if there is one thing that bothers me in the sequel trilogy, it's how rushed kylo's redemption feels at the end of tros. and so out of that annoyance this was born and idk what it is but i like it; 2.4k words

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Your headstrong, brave, overprotective little sister. You couldn't control her. She had always been this way, leaping head first into danger, teeth gritted, lightsaber swinging, fury overpowering every other emotion. That was what allowed her to tip towards the dark side. That was what horrified her. But it was how she was, and there was no way of stopping her.

"___, you cannot go after her!" Poe had to shout over the loud rush of waves. The sea was angry, swallowing up everything it could touch, washing over the ruins of the Death Star, putting a barrier between you, your little sister, and Kylo Ren. "You'll die if you try."

"She will die if I don't try, Poe," you said. When he grabbed your arm, you turned and looked at his pained eyes. Finn had just told him that he wasn't at all like Leia and it had hurt him deeply. "I understand you want to protect us. I get it. You're a good leader, Poe, and I wish I could listen to you---"

"Funny, since you've never listened to me before," he muttered.

You smiled and squeezed his hand before pulling away. "But that's my little sister."

He could only watch as you ran down the slope of high grass that led to the beach. The waves washed against your ankles and you dove straight in, thinking of your little sister to distract you from your fear.

Rey was always the most daring. She was the scavenger, risking her life day after day on broken down ships and fragments of space stations while you stayed behind and tried to make a home out of what little you had. You stayed on Jakku mostly for her. She longed to see the parents you could barely remember. You tried to tell her the few stories you had of them, but their faces were blurred.

Her eagerness to know where she came from consumed her. Even after she had found a place in the Resistance, she still didn't feel at home. She longed to find something --- someone --- to tell her her place.

Like a good big sister, you tried to remain patient with her. Holding both her hands in yours, you said to her gently, "Rey, your place is with us. There is no one else."

"We had parents," she whispered. "A family. I just want that again."

"I thought you had that now. Finn, Poe, Chewie, Leia. Me."

Without a smile on her face, she shook her head. "You don't understand. You couldn't possibly. You remember them in a way that I cannot."

You pulled your hands away. "How could you say that I don't understand?"

Without a word, she picked up her lightsaber and walked off. You stood up slowly, watching her disappear in the trees of the forest, wishing that she could only see what you saw. In this place was hope. In Leia's eyes was the mother she'd been searching for. Poe was the friend she'd always longed to have on the lonely nights on Jakku. And in Finn was everything she could have ever asked for in a partner. Someone who could understand her and her fear of never belonging.

How could she not see all of these wonderful things before her?

But how could you? You, the girl who couldn't call herself a scavenger or a Jedi. The girl who was nothing at all.

Rey, filled with so much good and virtue, was the one that was tempted by the dark side time and time again. You could only blame the triad between you, her, and Kylo Ren. You had interrupted the link between Rey and Kylo, blocking his influence on her --- and therefore feeling the full pull on both sides. Dark and light, rising together to meet at you as a central point.

"She'll turn."

Your body went cold as you felt his presence. Like an annoying parasite, Kylo Ren bothered you day after day. Or he entertained you day after day, giving you spiels for why you should join the First Order, which you knew you would never listen to. Sometimes when the two of you would meet, you could actually find yourself wanting to speak to him. Somewhere deep within the Supreme Leader was a person who was good, and you were determined to see it.

It was only when he spoke of Rey that you could not see the good in him. You stared ahead at the trees, unable to see her now. "No. She won't."

"Can't you sense it? The fear and anger? It consumes her."

"As does her joy. Her warmth." You turned fast to face him and felt your own anger flare up inside of you. He had lit the fire within you and you couldn't smother it now. "You're so quick to see the bad in her but never the good. You told her she was nothing and she nearly believed it. She isn't nothing. She is something. She is the last Jedi and you have already lost, Kylo Ren."

"A Jedi cannot feel conflicting things the way she does. A Jedi---"

"She is not the first one to," you said, taking a step closer to him. You recalled a story that Leia had told you not too long ago, just after Luke had died and Rey was named the last Jedi. You were worried about her emotions and how they would affect her, but her master reassured you with a story of the Chosen One. "I believe you should know the story well, Ren. Anakin Skywalker---"

"Was bold enough to understand the power of the dark side. The power that the light cannot match. He became Darth Vader."

"And he died Anakin Skywalker," you said. Your voice grew soft as you breathed in slowly. It washed all of the red-hot anger inside of you and you could finally see the unmasked figure in front of you not as a villain, but as a fool who genuinely believed his own story. "I cannot begin to understand what you had to go through to become this, Kylo Ren. And you do not frighten me. When I look into your eyes, all I see is the frightened boy that your mother talks about in her sadness. You fear that the light isn't powerful enough to save you now and I cannot begin to tell you how wrong you truly are."

As you spoke, his own anger disappeared. He looked down at you and swallowed hard. "What are you saying, that you think you can save me?"

"I know that I can." The truth was like light inside of you. Complete warmth in your heart. You could not hate the boy that everyone else did. You hated him for your sister. You hated the influence he could be. But you could not hate him. "And I will. One day."

Perhaps the day was now. As your body sliced through the wild, icy waves, you could hear them both. They fought on top of the ruins. As their lightsabers clashed, the sparks flew. Your body was knocked against one of the pieces of ruin and you grabbed onto it desperately, lungs burning as you gasped for air. Your body was shaking with exhaustion as you climbed up the side and started for the side of the ruin where Rey and Kylo were.

