Blood and Fire: A Reylo Smut Sequel

"Did you do it? Did you create Kylo Ren?"

Rage glitters in Skywalker's blue eyes as he surges back to his feet. Reaching out with the Force, he rips a lightning rod from the roof of a nearby hut. It flies into his hand. He attacks her with it, metal rod against wooden staff, the weapons cracking together in the night and the rain. He lands a blow to her back, and she cries in pain. Anger renews her efforts. But despite his age, he's quicker than she is, and better trained. He snatches her staff from her hands and throws it away.

In desperation, she reaches out with the Force, calling the lightsaber into her hands. It slams into her palm with a satisfying sense of power, and when she lights it, Skywalker recoils in shock. He stumbles back, falling onto the slick stones.

She stands over him and deactivates the saber, letting him know she doesn't plan to kill him, and he visibly relaxes.

"Tell me the truth," she says.

Skywalker hesitates, getting a far away look in his eyes. "I saw darkness," he says finally. "I'd sensed it building in him. I'd seen it in moments during his training. But then I looked inside... and it was beyond what I ever imagined."

The words are hard for Skywalker, but they gain momentum as he continues, the story beginning to pour rapidly out of him as though the memory itself is accelerating through time.

"Snoke had already turned his heart. He would bring destruction, and pain, and death, and the end of everything I love because of what he will become. And for the briefest moment of pure instinct, I thought I could stop it."

He pauses, and Rey wonders if there are tears mingling with the raindrops sliding down his face.

"It passed like a fleeting shadow. And I was left with shame... and with consequence. And the last thing I saw were the eyes of a frightened boy whose master had failed him."

Rey shakes with anger and sadness, and with the cold of the rain beating down on her bare skin. "You failed him by thinking his choice was made. It wasn't," she tells him. "There's still conflict in him. If he were turned from the dark side, that could shift the tide. This could be how we win."

"This is not going to go the way you think." Skywalker's words are harsh and stinging, and slick with anger.

The old hypocrite. As though he had not done the exact same thing when he went to his own father. But what is Kylo Ren--no, Ben Solo--what is he to her? Her nemesis. Her lover. Moreover, the father of the creature or, no, the child that grows within her. If she could bring him back from the dark side, what might the future hold? Not only for the galaxy but for them?

"It is," she says defiantly. "Just now, when I was with him, I saw his future. As solid as I'm seeing you. If I go to him, Ben Solo will turn."

"Rey, don't do this," Skywalker pleads.

Extending the lightsaber, she offers it to him. He doesn't move. Still holding the lightsaber out, she reaches into him through the Force, into his mind, as Kylo Ren once did to her. He is shocked, but somehow, he does not try to resist her. What she finds inside of him is fear, guilt, and uncertainty. She sees that he isn't going to leave this island to help her or the Resistance. He won't lift a finger to save his sister's life. It makes her sick.

She shakes her head and lets her arm, and the lightsaber with it, drop to her side. "Then he's our last hope."

She turns from him in disgust, picks up her staff, and goes to find Chewie. It's time to go.

...

Kylo Ren feels her the moment she comes out of hyperspace. It is a jolt, a sudden shift in the intensity of their connection, and it makes his scalp tingle. She's there for him.

He abruptly changes direction in the corridor and heads to the closest comms station. There he glimpses a freighter ship on the sensors, one that bears striking resemblance to the Millenium Falcon. It has released a life-support pod that is directing itself towards his Star Destroyer.

"Shall we blast it, Sir?"

The tech who made the suggestion is suddenly clutching at her throat, wide-eyed and terror stricken.

Kylo Ren glares at the woman in cold fury, his fingers clenched as he tightens the Force hold on her neck. "That pod is to be brought aboard untouched and in perfect condition. Do you understand?"

The woman nods feebly, her eyes bulging as her face turns purple.

He watches her struggle for another moment then releases the hold. She collapses forward onto her console.

"Have the pod brought to the main starboard bay," he tells her as she pants desperately. "And have a garrison of stormtroopers there to meet it. I will be handling this personally."

He doesn't wait for her reply, he is already moving. Seconds pass like hours as he makes his way to the bay. The troopers are already there when he arrives. The pod appears moments later. It is a long, coffin-like box with a semi-transparent lid. He can see her lying inside it as though dead or asleep, like one of the fairytales he was told as a child.

