The Skywalker Legacy – A speculative one-shot on Episode 8

By DarthPlageuis 2122

Note to the Reader: I am still working on Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side. Chapter 3 is taking a bit longer to write than anticipated. I have seen Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens three times. I've been mulling over some theories especially as to who Rey's parents are. This is purely speculative and I have to thank a close friend of mine for suggesting the possibility of this scenario although the EU hints at this possibility when we consider that Jacen Solo is the one responsible for killing Mara Jade. As usual, constructive criticism is welcome here.

Obviously there are spoilers for The Force Awakens here. You have been warned. Star Wars is owned by Disney and LucasFilm. I am just playing in the world they've created.

Chapter One - Fateful Meetings

Finn and Poe were off fighting the First Order. She could feel them under heavy fire. Where they were was unclear to her. Luke had always told her that the future was always in motion, to be mindful of the fact that she couldn't take every vision she saw seriously. One of her gifts was a mix of premonition and telemetry. She could sense the whole history of a person's experience merely by touching an object. Skywalker had refined that trait in her during her training. Nevertheless, her thoughts lingered on Finn. To say that she missed him was an understatement. Though they hadn't seen each other in six months, her feelings for him only grew stronger. Though she valued her independence she also admired Finn's desire to protect her at all costs. Indeed, his innate desire to defend her almost resulted in his death at the hands of Kylo Ren. After what they had gone through only a year or so earlier, it was hard for them not to have strong feelings for each other. They had both seen what that monster had done to Han Solo…his own father…on the Starkiller Base. It chilled her spine as she made her way down a set of metal stairs. He was close. She felt him.

Luke Skywalker had taught her well. He told her about how Ben Solo fell to the Dark Side. He had only been a teenager. His parents had sent him to train with Luke and the first group of Jedi. It seemed promising at first. As the New Republic rose up—so too would a new Jedi Order rise to defend the galaxy once again. It was not meant to be. Snoke had manipulated the boy who already had an obsession with the legacy of his grandfather. Luke told her about how Ben had gathered other disaffected vulnerable types around him and formed the Knights of Ren. How they betrayed Luke and the Jedi—smashing them with one fatal murderous attack. Luke had been lucky to escape the massacre alive. But he had not been left unscathed. He never told her what Kylo Ren had taken from him, but it hurt him still.

She asked, but he refused to speak to her on that subject preferring instead to linger on stories of the past—Ben Kenobi, Yoda, the struggle to redeem Anakin Skywalker—the once blissful marriage that his sister had with Han Solo before the Dark Side reared its ugly head. She tiptoed out and grabbed hold of the old and worn lightsaber on her waist. She held it up waiting.

"Enough of this. Show yourself already." There was a rustling in the distance. Then the familiar figure of Kylo Ren stepped out in front of her. This time he was wearing his mask, not just for show but to hide the scar she had left behind on his face.

"I knew we would meet again." She rolled her eyes but didn't ignite her lightsaber.

"You haven't changed Kylo."

"But you have…I have no doubt who trained you." He paused for a moment. "Luke is a fool if he thinks you can ever hope to beat me."

"He has other plans in mind that don't simply rely on me. If I do recall however you were on the receiving end of my blade the last time we met."

"Beginner's luck Rey…you've been trained so I have…the only difference is that I've been at this much longer than you." Her eyes narrowed as she looked at her opponent.

"You Knights of Ren fight in the shadows…when you have to confront something directly you aren't so tough…" That stung him but he did his best not to let it show.

"So that was your handiwork outside? A pity…the Seven were always so good together as a unit…it won't be the same without them…"

"You're going to pay for what you've done."

"Who's going to make me? You? Come now…even with your powers you cannot destroy the Dark Side of the Force." He ignited his crossgaurded lightsaber. "Or are you too afraid for your friends Rey?" She shrugged his taunt and ignited the blue lightsaber gripping it with both hands.

"I thought so." He grunted as he struck down hard but she parried him and pushed him back. Their blades clashed again as they landed blow after blow. She leapt over him and struck toward his back but he blocked her shot. "So…my uncle has taught you well."

"He learned from the best," she clenched her teeth as she struck his blade and slammed him hard against a wall. He pushed her back with the Force sending her flying but she recovered and pulled the blue blade up in a defensive position.

"Rey…it doesn't have to be like this. My offer still stands. Let me train you." She could tell he was sincere.

"Never." She ran toward him and slashed to his right then back up but he bent back allowing both of her attacks to miss him by inches. He kicked her hard in the chest and struck her shoulder lightly singing her. She grunted but swung her hand back striking his helmet hard as she lunged striking his side. He backed away holding his chest. "Take that damned helmet off Ben…accept who you really are!" He pressed a button and with a hiss the helmet opened and he threw it down hard to the ground. She held back a gasp as she saw the scar running down his face—she had done that to him. Whatever she said had provoked another reaction in him. In spite of himself he couldn't complete purge himself of the pull of the Light Side.

