Kylo Ren

He was dazed and confused when he finally came too. Lying on his side bright orange flames swam in his eyes, blurry at first then coming into focus. He felt the heat from a nearby fire warming his face, covered with dried sweat. He reached up to rub the back of his aching skull, cushioned by his long black hair. He pushed himself onto his feet, surveying the ruin all around him. The fires were still burning, though they had died down, sparks were now falling from above, he noticed Hux was standing near Snoke's throne, gaping at the remains of the supreme leader, whose lower body had now fallen from his throne to join the rest of him on the ground. Suddenly he pictured Rey followed by the memory of a blinding white-blue explosion and terrible screeching. His head darted around the room, searching, scanning the corpses but amongst all the ruin and death he could not see her anywhere. He felt panicked, there was a lump in the back of his throat – she's escaped, she could be anywhere, how much time had passed? I need her back.

"What…..What happened?" asked Hux, his voice trembling, confused.

A series of images flashed through Ren's head – he and Rey in the elevator, Snoke on his throne, the blue lightsaber slicing through him, Rey and himself fighting the guards in a brutal melee, Rey's face getting closer and closer to his own, her lips against his own and finally holding his gloved hand out to her. She'd reached out but not to take it. An emptiness fell upon him, followed by burning rage.

"The girl, she killed Snoke. Where is she? We have to search the ship and get her back," demanded Ren, he had to think clearly, there was still a chance to salvage everything.

"She escaped in Snoke's personal shuttle and made off towards the remains of the resistance on Crait," said Hux.

Anger. Why hadn't she been stopped? Why was she still holding on to the past, on to the resistance? She could've been the leader of a New Order…We could have stood together. A disturbance told Ren that something was wrong, the ship had sustained serious damage since he'd blacked out, he became aware of a siren screeching far off and there were other sounds; deep, echoing, rattling pressure. The sounds of space invading the ship.

"The Supremacy had sustained fatal damage," informed Hux, as if answering the question in Ren's mind. After he finished speaking Hux peered down at the fatally injured corpse of his supreme leader. It almost bought a smile to Ren's face.

He didn't care what had happened to the ship – it didn't matter, all that mattered was the resistance. And Rey. But they were one and the same for now. He had to get the resistance under control.

"We need to stop the resistance from escaping. Prepare your men for a ground assault and ready my shuttle," ordered Ren, he was already walking away from Hux towards the elevator on the other side of the room. He knew Hux wasn't making a move behind him and it irritated him.

"You would dare to presume to command my troops?!" exclaimed Hux, his voice had taken on its familiar authoritarian drawl that Ren hated as much as the man himself. "The supreme leader is dead, we have no supre-"

Ren had stopped dead still at the word 'dead' just before the collar of Hux's black, immaculate uniform had tightened so hard around his neck it cut him off and started strangling him. The general reached up to claw at his neck with gloved hands, his face starting to turn purple. Ren turned to face him, his anger was spilling over, his face contorted, scowling at the struggling man, his jaw clenched.

"The supreme leader is dead?" he demanded of Hux, through gritted teeth.

Hux struggled to draw breath, his fingers trying desperately to pull at the collar of his uniform. He started to mouth words, then rasped them slowly, obediently: "Long…..live….the supreme….leader."

Ren continued glaring at Hux but his mouth twisted up into a smile. Good.

The resistance had fled to an old base long-abandoned by the rebellion from the time of the Great Civil War. His generals and strategists had assured him it was unlikely the base had any intact-defence systems but to be sure Ren had ordered that they land just beyond the range of any long-range surface cannons. He'd deployed from The Supremacy with a legion of stormtroopers, housed in the massive AT-M6s that had been ferried down to the surface of Crait, led by his command shuttle.

Snoke's mega-star destroyer had been crippled in space, bisected along with twenty star destroyers ten times smaller than itself, by a resistance ship on a suicide mission at light speed. Ren thought it a fitting testament to Hux's arrogance that he'd allowed the undefended resistance flagship to remain unharmed long enough for it to decimate their fleet in one swift manoeuvre. Even now The Supremacy was being evacuated, its gargantuan size was the only reason it had not been outright destroyed, the larger of the two segments the ship had been split into may yet be salvageable but it would be years before it was fully rebuilt. The smaller segment without a command bridge would simply drift off into space along with the hundreds of thousands of officers, troopers and technical support crew on board, most of whom would perish in the cold vacuum of space.

