"Long have I waited… for my grandchild to come home," Palpatine said, with a smile. "I never wanted you dead-"
"Oh, shut up!" Rey snapped. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused?"
Whatever Palpatine had been expecting from her, it apparently wasn't that, and Rey glowered at the Dark Lord of the Sith.
"Well?" she asked. "Do you?"
"...I have only done what is necessary for my own success," Palpatine said, with some hesitation. "What do I care what inconvenience I cause?"
"The Force cares!" Rey replied, little flecks of white light dancing around her fingertips for a moment before she shook them off. "I know technically not everything that happened was you, because some of it was Plagueis, but you've not exactly been making things better!"
"The Force is a tool!" Palpatine said. "It cannot care! The Dark Side-"
"Out of you and the Force I know which one is the tool," Rey interrupted. "Just… this is the problem with the Sith, you know. It's incredibly obvious now I'm able to pay attention."
Palpatine shook his head.
"You are talking nonsense, girl," he said. "But you have power. So much power! Take your rightful place as Empress Palpatine, take the throne, and…"
His voice trailed off a little, as he saw that Rey was just glaring at him.
"Let's recap," she said. "Your master, Darth Plagueis, worked out how to manipulate the midi-chlorians to create life, in a direct violation of how the Force works. All things have a beginning and all things have an end – it is the cycle that is eternal, not one individual. Darth Plagueis violated that, and to put the galaxy to rights came the Chosen One, to bring balance. That being Anakin Skywalker, who was born of the Force itself."
Palpatine frowned slightly.
"You seem to consider yourself extremely well informed on topics you know absolutely nothing about," he said.
"The Force is telling me this," Rey replied. "Yes, I know, I haven't got to how that works yet, I'm getting there. Because Anakin Skywalker was the one to bring balance to the Force, and this is where you enter the story because you turned him to the Dark Side, twisted him around over years and years for your own selfish gain. And what do you think happened then?"
The former Emperor glared at her.
"I can assure you, I remember my greatest triumph very well," he said. "The Jedi were broken, scattered. They had failed."
"Because of you," Rey replied. "The Jedi, guardians of peace and justice, stewards of the Force, were broken and destroyed because of you, because you forced them into an impossible situation by hiding who you were and acting in direct defiance of the will of the Force. And the Force responded… by making Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa powerful and strong. Strong in the Force, strong of will, strong of character. The fusion of the best of the old and the new. Luke did what everyone told him was impossible, and his faith in his father did not waver. Not when his master, his sister, his father, and you told him it was impossible, he made the impossible possible."
She made a gesture with the hand holding Leia's lightsaber. "And Leia – she was just as strong, just as much of a shining presence in the Force – and she gave up the role of a Jedi to be something else. Leia rejected the Force as the guiding principle of her life, and that was all right as well."
"I assume that at some point there will be a reason for this nauseating story?" Palpatine asked, somewhat waspishly. "I do not need to hear about the dead."
"Luke and Leia defeated you," Rey pointed out. "In different ways, and not alone, but they were the catalyst for your defeat and destruction and death in the exploding remains of your battle station… and the Force was in balance."
She pointed at him. "Until you came back as a clone and turned Ben Solo to the Dark Side, broke Luke's faith in himself and Leia's marriage, destroyed the Jedi Order once more. How do you think the Force reacted to that?"
Palpatine just kind of stared at her.
"...the Force," he said, slowly, "is not… alive."
"It's made of all life," Rey replied. "It's an energy field that surrounds and connects all living things. It is the gestalt combination of all life in the galaxy, in the universe. You seem awfully sure that such a thing couldn't be alive… and besides, that's how I know all this. Because the Force threw up its metaphorical hands and just plugged me directly into itself. The Force itself has had enough of the Sith."
"The Sith are eternal!" Palpatine said. "I am eternal! If you have so much power, then you will give it to me!"
Little lightning bolts flickered around his hand, and he reached out towards her. Energy fizzed and crackled, then Palpatine splayed out his fingers to draw power out of her and into himself.
Absolutely nothing happened.
"...what?" Palpatine asked, with a frown. "Why didn't that work? That's impossible!"
He clenched his hand into a fist. "Nobody can deny me! Especially no… scavenger girl! There is no way you should be that powerful, it's completely unjustified!"
Rey tilted her head to the side slightly.
"...you," she said, patiently. "Came. Back. From. The. Dead. At this point you have no justification to complain."
The white light that had been glowing faintly around her for the entire conversation lit up, gradually more brightly, until it was seething off her skin like smoke from a grass fire.
"Are you going to kill me, then?" Palpatine asked. "Do you think that will work? If you strike me down, you will inherit all the powers of the Sith!"
"I'm not going to kill you," Rey replied, as the smoke-light grew brighter. "That would be a mercy. By the will and urging of the Force, I will do to you what was done in ages past to Ulic Quel-Droma and Exar Kun."
Palpatine's expression immediately changed.
"You couldn't," he said, unable to keep a hint of fear out of his voice.
As Rey promptly demonstrated, she could.
Then there was the sound of running feet at the entrance to the room, and Ben Solo came racing in with all of his former followers stampeding behind him.
"Please tell me you've got a lightsaber!" he said, then skidded to a halt as he spotted Palpatine. "Ew. What happened to him?"
Rey wasn't actually sure, because Palpatine had compressed to roughly the size, shape and texture of a charcoalized raisin.
"...I cut him off from the Force," she said. "Apparently that's what happens."
By the time she'd looked up again, the Knights of Ren had all run away.
AN:
There are some downsides to being responsible for everything that's gone wrong in the last sixty years.