Log:Knights of Ren: The King is Dead
Kylo turns back from the dark side
OOC Date: January 22, 2020
Location: Spearhead Base
Participants: Ben Solo formerly Kylo Ren, Malik Ren formerly Oran Arcantael
Command Center - STA Spearhead Base
The Command Center of what was once a huge resort space station has now been rennovated to contain the war machine of the First Order. All terminals have been replaced and give readouts on the base's systems as well as the information outside and around the base. An holo-projection ring in the center of the room holds a three-dimensional layout of the base by default, but it can be shifted to any part of the galactic map to give fairly recent rundowns of what was last spotted/seen in a given star system.
The room itself is a large semicircle on the stern side of the base and it looks out at the otherwise empty star system of Ichren. Solominus sits off to the right of the room's viewports and its ever-changing hues of random bright neon colors cast shadows across the command center. To the aft are the hatches that lead out into the corridors toward the base's central access promenade.
[Ben Solo]
No one has heard from the Supreme Leader since he left for Kef Bir in the Finalizer. No one has heard from the Finalizer since just shortly after that. It's not unusual for Kylo to go off the radar, but something feels different about this time, given everything else that's going on in the galaxy.
And so, when an antique TIE fighter bypasses Spearhead's security using the Supreme Leader's command token, eyebrows are raised. Stormtroopers are dispatched to greet the pilot, but the man who came out of the TIE, by all accounts, is who that pass chip said he was. After the flurry of suspicion, the troops were sent back to their normal business, and the man in black walked himself here, to the command center, where he is now busily typing away at one of the terminals, having cleared the deck over the slight protestations of the usual staff.
[Oran Arcantael]
Word spreads quickly around Spearhead when the Supreme Leader is missing, the Finalizer is missing, and then he comes back in a half broken TIE. He comes back. Someone comes back. No one should be better suited to determine what's going on with Kylo than his Knights, right? Faithful Knights, abducted out of all walks of life with join-or-die, trained at the point of pain, thrown against all manner of natural and supernatural meat grinders. For him. The Supreme Leader. For this. Faithful Knights.
The one who appears on the bridge happens to be Oran, who probably didn't know what to expect, but this... is perhaps a little left of normal, for certain. His brows draw together, studying the attire, the lack of robes, the lack of quillion-saber. "Ren?"
[Ben Solo]
The busy typing at the terminal doesn't stop when Ben senses Oran enter the room, and it doesn't stop when he asks after him in that slightly left of normal tone, but he does glance up for a moment, looking over at the Knight of Ren. "...sure." What? His eyes turn back to the console. "What do you need. I'm kind of in the middle of something."
[Oran Arcantael]
"We're all 'in the middle of something', it's called a war, and one which you've been notably absent from for long enough to cause concern. What are you doing?" The tone is flat, but cautious, and Oran steps forward to try to get a better look at what's happening on this console. "Where have you been? Where is the Finalizer? Where is your lightsaber? ...Where are your /clothes/?" His tone suggests Oran doesn't know which missing item is actually the strangest; where does one begin, here. There's a lot missing from Kylo's usual accessories.
[Ben Solo]
"I know," Ben replies sharply, looking up from the console again and moving to block its display with his body from Oran's view. He has a lot of body to go around, so it's not particularly difficult for him to do this. "I've been dealing with things. The girl. Someone had to confront her, and who else could do it? You?" He asks, and it's clear from the way that word is pronounced that he doesn't believe that option is tenable. "I'm doing what I have to do."
His lightsaber is gone. The reforged helmet that was so important a week ago is gone. He didn't come back in the Finalizer. He's not wearing what he was wearing when he left, and what he is wearing is a combination of that and the shirt he's usually wearing in the Knights' wing when doing nothing important. Now he says that this is important, but. And there's a hole in it.
"I don't have to explain myself to you." In a different conversation, it was around this point that nails of screaming hot pain were driving themselves into Oran's head. Now, there's just a frown of displeasure at being questioned. And the frown is different; his scar is gone.
