"At last," Rey muttered under her breath.
This had to be the heart of the Temple. The space was a few hundred paces wide and deep, the ceiling low by the standards of this place. She had walked a path through a grid of stone columns to reach this clearing and the far wall, which was partly hidden behind a red veil of lava, dripping into a bottomless trench that ran the width of the rear of the room. She was deep in the workings of the planet now.
And in the center of the clearing, barely twenty paces away now, the artifact. The metallic hemisphere lay on the stone floor with no ceremony, as if casually discarded. At last. Rey started towards it but was brought up short as the far wall became an uprush of glowing orange, lava being propelled to the surface to eventually erupt from one of the craters dotting the landscape. The roar of thousands of tons of molten rock being forced skyward under immense pressure was deafening and the blast of heat that accompanied it scorching. Spatters of liquid stone fell back into the chamber landing on the floor to sizzle and cool.
Abruptly as it started, it ended, leaving silence and the dripping of lava back down into the shaft it had exploded from. This must be the source of the sound and vibration she had heard in the labyrinth. Rey continued to the artifact, just a couple of paces away, almost in her hands.
"Close enough," the voice was female, a hard hiss.
Rey turned to see the source of the words emerge from behind a pillar; a tall, slender shadow of unnaturally stretched proportions. It stepped into the red light that filled the chamber, revealing itself to be human, female, despite the shape of its silhouette. Her legs had been altered; below the knee they were artificial, extended as delicately curving bands of shining dark metal, ornately engraved, terminating in hoof-like blocks that clicked on the rock as she moved, as poised as a dancer.
The dress she wore drew attention to her enhancements; black, frilly and very short, looking as if she were on her way to a particularly chic party, rather than life-or-death combat. It contrasted with her skin, smooth alabaster over stringy tight muscles, strands of dark, shoulder length hair framing a thin, pointed face. Her eyes though, were what marked her out as a follower of the Dark. Ebony globes, devoid of any other shade or color. Pools of darkness hidden in a strip of black color painted across her face.
Rey felt a flutter in her stomach. The woman might have none of the usual trappings of a warrior of the Dark Side, but had masked her presence in the Force perfectly - no easy feat - and exuded an unsettling confidence. She shouldn't be deceived. Whoever this being was, she was the real deal, not some wannabe, not some acolyte. This was trouble, a genuine threat, and Rey knew she wasn't at her best. Shit.
"You're everything he said you would be," the woman remarked lightly, "I was quite uncertain you would make it this far, but he assured me."
"Really. Who did?" Rey asked. Who could she mean?
"Not very bright though," the Sith smiled, black lips parting to show small white teeth in a narrow mouth, "You really don't suspect? Not at all?" She sighed and tilted her head to regard the Jedi with mock sympathy.
Rey moved to put herself between the artifact and the woman, who she studied more closely. What was she up against? Surely not a Knight or anything associated with them; they were all brute, unconcealed strength. Some faction of Witches or offshoot of the Nightsisters? Possible. Sith perhaps, of some kind, but no sect she was familiar with. The Council had tried to root out the most powerful groups, but there were countless systems, countless hiding places, endless clans and varieties of evil.
"I'm supposed to let you have it," the Darksider continued, "But I think not," lips curled in a sneer, "Do you even know what it is? Or its connection to the glorious events that transpired here?"
"I know I'm going to take it, and it's going to help us rid the galaxy of your kind for a long time." Should she attack now? Or keep her talking to find out more?
"So trusting," the Darksider mocked, "He apprehends you so completely, in contrast to his miscalculation regarding myself. I serve but one master. The Emperor Undying. Our Lord Eternal. Vitiate."
Sith then. Super old-school Sith, no less. Fine. She knew them and their ways.
"Let you take it to him?" the woman gestured at the artifact, "No. The one you serve, be it unintentionally, is but a shadow and no more worthy of it than are you."
"Save it. I don't care," Rey said. Who was she talking about? The Council? That made no sense, and this was a distraction from the impending combat that needed to be dismissed until later, "If you're in my way, then you're just another Sith for me to kill."
"What a blunt instrument you are," the woman remarked, "But you look so tired, my dear."
Rey stalked the floor in front of the artifact and hardened her scowl. "You fucking wish. I'm just getting warmed up."
The woman laughed softly, "In another time and place, I believe this would be quite the contest, but alas," her tone turned cold, "we are here and now, in my domain, the site of one of my Lord's greatest victories."
The woman raised one ivory finger and the ground trembled. Rey felt the vibration through her boots, heard the grinding of stone against stone and the ground beneath her shift slightly. When the quake finished she glanced around and with sickening clarity comprehended her situation and the reason for the Sith's confidence. The artifact and herself now sat in the center of a shallow depression, no more than five hand spans in depth, but both adepts understood its importance all too well.
