Hello! Thanks for coming across my story. Hold onto your GODDAMN space knickers because this chapter was what all the build up was for. Anyways, please enjoy and follow if you want to see more! This is the part 1 Finale, but have no fear, part 2 will be coming very, very soon! I do not own Star Wars or its properties, this is solely for entertainment and adoration. With that said, stay tuned~
Part I Finale, Chapter XI
Rey's eyes fluttered as she awoke, lifting her head off the floor. There was a padded headrest that had been slid under her head which wasn't there before, and she studied her surroundings, sitting upright. The light was dim, but enough for her to see the darkly dressed storm troopers against the walls, armed tautly.
She looked around, bringing herself to her feet. In the dark, she could make out what looked like the door behind her. Her way out. Hurrying toward it, she attempted to open it, but it was of no use. She felt around in the dark, looking for a door panel by the wall, and to her avail she found one. But as soon as she began to press buttons at random, hoping one would open, the shadow troopers tensed up, beginning to step forward with their weapons slightly drawn. Rey turned around and stopped immediately. Thinking of a way to escape, she darted her eyes back and forth across the room.
"Stand back."
A muffled, mechanical voice echoed across the chamber. Rey looked deadset ahead in the dark for the source of Kylo's voice.
Within moments, blinding white lights loudly activated, one by one, down the chamber all the way to the opposite side. With each light, the rest of the meditation chamber was revealed, but the shadow troopers stayed concealed by the shadows just shy of the light.
At the very end of the chamber with the last blare of the unnerving light was Kylo Ren.
He sat perched on a higher platform, seemingly with no lightsaber in sight.
"Rey." he uttered. His breathing was heavy.
Rey simply stared at him, with both disgust and disdain, but she repressed her urge to leap at him again.
He stood up and began to march toward her. She stood upright with her fists drawn. She was not going to be intimidated by his tactics again.
Kylo stopped a few feet away, keeping his distance this time.
"I don't want to fight." he said.
Rey looked a bit surprised.
He motioned the shadow troopers, and they lined up in formation, dispensing into a door which had opened automatically in the east wall. It had been practically invisible in the darkness of the durasteel walls, until a rectangle of light appeared and they exited through it. There was something about the shadow troopers that was slightly more menacing than the storm troopers. Perhaps they were not as agile as the Praetorian guards, but they were just as, if not more, deadly and brutal.
"It's just us now." Kylo declared, but Rey remained silent.
She had been a fool to believe she could ever turn him. He was just as manipulative as his master, simply killing him for his own vision of a galaxy ruled by the dark. He'd offered Rey a place by his side in all of it, but even without Sith or Jedi, the dark existed. And just as Kylo wore that insipid mask, he masked his intentions even more so. It was clear to Rey now.
"I gave you everything." Kylo retorted, the irritability seeping in his tone.
"You gave me an offer. And I refused. I owe you nothing." Rey gave him the satisfaction of an answer at last, but it wasn't one he wanted to hear.
The plating of the walls began to rattle around them and quaked into the floors as a tremor began to shake the room. Kylo began to yell as his anger convulsed the room through another force-fit.
"YOU KNOW THE TRUTH!"
"There's only one truth, and it's not going to end well for you, Kylo." Rey pertained her temper as she spoke, carefully mapping her words. She was through with his way of things. The tremor gradually died down, as the walls stopped trembling and all came to a standstill again.
"No...look harder. You will know it."
"I've looked all I've needed."
He took a step toward her, and she backed up, feeling her heel against the door.
"Don't come any closer!" she yelled.
"Let me show you the truth."
"I'm warning you!" Her threats were almost empty as she was weak from the battle before, but even so she had to keep resisting, even if it were her last shred of strength.
"Rey...let me show you." He kept taking steps toward her, until finally he was inches away. She tried to force push him with what stamina she had, but he easily absorbed each attempt, only slightly being billowed with a light gust each time.
"No!" she cried, but he was in her space now. She pushed him away with her arms, stretching her shoulder in the opposite direction to stay clear of his touch. But he enveloped her almost effortlessly with his arms, bringing her body close against his chest. He squeezed her tightly, so tightly that she thought she just might meld through him with his grasp.
"Stop!" she strained once more. His hand was on her mid back and the other on the back of her head, as he continued to pull her in to his breast.
'The truth…'
Everything faded into nothingness, and there was just the force itself between them. The memory flooded Rey's mind like an ocean, as that fateful rainy night on Ahch-to came into the eye of her mind. It was the moment they force bonded-and Kylo took off his glove, inching it towards Rey's hand. With trembling hesitation, the tips of their fingers came into contact and for seconds they touched.