[Oran Arcantael]
"Obviously not me, but whether or not I'm going to die has never once in the past stopped you from sending me after it anyway," Oran points out as he tries to step around the other side to look at the console from the other way. Like an annoying lil brother. Except the older bro has a lot of pain at his disposal, and has never been shy with the ass kickings. "Where's your helmet? Not even a week ago it was FIND THE GIRL, HUNT THE GIRL, HUNT THE GIRL, to all of us. /All/ of us. What did you do with the bloody Finalizer? How did you lose an entire Star Destroyer, along with --- everything else?"
He hovers a little closer. Waiting for the pain. Waiting, waiting. Kylo --- SORRY, BEN --- can sense that his erstwhile apprentice is fully expecting to be hurt. It's been that way from the first, every time. Unwinnable fights, lessons taught by pain, operations without anesthesia, Oran expects to be hurt, and that expectation is accompanied by a little flame of hate, the fires that keep the dark side going.
But he persists, eyes dropping to the hole, and then to the scar. The flicker is obvious in the Force, he's noticed and he's unsettled now. "...What happened?"
[Ben Solo]
Ben has been many things in his short life, but a liar is not one of them. "I found the girl." The explanation is simple, but the way he says the words pronounce it as more of an ineffable, happy twist of fate than the culmination of a long, determined hunt. There's even a trace of a smile, an upward curl in the corners of his mouth when he looks up from the console.
It's not the face of a triumphant overlord returning from his final victory.
It's the face of a man who's just stumbled on something that changed everything.
He gives a shake of his head, glancing back down and kicking the base of the terminal with the toe of his boot, popping out a compartment and stooping to recover the data cartridge inside, a big boxy thing like a double-sized VHS tape. "None of that matters now." With the cartridge in hand, he looks Oran in the eye. "I'm going to tell you something. Get out of here. Leave it all behind. None of it mattered. This is bigger than us now- understand? We have to step aside."
[Oran Arcantael]
Oran stares. This is not what he expected to hear, and this is not the reaction he expected to field. Where's the screaming, the destruction, the pain inflicted, the spiteful comments? Where's the /girl/?
Where's the victory?
It takes a moment for his synapses to start firing again, but even when they do, he's clearly struggling to make sense of this. "What?" Oran gasps. "What do you mean, leave it behind? Step /aside/? What about the war? The Resistance, the Jedi? What about /all/ of this?" he protests. "There's no leaving, there wasn't even an option to leave before I started, it was this or death. We have killed /billions of people/ over this vision, YOUR vision, Kylo, and I don't know what the hell is wrong with you right now, but you are too bloody far into this to turn it around with a 'never mind.' There is a reason for it. All the destruction, all the pain, it's /necessary/ to end the Jedi, to end everything, to make it better." It's starting to feel like the ground is giving out. "You said that. This is yours. This war is /yours/."
[Ben Solo]
"I'm only going to tell you this once," Ben clarifies, his eyes narrowing slightly with a touch of his usual edge creeping in around them. "Get out of here. I know what I said. I know what I did. /I know./" The data cartridge is gripped more tightly in his hand. "Get your son and get out of this mess I made. It's an infection and if you don't cut it out, burn it out, it'll destroy you. I can't change what I did. I can't save your soul."
The massive multicolored star of this system hangs large in the viewport, and he looks out at it, perhaps for the last time. "I can't change this story. But I can change how it ends." His eyes glance back to Oran. "I was wrong." A shrug. "I won't keep going down the wrong path. Not anymore. Let go, get out of here. And stay out of my way."
[Oran Arcantael]
"My son?" Oran laughs, incredulously. "My /son/? Should I also get his mother? Ah, wait --- no, seems I can't, because /you/ took me to Maridun... to murder my family... to prove my loyalty... to YOU."
The little flame in there is catching fire.
"I bled for you," Oran continues, "I almost died countless times for you. I went to every stars-forsaken hell-hole in this galaxy that you said to go to, fighting your enemies, for you. I fought monsters for you, Resistance, Jedi, darksiders, every kind of scum. I killed innocents for you. I defended your vision, your sanity, and your leadership against all of the Vanguard you never had any bloody time for, when they started to ask why we're doing any of it. You repaid me every time with indifference, mockery, and torture, and I was /still/ loyal to you. Now you say it doesn't matter? Now you say none of that matters? None of what you did to me or asked me to do matters? Now you say step aside? You really expect me to do that, Kylo Ren? Me, this thing you made?"