The waste of sentient life angered Ren. When he'd been briefed on what had happened he had been tempted to cut his general down where he stood. But he'd had to control his rage, for now he needed Hux for his men, after such a calamity the troops would only accept Ren as their new supreme leader if their high commander did. It was assumed that Snoke had been killed during the collision. After this battle was done Ren could restructure the command of the First Order to his own liking and consolidate his power. On the journey down to Crait he'd thought more about Rey, about how he'd held out his hand to her and she'd shunned him. When she'd awoken on board The Supremacy she must have seen him lying on the floor, unresponsive. Did she check I was alive? Did she even care?

Even if she had bothered to check on him before fleeing she'd still left him for dead. Rey, the scavenger on Jakku who'd escaped on board the Millennium Falcon with the map to Skywalker. Rey, the prisoner that had escaped him on Starkiller base and then bested him in the snow. Rey, the Jedi he had killed Snoke for and fought the Praetorian guards with. Rey, the girl he had opened his heart to via their bond through the Force. She told me I wasn't alone. Now she'd fled back to the resistance he didn't know what would happen when he faced her again. She rejected me, left me for dead and fled to my enemies. She will have to die. Once more he felt conflicted. Would he be able to end her when the time came?

It wasn't long before the First Order forces breached the skies of Crait, reached its surface and began deploying their ground assault vehicles. Atmospheric assault carriers disengaged the AT-M6s suspended below them, falling under gravity for the last few metres to the ground and landing with a boom like thunder. Upgraded from the destructive AT-ATs of the Empire, the AT-M6s stood twice as large and as broad with thicker armour, heavier cannons and more dextrous limbs. They formed up in a line on Crait's white salt plains, protecting the smaller troop transport and siege weapons being assembled behind, half a dozen massive four-legged armoured beasts. Above them hovered TIE fighters and bombers, forming up for attack, centred by Ren's command shuttle overseeing the battlefield ahead, wings raised vertically in the surface position.

Kylo Ren sat in the cockpit with General Hux standing on his left and the two pilots of the craft before him. On his other side stood two squadron captains in stormtrooper armour. He was wearing the same battle-scarred tunic he'd had in the throne room with a heavy black cape thrown over his broad shoulders. Once all the preparations had been made he ordered his forces onwards toward the old rebel base. Slowly it grew larger and larger on the horizon, an ugly brown tomb wedged into the mountains of the planet. Before it deep trenches had been dug into the salt plain, dotted here and there with low-range cannons and anti-aircraft defences. As they approached the thick blast door of the base lowered reluctantly, it had obviously been some time since the mechanism had been activated.

Before the shutter had fully lowered a row of craft sped forth from the base, trailing red spray from the bedrock surface of Crait. Ren had expected some resistance. He let Hux give the order for TIE fighters to go forth and do their work, watching from the cockpit. The resistance fighters had gaul going up against them in such small numbers and with poor provision but they were desperate now, fighting for every breath. It would make no difference, behind the wall of AT-M6s the turbo-battering ram was being prepared to annihilate the blast door of the base, leaving the rebels inside exposed and defenceless. Soon the resistance would be crushed. And then there was only Rey to deal with…

He focused on the battle. He needed to keep control of himself so that he could command his forces once this skirmish was over. The resistance weren't making much ground, just slowing the march of the AT-M6s, suddenly, out of nowhere there was a familiar engine sound and the TIE fighters were drawn off from the main battle in pursuit of….the Millennium Falcon. Shaken from his passivity Ren jumped up from his seat.

"Blast that piece of junk OUT OF THE SKY!" he commanded, pointing at his father's old ship.

The ship disappeared behind the rebel base along with a pursuit, something told him that today wouldn't see the end of the Falcon, the ship seemed to fly eternal, which was more than he could say for the greatest ships of his own fleet. The thought disquieted him.

Soon enough the resistance's meagre defence was overwhelmed and the remaining craft turned tail and sped back to their base. The battering ram did its job and seared through the thick reinforced layers of the rebels' shield door, leaving a smoking ruin.

When it was done the crew in the cockpit fell silent, waiting.

"Full charge ahead," Ren spoke softly and precisely. "Destroy anything that emerges from that base and everything inside. No quarter."

The line of AT-M6s moved forward once more, with the shuttle following above. As the smoke cleared they could see that a large hole had been cracked through the centre of the thick blast door, the metal bent inwards as though it had been punched through by a giant fist. The trenches before the base had been abandoned and the last of the ancient rebel assault vehicles had disappeared inside the base. Before them nothing moved apart from the billowing smoke, dying down. Then it seemed there was a figure moving through the smoke. His features couldn't be made out properly from the distance Ren was at but he was cloaked and bearded, medium height, and on his belt….

