A/N: This came originally from a prompt sent to me for one of my Reylo drabbles, however I was intrigued and incapable of leaving this just as a simple drabble. It's written still in the same style as my other drabble(s) - in vignettes - but has a deeper storyline and thus multiple chapters.
Original prompt from Anon- If you still want reylo prompts, pls do one where rey accepts his offer to teach her. thank you
Whoops I turned this into agony and sadness building to her accepting his offer rather than accepting right away. Here you go. Also some Force Bond between Rey and Kylo because we all really want that to be a thing.
"I could show you the ways of the Force!" His eyes are bright, overeager as he begs her to say yes, to join him.
She closes her eyes, focuses. The universe seems to pivot and crash around her as she feels the temptation to put down her sword, to give in.
A strength flows into her arms, guiding her to strike back and resist his words. "No!" She will not go with him, a merciless killer. She is too bright, too full of light and hope to go with him.
Three months pass and she's still struggling with her meditation. Master Luke insists that it's normal to be unfocused, but she doesn't think he quite understands. Every time that she finds that moment of peace, that balance of self and universe, something upends it all.
A flicker of annoyance, a wave of exhaustion, the sensation of immense desperation. None of it seems to come from her though. Every time she opens herself up to the Force, she becomes overwhelmed by a blackness that she knows isn't hers.
"Patience, young Padawan learner," Luke murmurs when she brings it up again. "You will learn to open yourself up to the ways of the Force." Rey stirs her pudding-like dinner around with her spoon, frowning. She's plenty open, maybe a little too open.
"Your training is incomplete," her master warns her. He's not stopping her, but his distaste for her leaving emanates from him like a cloud.
Rey climbs into the shuttle anyways, trying to ignore the turmoil in her stomach. "Finn's been kidnapped. The Resistance needs all the pilots they can get for the rescue mission," she retorts. It's an excuse to leave behind this island that brings more questions and very few answers.
Luke looks away sadly, caught in some past memory. Her promise to return dies in her throat and instead she shuts the shuttle door behind her. She can't feel bad for the exiled Jedi Master, not until she rescues the only person who ever came back for her.
They're holding Finn in a tiny encampment on some barren moon. Intel tells them that it's some kind of reprogramming facility for prisoners of war and wayward stormtroopers. Intel has no idea that the facility is being guarded by two of the fearsome Knights of Ren.
Rey touches her transport down, and she hears the resistance fighters pouring out, blasters already blazing. Someone screams over the comlink and she can feel the shudder in the Force when they fall. When she hears the sound of breathing mutilated by a vocoder, she abandons her co-pilot without a thought.
Her saber is lit and she's storming across the abandoned landing pad. White armored bodies are strewn across the ground, mixed with the fallen forms of Rey's companions. Her breath hitches in her throat and a slow simmering anger begins to roll in her stomach. She sees the knight guarding the entryway, preventing any backup squads from entering the facility.
It isn't Kylo Ren. Her stomach lurches and somewhere in her mind she knows that it couldn't have been him. Not when she's been so calm; not when she hasn't felt another's rage and anger bubbling up from within, threatening to consume her.
Gunfire from a transport still circling the airspace rains down, trying to drive the knight from his post. It doesn't appear to effect him, his attention locked on the girl wielding Luke Skywalker's blade.
The fight is unremarkable. He is no Kylo Ren and she has grown accustomed to opening herself to the powers of the Force to aid her saberwork. The tingling sensation spreads through her body and guides her strikes until he is crumpled on the ground, his breathing shallow but present.
The comlink crackles again. Finn's cell - and the cells of the other captured Resistance members - has been located, but they've taken significant losses. She's racing inside before the officer is finished speaking, relying on pure instinct to find where they've taken the prisoners.
She stumbles once, twice, before taking a beat to center herself. Reaching for the Force, Rey wishes that it was just a little bit quicker to her beck and call.
Your training is incomplete.
I could show you the ways of the Force!