'No' comes in the form of the snap-hiss of saber ignition. Aw, Kylo helped him build that saber. Bleed the crystal. Memories!
"I can't stop you." Oran knows it, but, it's the principle of the thing. "But I'm done doing whatever you say."
[Ben Solo]
His lips purse together as he regards Oran's defiance, recognizing how he would have likely reacted to the same news if their places were exchanged in the way the saber is drawn and the angry words are spat between them. Less recognizable is what to do about it. "I know. I was there. I was there before you, darker than you, bloodier than you, stronger than you, in deeper than you. I know what you've done, and all of it is a tiny fraction of what /I've/ done." He stands there, with no lightsaber to draw, no weapon to brandish. Just a data cartridge held tightly in one hand.
"Kylo Ren is dead. He thought he knew best, but he didn't. He thought he could be strong enough to do anything, but he wasn't. He was afraid. He was alone. He was wrong. He was always wrong."
He still just stands there, in the multicolored light and the red glow of Oran's saber. "If you want to stay, stay. I'm leaving."
[Oran Arcantael]
Oran can't hit him, they both know that. Even without a saber Ben can just woosh out of the way; he's never in the spot that his small, furious assailant thought he might be. Sparks fly from consoles and infrastructure abused by the swings; not Kylo's this time, but it's a theme around here. "You were. You ARE," Oran agrees with the in deeper, longer, darker, bloodier assessment. "And I hope it eats you alive for the rest of your life. I hope you never forget one bloody minute of it. Kylo Ren will haunt you forever, no matter how many times you look at your pretty new face in the mirror and decide you're not him." Another swing and a miss, another crash into the console and shower of sparks. "Where is the Finalizer?!"
[Ben Solo]
Ben backs away from the lightsaber one swing at a time, his large frame maneuvering with speed and precision despite its size. The data cartridge is kept conspicuously out of the way, unwilling to lose the cargo he's evidently returned for. "I know." It's a tired sense of resignation despite the renewed resolve in the face of his recent change of heart. "But that's nothing /new./" His hand reaches out and this time the Force he pushes through him is different, backed by an unrepentant determination rather than the rage that's driven him for so long. It's unfamiliar and it has him looking down at his hand instead of watching the effects play out, memories slotting back into place.
[Oran Arcantael]
This is not an unexpected result, and as Oran gets whipped across the bridge into the infrastructure, he does not seem surprised. The wet CRACK of impact suggests a whole mess of not good, saber falling to extinguish and roll a short distance away. It was always going to end in pain. Questioning, defying, one way or another it was always going to end in pain. Oran coughs up blood and hauls himself back up to his feet. Pain and frustration and confusion and hurt and anger are just roiling off of him, aberrations in the Force that might have been considered normal until now. A clearer mind shows them for what Rey said they were --- darkness. A blight. Nothing left to save.
Nothing stops Ben from leaving now, and Oran is too damaged to continue trying, but the Apprentice Knight spits blood out on the floor and rasps after his former mentor, "You did this. You did this. You did all of this."
Somewhere under all the anger, something's breaking.
The king is dead.
[Ben Solo]
"I know." Ben's eyes look on his former student, the man he brought under his wing to fan all his worst traits into flame. "I know what I did. That's why I have to stop it." What exactly 'it' is, doesn't really need specifying. This. All of this, and where it's going. The inevitable destruction of countless more worlds. An iron heel stamping down on the face of all life, over and over, forever.
He doesn't move to recover the fallen lightsaber, doesn't arm himself with a powerful weapon to wield against his enemies. For a moment, he opens his mouth to add something else, but thinks better of it instead and hits a key on the console he was using, dimming all the screens to blackness, and hurries from the room. What did he do? What did he download? It could be anything. He has access to everything.