"Only my parents have the right to call me that name. You don't have that privilege." He began to taunt her as he moved closer to her with his blade held to the side. "In fact, you don't even know your parents. You don't have a clue who they are. All this business about how they're going to come back and get their little girl? It's a lie Rey and you know it. Maz Kanata told you as much didn't she?"

"Shut up!"

"I must have touched a nerve with that one." She raised her blade as she closed her eyes to keep her anger in check. "You feel what I feel now. Those feelings…that rage you have is more powerful than anything Luke taught you."

"You're a liar." He lifted up his blade high over his head and struck down hard with a might blow. She lunged forward blocking him. He pressed down hard as they both clashed together. Their faces were very close together. They stayed that way for a moment. She then swung around and hit his side and landed another kick at him. He was too slow for her and she struck him again. This time he fell to the ground. He spit up blood from his mouth as she slammed her left foot hard on his chest and aimed her saber at his neck. "It's over." He smiled and started to laugh.

"It's not over Rey."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're not actually going to kill me. It's just not what the Jedi do." He paused and looked away for a moment. "Besides…if you kill me you'll never know the truth about your family." Hearing this she lowered her guard. He summoned all his strength and stabbed her in the waist then slammed her against the wall.

"Never lower your defenses." She was going to strike him back but he slammed her face hard into the wall, letting her crumple down to the ground. Now they were both bloodied. He grabbed the back of her head to finish her off but she moved quickly. Rey grunted as she quickly slashed at his legs and knocked his blade out of his hand. She brought down her blade hard piercing the wound Chewbacca had left in his lower chest. He screamed out loudly as she twisted the blade and then held it to his neck again. She wiped her face. There was some blood pouring down her leg now.

"Ben…you won't make me kill you." He smiled at her. She looked so much like him in this moment that it surprised him that she really didn't know the truth. As he lay on that floor, the internal conflict he had always had rose to the surface. What was he really doing? What had he done? How was it possible that his mother and his uncle still wanted him back home after all that had passed between them? It didn't make any sense. His eyes linked with hers. She could sense the turmoil in him, but this time she didn't let it faze her one bit.

"I have to tell you the truth Rey…"

"What are you talking about?"

"You say you can't kill me…but you will after what I tell you…" She held herself steady. Were there tears coming welling in his eyes or was this just another ploy? He was going to do the same thing he did with Han. She wasn't going to let that happen. Kylo heard her thoughts and preempted her actions. "I know what you think of me…I am a monster. I wanted to be Vader but I am not…" Then she did something that most would have considered crazy. She extinguished her lightsaber and put it back to her side. "What are you doing?" She extended her hand out to him. He was confused, but he grabbed it.

"What Luke would want me to do. Your mother misses you…"

"I know. But I can't go back and face her."

"In the light there is always forgiveness." He turned to her spitting out more blood in the process.

"Not for what I've done. That's why the next time we meet one of us will die."

"Why?" He looked away choosing not to answer that question.

"Don't you want to know how you ended up on Jakku?" The name of the planet stung her.

"My parents left me there." He replied with a mocking laugh.

"By the Force you really don't know do you?"

"Why do you think Anakin's lightsaber gave you visions connected with Luke? Do you think that was an accident Rey?" She looked down. The young Jedi didn't like where this was going. "Your mother was a Jedi Knight…ex-Imperial if you can believe that. She was one of the first new Jedi that Uncle Luke trained at the academy." He paused and turned his back on her unable to look at her face. "The first person I killed during the slaughter was her." That news shook Rey to her core. She refused to give in to her anger at this revelation. "But then I did something worse. I wanted to hurt your father badly…taking away his wife wasn't enough."

"What did you do?"

"I took his five year old daughter away and let him believe she was dead." Everything started to make sense now for her.

"You…you left me in Jakku."

"Yes."

"The vision… the memory I saw…I was there at the slaughter…that was a First Order transport leaving Jakku."

"Precisely."

"Is my father alive?" There was silence. She lost her patience and pushed him up against the wall. "Is he alive?"

"Yes…very much so."

"Who is he?"

"Luke Skywalker." The revelation hit her hard. She let go of Kylo Ren and walked away from him before she crumpled down to the floor. "That's how I know you can never forgive me." Then the realization hit her. Luke was her father. Leia and Han were her aunt and uncle…and Kylo Ren…

"How could you do this to us? To me?"

"I didn't realize it until after they told me that some girl took the droid with her aboard the Millenium Falcon…" He paused sighing. "That's when I put it together. I should've known when I had you in the interrogation room. What other reason could have led us together again?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Why? Why did you have to kill my mother?"

