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paynesgrey_ficsTitle: The Temple in Our Minds
Parts: 3/8
Part 3 Title: The Temple of Rivals
Rating: Explicit
Characters/Pairings: Kylo Ren, Rey, General Hux, OMC, Kylo Ren/Rey
Spoilers: Post-TLJ
Notes: Written for the "tan" prompt for the Summer Mini Challenge.
Links: AO3
Chapter Summary: General Hux moves his pieces into motion, and Kylo Ren has to fight his oldest rival from Snoke’s training days.
General Hux peered out the Star Destroyer’s window as a rustic tan and copper cargo ship prepared to dock in the hangar. He watched as the lights blinked green against the ship’s hull, mottled with dents, laser blast residue, and space dust. He took a deep sigh, smiled to himself, and turned his heel to greet his new special guest.
He had all the pieces in place. After giving a ship-wide order to his troops and personnel, his plans were set into motion in bringing Lord Aicsss into the fold.
He made his way through the corridor to the hangar, watching as the stormtroopers stood in attention immediately at his presence. They fanned out in a structured formation behind him as the ship docked. Guards flanked General Hux in case Aicsss tried anything untoward, though Hux doubted it. Aicsss had too much to gain from this alliance. He was sure later he would most likely double-cross them.
General Hux would just have to double-cross him first. He smirked, and he watched as the hatch opened, and a dark-robed, scaly-skinned biped descended from his ship. His large eyes fixated on Hux, but the general refused to be intimidated. He watched as the dark robes barely covered Aicsss, as he was immodest enough to show off the scales and color of his muscular and defined chest. Hux was just glad he was wearing pants at this point, for the rest of his attire was almost scandalous. He supposed it had something to do with the temperature, and then let his thoughts fall elsewhere.
He bowed cordially to Aicsss immediately, showing not only civility, but the respect to show submission to greater power. Aicsss’ blinked his large red eyes at Hux and did not even nod his head in affirmation. Hux found that rude but continued to smile at him, ignoring his guest’s bad manners.
“Welcome aboard, Lord Aicsss,” Hux said immediately.
The visitor’s gaze swept around the room, and Hux did not doubt that he was surveying the bounty he would inherit once he became Supreme Leader. Well, Hux would let him think he was getting what he wanted. He only cared to use Aicsss to get rid of Kylo Ren.
“A formidable Star Destroyer. Not as magnificent as the Supremacy but it will do,” he said, and Hux had a bad taste in his mouth after he’d mentioned Snoke’s former flagship. He continued to smile.
“Indeed, sir, and the First Order has much more in production and ready to fortify our name in this galaxy,” Hux replied.
“Hn, and more soldiers?” Aicsss asked, gazing at the number of stormtroopers flanking General Hux. He almost looked uncomfortable.
“Yes, my Lord. We have heightened our recruitment and procurement process of adding soldiers. Our indoctrination protocol is stronger than ever,” Hux said.
Aicsss nodded. “Ah, and all of these resources and your Supreme Leader hides in his bed? I would be out there ruling, not meditating like some Jedi fool.”
General Hux nodded. “Indeed, my Lord. I am glad that you have such a vision for the First Order. It is certainly one that Snoke had, and I, have as well.”
Hux turned to the foot soldiers and cadets waiting near Aicsss. A few guards, two burly and unsavory characters appeared behind him on the docking ramp and gave the cadets a suspicious glare.
“Lord Aicsss, we have prepared for you a large suite that you and your guards can comfortably attend,” Hux said. “However, I have one favor to ask of you first.”
“Oh?” Aicsss asked, blinking his red eyes at Hux, a little miffed that he’d had the gall to ask something from him on the first arrival.
“Shall you take over the First Order from Kylo Ren now or at another convenient time?” Hux asked, challenging him.
Immediately, Aicsss opened the side of the robe and pulled out a lightsaber that had two active ends, the color of red and the shape of curved blades, like a scythe. They buzzed at him as he took a stance, indicating to Hux that he was more than ready.
Hux nodded, and then he turned to his soldiers. “Give the command,” he told the new captain. The captain, adorned in a gunmetal suit to distinguish him from the others, nodded at Hux and then barked out orders through his helmet.
Aicsss relaxed his stance, but he was still ready. Hux clasped his hands behind his back, and stepped behind Aicsss, waiting for the next moving piece in his plan.
