip on his sword and set off towards the winding road leading to the ironworks. Cultist shrines with red candles sat at irregular intervals along the road as though marking the path of some sort of pilgrimage.
The stone walls of the ironworks' entryway still bore the scars of the duel half a century before. Kylo passed by another shrine beneath a broken window but spared it no thought.
After passing through the ruins of a control room, Kylo stepped onto a rusted walkway running parallel to the dry canyon below. Further up, a buttressed bridge of stone and iron spanned the distance between the ironworks and the cliffs on the far side. As Kylo crossed the bridge, the ghostly sounds of clashing Lightblades followed him.
The road diverged on the far side with one path leading downstream towards the dry falls and ash bog. The other followed the river further inland towards the caldera. Kylo stood next to an elaborate shrine at the fork for a moment and stared at the distant black spires peering over the volcano's rim.
Castle Vader sprawled over the island at the caldera's center that had been formed by the destruction of the Bright Star. During the reign of the Empire, a moat of molten rock had encircled the Dark citadel, but now it had cooled into a forested fen of ironwood trees whose growth had been accelerated by the magics surrounding them.
Even though many of the wings had shifted and subsided, everything about the castle, from the barbed spires, to the flying buttresses, to the tree trunk thick black briars ensnaring the keep instilled Kylo with a dull primordial dread. Dark magics oozed from every shattered window, broken wall, and fallen tower as though the castle was bleeding. Kylo gripped his Lightblade even tighter, his knuckles whitening under his glove, and started his march into the crater.
The largest shrine yet sat on what was once the caldera's shoreline. A cairn of flat stones surrounded a stylized black iron statue of Vader with a polished copper Lightblade held aloft. Another ghostly voice, masculine this time and almost too quiet to hear, spoke. "You were my brother, Anakin... I loved you."
Kylo sensed presences approaching from the direction of the castle and turned to see a quintet of robed figures. Rage bubbled within him as he realized these were the cultists that had dared to claim the legacy of Darth Vader. They were sycophantic worms unfit to clean the filth from Vader's soles and here they were defiling his grandfather's fortress with their presence.
The cultist archdeacon leading the small assembly of Alazmecs put his hands together and pointed his fingertips towards the ground. "Welcome, my Dark child. What brings you to the birthplace of our Lord?" His sallow face split into a smile.
"To claim what is rightfully mine," Kylo said in a tone as cold as the grave. In a flash, he ignited his Lightblade and closed the short distance between himself and the archdeacon.
Before the bisected body of the archdeacon had hit the ground, Kylo's Lightblade was buried through the chest of one of his acolytes. The other three fell over one another to escape their attacker.
One slipped out of his simple shoe and landed face first in the volcanic gravel that his Lord had clawed his way out of five decades prior. Kylo twirled his Lightblade and sliced along the acolyte's spine as he tried to crawl to his feet.
The two remaining cultists sprinted back towards Castle Vader as fast as their simple shoes and robes would allow. One of them stopped mid stride, frozen in place by unseen forces. He watched his comrade continue towards the castle without him, unable to cry out for help.
Kylo lifted the frozen acolyte with the Force and slowly turned him around. If the cultist could have screamed, he would have. With a face of cold fury, Kylo held his Lightblade out and pulled the helpless man through the air towards him. The crackling blade impaled the cultist through his chest.
After withdrawing his sword and letting the robed corpse fall to the ground, Kylo looked at the castle. No doubt the one that had escaped had already raised the alarm. He would have to fight his way in. Frankly, he was at the point where he relished the idea.
The black oak doors to Castle Vader were inset with hundreds of copper symbols from the ancient Sith ur-Kittât alphabet. Though he could read what they said, Kylo didn't particularly care. He held out his hands and released a powerful burst of Force magic that shattered the doors like glass.
Kylo stormed into the Grand Foyer. Statues set between decorative columns lined the walls with burning candles and red wax covering the tops of each pedestal. An onyx and silver chandelier hung from spiked chains that originated from the room's eight corners. Below it stood a triple scale iron statue of Darth Vader. To either side of Vader's statue, a dozen cultists stood in formation with muskets trained on Kylo.
A cloud of smoke and fire erupted from each gun barrel and bullets ripped towards the intruder. When the smoke cleared, Kylo's Lightblade hilt lay on the floor at his feet. Both of his hands stretched towards the two dozen lead bullets suspended in the air between himself and the cultists. Sweat rolled down his forehead and into one of his rage widened eyes.
With a roar, Kylo pushed forward. The bullets flew back at the cultists that had fired them, killing most. The rest fell by Kylo's blade in the following seconds.
Sundered bodies littered the speckled black stone floors of Castle Vader. The smells of gunsmoke and burned flesh filled every corridor. Kylo panted heavily as he stared through the ruined doorway into the castle's central courtyard. At the middle of the garden of plants that fed off of Dark magics sat an imposing mausoleum of the highest quality black marble.
Kylo slowly approached the mausoleum, knowing that the ornate sarcophagus within did not contain his grandfather. Despite this, something Dark and powerful lay inside. It called to him with indecipherable whispers that tickled the center of his brain.