"She refused to back away…I had to kill her to become a true follower of the Dark Side." Rey moved closer to him. She had to know the answers now.

"Why didn't you kill me…you could've hurt Luke in any way you wanted…killing me would've been worse…" Kylo Ren…Ben Solo…it was getting hard for him to know who he really was anymore. He searched his mind to answer her questions. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted to answer her questions.

"I couldn't kill you. It was raining after we had slaughtered everyone at the academy. I saw you there crying. I knew who you were. Something in me told me not to kill you. So I took you to Jakku and left you there." He paused. "Uncle Luke is very powerful…I am surprised he hasn't figured it out yet." He felt something hard hit him in the side. The hilt of his lightsaber landed right next to his foot.

"Get out!" He was shocked.

"You're letting me go?" There were tears running down her face.

"Get out now…before I change my mind." He grabbed his blade and his mask.

"Why…how could you…"

"Because you're my blood…whether I like it not…that's something worth fighting for." He put the mask on his head.

"What will you tell Luke?"

"I don't know yet." He nodded his head and walked away. She grabbed her side as she watched him go. Rey had much to think about now. She had many questions to ask. And Luke…how would she breaks this to him? She didn't know at all. Something stirred within her as she stared at Kylo Ren leaving her presence. "Ben…" He stopped by the stairway, being careful not to turn around. "I'll fight for you…like Han did." Whether that affected him or not, she couldn't tell. He stayed put for a few more moments and then climbed up the steps leaving her to deal with her thoughts. She smiled for a moment...for now she wasn't just an anonymous scavenger any longer. She wasn't "no one" anymore. She knew her name and that mattered more than anything else. Rey Skywalker had a destiny and it would bring her to cross paths again with Ben Solo for better and for worse.

General Leia Organa felt the tremor in the Force almost as viscerally as when she felt her beloved husband die on the Starkiller Base. There was something else gnawing at her this time. She sank in her seat considering what it meant. Rey was hurting. She could feel it thousands of miles across the galaxy. Luke had trained her well, but she had desired to face Ben Solo alone and against everyone's better judgment. Suddenly Leia felt another presence in the room with her. It began with a whispering voice but then grew clearer.

"Leia!" It was calling her name. The voice sounded sweet to her ears. She turned around and gasped as she saw the figure standing in front of her. It was a man dressed in the old Jedi robes looking much like Obi-Wan Kenobi did before his untimely death. There was a bluish white tint to his figure but he was human. His face was different—it looked a lot like Luke's face. It hit her then who was addressing her. She felt a mix of emotions. It was her father's ghost.

"I don't want to talk with you."

"She's in pain. She needs you and Luke more than ever."

"Why would you care? You caused all of this…"

"Luke told you what I said to him." He paused looking down. "He was right about me in the end." A single tear traced down her cheek.

"Yes. So he was. But my son...he's lost father. I don't think we'll ever get him back." Anakin Skywalker's features softened as he moved closer to his daughter. She was older than the last time she saw them on Endor but he recognized her inner strength right away. That had not changed over the years, she was as determined and as stubborn as ever.

"He doesn't know the truth. Snoke has lied to him about the Empire and about my legacy. But he has not been with the Dark Side as long as I was when Luke met me."

"Still…something happened. Something big…Rey confronted him."

"How could I not feel it? My grandchildren were fighting each other Leia, it caused pain to see Skywalkers fighting each other like that. There was hatred and bitter recriminations on both sides." Hearing this sudden revelation shocked her senses.

"Rey? Who is she?" Anakin sighed.

"Leia…your brother married…he has a daughter who he doesn't realize exists. He has thought her dead all this time. When Ben finally turned and led the Knights of Ren on a rampage of the new academy…he left her alive." Leia turned toward her father's ghost.

On Ahch-To, Luke Skywalker paced back and forth nervously. He heard the Millenium Falcon land in the distance. Leia had already told him about their father's appearance to her a few days earlier. Rey came up the stairs, fresh wounds covered her but she seemed all right. She dropped her staff to the ground and approached Luke.

"Did you know?"

"I couldn't have known for sure…but that day we first met I felt it in the Force…you looked familiar. I didn't have to ask who you were or why you were here…I knew it in my heart."

"Why didn't you tell me you suspected it then?" He sat down near the tomb by the cliff's edge. Rey noticed it more clearly now. "Is that where you buried her?" Luke sighed.

"Sit down please." He paused for a moment as he lowered his hood completely and took off his outer robe laying over Rey. She was shivering, but it wasn't simply because of the breeze. She smiled at him as he put her arm around you. "I am sorry we had to meet again this way."

"It's not your fault."