*
For the moment, Kylo Ren tried to get Rey out of his head. He had to check on the state of the First Order and to make sure that Hux was doing what he should. It was odd; the moment he came out of the Force connection with Rey, Hux’s loathing toward him felt much stronger.
He was also feeling a strange buzz, like static, within the minds of all the soldiers and personnel on the ship. Usually, he could sense their feelings, their fears, and even the emptiness of their compliance, but now he could only feel a wall around everyone. Only pieces of chatter seeped into his mind. He reached into the Force to get a clear picture, concentrating on Hux, the captain, and other personnel that he’d encountered.
All of them had the same, dull static around them.
Something was happening. He could feel it in his bones, and the more he tapped into the Force, the more he could feel the tension and the harbinger of something ominous.
He put his hood over his head and marched out of his throne room. The guards that usually stood at attention were gone. His Knights of Ren, on some mission from General Hux in the outer sectors, were still gone, and he missed the presence of their energy.
He wandered down the halls, hearing only his boots smacking against the floor with an echo. The corridors seemed to be deserted, which was even odder since Kylo Ren was sure to run into many soldiers going to their shifts and performing their duties. Now, it seemed as though the Star Destroyer was only filled with ghosts.
His footsteps paused as he heard something, and he listened for it again. Someone was there. Quickly, he turned a corner and followed the sounds down another corridor headed to the hangar. When he caught up, he just got a glimpse of a couple of stormtroopers as they entered the opened hatch into the hangar.
When he came into the hangar, he stopped. A large portion of personnel of the Star Destroyer was lined up, waiting in formation, and turned toward him. His anger rose when he started to suspect what was happening.
Mutiny. The evidence was as plain as the smirk on General Hux’s face. What a fool, Kylo Ren thought.
“Ah, Supreme Leader, so good of you to join us. We were just welcoming our new guest to the ship. Unfortunately for you, his arrival means something entirely different,” Hux said, and Kylo Ren hated that slimy smirk on his face. He made a motion to choke him by Force, but then another energy had blocked him. The same energy as the static he felt before.
Stepping out in front of General Hux was a face he had not seen in such a long time. The sick, slithery skin and the molten red eyes glared at him. Kylo Ren thought Snoke had disposed of him, and he never thought he’d see Aicsss again. He remembered when they fought under Snoke’s guidance. Aicsss was erratic, temperamental, and cruel. He was also stubborn and defiant, a student that Snoke had trouble manipulating, which had caused the late Supreme Leader much distaste.
“You. So General Hux, who loathes me so much, chooses to enlist a long, forgotten heap of Snoke’s garbage to defeat me,” Kylo Ren said, mocking Aicsss instantly. The Trandoshan looked impassive, but in his red eyes, Kylo Ren could see a flicker of anger. He remembered making it his hobby several times in his youth to annoy Aicsss enough for him to lose his temper. It had not been a difficult task.
“I think the Supreme Leader misunderstands. I felt it necessary to enlist Lord Aicsss here to aspire to be our new Supreme Leader, as our current one does not deserve the title and does nothing but meditate in his throne room all day. Such lethargic rulership is a detriment to the greatness of the First Order.” General Hux spoke before Aicsss could reply. He was unsure if he would, as Aicsss just continued to stare at his opponent. Kylo Ren could feel intrusive energy around him from the Force, no doubt Aicsss prying and forcing himself into his head. As in the past, Aicsss’ mental abilities seemed to be lacking.
“You think Aicsss a more suitable Supreme Leader than I am?” Kylo Ren asked, fury reddening in his face. He did not find this amusing or reasonable. Hux’s disrespect was predictable, even expected, but to enlist such a low-life Force user that Snoke had rejected himself at one point, was plain insulting. Kylo Ren couldn’t wait to crack Hux’s bones the first moment he was able.
Until then, it seemed as though Hux wanted Aicsss to fight him to take the throne. Kylo Ren would have to oblige the request but disappoint Hux on the outcome.
Kylo Ren shed his outer robe over the uniform, and he unbuttoned the cuffs of his sleeves. He ran a finger through his long wild hair and then, acting bored, came into a light, almost uninspired fighting stance as he clicked on his lightsaber and the red energy screamed to life in a luminescent blade.
“Shall we begin?” Kylo Ren asked his opponent, seeming unfazed by Hux’s confident smirk and the lines of stormtroopers that stood at the general’s attention.
