Star Wars: The Dark Side Unleashed

Chapter 6

Suddenly we both turned off our lightsabers, and I fought back a smirk. "It seems I underestimated you, Ben," I said.

He glared at me.

"You actually are my true match and we could be fighting here for an eternity." I tossed my lightsaber up in the air and caught it. "What do you say? Best two out of three?" I grinned maniacally at him.

And this would settle it. If he truly was with the Dark Side, he would have no fears about gambling with his own life or mine like that. I certainly didn't, and so far I had come up lucky every time. If the Light Side was in him enough to affect him (which, there was no other way for the Light Side to be. It affected you or it wasn't in you), he would not be able to do it. And maybe he knows this is a test...or maybe not.

I looked up at him. "Well? Decision time!" I sang.

And he didn't disappoint.

Although, to be fair, I would have enjoyed either choice. Either he says he can't do it and I backstab him some how, or we fight. And the one who wins kills the other. How droll.

"I can't gamble with my own life like that! Much less, than with that of another human being," Kylo whispered. Ben. Ben whispered.

"Well, then, you are lost!" I mocked. "How do you want your remains carted back to Snoke? Dismembered? Just your head? Perhaps burned to ash? Though admittedly that might be hard to do...it's your choice." My fingers itched to turn on my lightsaber and fight again.

Not just fight. But kill. It had been a little since I had felt someone's life Force leave their body, and oh, how I ached for that feeling again. Such a burning pleasure that it was, I was almost addicted to it. And that pleased Snoke very greatly.

Snoke. I growled. If I survived this (because it's all one big gamble, right?) I would have his head. On a platter. While I ruled as Empress of the Galaxy, with chaos and disorder and pain and grief at my fingertips.

And suddenly Ben was in my thoughts. He wasn't just watching them pass by, though, he was in them, wading in them, disgusted by how dark I was.

I closed my eyes and let him see. After all, if a Sith cannot stomach the feelings of another Sith, does he have any right to call himself that? Kylo Ren was nothing more than a fallen Jedi. A little child demanding people take his tantrums seriously, renaming himself after his favorite hero, but not actually able to handle the real world.

My lightsaber flipped on and I blocked Ben's furious thrust at me. "Take. It. Back," he hissed.

I opened my eyes wide. Blinked. "No," I retorted. "I meant every word!"

Wildly, he swung at me again, and I blocked it. His next few strokes were sloppy, and he was enraged at that, tightening them and whipping his lightsaber at me as fast as he could.

I was faster, and every time he swung, I blocked. And then I disarmed him. Again. But I was smart this time and used the Force to pin him to the ground while I attached the handcuffs Snoke had custom-designed for me to his hands.

While he writhed on the ground and screamed insults at me, I inspected his lightsaber. Igniting it, I noticed the wavy appearance and how it seemed to almost vibrate in my hand. "You've got a faulty crystal, Ben," I chastised. "You know those things are only slightly less trustworthy than me, right? You wouldn't gamble with our two lives but you would gamble with your own...curious. You know that one day the whole thing is just gonna go kapow, right?"

I turned it off and sat down on the rocks. "Ouch," I grumbled. "Why couldn't you have chosen a not-so-hot planet?" I began unscrewing it, while Ben continued to hurl epithets at me.

Inside I did find a cracked crystal. "The power of something so vastly unpredictable," I mused. "It calls to everyone who uses something like it. It definitely calls to Snoke, to you, to most Sith..."

Something Ben screamed finally got my attention.

I stared at him. "How dare you?" I said quietly. "How dare you call me something so unoriginal?!"

Completely shaken by my response, Ben gaped at me.

I stood up. And calmly threw his lightsaber into the lava.

Then I ignited my own and stepped closer to him. "Isn't it scary, knowing I have your life in my hands? I wouldn't trust myself with my own life. Well. Actually. I guess I do." I placed the blade near his throat. "Point is. You have no idea what I am going to do right now. At all. And that's a beautiful thing, isn't it? Unpredictability?"

Ben raised his angry eyes to mine. "I know you won't hurt me. You're rambling too much to even think about killing me." He smiled half-heartedly. "You want me to live because you find me attractive."

I stepped back, faking shock. "You're right. About that I find you attractive. I always have, Ben, ever since I first saw you, and you knew that. Why else would you spend so much time with such a strange little girl?"

"Kindness," he mumbled.

"Which you now regret. Ah, how sad. But as per the not hurting you part, darling, you were wrong."

I swung my lightsaber at him, and watched him scream in pain as I cut open part of his shoulder.