"It is Rey."

"How?"

"Leia always feared for the boy's life…"

"My cousin Ben?" Luke nodded his head.

"He was fascinated with your grandfather. Not with his life as a Jedi Knight during the Clone Wars…not with his redemption on the Second Death Star…something he never entirely grasped anyway. No, Ben was obsessed with Darth Vader."

"Father," she smiled as she said it. Then she grew more nervous. "What happened with Ben? I saw things when I held your lightsaber…he told me some more…but I need to know the truth."

"Your cousin as I am sure you realize is much older than you. When I started the long process of reforming the Jedi Order we had a lot of promising candidates. Most of them were young, like Ben. They trained very well. They were all dedicated to the Order. It took a lot of convincing, but somehow I got Han and Leia on board with letting me train Ben directly as a youngling. He must have nine or ten years old when he first began training. We didn't know much about the old Jedi Code. Though I had learned enough to know that the old Code needed to be reformed…your grandfather's fall could have been avoided entirely if the Code had not been so stringent on attachments. You see for most of the existence of the Order very few Jedi were ever allowed to marry. Any form of attachment was considered a stepping stone to the Dark Side of the Force. For a time, that made sense. That was part of the reason why Yoda saw me as being too old for the training when I first met him at Dagobah. Force-sensitive children were often taken from their parents at a very young age and raised at the various Jedi Temples that existed across the universe." He paused to see if Rey understood. She kept her eyes focused on him as he continued speaking. "I made the decision that I didn't want things to be that way here." He looked away from her. "Those first few years were exhilirating. We must have had more than fifty apprentices and Jedi learning here. Leia even came a few times to learn from me directly..." He paused again. "And to visit with Ben. He was so happy then. I really believed we could shake off Snoke's influence on him. But I was wrong. Even so, I always had someone at my side who believed at me. She became an odd sort of friend to me. I took it upon myself to train her alongside Ben."

"Is that how you met my mother?"

"Yes."

"Ben said she was ex-Imperial." He laughed.

"It was a little more complicated than that I am afraid." She smiled.

"When I first met your mother, the first thing she said she wanted to do was kill me. And she was very serious about that."

"Why?"

"She served as a secret agent of sorts…she knew even more things going on than your grandfather did. She knew so much that when she defected from the Empire she personally led the raid for the plans for the first Death Star?"

"Rogue One? That was my mother?"

"Yes Rey." She looked at the tomb they were sitting across from.

"Is she buried there?"

"Yes."

"We were so happy when you were born. We really were. I helped her become one of the first full-fledged Jedi of the new order. And for a time, it seemed like all was well. Until Ben was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force." She uttered the name that came to her mind without a second thought.

"Snoke…" She paused as she asked her question, "Who is he?"

"I have my thoughts on who he could be. I believe he had something to do with my father and with Palpatine. He was around during the Clone Wars that much I know."

"Why the interest in Ben?"

"He's not a typical Sith Lord if that's what you're asking. He wanted someone who embodied both the light and the dark. Ben had that. So do you by virtue of your parentage." He paused. "You felt it pulling you on the Starkiller Base." She turned away.

"Yes. I wanted to kill him for what he had done to Han and to Finn." Luke nodded his head.

"You heard a voice didn't you?" She was silent but he could tell she was answering his question with her silence. "It was Snoke telling you kill Kylo Ren."

"How did you know?" Luke gave her a somewhat mocking smirk.

"I am a Jedi Master, you learn a lot after thirty years of communing with the Force."

"What do we do now?"

"You need to see your aunt. She has a mission for you, Poe, and Finn. Besides, I am sure Finn would like to see you as well." She blushed a bit. "I know the history between you two. It's actually quite a lot like mine, Leia's, and Han's. The three of us and Chewie really knew how to get out of tight spaces."

"Did you feel his death?" It felt like a stupid question to ask. But she wanted to hear her father's answer.

"I did."

"He meant a lot to you."

"He saved my life many times. I returned the favor to him. He married my twin sister, we were brothers in everything but blood."

"You still think Kylo could come back from the precipice."

"I saw it happen with my father and he had been a Dark Lord of the Sith for the better part of twenty years by the time we clashed sabers. It's not impossible. But Snoke is difficult. You cannot face him alone."

"Who's going to come with me…you?" He pulled out a worn hilt of a lightsaber and ignited its green blade. He played with it for a moment listening contently to the hum it made before extinguishing it and looking at his lost child.

"Why not Rey? Only together can we do this. Only a father and daughter together can bring your cousin back to the light." She smiled at him as she stood up looking at the coast admiring the waves crashing at the shore. There was a new mission now. She felt it deeply in her soul. Her father put his arm around her shoulder as they gazed out together contemplating what their next move would be.