But this is no fairytale, and he is no hero.

He sees her face and the chaotic jumble of her emotions washes over him through their bond. She is frightened and hopeful, and... happy to see him. The look she gives him as the lid opens mirrors everything he feels, but they are surrounded by a garrison. He cannot allow his weakness to show.

He can tell it wounds her that he has greeted her with stormtroopers, but she says nothing. Her face hardens as she climbs from the box, feet alighting softly on the deck. She allows her hands to be bound in manacles without protest.

A complement of troopers accompanies them to the Supreme Leader's private lift, but the two of them enter alone. For a moment, Kylo imagines simply turning to run. Taking Rey and fleeing to some distant part of the galaxy. Away from the First Order, from the Resistance, from everyone. The doors of the lift slide closed on this foolish fantasy, and they begin to descend.

There is silence between them. He doesn't know what to say. This is their only moment alone before he presents her to the Supreme Leader and words fail him. He considers taking hold of her and kissing her, but that feels wrong too. And after the last time she came to him, searching for comfort and embracing him, he feels bewildered and uncertain.

"You don't have to do this," she says, turning to him. "I feel the conflict in you. It's tearing you apart." She steps close to him, and he doesn't move away. He watches her gaze flick briefly to his mouth and feels desire flare in him. Maybe he should have kissed her.

"Ben, the last time we were... together," she says, wrapping their graphic and intimate sexual encounter into tidy euphemism.

Maybe he should slap her instead. And it makes his skin crawl to have her call him Ben. Ben Solo is dead. And yet... there's a part of him that aches when she says it, the way he does under her caress.

"I saw your future," she says. "Just the shape of it, but solid and clear. You will not bow before Snoke. You will turn." Her voice goes soft. "I'll help you. I saw it."

He hates the part of himself that resonates with this. It is his weakness that she calls upon, the last shreds of Ben Solo pining to join with her. No. It will not be him that turns. It will be her. She will bend to his will or she will die at Snoke's hands, and he knows which it is.

"I saw something, too," he says. "Because of what I saw, I know when the moment comes, you'll be the one to turn. You'll stand with me." He pauses for a moment, waiting to deal the final blow. "Rey, I saw who your parents are."

His words hit home and hard, and she looks at him in horror, backing away. Her back almost meets the door of the lift just as it opens. Realizing it, she turns and gazes into the Supreme Leader's throne room. Snoke's voice wafts across the space like a foul scent.

"Well done, my good and faithful apprentice."

Chapter 7: Loyalty.

She walks across the throne room to face her enemy. Ben's hand grips upper arm, provoking both a terrible sadness and a perverse sense of comfort. She can feel him through their bond, feel his turmoil as intimately as she feels her own fear. The news that he has seen her parents--knows who they are--has sent her mind screaming into overdrive. She wants to ask him who, but it is her present that she must confront now, not her past.

The Supreme Leader is seated upon a wide, imposing throne. The flowing, elegant fabric of his robe strikes a harsh contrast with the ruined features of his face. Ben brings her to a halt before the dais, and she hears him kneel before his master. Keeping her eyes fixed on Snoke, she plants her feet wide in stiff defiance.

"Young Rey," he says. "Welcome."

The sound of her name in his grating tone makes her stomach twist. He waves a hand, and the binders fall from her wrists.

"Come closer, child."

Rey refuses to budge from where she stands, anger kindling hotly within her.

"So much strength," Snoke muses. "Darkness rises and light to meet it."

His voice has grown warm, almost grandfatherly.

"I warned my young apprentice that as he grew stronger, his equal in the light would rise." With a subtle gesture, Snoke calls the lightsaber that Ben confiscated from her. It flies out of Ben's hand and into Snoke's. "Skywalker... I assumed. Wrongly." A trace of bitterness enters his voice. "Closer, I said."

Rey feels herself lifted off the deck by an invisible grip, her toes dragging as Snoke uses the Force to pull her toward him.

"You underestimate Skywalker," she says, struggling to keep her calm as she is drawn onto the dais. "And Ben Solo. And me. It will be your downfall."

She is near him now. Close enough to smell the rot of him, and how it is artfully disguised with perfume. The smell of death.