You ran, feet slipping every few seconds, waves nearly knocking you back into the sea, eyes stinging with the saltwater that couldn't stop running down your face. "Rey!" you screamed. "Rey!"

It felt like forever until you could see them. Kylo was standing with his back to you. Rey was on her back, weakly swinging her lightsaber. You found yourself able to move a little quicker, horrified by the sight of your little sister losing.

"Kylo, don't!" you shouted. His hand, raised with his lightsaber, paused in mid air. He turned ever so slightly to look at you. "Please don't do this, Ben---"

At the mention of his name and the look of you running at him so desperately, his weapon dropped. You reached for his arm and grabbed it. His anger vanished.

But your sister, blinded by her wrath and her desire for revenge, caught his weapon as it fell. She ignited his lightsaber and let out a roar as her emotions consumed her once again. You placed yourself between the two, facing Rey, and watched as she quickly rose to her feet.

"Rey!" you shouted.

But the lightsaber plunged into your stomach anyway. Your mouth fell open. Your eyes widened. And Rey's face contorted into one of shock as you fell off the weapon and into Kylo's arms. He lowered you to the ground as she screamed.

"No!"

The echo of her agony was swept away as a wave washed her off the debris and into the wild waters. She was gone.

You stared at the wound in your stomach as Kylo shifted around you, laying you on the debris. He moved so he could kneel at your side. With his arm around your neck, he looked down at you. It was impossible not to notice how he was shaking.

"You're afraid," you whispered.

He did not speak. His lip trembled. Your head fell back against his arm and you weakly smiled. The pain in your stomach was growing with every passing second. But what was most painful was the change in his eyes. The kindness, the compassion, the feeling that you saw inside of them every time you spoke to him had gone away. It terrified you. Not because you were fearful of what that meant for you lying in his arms, but because you feared what it meant for him.

Your eyebrows furrowed together. "Where has the light gone?"

"It's right here," he whispered. "You're taking it with you."

It almost made you smile. Instead, a tear slipped down your already wet cheek. You opened your lips as you watched the good that was left inside of him disappear. All of the hopes, all of the dreams, all of the foolish thoughts of ever getting close enough to you to touch you gone. As quickly as your heartbeat faded into nothing.

You became limp in his arms and his fingers made fists around the back of your shirt and the mess of your hair that pooled around you. He buried his face in the crook of your neck and sobbed and shook. The agony of the dark completely consuming him was painful.

When he raised his head and the storm stopped, he was no longer the terrified boy that teetered on the line between light and dark when he looked at the pretty girl made of sunshine. He was the monster that had all the power necessary to finally bring an end to the Jedi for good.

He left your body on the debris and followed to where he could sense Rey. She was standing at the edge of the debris, trembling, looking down at the blue lightsaber in her hands. The lightsaber she could no longer deserve.

She was wallowing in guilt and self hate. It fueled him. He was a literal parasite now, feeding off of her darkness. It filled him with power and purpose. Your death was a blessing in disguise. Ben Solo was dead in his grief. Kylo Ren was rising from the ashes.

His voice was strong. It did not waver. "She's dead."

Her breath hitched in her throat. Broken. She was broken. "I know. I felt it."

"She was killed by your hand. She truly believed that there was good inside of you that could overpower the bad, and still she was killed. You proved her wrong."

"I proved myself wrong," she whispered. Her hand pressed against her mouth as a quiet, shaky cry escaped her. She turned to look at Kylo Ren. "I killed my sister."

"There won't be a place for you anymore," he said. "Not with the Resistance. Your only hope is to come with me. I think you know now that it is your only place."

In her eyes, a vision of herself flashed. A vision of her true self, not the made-up one that her sister had led her to believe was true. She was not a Skywalker. She was not a daughter of Leia Organa. She was not the last Jedi.

She was a Palpatine. It ran in her blood. Her desire for darkness overpowered all, even the love she had for her older sister. It had caused her to kill the only person who believed in every bit of her and saw her as completely good.

But Finn, her mind reminded her. He saw her as perfect and good. His eyes told her every time he looked at her just what he thought. She was beautiful and powerful and brave and---

And he was wrong.

You were wrong.

But so was Kylo Ren.

It was true that the darkness was all that she was now. She would wallow in her agony forevermore, but she would do so without Kylo Ren at her side. She did not need him. She did not want him.

"You are not my only hope," she whispered. "No one is. It is true that I have no place in this story. It is not that I'm nothing, it's that I am something. I am too much of something. I won't go with the Resistance. I won't go with you. I will not be the last Jedi. I will be Rey. And you will die as Kylo Ren."

She tossed the Skywalker lightsaber into the waves. It sank quickly, but she had no desire inside of her to jump in after it. It no longer belonged to her.

Just like that, she was the end of the Skywalker legacy. There was no Rey Skywalker. There was no ___ Skywalker. There was no Ben Solo. All hope had vanished with you. Darkness rose for the final time, and this time, there was no light to meet it. 

... also full disclosure i am a FULL supporter of rey skywalker and i do not accept rey skywalker slander anywhere near me. she is not a nobody. she is not a palpatine. this is something i made up as a way to make the bad guys win in a alternate universe. rey is a skywalker and that is canon and i love it. that is all