"STOP!"

Ren bellowed the word as the thought crept into his mind. It couldn't be who he suspected though, it was impossible. He stepped right up to the controls of the shuttle and squinted through the window of the cockpit. It took him a few moments to be sure of who he was looking at.

"I want every weapon we have to fire on that man."

He spoke the words coolly but anger was flaring up inside him, a white-hot hatred mixed with more than a little fear. He had waited so long for this, trained his body and mind for this moment, had always known that the day would come when he would confront the man it all started with – Luke Skywalker. The hero, the Jedi, the legend that the galaxy loved more than all its other heroes. The man who had first taught him how to control his power, taught him to think, taught him to feel. The man he'd turned to when his absent father and royal mother had been too busy to care for their son. And the man who tried to slaughter him while he slept. He had admired his uncle Luke, hero-worshipped him like everyone else. It had made the betrayal the worst he'd felt in all his life. He hated Luke more than anyone.

"Weapons ready sir," the pilot informed him.

He barely paused: "Fire!"

A single blast exploded from his own shuttle and appeared to strike the ground directly where the cloaked figure had stood. Before the smoke could clear a barrage of cannon fire burst forth, the ground exploded in a 20 metre radius where all the fire power of the AT-M6s and the remaining TIE fighters was concentrated into the same small space. The surrounding earth became smeared with deep, shiny red, the ground below the salt he knew but from where he stood it could have been a giant spatter of blood.

"MORE!" demanded Ren.

The cannon fire kept going, a blaze of red light battering the land ahead, cannons booming as they exploded again and again, one after another.

"MORE!"

His rage burned inside him, he thought about Rey. She was the only person he'd told the truth about the night he'd burned the new Jedi temple to the ground, the night his uncle and teacher turned on him. The man so compassionate he'd refused to strike down even Darth Vader in anger hadn't given a moment's hesitation to swiping his lightsaber down on his sleeping nephew. Rey had understood, Rey had been the only one who truly cared about him. Now she was on the other side of those destroyed doors.

Hux had been getting uneasy ever since Ren had given the command for every single weapon to be fired on one man. His general moved forward, looking at him, Ren continued staring at the point at which all their firepower was being concentrated.

"That's enough," said Hux, speaking directly to Ren, when he didn't bother to reply he turned to the pilots. "THAT'S ENOUGH!"

The firing stopped. It took a few minutes for all the smoke to clear. The flat, salt-covered ground had been reduced to a huge, searing red crater, spattered all round with deep, shinning red, an open wound in the surface of Crait. Hux was looking at him sternly, Ren hadn't taken his eyes of the spot ahead since the cannons started firing. He saw something moving forward. Ren's eyes widened. Impossible. Luke walked forward from the smoke a few paces then stopped. There didn't seem to be a single mark on him, despite the fact he had just emerged from the scorched crater in the ground. From where he was standing it seemed to Kylo Ren that his uncle looked straight up at him, lifted a hand to his caped shoulder and brushed it off.

Ren couldn't resist letting out a single breath of disbelieving laughter. He stood staring for a few seconds and it seemed his uncle stared right back.

"Bring me down to him, keep the door covered and don't advance until I say," he said, finally.

"Supreme Leader, don't let yourself get distracted by – ARRRRGGHHH!"

Ren had no time at all for Hux's misgivings, with a single swipe of his arm he sent his general crashing horizontally into the wall of the cockpit. At the same time the pilot made to land the shuttle.

"Lowering you down now sir," he assured.

Ren left the cockpit and made his way to the exit ramp. His footsteps echoed off the metallic surroundings of the shuttle. As he walked thoughts whirled through his mind. He felt oddly calm, at peace. He had waited so long for this moment. It was his destiny. Luke Skywalker would die with the last of the resistance and he would become the new ruler of the galaxy. But he wasn't concerned with what came next. His mind was in his present, in the here and now. Luke had come to finish the job he'd started when Ben Solo had been a sixteen year old boy. The betrayal had forced him to grow, to embrace the darkness within him, to become Kylo Ren. Now he would make an end to this, to Luke Skywalker.

