Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Aftermath

1: Strangers

The twin suns were beautiful in the sky of the desert planet.
She felt millions of presences, laying hands on her shoulders, whispering words of encouragement.
"What happened to all of you? What are your stories?" Rey asked, but of course, there was no reply.
"Who the hell are you talking to?" an unfamiliar voice asked. Rey whirled around to see a tall man, perhaps in his early to mid 30s, with dark green hair and an odd jade tint to his skin and a mysterious look on his face. What Rey was more astonished to see, however, was a lightsaber hilt hanging from the mans hip.
"Who are you?" Rey asked tentatively, looking to the weapon before meeting the strangers eyes. He gave a cocky smile, and Rey suddenly felt a deep sense of unease, deep in her stomach. "All the Jedi are dead.. so who are you?" she repeated the question in a stronger voice.
"Who are we, you mean?" said the stranger. Rey crossed her arms and BB-8 made a strange noise from by her side. A second figure stepped out from behind him. It was a skinny, tall human who looked to be in her early 20s, wearing (possibly spray painted?) Mandalorian armour. She sighed deeply as if she would rather be anywhere else.
"Who are you?" Rey repeated for the third time, this time impatiently. She narrowed her eyes as the young woman removed her helmet to reveal fair skin and deep blue eyes, and well as long and very dark hair. "You don't know us," she said in smooth voice. The green-haired man extended a hand, and Reys feeling of unease deepened. She took a couple steps back, paused, then ignited her blade. The yellow haze stood out with the sand, barely missing clashing with the suns behind her.
The Mandolorian pulled out a blaster, but the man stopped her, stooping down to say something quietly to her in her ear. The girl huffed angrily, but lowered her weapon slowly.
"Okay, I've had enough. Are you just going to stand around, or tell me who you are?" Rey almost shouted. She was getting annoyed, and confused. Who was this man and his companions, and why did he carry the weapon of a Jedi?
"We aren't here to fight. This feisty one here is Amaliea, and my name is Jacen." The man pointed to the young woman, and then to himself. "Yes, the Jedi are dead, but that doesn't mean that no one in the galaxy is force-sensitive."
Rey shook her head in confusion, and Jacen turned back to his companion. "Amal, show her."
The girl huffed again, furrowing her brow, and blew hair out of her face before turning and lifting something from the bag she had sling over her shoulder. It was a hilt, metal.
She groaned and ignited it, revealing a black, swordlike saber.
"What on.." Rey muttered, stepping an inch closer despite herself. The lightsaber was unlike anything she had ever seen. Amaliea deactivated the blade as quickly as she had ignited it and slipped the thing back into her bag.
"What do you want from me?" Rey angled her brows and brandished her lightsaber in Jacens face, which he met up with his own weapon just as fast. "I don't want to fight you," he said seriously. "Frankly, you're better than me, and I don't feel like dying today."
Rey got a strange flash of Bens face across her mind and stumbled backwards into the sand. "Hmm, or maybe I could win," Jacen grinned. He crouched down beside her. "Listen. Me and Amaliea want to rebuild the Jedi, but on our own terms. No unnecessary rules, maybe make it less like a cult that kidnaps little kids. Who knows if that's how they got into their whole mess, even before Palpatine began using them."
The feeling in Reys core faded, replaced by a small feeling that someone was pushing her from the inside. She touched her stomach in confusion until it settled before answering.
"No."
"What?!" Amaliea and Jacen said together, in disbelief.
"The Jedi are finished, and I don't know where you two came from, who you are, since you won't tell me, so no, I'm not going hunting for children who are force-sensitive."
"Syndulla." Jacen said after a minute.
"What?"
"That's my last name."
Rey blinked a few times. "As in, Hera Syndulla?"
Jacen nodded and grumbled something that Rey couldn't hear.
"General Syndulla didn't make it out of the battle, Jacen," Rey said quietly, remembering the vision of her legend-old ship, The Ghost, falling from the skies of Exegol in a fury of fire and smoke.
Surprisingly, Jacen only nodded sombrely, and it was Amaliea that Rey caught brushing away tears.
"You knew, then?" Rey asked. Jacen nodded again, once.
"She raised us, along with my mother." Amaliea added.
"And who is your mother?"
"Sabine Wren."
Rey shook her head. "I've never heard of her."
"She wasn't a part of the Rebellion. She left, years ago, before I was born, after the fall of the Empire, to search for my father."
Amaliea gestured to the sky but the her eyes weren't focused on anything in particular.
"She took Ahsoka Tano, my godmother with her."
"Ahsoka Tano.."
Even though she had never heard the name before, Rey felt like she knew who this was. "She's.. a Jedi, isn't she?"
The girl looked confused. "Yeah- more or less.. but how did you know that..?"
Rey opened her mouth to reply, before she realized that she didn't know.
Jacen ran a hand through his green hair and closed his eyes.
"Will you come with us, Rey?" he asked gently.
Rey looked up at the sky, at the spot of dark where Amaliea had pointed to. She had just returned from a very long, very dread-filled and tiring adventure. She had lost people. Her friends, her supporters, and Ben..
As she though of his name, the feeling in her stomach returned. The feeling as though someone had kicked her from the inside.
She held her stomach until the feeling went and took a deep breath. She opened and closed her eyes, blinking at the stars above.
"Tell me more." she turned back to them. Jacen took a deep breath. His posture eased and he smiled a bit.
"I was thinking we would start with three kids. One for each of us to train, but we'd all do it, really. Jedi are supposed to be peacekeepers, right? So that's what we'll raise them as. I don't know exactly how we're going to find them, but that's where you come in."
Rey hummed. "So.. your plan is to what? Just take a smaller number of kids to brainwash into our cult?" she smirked so that the others knew she was mostly joking. However, Amaliea peered at Jacen as if to say she has a point.
"No, no." the man protested. "Well, I guess if you look at it that way. But I was thinking more of like.. a family, or something?"
Rey scoffed as she tried to picture it. "You think we could be a family..? I've got friends, I have ."
"So do we." Amaliea suddenly cut in. "We have a lot of people. A lot of family. More than we know how to deal with. Point is, there's a good chance these kids won't. Have homes, I mean. They're different, and I know from experience that a lot of people don't always like different. And if we do our job right, they'll go on to take three more apprentices, and they'll take three more, and so on, and so on."
The girl sighed again. "Look, we can't make you come. But you're powerful, and we could use your leadership. Our teacher is amazing, but she's old. We need you if this is gonna work."
After she had finished her monologue, both Amaliea and Jacen went silent. Rey looked to BB-8 at her side. The droid whistled something confidently. Rey glanced back at the strangers- well, not so much strangers, now.
It was funny. Only a few years ago she had been no one. Now it felt like she was at the centre of everything. It was a lot, but she could handle a lot. And their idea was good. It could work.
Rey exhaled one last long, considering, breath. And then she decided.
"Alright." she said bracingly. "Let's find some kids, shall we?"