Finn is in the next detention block. Rey rallies the attack squad, ignoring the squawk of the comlink in her ear. The cell doors are opened, the captured rebels are hauled out, wounds swiftly checked. Rey searches for Finn's cell and pulls the door open with a sharp tug of the Force.
He's still laying on the cot, staring blankly at the ceiling. Fear, cold as ice, rushes down Rey's spine. She can't be left alone. He can't have given up. He can't have been defeated. She drags him to his feet, whispering his name over and over in a frantic prayer.
Recognition flits across his eyes and she lets go of the breath that had caught in her throat. Forms rush in - the resistance - and they drag Finn to follow the rest of the rescued troops.
The numbers are fewer than expected, but the First Order is not gentle on its captives.
"Release FN-2187 and the prisoners and no one will get hurt," a grizzled voice echoes through the halls.
Rey turns, igniting her lightsaber in response to their challenge. They tried to take away what little she called family. They would not do it again. "You're the one who should be worried about getting hurt," she spits angrily.
He unsheathes a vibrosword, a dark chuckle escaping from behind the mask. "My master thought you might try to interfere."
Rey bites back a reply and throws herself at the knight. A battle cry tears from her throat as they exchanged blows. In the back of her mind she notes the retreating Resistance squad. If she can keep Kylo's minion's attention then they might just have a chance for success.
"Tell me. Why does he want you alive?" He taunts her, his blade nicking her shoulder. "You must have done something to earn his attention." Another dark chuckle escapes when she replies only with a slash to his leg. "Whatever it was, you'll wish you hadn't. Master Kylo enjoys making his captives suffer."
"Your talking is agony enough," Rey snaps, grunting as she attempts to Force push him off balance. It's like pushing a mountain and she realizes that Kylo Ren is not the only knight with Force abilities.
Another exchange of blows leaves Rey's arm aching. The vibrosword is far more formidable than she'd originally guessed and the knight's skill is much more fine tuned than her own. Her comlink buzzes again. Someone is trying to get her to leave the facility, but she hasn't bested this swordsman. Hasn't exacted her revenge for taking away her friend.
Her attacks become more vicious, more heated. The knight isn't taunting her anymore. His breathing is ragged, even through the vocoder. She tries once more to use the Force, tugging the tip of his sword out of the way just in time for her saber to strike through his shoulder.
His cry of agony brings a smirk to her face.
The vibrosword clatters to the ground and Rey whips her saber out from his shoulder. "You can't…," he pants frantically. "You can't have bested me."
"Check again," she sneers. The blade stabs through his other shoulder, keeping him from summoning his sword to his working arm.
He slumps against the wall, his helmet smacking against the duracrete. A whisper in her mind tells her that he could still be dangerous. He wanted to take Finn away. He was a Knight of Ren and had to be eliminated.
Her blade hovers over his neck. Uncertainty is all she sees in her reflection in the stark black helmet. "You are weak and a coward. You will never-"
Silence falls with a single twitch of her wrist. Pride and a strangled laugh bubble up from somewhere inside her. From the way the Force seems to retract and flush around her, Rey prays it's just nerves. Her connection wavers, uncertainty rushing in over the anger which had overwhelmed her.
Finn's voice over the com is what finally breaks her from her reverie, begging her to please get on the transport. They have to get off this godforsaken rock.
"I don't want to go back to that island," she admits aloud finally after two weeks playing troop transport. They - herself, Poe, Finn, and a smattering of Poe's squadmates - are hunkered down in a cave system that's serving as their next jump point between missions.
Finn frowns, looking pensive. "Don't you need to learn all that Force stuff? Train to be a proper Jedi?"
Rey shrugs, not meeting anyone's eyes. "Eventually, yeah. But I'm doing a hell of a lot more good as a pilot than I would be lifting rocks and meditating," she says evasively.
"I don't know," Poe admits. "Maybe you should go back. You're challenging my rank as 'top pilot' in the Resistance." Finn elbows him in the stomach, laughing.
It is easier to stay. Easier to be Rey the Resistance Pilot than Rey the Almost-Jedi.
Your training is incomplete.