Destroyer Steadfast,

Corellia no longer exists. 

I can't say it hurts me. I broke all my ties to Han Solo a long time ag. Still, I can't help but think of Mama. After what happened to Alderaan, the story must seem to have come to a cruel circle to her.

“The Final Order claimed responsibility for this attack. "

Pryde again. He is smug, I can sense it. He thinks I'm weak. 

He is wrong. No one can stand in my way.

In my hand, I hold the wayfinder to Exegol, the legendary home world of the Sith. 

Once I reach there, I will destroy this pseudo figurehead who takes himself for Palpatine, just like I destroyed Snoke. 

The Force is with me as it has never been in person, except my grandfather. 

But, I will not end up like him.

Rey’s cries and Leia's tears can do nothing against me, and neither can this fake Sith Lord.

Exagol,

The air is saturated with heat despite the frigid appearance of the planet. Rocks as far as the eye can see and incessant cosmic storms. This place is remote and doesn’t want to be found. 

But I have found it and I will raze this Final Order to the barren ground. 

Once this is done, I will ensure the end of the Resistance. All this has lasted too long.

Under the surface, the heat is even more unbearable but it is here that my enemy awaits. I feel it. I use the Force to find him.

The base is secure and well-armed. 

A lightsaber rests on an altar. Everything in me is called towards it. I reach out. I recognize it without ever having seen it. 

It belonged to Darth Vader.

"Are you certain you deserve it, young Solo?" 

I recoil when I hear that contemptuous ridicule. 

I'm notBen Solo. 

Ben Solo died when Luke Skywalker tried to kill him.

My hand closes on the saber and the crimson blade lights up the mausoleum in which I find myself.

"I'm not here to talk."

I thrust myself onto him but a sharp, invisible blade swipes at my legs.

"Impulsive...just like my former apprentice Vader. Another trait he passed on to you, I suppose. "

Palpatine… it's really him. Even if he is hooked onto pipes that keep him alive, he is strong with the Force. But not so much that I can't defeat him.

"Stop, your power doesn't interest me. There is something else I ask of you. If you bring it to me, I would make you the uncontested ruler of the entire galaxy. The new Emperor.”

“I already am. What you offer me holds no significance.”

He chuckles darkly. “Indeed. However, it seems to me that there is still a threat you face. The Resistance. I can help you end it."

Who does he take me for? A weak child? Does he think I need him to defeat a handful of left wing extremists?

Palpatine just sneers and, with a twist of his frail wrist, he unearths an entire fleet of destroyers.

"Hundreds of ships, armed with the firepower capable of destroying your enemies as I did Corellia." 

With such a weapon, no one would ever dare challenge me. Never.

"What do you want from me?”

“That you succeed there my apprentice Snoke failed. "

What? Snoke was his apprentice? How could I not know this?

Darth Sidious smirked.

"Did you really think Snoke trained you alone? Of course not, he has been my puppet for years. Everything he told you, all the knowledge he gave you, the powers he taught you to master, it was under my command. I was the one who made you Kylo Ren. And what I have done, I can undo… Don't make the same mistake as Vader, don't be weak. This is what cost him his power and his life. "

The threat is palpable.

"What do you want?”

“Bring me my granddaughter."

Granddaughter? Sidious has a granddaughter? What use would she even be to him?

"As you can see, this body cannot sustain me for much longer. I must restore myself to my former glory. Bring her to me and my army is yours to command."

Thanks to this army, I am sure I am invincible. No one will dare try to harm me. Just in exchange for a miserable girl.

"Where is she ?"

Palpatine stares at me.

"I don't know, but you just might, Kylo Ren. Just use your bond to find her."

Then it clicks…No...Not her, not Rey. 

I can't, I don't want to leave her to him. 

Imagining him getting his hands on her, extracting her strength is unbearable.

I will never bring her to him.

"I thought she was nobody."

Sidous gives me a disdainful scoff.

"Another secret that the Skywalker twins kept from you. They have always known about it. They always knew who she was and where she was. They have been keeping an eye on her for years. Do you really believe that Leia Organa came across her by chance? She is the apprentice they have always wanted. The power that she inherited from me flows into her and gives her more power than that miserable Luke Skywalker ever had."

I lower my blade. 

So Rey is a Palpatine.

My parents knew it, my uncle knew it.

Yet it was me he tried to kill, it was me they exiled. She is the one they welcomed with open arms. Anger overwhelms me and I feel the Force crackling in me.

"Unleash your rage," Sidious says. “Think of everything they did to make sure she joined them. Separate her from her parents, place her under the supervision of their proxies... All this to keep an eye on her and use it when the time comes. When she would be awakened to the Force. "

Luke and Leia? Did they separate a child from her parents? Impossible… No Jedi could do such a thing.

Sidous bursts out with a maniacal laugh.

"I thought that, after all this time, you had understood. Under their righteous arrogances, the Jedi are nothing other than a sect of fanatics ready to do anything to impose their dogmatic views on the world. They are the ones who are unnatural. They who separate and divide. The Sith have always fought against them in the name of our ideology: Peace is a lie. There is only passion,”

 Words form alone on my lips and flow through my mouth:

“Through passion, I get strength. "

I can't help thinking of Rey saying these words

“By strength, I gain power. By power, I gain victory. By victory my chains are broken. The Force will set me free”, continues Sidous.

 “Break your Kylo Ren chains. Forget once and for all the nonsense of your childhood and become a man, become a full Sith. Give me the girl who took your place with the princess and her Jedi brother. "

I clench my fists. I am overcome with another seething bust of rage.

I think about how they all accepted Rey. 

Han even left her the controls of the Millennium Falcon. My mother herself trains her. Mama, who was too always to busy to teach me herself and instead sent me to Luke. And Luke, he made her his apprentice while he rejected me and tried to kill me. 

She took my family. She took my place.

"Bring her to me and you will have your revenge. Think of all that I will let you do to her once I have obtained what I expect from her,” encourages Darth Sidious. “She will be entirely at your mercy, kneeling before you. "

Make her bow. What humiliation will that bring Leia! Seeing her little protege obey me.

 "I'll bring her back to you." 

It is out of the question to offer her to Darth Sidious. 

Rey will be mine and together we will get rid of the Final Order. 

We will finish what Vader started. 

Then we will rule the galaxy.

Destroyer Steadfast,

Quinn, gives me a quaint look.

"Are you all right, Supreme Leader?" 

I have had enough of this idiot. The Force crackles in me. I reach out in his direction and I have the pleasure of seeing him rise a few meters from the ground. He twists in the air like the wretched earthworm he is. A little pressure on his windpipe ...

Quinn's eyes are almost popping out of the sockets now.

 A simple twist of the hand and it falls on the ground, with a broken neck.

"General Pryde, you have become my second in command, try not to disappoint me. "

I do not linger to observe his reaction. I have better things to do. I need to find Rey.

Eyes closed, I take a deep breath and pull at the Force bond. 

A dull rage responds to me like an echo of my feelings.

I see her. 

She runs amidst …marshes? Where is she?

Her movements are nervous, unrefined. Something is disturbing her.

I reach out towards her and we find ourselves face to face.

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