He was standing in front of the shuttle's exit ramp, silently waiting. He felt the thud of the shuttle as it hit the ground. His heart rate was only slightly faster than normal, his muscles relaxed and loose, his mind calm and controlled. The ramp lowered behind him, he turned and strode out, his cloak billowing as he walked down the ramp. The salt plain felt rough and the bedrock hard – a good texture for fighting. The salt scrunched below his boots as he walked toward the figure in the distance. The First Order forces waited silent and unmoving behind him. It took a few moments to cover the distance to Luke, his heart was beating faster now and the wind was blowing his black hair around his face.

Luke looked at him stoic as ever. His Master looked much the same as he had the last time he saw him, not much older, brown hair fading to grey, a beard covering his jaw. He stood silently, looking into Ren's eyes. To Ren it felt like a look of reproach and sadness. The same condescension he remembered from his days as a young Jedi apprentice.

"Did you come to forgive me?" asked Ren, mockingly. "Did you come to save my soul?"

Luke shook his head and looked at him knowingly.

"No."

The anger spiked inside him and deep down there was something like sadness.

"Then you came to finish what you started when you turned on me," he said, waiting for a reaction, when none came he went on. "The day you tried to murder me in my sleep."

His old Master didn't say anything but had the dignity to look ashamed. Ren ignited his lightsaber, it crackled to life, cross-guard blazing. He shook off his cloak and let it fall behind him, freeing up his body. Luke drew his own lightsaber from his belt, Ben expected it to blaze emerald green but instead a blade of pearly blue hissed to life. Ren extended his arm and held his lightsaber out in front of him, pointing it at his opponent. He twisted his arm round and the blade twisted with it, marking Luke in his gaze. He saw Luke step into stance, one foot in front of the other, his body side-on, holding his lightsaber in front of him straight up, two-handed. There was silence other than a whistling wind and the hum and crackle of each of their lightsabers.

Ren charged. Luke stood his ground up till the last few feet, he made to move one way but then quickly side stepped the other, just wide of Ren's fierce swing of his lightsaber. Stopping a few feet behind where Luke was Ren steadied himself then turned and swung the other way with his blade but Luke was too far away. They stopped, faced each other again, swords raised. Facing him from the opposite side, Luke was framed by the line of AT-M6S towering in the distance, Ren watched him shift into another stance, bow his head and wait. Ren relaxed his grip, held his crackling lightsaber one handed and arched his back, ready to charge again. He paused for a heartbeat then ran, raised his sword, griped it two handed and swung it at his mentor's chest.

In a lightning-move Luke ran to meet the saber and at the last second arced his body backwards, lowering his body impossibly down so that the lightsaber passed hissing above him, right over his face. Luke swung his lightsaber to regain balance but didn't make a move to strike his nephew. He stood upright again and steadied himself after his superhuman dodge. Ren spun to face him again, flicking his long hair from his face, back in their original positions. He was irritated that Luke wasn't on the attack. Is he trying to tire me out? He can't last long if he keeps up those kind of bodily manoeuvres. Or is he above killing his own blood now?

As if sensing his thoughts Luke lowered his lightsaber into a neutral position.

"I have failed you Ben….I'm sorry," Luke Skywalker carried the sadness and disappointment of a lifetime in those final two words.

Ben could feel it. But he couldn't allow himself to be distracted, this man had tried to kill him when he was just a boy. His anger flared up once more.

"I'm sure you are!" he spat back. "The resistance is dead. The war is over. And when I kill you…I will have killed the last Jedi."

"Every word you just said was wrong," said Luke, the same way he used to lecture Ben when they were training. "The rebellion is reborn today. The war for the galaxy is just beginning and I….I am not the last Jedi."

Ren's heart beat faster at the implications of his old uncle's words. For a moment Rey flashed in front of his eyes holding the lightsaber that had belonged to Luke and Anakin Skywalker. It was the same lightsaber the man in front of him held now. He swallowed.

"Then I'll kill her too," he said, looking his uncle in the eyes. When he felt himself faltering he carried on. "And I'll kill you. All of it."

Luke was shaking his head slowly. "No, you won't."

Ren gripped his lightsaber tightly. His uncle was staring at him, as if daring him to make a move, testing him. Does he still think I'm a frightened child? Does he know what happened to his friend Han Solo? The thought of his father brought a cocktail of emotions to the surface of his thoughts. He tried to block them out but couldn't focus. He saw his father in front of him dying, reaching out. He tried not to feel but he couldn't stop it, Han Solo hadn't been much of a father but that didn't change the fact that he had been his father, and worse still that Ben knew that he had tried to be a father. He clenched his teeth and shut his eyes tight, as he did so he gripped his lightsaber in both hands at his side and charged. Luke Skywalker didn't make a move to dodge or defend himself as Kylo Ren swung his lightsaber down through his shoulder.