Aicsss began to circle him, the power from his lightsaber reflecting a red light against his oily scales. Kylo Ren joined in the dance, watching his opponent carefully, and bringing up memories of his first fight with Aicsss. Sure, the volatile rival bested him on a few skirmishes, but Kylo Ren triumphed against him many times.
In his mind, this time would be no different.
“I was sure you had grown in power, Kylo Ren,” Aicsss finally said to him. “After all, you have become Supreme Leader, though I wonder how. Snoke was very powerful, and you were leagues under his abilities. Was it really that girl Hux has told me about that killed such a great leader?”
Kylo Ren gritted his teeth at the mention of Rey. The reaction must have been visible to Aicsss because he immediately laughed.
“So, it is true. You have fallen for this girl, this other Force user trained by Jedi ghosts,” Aicsss mocked him.
“I do not remember you talking this much when we were training in our youth,” Kylo Ren spat at him, and finally he charged, meeting one of Aicsss’ lightsaber scythes with a shriek from his blade. Their energies met, creating a hollow buzz that ripped through the air like a knife to the ears. Several onlookers winced, and the screeching of their sabers only howled louder as they met. Red light to red light. Blade to Scythe. Fury to Malice.
Aicsss began to quicken his footwork, becoming more physical as they traded hits. He crouched, he leaped, and he dodged Kylo Ren’s blade and outstretched hand of Force power. He countered with his own, pushing Kylo Ren backward a couple of times on his heel.
His pace and erratic movements increased. He launched into the air, bounced off the head of a stormtrooper, and did a twist in the air to come at Kylo Ren from above. The momentum took Kylo Ren back, and he met Aicsss with a lumbering slash full of exasperation and rage. The Force of his move sent Aicsss backward as well, a little unsteady on his feet as he landed from his jab.
Gritting his teeth, Kylo Ren was losing his patience. Every opportunity he got, he tried to throw Aicsss off with Force blasts from his hands. Aicsss would dodge them, and then he would spin and send back some energy of his own. Kylo Ren barely dodged that, and for a moment, during the sweat and danger of battle, Kylo Ren felt something was missing.
Like the battle with Snoke’s guards, he’d felt a synergy of power, a partnership of harmony and balance of energy. He’d even felt their heartbeats, the sounds steady and beating as one.
But now, he only felt himself. He only felt his unhinged rage, his dark loneliness, and his fury toward Hux’s mutiny coming to a head. He felt it bubbling like a dormant volcano, and he focused all of it into the energy of his weapon. He met Aicsss’ blade again and again, and his rival seemed to enjoy Kylo Ren’s struggle to maintain and control his fury within his power.
It was almost like Aicsss knew that Kylo Ren was incomplete, and Kylo Ren didn’t want to entertain the thought. He did feel incomplete, like a half-life without Rey by his side. When she wasn’t fighting with him, like that fateful day in Snoke’s throne room, he was merely a shell. Snoke had groomed him, tainted him, and fostered the darkness that shaped him. And in that shape was his fury, his power, and his demons. With Rey, he was something more. His power was energized, and his visions of her had been clear. Together, they could be so powerful - so wonderful.
As he tumbled further into his thoughts, Aicsss managed to get the upper hand. Kylo Ren started to feel the pain in his hand from the exertion of Force energy and the blows from the lightsaber. Sweat drenched his face, and he struggled to focus on his stance. Aicsss on the other hand seemed barely winded.
Kylo Ren didn’t believe he would lose this fight, but he could. He refused. He had only one plan to go against Aicsss and Hux’s mutinous First Order.
He had to get to Rey. He had to leave the Star Destroyer, hide somewhere, pool his resources, and gather his only worthy ally. Rey.
Aicsss sent another Force-blow his way, and Kylo Ren barely caught his balance on his heels. His opponent had backed himself into the closed hatch of the hangar, and Kylo Ren could see the army and his opponent closing in on him. Hux’s smug face was proof enough that they did not intend for Aicsss to keep him alive. Or perhaps they would and Hux would delight in finding some way to torture him.
Kylo Ren would not let that happen.
He thought of Rey, sitting on her rock in their Force space, chanting the mantra and having their breaths and voices as one. He focused on getting in that space again. Calm. The Silence.