The woman with the Dark Side in her eyes twisted her mouth into a thin smile of satisfaction.
She had the High Ground.
Rey whispered the most foul Jedi curse she knew. The High Ground advantage would negate any superiority in combat skills she might have. A bad situation turned worse. She regretted, not for the first time, being born a Palpatine. If only she were a Kenobi, an instinctive master of terrain and how best to use High Ground, how to counter it.
The Sith spoke again, "It may bring you some small comfort to know-"
Catch her now, before she can activate another pre-prepared trick. Rey sprang at her in a Force-assisted leap, an attempt to gain a height advantage as well as take the initiative, golden blade sweeping towards the woman. The attack was anticipated though and the Sith countered easily as she propelled herself back and upwards, activating her own weapons, twin sabers; short, pencil thin blades of dark crimson. As Rey landed, dual sabers flashed at her, barely evaded, leaving her open to a Force Blast that drove the breath out of her body. She was falling, then an impact that crushed and broke something inside, a rib, or two. She was back in the center of the depression. Everything was too bright despite the dim lighting, and her ears were filled with a high, hissing note. She'd hit her head, hard.
Get up, get up now.
"As I was saying," the Disciple of Vitiate continued, advancing slowly towards the prone girl, savoring the moment, "You shouldn't feel too badly that you've been taken in by his promises of glory and destiny. He is quite the deceiver. He has your beloved Council twisted around his finger, just as the Senate before them. Weak, useless institutions all. You learn nothing. Through them we will ascend to power once more."
Gods, Sith love to gloat about the superiority of the Dark Side. Move. Where was her saber? Rey reached out, and it slapped into her palm, igniting.
Now stand. Fight. Pain shot through her left knee, and she was falling forwards, breaking her fall with her left arm. She must have landed badly, very badly, on that knee. The leg was useless and she could barely move. Fuck. What now?
Rey looked up. The Sith was only a handful of paces away now. What weapons did she have left? How could she surprise her? How could she win? She always won. She tried to shift to a position where she could use the saber for defense, failed and cried out in pain, slumping to her left, attempting to move the broken knee to a more comfortable state.
The dark woman stopped and looked down at her, close enough for Rey to see that the black, empty orbs of her eyes were shot through with red flecks. The disciple regarded her with, what? Pity? No, disappointment.
"What a team we could have been, you and I," pink tongue ran over black lips, "I could have taught you things in the Dark that would have made you forget all about the Light, my little Skywalker." Two ebony eyes looked Rey up and down hungrily.
"Hang on," Rey held up a hand, "I'm catching a sexual undertone here," she looked up at the woman, as seductively as she could manage in her present state, and lowered her voice, "There's something between us. I can sense it. Opposites attracting. The Force binding us, body and soul. Can you feel it?"
"Well," the Sith stopped, eyebrows raised, "That just popped out in the heat of the moment, but now you mention it..." she considered the proposition, staring at the dripping curtain of lava, but then her expression hardened, "No. Been there, done that. They say they want a bad girl, but when shit gets diabolical," she shrugged, "You die here, spawn of Palpatine."
Fuck. With a busted knee and ribs facing an ultra-fundamentalist Sith witch, it had been worth a try. But she wasn't looking her best. So she could scratch out fighting and seducing. What now?
Nothing. She had nothing. This was it, the end. After all she'd endured, all the triumphs and victories, all the defeats and heartbreak and tears, she was going to end here. She was going to die, right here. It was actually going to happen.
The Sith took another step closer.
Rey wished she'd had more time with Leia. She wished she hadn't fought with Luke.
She should have spent more time being nice to Poe instead of enjoying butting heads. Listened to more of Chewie's stories. Stood her ground more with Ben. She should have let Rose kiss her.
She should have let Finn love her. She should have had the courage to let herself love him back, but the fear of what would happen when he left had paralyzed her, because of course he would leave; they all leave. If only she had been stronger. If only she had taken that chance. She should have held him close instead of pushing him away and watching him go. They should have stayed together, forever, the only course that had ever made any sense in her entire fucked up life. The course they should have plotted in the Falcon, on that day that felt so long ago now, to spirit them out of the Jakku system, far away from Han Solo, the Resistance, the First Order, everything. Just the two of them, alone in a galaxy tearing itself apart. Let the First Order have it all. Let the Galaxy save itself. They could have found their place somewhere, anywhere, together and that would have been enough. It would have been home, a place she had never been to, and now would never see. She'd left it too late, confident that there was no reason to hurry, that her days in the light stretched out before her into forever, only to realize at the finish how close the horizon was, and how well it had hidden the end of that road.
In some other universe they were together. But not in this one. In this one, she was ending, now. The time had come.
"Save your tears, my lovely Skywalker," whispered the Disciple of Vitiate as she stepped closer, black eyes and bright teeth gleaming. "This won't hurt a bit."