With an almighty heave, Kylo pushed the sarcophagus' stone lid. It screeched open just enough for him to look inside. All that met his gaze was a chamfered pyramid of tarnished silver with cut crystal panes set into the sides. Inside, a slowly pulsing light glowed a sickly green.
Kylo pulled the artifact out and looked deeply into that eerie green light.
General Hux watched as the fourth transport's worth of occupation troops descended their airship's boarding ramp. "Commander Mellar, you and your men are to head inland and help the Supreme Leader secure the castle."
"Yes, General. Though if I may say, I don't believe he requires any more help."
"And why is that?"
"Because the Supreme Leader is heading this way." The commander nodded his head towards something behind Hux.
The General turned. Judging by the look on Kylo's face, he was either resoundingly unsuccessful or he was just in a mood. Judging by the green thing in his hand, it was likely the latter. "I trust that you found what you were looking for?"
"Get back on the ship. We're leaving." Kylo didn't even slow as he passed Hux on his way back to his airship.
"Of course, Supreme Leader," Hux said to empty air. He turned back to the stormtrooper commander. "I leave the occupation to you."
"Er, yes, General."
The closer one travels to the Edge of the world, the more warped reality becomes. This is a well known and well documented phenomenon, but what the Edge actually looks like is a mystery to most. A great deal believe that the world simply ends like the edge of a table with the sea spilling over the sides and attempting to go further would mean falling into an abyss. The Edge is in truth a dizzyingly high sheer vertical ring of cliffs made from indestructible monotone grey stone. Large voids pockmark the surface, giving the structure the appearance of a giant sponge or coral reef. In some places, these voids can pass all the way through the Edge, but it is exceedingly rare for one of these to occur at sea level.
Far to the north, beyond the ice and snow, Kylo flew his Whisper towards the looming Edge. The relic he had found seemed to be a wayfinder of sorts, though to where it was leading him was a mystery. Rain pelted Kylo from the side without wind or clouds to cause it. Birds with four wings kept apace with him in his flying machine, never taking their trio of eyes off of him. In the glass clear sea below, titanic misshapen creatures with compound eyes and billowing rows of frills seemed to judge their unexpected visitor. Below them, something with scales as large as a Star Destroyer stretched out in either direction parallel to the Edge.
Legends tell that beyond the Edge of the world lies the land of Exegol. It is a cold and desolate land where the rain never falls and the sun never shines. The oldest myths speak of the land being the home of the evil dead and the birthplace of nightmares. As Kylo was guided ever closer to a gaping and unnaturally dark hole in the Edge, this tale that had filled his childhood with terror and sleepless nights rose to the forefront of his mind.
The moment Kylo and his Whisper crossed the threshold into the Edge, the unnatural darkness surrounded him like a shroud. Only the water below seemed to be unaffected, appearing as a uniformly illuminated river against an endless black so perfect that to even look at it caused physical pain. Fractal patterns of frost spread across the Whisper's surfaces and dislodged the remaining caked on salt leftover from its rough landing in Crait.
After an indeterminate time and distance, the shroud of darkness fell away as abruptly as it had appeared. Thick sheets of ice stretched out before Kylo with only a short and broad black mesa to interrupt the pale blue. Constant lightning provided the only light for this alien land, but instead of cracking or booming, the thunder sounded like warped otherworldly shrieking.
As Kylo drew closer to the mesa, he noticed that the flanks had been carved to resemble the walls of a fortress, though the brutal angular style was completely foreign to him. Judging by the state of ruination, many millennia and many wars had passed since their construction. Across the top of the mesa, ruins of a city with with bewildering architecture sprawled in a roughly rhomboid shapewith a thick layer of ash covering everything. At the very center of it all surrounded by nothing but empty ground sat an inverted truncated pyramid.
The wayfinder indicated that the ominous citadel was what it was drawing Kylo towards. He brought the Whisper in for a landing on the cracked ground.
The utter stillness of everything set Kylo's nerves on edge. The only sound came from the shrieking thunder and not even the hint of a breeze stirred the air. There wasn't the faintest scent to be detected; not even the ubiquitous ones that normally go unnoticed.
As he approached the citadel, shadows flickered in the corners of Kylo's vision, always vanishing before he could look at them. He ignited his Lightblade as seeds of paranoia germinated.
A forest of thick pillars supported the citadel. Their uneven surfaces caught the flickering red light from Kylo's sword and seemed at times to take on the appearance of malformed faces. Kylo's heart pounded as every one of his instincts told him to turn back. He pressed onward though, refusing to give up after coming so far.
At the very center of the forest of pillars awaited a hexagonal seal with heavy chains connected to each corner from holes in the monolith above. Kylo stepped onto the seal and felt it shift under his feet. Almost immediately, the chains started to lower the seal into a yawning blackness.
A bolt of lightning arced between two points in the darkness, momentarily illuminating Kylo's surroundings. Towering statues of ominous hooded figures ringed the round vaulted chamber into which he was descending. Another bolt flashed between two statues and Kylo briefly saw someone standing at the bottom of the chamber as though awaiting him.
