You Can Never Be Rid of Me: Rey finds herself before a decaying Palatine, Kylo Ren's hand forcing her to bow. There is a corruption in the air, an anticipation, as those black robes draw closer and closer to her. She expects many things from Palatine's mouth. Perhaps he'll say something ridiculous: like he's her grandfather.

What he does say is so much worse than that.

…

The darkness will not flee from me,

It will not leave my veins.

It's such a deep part of me,

That I am now its slave.

...

Rey grunted as she tried to pull her arm away from Kylo Ren's iron grip, his pace unrelenting as he marched down the hall, nearly dragging her as the sound of troopers' footsteps pounded behind them. Rey knew that there was no way out of this. Destiny had always been calling her here, to this moment, to this exact confrontation. There was no going back, her way was blocked. Her only choice was to go forward … even if it got her killed.

"You don't have to do this," she growled, trying to tug her elbow away even though it chaffed at the restraint on her wrists.

Finally stopping before a set of doors, the soldiers' footsteps all stalling in sync behind them, Kylo Ren tilted his masked face down at her. She couldn't see his eyes, but she knew he was observing her … as if looking for something only he could see. Then, taking a moment as if gathering his thoughts, a gruff whisper escaped the other force-user, "There are some fates we cannot escape. Not you … and certainly not me."

She might have taken time to digest the oddly worded comment when suddenly Kylo Ren pulled himself out of his parade rest, waving the door open so he could drag her into an echoing chamber. It quickly became obvious that this wasn't just any room. He was here. She could feel him, oily and thick was his presence in the force yet strangely rotten.

Trying not to gag at the taste of it, Rey was basically dragged up a set of stairs and towards a dais where the dark figure sat on his dark throne, surrounded by an accompaniment of red guards. She only had enough time to see those gold eyes glint under that monster's hood before she was forced onto her knees before him.

It sickened her to have to kneel before none other than Darth Sidious. Kylo Ren even humiliated her further by forcing her to bow her head, his gloved hand heavy on the back of her neck.

"I have brought her, Master," said Kylo Ren, his hand immediately being shaken loose by the angry girl though somehow he kept a good enough grip to keep her kneeling.

"Is this supposed to frighten me? This presentation of your failing power?!" ground out the woman, still trying to shake off Kylo's grasp. "I don't fear you." Her next words were mocking and almost too dark for a light-side user, "I can feel your rot from here. The Force whispers about how your bones are crumbling and how your organs fail you. You won't have enough time to turn me to the dark side... You'll be dead in a few weeks if not days."

If Kylo Ren didn't have on a mask, Rey was sure that he would have dropped his jaw to the floor. She knew it was foolish to taunt the ancient Sith, but if she was to die today … She at least wanted to get in a good taunt or two before she went.

Oddly enough, the rotting tyrant didn't rage or sneer or even negatively react. Instead, he started to laugh. It wasn't a bellowing thing. It was a soft, almost like a snicker, like a cruel-natured chuckle you made behind someone's back. And with that, his airy chuckle still sounding, Sidious shakily got to his legs and made his way forward until he was towering over the girl, his smile lording over her with its crooked and blackened teeth.

"I am glad to see you haven't lost your flare for dramatics," said Palpatine almost sweetly, one gnarled hand coming forward to titled up her chin as if he wanted to get a better look at her. "It was the one thing Mustafar hadn't been able to burn out of you."

With that strange comment, Rey ripped her head away from those gnarled, the places where he had touched her seeming to make her skin burn. Something was wrong here … so very wrong. She could feel it in the Force. In fact, it seemed to be holding its breath … waiting for the fall.

She would not be falling. There was nothing Sidious could say that would crumble her resolve … even if he said something ridiculous like she was a lost Palpatine.

Rey did not miss how the rotting man chuckled, his eyes crinkling in the corners as if he had heard her thoughts and found them to be a great joke.