The Force around and inside him felt stronger. Rey… when he spoke her name in his mind, he whispered it across the far reaches of the galaxy. He took a grip of that Force energy, and he let it concentrate on his palm. He gripped his lightsaber tightly, and then he swung it in a half-moon that swept across the hangar.
Soldiers were flung backward. Hux had even flown into a bulkhead, and Aicsss wobbled enough to fall onto his stomach. Bulkheads crackled under the immense pressure, lights flickered and sparked, and the structures around the hangar collapsed. The Force pushed back Aicsss’ ship a few hundred meters, crashing and spinning against the airlock door. Scaffolding from the ceiling began to whine and crunch, falling in a rain of sparks over the troopers and fallen personnel. Hux barely slid out of the way before a heavy metal scrap piece sliced through the floor by his face.
Just as the floor began to rumble like a small earthquake, Kylo Ren made a motion to leave. He secured the hangar hatch as he twisted metal to seal them inside. He hurried down the corridor toward the other hangar where his Silencer awaited. It was only a matter of time before Hux began to order retaliation as he escaped.
He’d flung out a few skeleton crew personnel from his path, and he launched backward the meager number of stormtroopers that guarded his vessel. He came aboard his ship, strapped in, and readied the controls. He blew a hole into the hangar and then dashed his ship out of the Star Destroyer’s weakened shields.
As he maneuvered the ship farther away, he saw fire coming after him from the Star Destroyer. Curling his lip, he made a few course adjustments and increased his speed.
When he was comfortably out of range of their barrage of fire, he jumped into hyperspace. After coming out of it, he floated in the vastness of space without a threat around him. In the silence, he tried to formulate his next plan. Instead, he couldn’t help but think about how he’d gotten there and why he’d been suddenly ousted from the First Order.
He seethed with anger at the turn of events. Of course, he was not surprised about General Hux’s mutiny, but Kylo Ren had always believed that he could handle whatever the man would throw at him. Maybe he underestimated him, and surely now, in hindsight, it was clear Kylo Ren had even underestimated Snoke.
He had no idea that General Hux and the late Supreme Leader Snoke had exchanged secrets and information that were not within his purview. The idea Snoke would keep things from him was not unusual, but for Hux to also keep that secret beyond Kylo Ren’s suspicions seemed less likely. Apparently, he had not given Hux enough credit.
The General had had some training under Snoke to conceal information from him. It was easier for Hux to open himself up to abuse or punishment for his brash and stubborn nature, but Kylo Ren was so angry with himself that he never even considered that Hux was capable of concealing something of this scale.
Now General Hux had allied with Snoke’s former disciple, and this Lord Aicsss was a formidable Force user of the dark side. Kylo Ren had never given Aicsss much credit after Snoke publicly rejected him as his second in command. Kylo Ren now suspected that Aicsss’ rejection was a ruse and that Snoke had always kept him as a sleeper agent, hidden in case Kylo Ren had failed him. Snoke had always bemoaned that Kylo Ren was too weak, too conflicted, and waffled too much between the Light and Dark sides of the Force.
With Aicsss on Hux’s side, Kylo Ren could not easily just scorch and burn the First Order now that they’ve turned against him. Not even with a small group of ragtag rebels could he go against the entire fleet of the First Order and this Lord Aicsss.
Hux presumed that Kylo Ren had never fully earned or deserved the title of Supreme Leader and now this new foe, ally to Snoke, would be more than happy to usurp that title from him.
The only person that Kylo Ren could ally himself with and have any chance was Rey. The only downside of relying on Rey was that she would insist on bringing her Resistance friends with her and make this out to be some sort of uprising for Good and the Balance.
Kylo Ren did not see the merit in allying himself with the Resistance when they had been fractured for several months, and they were still unreliable.
He believed that Rey was more valuable than the cause of the Resistance, another failed notion like it had been before during the time of the Empire. He refused to be caught in this cycle again, the past spiraling back into the present.
If anything, Kylo Ren wanted to convince Rey that all of it needed to end - the First Order and the Resistance, and he still believed he could sway her.
Now with the rise of this Lord Aicsss, he was finally determined to bring her to his side. He was confident that she would join him - moreover, that she would do anything for him if he painted the picture right.
Maybe he could make his cause about Hope. If it was something Rey believed in, she would lend her powers to him readily.
Now, he just needed to ask her to join him again, and this time, he hoped that her answer would be different.
