The Broken Ones | REYLO [Complete]

35. Holding On and Letting Go

"They knew the risks, Poe," Finn reminds me, as if somehow he knew what I was thinking. "They made their choice believing in us wholeheartedly. Don't let their sacrifice be for nothing."

Don't let their sacrifices be for nothing. We have to win. For us, for them, for everyone in the galaxy and for their children, and their children's children.

This stops here and now. It has to.

--BEN--

The Emperor lifts his hands to attack, eyes wide, and we're seized in an invisible grip that yanks me to my knees and sends our lightsabers skittering across the stone floor and out of sight. I brace myself to fight the onslaught of lightning I know is coming.

What hits us instead is far worse.

It lasts only an instant, but the pain is unbearable. Fire races through every nerve in my body, starting in the center of my chest and spreading quickly until it feels as if I've been submerged in the lava seas of Mustafar. Then the fire turns to lead and the only thing holding my body upright is the Force, my weight of limbs suddenly more than I can bear.

The attack stops as quickly as it'd started and the Emperor withdraws as if he'd been hit by a blaster shot. He stares at his hands in wonder, bending each bony finger one by one as they stitch themselves back together.

Impossible. I don't believe what I'm watching, and it appears the Emperor doesn't, either. Severed fingers lengthen as new bone grows and knuckles form, muscle and skin extending and tightening until both hands are healed and whole. He raises them in front of his face.

"The life-force of your bond," he rasps, voice unusually soft, "a dyad in the Force." The healing doesn't stop at his hands, I realize, as what once appeared as paper-thin skin draped over a skull begins to resemble an actual face. "A power like life itself. Unseen for generations. And now..." His gaze moves from his hands to Rey, then to me, with an expression of crazed giddiness. "...the power of two restores the one true Emperor."

Palpatine raises his hands against us once again and the fire resumes, licking a fever through my body while simultaneously draining every ounce of strength I have left. It feels as if an icy fist has dug into my chest and is slowly tugging my beating heart out of my body, pulling every vein with it.

I can see it now, my life force and Rey's, yanked from our individual bodies and joining, weaving around one another like a thread being pulled into the Emperor's outstretched fingertips. I fight to stay conscious, the edges of my vision now black. Rey's sudden shriek of agony consumes me with a different pain and I can no longer tell the difference between sweat and tears tracking down my face. All I can hear is her scream, and the cacophonous laughter of her grandfather.

Blackened, rotting lips fill and regain normal color. Milky-white eyes emerge from sunken sockets, now glowing vivid red. How is it possible, I wonder, that the very thing we thought would destroy him...is actually making him stronger?

I'm so tired...

I need to rest. Just for a moment.

The thread snaps and I fall to the ground in a painful heap. Rey's cries cease immediately. Good. She's unconscious.

My body can't handle any more. My eyes close, unable to find the strength to stay open. I'm completely numb. At last, sleep drifts close enough for me to reach out and grasp it. I drift off, desperate for rest, and the last thing before I slip into sweet nothingness is the Emperor rasping:

"Look what you have made."

The sun beams down on me as I wake, warming my body from a chill I can't recall. Grass billows all around, a gentle breeze whispering softly across the meadow as I take in my surroundings. A short distance away I spot a small crowd, figures whose faces I can't quite make out at this distance.