The seal came to a stop abruptly upon reaching the bottom. Kylo could sense the waiting figure in the darkness, but the glow of his Lightblade didn't reach far enough to see who or what it was. He stepped off the seal and held his sword out before him.
Crumbled stone crunched under Kylo's feet as he approached where he sensed the figure. After several strides, another set of footsteps joined his own. They were irregular and heavy, with each step clanking like plate armor. Kylo pressed forward, determined to face whoever or whatever dared to challenge him.
The clanking footfalls stopped just outside of the light cast by Kylo's sword. Another step forward illuminated the figure. Kylo recoiled in alarm at the sight of his grandfather, his armor charred and disfigured with ash falling out of the joints like the sands of an hourglass.
Darth Vader jerkily stretched his arm towards Kylo and clumsily lumbered forward as though trying to grab him. "...Finish what I started..."
Vader stumbled and fell forward, keeping his hand and disfigured faceplate pointed at Kylo. The instant the Sith hit the ground, he turned to a smoke that spread out across the cobblestone floor before dissipating.
Kylo stared at the spot where his grandfather had been, shaken. He started as a bolt of lightning cracked overhead. The flash revealed a hallway ahead of him lined with the same towering statues that had ringed the entry chamber. A pair of massive metal double doors sat at the far end flanked by a pair of statues with what looked like beards of dangling tentacles.
More lightning lit Kylo's way as he approached the doors. The same style of symbols that had adorned the doors to Castle Vader were ingraved deeply into the metal here.
"At last," a raspy voice spoke from seemingly every direction at once.
The doors opened slowly with the scream of rusted metal. Almost constant lightning lit the enormous chamber on the far side. Cracks spiderwebbed across the high ribbed vault ceiling. One of the tall columns lay in pieces across part of the room with the gargoyles that once adorned it strewn around.
As Kylo crossed the chamber, the raspy voice returned. "Snoke trained you well."
"I killed Snoke," Kylo growled, eyeing the shadows. "I'll kill you, too."
"My boy... I am Snoke."
Kylo stopped in his tracks.
"Killing him was my test for you. I have been every voice..." The voice changed to that of the slain Supreme Leader. "...you have ever heard..." The voice changed again, sounding like his grandfather now. "...inside your head!"
Kylo started walking again, passing through a tall doorway into some sort of laboratory. Hooded humanoids carried out tasks at a bevy of calcinators, alembics, and retorts. A row of glass hexagonal cylinders sat along one of the walls, glowing with an eerie yellow green light. Tubes dangling from scaffolding above pumped an unknown viscous liquid into and out of the cylinders.
As Kylo passed by one, his blood ran cold. Inside was Snoke himself. He looked at the former Supreme Leader floating in the liquid and shuddered at the look in his eyes. Not only did they still hold the spark of life, they screamed a silent plea for that spark to be snuffed out forever.
"The First Order was only the beginning," the voice said. "I will give you so much more."
"You'll die first," Kylo said, snap turning.
The voice cackled from somewhere close by. "I've died before. The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider... unnatural. My Master Plagueis indeed found a way to cheat death, but damned himself to an eternity trapped in a physical form he could not escape. It was he from whose flesh Snoke arose, his reborn eyes from which he watched the world, but it was I who controlled his every action. For daring to attempt to control what I would and have become, I made him my puppet."
Kylo remembered the floating body of the man he had known as Snoke. He followed the voice towards a dark figure suspended from some sort of machine.
"So long as the soul has a vessel to contain it, it is nigh immortal. The Sith may long have searched for eternal life, but it was I who found the way to transfer a soul into a new vessel on death. Alas, even a perfect homunculus was insufficient to sustain my awesome power, so I seek my successor... You."
The suspended figure looked to be the long dead, grey skinned corpse of a man clad in red robes and a black hooded cloak. His thin black lips peeled back into a gap-toothed grin. "Come closer, my boy, we have much to discuss."
Rage filled Kylo upon recognizing the man was who he had come to kill. He roared and put the crackling tip of his Lightblade in Palpatine's emaciated face. "What could you possibly give me?"
Palpatine's grey, sightless eyes narrowed slightly as he smiled. "Everything..." He lifted his decayed hands. "A new Empire... For half a century, the machines that once built the automata of the Great War have been constructing the most powerful fleet this world has ever known. The fleet of the Final Order."
The ground rumbled as deep below the sheets of ice surrounding the mesa, a terrible force awakened. Five hundred titanic armored airships of a similar design to the Siegebreaker smashed through the vast sheets as they ascended into the lightning filled sky. A blood red stripe ran along each side of their black hulls with gold Sith ur-Kittât script declaring each vessel's name. These were the Xyston Star Destroyers, so named after the giant prophesized to turn the land to ash at the end of the world.
"The fleet will be yours, if you do as I ask. Prove yourself worthy. Kill the girl. End the Jedi. Finish what your grandfather Vader could not."
Kylo slowly lowered his Lightblade and deactivated it.
"You will rule the world as its new Emperor... But beware, she is not who you think she is."
Kylo mulled Palpatine's words for a moment. "...Who is she?"
A rictus smile split the Corpse Emperor's face as he revealed the truth to Kylo.