"Oh," he says, comically feigning surprise. "Have you seen something? A weakness in my apprentice. Is that why you came?" He begins to chuckle, and his clownish expression of surprise falls away to reveal a feral grin. "Young fool. It was I who bridged your minds."

Rey's eyes go wide, and she can feel Ben's shock at this as well. Snoke was orchestrating the Force bridge this entire time? It makes her feel nauseous, and at the same time, she feels a sense of... disappointment. Has their connection been manufactured this entire time? Was Snoke somehow responsible for what happened between them on Hoth? And... would it be better, or worse, if he were?

Snoke is still speaking, his words slicing through her scrambled thoughts.

"I stoked Ren's conflicted soul. I knew he was not strong enough to hide it from you. And you were not wise enough to resist the bait."

The Supreme Leader smiles wickedly and leans in, his rotten scent making her stomach turn. He lifts a hand to her face. With a gnarled thumb he strokes her cheek as his fingernails dig into her hair and scalp, making her tingle with terror.

"And now, you will give me Skywalker. Then I will kill you with the cruelest stroke."

The cruelest stroke...?

She freezes. He means to have Ben kill her. Knowing their connection, he wants to make her death as painful as possible... for both of them.

"No," bites back Rey in horror and refusal.

"Yes," says Snoke. With a casual extension of his hand, she is flung into the air and held suspended above the deck. "Give me everything."

She screams in protest but is unable to even writhe as the pain overtakes her. It feels as though her bones are being split apart inside her limbs, brands are being pressed to her skin, and a searing electricity is running through her flesh and organs.

But that is not the worst of it.

The feeling of Snoke invading her mind is the most horrific sensation of all, fouler than any physical pain or violation she could contemplate.

It is similar to how Kylo Ren interrogated her at Star Killer base, but it is so much worse. When Kylo did it, though it had been a violation that she had fought against tooth and nail, by comparison, he had been gentle. He had drawn back the curtain of her mind so that he could expose her secrets. Snoke has no such patience or delicacy. If it is a curtain that guards her thoughts, Snoke rips it free and sets it on fire. Her skull feels like it is being split open as he savages her mind, and the pain of it, the violation, makes her scream louder than all of the physical pain combined.

Under this assault, she is unable to hold anything back. All her secrets are violently stripped from her and laid bare by Snoke's violent rummaging. And all she can do is scream. And scream.

And Ben does nothing to save her.

That is the deepest wound of all.

When Snoke is satisfied that he has found all that he seeks, he releases his Force hold on her and lets her fall to the floor with a wet, painful thud. She had not realized how profusely she had been sweating until she hears the sound and feels herself move, slippery against the deck.

"Well, I did not expect Skywalker to be so wise." Snokes voice is smug, almost giddy with pleasure at the revelation of Luke's despair. "We will give him and the Jedi Order the death he desires. After the Rebels are gone, we will go to his planet and obliterate the entire island. And..."

She watches Snoke's gaze shift to Ben and feels her heart seize in her chest.

"And you, my young apprentice. It seems that you have been exerting yourself in ways I did not think you capable. Though," Snoke chuckles darkly, "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised." He trails off for a moment, and it is though she can feel his gaze rake over her body. It makes her shiver in disgust. "There is something she has not told you."

No! It is unimaginable that Snoke would be the one to tell him. Rey lifts her head weakly to look at Ben. His face is a stony mask. But she can feel his feelings shift. He is furious, raging silently, laced with guilt and pain, and now... worry. Anticipation.

"She is carrying your child."

Snoke's words ring through the room, striking terror in her heart. She hides her face from Ben, but it's meaningless. There is no way to hide from their bond, and she can feel the flare of his emotions like a scorching flame. Fury. Terror. Betrayal. And, to her great surprise, something warm and affectionate. Protective.

She looks at Snoke and finds his gaze firmly fixed on Ben. Reading him. Analyzing him like a scientist surveying a pinned insect. In this moment of distraction, Rey jumps to her feet and reaches out with the Force for the lightsaber that sits on Snoke's throne, placidly waiting for her to reclaim it. It flies through the air toward her, but another power diverts it, and it sails past her. She flicks her eyes to Snoke, and the saber strikes her in the back of the head before resuming its place on Snoke's throne.

"Such spunk," says Snoke dryly. "Look here now."