The momentum of his charge carried him on even after he'd sliced though his old master. Finally he stopped himself, breathing deeply. For a few seconds he paused, not daring to look back, if he looked back then it was done, there was no undoing what had just happened. He turned. His eyes went wide. Luke Skywalker stood upright without a mark on him. Ren could barely believe his eyes, he was frustrated but more than anything he was at a loss for explanation. How? Then, for the first time during their encounter he felt the icy grip of fear tightening over his body. If he can't be killed, what chance do I have?

Something nagged at his mind, something he couldn't focus on but was there all the same. He suddenly became aware that he hadn't sensed his uncle's presence once since he had appeared, which was odd for a Jedi so powerful. Nor had Luke made a move to strike him throughout their duel and their lightsabers hadn't clashed even once. A mad thought came into Ren's head but he followed it through nonetheless. Slowly he walked towards Luke, pointing his lightsaber out in front of him. It went through his uncle's chest without a sound, Luke made no reaction, there was no smell of burning flesh. Nothing. Luke Skywalker had never been on Crait, not corporeally. Kylo lifted his head to look into Luke's eyes, understanding dawning on his face. Luke stared back and smiled knowingly.

"See you round kid," he said. The ghost in front of Ren vanished.

Kylo let his lightsaber arm fall to his side still ignited. With his uncle gone he stood facing the massed forces of the First Order, the AT-M6s seemed to be glaring down at him and he knew all the people inside were. He turned away quickly, seized by a sudden panic. He looked up at the abandoned rebel base. His uncle's shade couldn't have hurt him, couldn't have physically stopped him at all. But he had done something. He'd distracted him. His uncle had betrayed him once more, worse, he'd outwitted him.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Kylo Ren's scream echoed across the barren salt plains of Crait.

A squad of snowtroopers joined him from his landed shuttle as others began to disengage from the AT-M6s. Ren didn't have time to wait for the them, as soon as his personal guard reached him he made his way across the trenches and through the fracture in the blast door of the old rebel base. Hux protested but ultimately deferred to his new supreme leader. Grudgingly. Kylo lead the troops across the red-black bedrock on the other side of the blast door, moving swiftly with his snowtroopers marching quickly behind to keep pace. The cloak he'd replaced over his shoulders billowed as he advanced.

The base was empty, as he knew it would be. He'd only searched the entrance chamber of the base and it had been abandoned. There was no sign of life anywhere else. Nevertheless he gave the order for the troops to search the base from top to bottom for traitors, they spread out and were joined shortly after by reinforcements from outside. He closed his eyes tight and sighed deeply. He had been outmanoeuvred by his uncle. Skywalker had known exactly what he was doing, had known that Ren would rush to face him and in his haste he had allowed the rebels to slip through his fingers. He felt heavy, weighed down. His first mission as supreme leader, one that should've ended in the complete destruction of the resistance and the unrivalled ascendance of the First Order, had ended in failure.

He walked forlorn through the empty fortress. He wondered into a control room decked out with projector screens and consoles, rusted and long dead, old technology from another time. His eyes fell to the ground. Something shiny caught the light. He crouched down and reached for the object. It was a pair of golden dice bound by a small chain. He didn't recognise them but they seemed oddly out of place; clean, unweathered and shiny where everything else was dull, rusted and forgotten. As he stared down at them a new plane seemed to open up in his mind and he looked upward.

She was standing at the docking bay of the Falcon, ushering resistance fighters inside. They thanked her as they hurried on board and she smiled and nodded at them. Her hair blew in long dark strands over her face. As the final person boarded the Falcon she looked down the ramp and something caught her eye. She paused and stared down at him. His eyes widened as he looked up at her from one knee. His heart was beating fast again. Neither of them spoke, they didn't need to. He stared up at the girl he loved. He knew that now. Then Rey's face changed, it was almost imperceptible but he still saw it, it became harder, more solemn. She reached up and pressed something inside the Falcon. The ramp raised itself up and sealed shut.

The image blurred and disappeared and suddenly he was back in the empty control room, staring up at a blank space on the wall. Alone. He opened his clenched hand and saw that the dice had slipped away and his hand was empty. The frustration at his duel with Luke, the duel he'd won but had ultimately been defeated in, seemed to fade. His anger at the escape of the resistance subsided. He thought about Rey as she'd stood on board the Falcon and tried to recall every detail of her. Nothing else mattered. But Rey was gone and Ben Solo was alone once more.