Star Wars Short Stories

Torn

"GET DOWN!"

The stormtroopers around Ben ducked as soon as a large piece of equipment burst into flames to their left. Ben simply shielded his head, adjusted the black half-mask that covered the lower half of his face and continued to follow the familiar presence that clouded his judgment, leaving the soldiers behind.

"Ren! Where are you going?" The question came from Armitage... or now, General Hux, as he'd just been promoted.

"I have to do something, it's the force." Ren lied and kept walking towards the center of cloud city.

"If Snoke finds out that you might have jeopardized the mission-"

"The only way that he'll find out is if you tell him, correct?" Ben hoped that he could trust Hux, since they had initially gotten along, but he hadn't known him very long. He would find out later how sorely mistaken he was. The new General gritted his teeth at the position this new prodigy was putting him in.

"You better have a good excuse later Ren," he ducked as blaster fire ensued from the hallway that the troopers had run down, "you owe me."

Ben turned and ran towards the presence that he felt, slaying security guards and the few civilians that got in his path with his newly constructed lightsaber. As he neared one of the sets of double doors, the presence he felt was the strongest it'd been since they landed, and he was sure that she knew he was near. With a flick of his wrist, the doors slid open and sure enough, she stood at the far end of the room, on the other side of a large table with a map spread across it, watching him. There were a few fallen troopers by the opposite door, and a blaster hung on her left hip.

"Ben-"

"My name is Kylo Ren now." He eyed her as the doors slid shut, not fully knowing why he'd come to find her, he'd just felt her presence and followed it. He cursed himself silently for falling to the whims of the light side once again.

"You'll always be Ben to me, no matter what Snoke wants to call you. You'll always be my Ben." The general breathed and barely managed to keep from breaking down at the sight of her son. He clenched his fists at his sides and held in the yell that he wanted to release into the air.

"I'm not yours anymore. Attachments are a weakness." He spoke through his teeth.

"What about Hadassa?" A tear fell from his eye when the General mentioned the girl from the academy that he'd cared so much about. "What about Myers and Devon, Ben? They looked up to you!"

"AND I LOOKED UP TO YOU!" His words hung in the air for a long moment before he tore at the mask that covered half of his face and let it fall to the floor. "Look at me, for once. Don't you see I'm being torn apart from the inside?? I'm powerless to stop this by myself and you and... father did nothing to help me." He took a step towards her and choked out the next words, "You sent me away." Leia ran to her son and cupped his face in her hands, wiping away the angry tears that rested on his cheeks and looking into his hurting eyes.

"Ben... I never wanted to hurt you, we sent you to Luke because we thought he could help with the pain you were feeling... I didn't know how to help you. I never thought..." The words caught in her throat and she embraced her son. "I'm so sorry. Please, just come home, I would do anything to help you, I miss you so much."

Reluctantly, he wrapped his arms around his mother, letting her comfort him for the first time in years. Suddenly, he tensed when the presence of a certain red-haired general and a brigade of troopers became too close to ignore. Pulling away, he looked at his mother and let out a shaky breath before clipping on his mask.

"If Hux sees me with you, they'll kill both of us." Ben explained. "It's time for you to leave."

"Ben, I'm not leaving you." Leia protested, clinging tightly to his sleeve. The door slid open and Ben moved to push his mother out of the way of the stormtroopers incoming fire but before he could, she had grabbed her blaster and taken both of them down. Then walking towards the door with quick, long steps, he only paused to look back at the woman who he wished he didn't still love.

"I'm not coming back."

***

I promise they won't all be this heartbreaking.

Hey guys! If you're enjoying this, check out my Star Wars fanfiction,

Restoration of Light