Hope Remains - A Reylo Story

⭐Nineteen⭐

Zira Ren felt Auni's departure through the Force. It struck at her heart like a knife had been wedged into it and wiggled around loosely. "Your fight is over." Zira said to the darkness.

"Auni Ren is dead." Taka announced to Zira dimly. She tilted her head to the side.

"I know. I felt his passing. They are coming, Taka." Zira was battle ready, blood red hair tied back in braid the fell to her lower back. Her form was clad in Knight uniform but it was ornamented to appear more royal and lithe to accentuate her figure. Chrome chain male hung asymmetrically at her thighs one side lower than the other. Her boots were black and knee high whilst her chest plate was flattering to her feminine undulations.

Taka had removed his helmet once Zira had rid of Hux in the marriage bed. They had donned his blood when they made love that night laughing at the ease of ridding the pasty fool from existence. A cog in the plan. Three full days had passed since then and Zira had known Kylo Ren would soon seek her out on Balmorra. She was no fool. Always far more cunning than he had given credit for so now she stood in the window overlooking the once beautiful planet of Nathema, its surface now barren and dead from an expelling of rituals under Vitiate some two thousands years ago. That was what she hoped to achieve, eternal darkness for an empire just as Vitiate had during the times of the Old Republic before the Jedi and Sith wars.

"We need the Jedi to complete the ritual." Zira commented airily with no amount of care.

Taka strolled forward his tawny locks falling in his eyes. "And what of the clones on Kamino?"

Zira looked at him then, her eyes seemed soft but she was like a serpent. "They won't be ready yet. But darkness doesn't have to grow in clones." Her eyes twinkled with mischief.

Taka raised an eyebrow. "It doesn't?"

"No, it doesn't." She said placing her hand on her abdomen. A gifted secret she had kept hidden from him for weeks now, a child with two Force sensitive parents swathed in the dark side would be beyond powerful. An heir to their legacy it would be.

Taka's eyes widened in shock. For years they had secretly wanted but never managed to gain such a prise. Mayhaps the Gods had blessed them for it was near the end of the war. A child that would only grow in a sizeable volume of power, perhaps stronger than the Skywalker bloodline. "Truly?" He asked full of dark awe for the woman he had claimed as his own years ago when their eyes first beheld each other at the Jedi Academy.

"Truly!" Zira replied and waltzed slowly to the shrine room the Knights had built to honour Darth Vader and Lord Vitiate. The legacy would be completed by the rise of the Knight's clone army and the birth a child blanketed in darkness. They would lead the Galaxy into the abyss and nothing, not even Kylo Ren or his precious Jedi, would stop them.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"They're not here." Ben lamented having searched the entirety of the palace on Balmorra. The base had been abandoned and in its wake, officers and troopers of the First Order had been killed.

Rey looked to Ben furrowing her brows. "Not even the throne room?"

Damon gave the pair a sour expression, "Unless you count the dead body of Hux, then no. Everyone is either dead or gone."

"Where would they have gone?" Rey asked. Ben had ordered her to stay with the Falcon whilst Ben and Damon had scouted out the Knights of Ren in the base to no avail. Rey had been stubborn and argued with her husband to allow her to help. But Ben had remained stoic and told her that she had to keep the Falcon running and protect their children.