"I'm still surprised this is the form you decided to settle in. The spawn of my failure. I would have thought you'd pick something more palatable … like a vessel that would allow you back into your daughter's heart. For I doubt she ever stopped hating you," said Sidious almost sweetly as he waved his hand at Kylo Ren, the boy now stumbling back and leaving Rey alone on those steps. It was as if he was just as confused as her.

"That's why I reached out to him first … you always had a selfish heart."

The dread was growing in the room like gravity growing thicker and thicker. The Force was just waiting, shivering in anticipation.

"Then again, it only makes sense that you were reborn a Palpatine … You can never truly be rid of me, my apprentice," finished the old fool, his final word like a match to kindling, the Force seeming to burst forth at his words.

Rey, in turn, felt like she had been slapped in the face. Every logical brain cell in her skull screaming that this was a ploy, a trick, silver words meant to confuse her. Yet, at the same time, the Force was pressing down on her, greeting her like an old friend … it had missed them … Its chosen one. Anak-

"NO!" she choked out, stumbling to her feet and backward away from the Sith. "No. No. It doesn't work that way … you're lying!"

Wiggling his fingers as if this was a fun little game, the dark figure shuffled after her. Despite his slow seemingly crippled pace, his presence was no less terrifying for it, "Am I? Have you never wondered how you just know things? How you know how to fly a ship without ever having left the ground, or how to fix a light drive with so little training … or simply, how a girl from the desert knows how to swim? Everything is just second nature to you: especially the Force. It rises to greet you with the slightest of prompting: like an old friend."

"Y-you're mad. P-people can't do ... that. It doesn't work like that," choked the girl even as she continued to stumble backward, Kylo Ren now staring at her with a combination of horror and awe radiating off of him. He didn't believe this rambling madness, did he?! Sidious was speaking in riddles!

"You called your wife's soul back from the dead," chuckled Palpatine, still shuffling closer and closer to her. "What's a little thing like rebirth for a Sith so skilled?"

And that was it, the end of the line as Rey's back knocked into a wall, successfully trapping her. She knew she could probably push this decrepit clone over, that she could still fight even while bound, but all she could do was look at those gold eyes, daring not to even blink because each time she did … the world kept going red like she was slowly losing all sense of color.

"Time to wake up, Lord Vadar," finally said Sidious, his old gnarled fingers coming forward to touch the girl's forehead. It was just a zap, the slightest of electrocution, but the girl still flinched, her eyes snapping shut, every light in the room suddenly dimming.

Perhaps it took ten standard minutes or perhaps it was only one, but slowly Rey opened her eyes ... revealing the most brilliant of golds.

Bound hands coming up to her face, her fingers shaking as if she knew what had been done, her breathing started to become labored as if she could barely breathe. A second later, her legs gave out like she didn't know how to use them, her form slowly sliding down to the floor. Her eyes were so wide, that one could see the madness in them, and the blue tinge her lips were gathering didn't help the image.

Then, just when blood started to drip down her nose, she gasped as if remembering how to breathe. And with that first intake of air, she was wailing, shattering every light in the room. And it didn't stop at one scream. She kept sobbing like a man dragged off the battlefield, his limbs nothing but bloody stumps. She wailed like a man who had lived a thousand horrors and did not want to remember.

Sidious, shifting his shoes through the glass scattered across the floor, watched the display as if it were merely a curiosity. However, he seemed to get bored with the breakdown when his apprentice started muttering that he had been saved and that he shouldn't be here.

Rolling his eyes, his tone almost coy, Sidious mocked his long-suffering student, "There is no coming back from the dark side, my apprentice. Now, pull yourself together … we have much work to do. My new body isn't going to possess itself after all. I'll even allow you to choose: your son … or your grandson. Neither is a bad choice."

XXX

Paw07: I started reading the Thrawn books which led me back to the pre-Disney stuff and finally to copious amounts of fanfiction. While lurking about, I was reminded of some fun fan theories that were floating about before the last sequel movie came out. So, I wrote this snippet to make the sequel series more palatable... and apparently terrible. I haven't watched the sequel trilogy since it was in theaters so details are foggy at best. Nonetheless, I love how deliciously dark this idea is. :3

Run, Kylo! Run!