She feels herself seized once again in a Force hold and dragged violently across the room. She flinches, expecting to be slammed into a wall, but the blow doesn't come. She opens her eyes and finds herself staring through a lens and into space.

"The entire Resistance is on those transports."

Enlarged and framed by the glass, she can see dozens of ships. She sees one light up in a bright explosion, its insides, its passengers, spilling into the blackness of space.

"Soon they will all be gone," continues Snoke. "For you, all is lost."

In desperation, Rey reaches out with the Force and breaks free of Snoke's grip. She calls Ben's lightsaber from across the room and into her hands. She ignites it, its red glow flaring to life in her hands.

"Ooh!" says Snoke dramatically, gesturing for his guards to hold their ground. "Still that fiery spit of hope. You have the spirit of a true Jedi!"

She grits her teeth and charges him, but he is too powerful. He easily casts her aside with a blow from the Force. She falls to the deck. The lightsaber falls from her hands, deactivating, and skidding to a stop... at Ben's feet.

"And because of that, you must die."

Her heart is pounding in her chest as Snoke's Force hold pulls her to her knees.

"My worthy apprentice," intones Snoke ceremonially. "Son of darkness. Heir apparent to Lord Vader." He speaks the words as though he is gorging himself on sweetmeats, delightfully indulging in the sound of his own voice. "Where there was conflict, I now sense resolve. Where there was weakness, strength. Complete your training and fulfill your destiny!"

Helpless, kneeling at Ben's feet, she gazes up at him. Her lover, the father of her child, her nemesis, and the one person who knows her best in this galaxy. He does not look back at her, his eyes are fixed on Snoke. She has no words to describe the fear and the pain that rake her soul, and at last, she has no more tears.

Ben reaches down to pick up the lightsaber, and she knows that what Snoke says is true. Ben's normally uncontained rage and violent uncertainty are frighteningly absent.

He has made up his mind.

"I know what I have to do," he says, looking her dead in the eye.

The words are like a dagger in Rey's heart. She remembers the last time he said them: right before he buried his lightsaber in Han Solo's chest.

"Ben," she whispers. This one word carries every bit of feeling, every emotion, and every desire that she feels for him. Snoke was not lying. This is the cruelest stroke, to have the man she loves strike her down, and to only know in this moment the entirety of what it is that she feels for him. "Please."

Snoke hears her and scoffs. "You think you can turn him? Pathetic child. I cannot be betrayed. I cannot be beaten. I see his mind. I see his every intent. Yes. I see him turning the lightsaber to strike true. And now, foolish child, he ignites it, and kills his true enemy!"

Rey stares into Ben's eyes, wishing that this was not the end. But his finger is on the switch, and in a heartbeat, it will all be over.

Chapter 8: Future born in the blood of the past.

As Rey looks up at him, wide-eyed and bewildered, Kylo can feel her pain through their bond. It radiates into him with a searing intensity. Part of him regrets hurting her like this. Part of him enjoys seeing her so helpless, so entirely desperate for him.

Little does she know, he is going to give her everything she wants. He always does.

With a twist of his fingers, he ignites the lightsaber sitting on the arm of Snoke's throne. It flickers to life and burns straight through Snoke's seated torso. Rey drops to the deck as Snoke's hold on her evaporates. Another flick of his fingers and the blade finishes cutting Snoke apart. It sails through the air towards them. Rey, quick and ready as ever despite the torture she has suffered, snatches it out of the air.

Slowly, in disbelief, she rises to her feet, searching his face. He looks back at her and in affirmation of her unstated question, he ignites his own lightsaber.

The battle begins.

As the Praetorians close in, Rey and Kylo turn back to back to meet the onslaught. For the first time he is fighting alongside her instead of against her, sensing her moves and building on them, complementing them. He brings his blade crashing down on two opponents, leaning forward into the blow. In that moment, he feels her grab his hip and lean against his inclined back for the leverage she needs to deliver a vicious kick to her own opponent. The intimacy and coordination of the fight is so much like sex with her that he almost smiles.

He channels his anger now, free of indecision as he gleefully tears the guards apart, cutting them off at the knees and impaling them. In the chaos, he gets separated from Rey. Across the room he sees her struggling with a Praetorian. She hasn't been fully trained, and he feels a stab of worry. When this is over--and when he's done fucking her brains out, thoroughly and completely--he's going to fucking train her. Properly.