To the End: Reylo {Complete}

One

AN: It's been a while, but I'm back y'all. This first chapter is over 2500 words, so I hope you all enjoy!

Silence.

It was how the world began.

The saber lay in the center of the table in the map room, and it was as though nothing had changed. Perhaps she was different now. It had been centuries since she had held the saber in her hand, since she had carried blaster and heavy staff. As she stepped closer, her boots touching the deep blue and gold of the carpet, she pretended not to notice as the others watched her. She simply stepped and reached a shaking hand out, and took the broken thing in her palms.

Surely someone had cleaned it before they called her in. Centuries centuries surely it had been centuries and yet the metal was reflecting her face back at her. She let out the breath she had been holding. The saber and the bruised metal remembered her. It should have crumpled by now and turned into dust, but it was as though time didn't matter. The relic was the same.

Finally she looked up at the faces watching her movements.

"I don't understand. How did you find this?"

"Rey," Finn-who had fought beside her and for her-stepped forward, "the galaxies need you. The First Order is pursuing our camps in the tunnels of the canyons. They want more planets for themselves."

"More attacks, then? When was this? The last report spoke of a lone attack by a rogue group." Rey placed the broken saber on the table as carefully as though it was glass.

"This is new information that came just last night and this morning," someone else told her, watching her as though she was a great warrior, someone who could save them all. "There were four separate attacks, all led by troopers."

Led. It meant that more had joined the First Order, that civilians were fighting under the command of troopers and generals, civilians who had joined willingly. It meant a great many things, but mostly it meant more danger for the Resistance.

Rose handed her a tablet.

"This came from our scouts."

Rey took it and read quickly, an old fear quaking in her stomach.

"A red flag carried by each offending unit," she read aloud.

None of the others had heard the newest report yet, so when their newest commander spoke the dreaded words, the room erupted and shook with twenty voices.

"Silence!" Rey commanded, feeling dizzy at the words on the report. She hated that they obeyed her so easily. "And the attackers?" She continued, softer. "They stayed true to that terrible flag? Those beasts."

It was an old flag of piracy the attackers had carried into the tunnels and canyons, into the entrances to the newest Resistance base. It was as crimson as blood, and all soldiers feared the day they might see it flying closer to them. Where the flag followed, there could be only death. There would be no mercy on the young or sick or elderly. Only death.

"What do you mean by giving me this saber?" She asked at last.

"It was yours," someone told her. "You are a great fighter, and we fear we will need that strength, that knowledge right now."

"Many people are great fighters, but you didn't call everybody."

"No, Commander."

Then she asked the question. "Why would you call a meeting without General Leia's presence?"

No one spoke up. Eyes darted.

"Where is she?" She tried again.

"It's just-"