'Do you remember now, Rey?'
"I don't understand…" Rey uttered, her consciousness still in the memory.
'I gave you everything in that moment...my training...my knowledge. Everything you needed. And yet you still chose them.'
"But my power was my own."
'Yet you knew how I acquired mine.'
"And I didn't understand it all!"
'Let me show you, Rey. You have everything at your discretion. You just need someone to teach you to make sense of it, to use it to its fullest potential.'
"And what benefit does this bring you? Why do you want to show me the ways of the force?"
'Because it is the only way we can bring balance to it.'
"What?"
Rey snapped out of her force-trance. She blinked open her eyes, and looked up at Kylo Ren, whose arms were still fastened around her, but looser now. She looked at him, allowing him to hold her the way he was for a few seconds longer, before pushing him away.
"Balance?" she confusedly whispered to herself.
Admittedly, though Rey proved herself strong with her abilities, although latent in many regards, Kylo knew things Rey couldn't even begin to fathom. Whether he was willing to offer this knowledge to Rey, or try to exploit her, it was hard to tell.
Kylo swallowed beneath his mask, his chest pounding profusely.
He stood eerily stagnant, but deep down he could hardly recognize what just happened. His attraction to her was consuming him, and it became more agonizing with such intimate body contact. He had never had Rey so close to him, her body against his, and their connection as coherent as it was before the bond was severed. Though he perhaps forced the memory into her mind, it was a necessary reminder that he spoke not of empty promises, and that what he had given Rey was just the gateway to what she could uncover. The more complex he was to her, the more inclined she would be to allow him to show her. It was dormant within her, within the essence he wouldn't change for the world.
He wanted it. He would bare the brunt but he didn't want to be patient any longer.
"The only way to bring balance is to push back the dark; and you're going to learn the hard way. The res-"
"Do not utter those words." He constricted his anger through his teeth as he stopped her from finishing her sentence.
"There will be no talk of the resistance. No talk of the First Order. This is just us now. Just the force, and the fate it has drawn between it. You can't deny that we are intertwined, Rey."
Rey paused. She knew it was no coincidence. The force had brought them together in an usual way. Perhaps this was once again its power at work.
"No, you brought me here against my will."
Kylo pushed up the base of his helmet, pulling it off of his head. His long black hair wisped wildly out of the helmet as he took it off, and the meandering scar was revealed on his face. It had faded ever so slightly since their last encounter, but it snaked down his cheek to his neck.
"No! It was the force." he insisted. "Continue to delude yourself, and you're just going to lose it again. Everything is clear, yet you choose to turn to things that don't matter. Your destiny is greater than these small distractions."
"The only one who is deluded is you!"
"This is the only way to bring balance to the force, to choose our own path!"
'Our?"
In a sudden movement, Kylo stepped forward, seizing Rey's wrist and pulling it toward him forcefully.
"Let go of me!" She pulled in her direction, but he continued to tug her arm to himself.
"If you don't realize your future, then I will show you!"
"No!" Rey tried to tear her arm out of his grasp. Almost instinctively, she ingress into his mind.
But she was horrified at the abysmal thought she had seen.
Out of shock, she relented fighting back for a moment, and he pulled her into him, his hand still hooked around her wrist tightly. His impatience was practically permeating in his every move.
"You...you're obsessed." Rey uttered. Kylo retreated in his mind before she could pry again, but she had already seen enough.
"You...you don't want to bring balance to the force...you're just obsessed...with me." Rey gritted.
"You're delusional."
"No, I'm not. I could sense it before...but now I've seen it."
Rey stared at Kylo in disgust. She had the inkling of suspicion before, but never like this. A period of disquietude came over both of them, as Rey's uneasiness set in. He stared back, not taking his grip off of her.
"If it's the only way to necessitate balance…" he began, "then so be it."
Her eyes darted frantically at him, as she tried to rationalize this. Was he admitting it?
Kylo himself couldn't imagine he was saying all this. His patience had hit its threshold. His true intentions became clear when he wavered his defenses and she saw the truth he didn't want her to see. But it was too late to disguise anymore.
He tightened his clasp around her forearm, and she could feel the ferocity of his wrist's pulse against hers. He was only the breadth of a finger away from her face, gazing closer than he ever had into her hazel brown eyes. There was anxiety in them, but also hesitation to her own objection.
Rey didn't protest, she combed through her own mind to understand what was happening, and whether she had relented the quiescent thought they both shared. It was shrouded in the likeness of the loneliness harbored by both, and it was the same fragility that kept them at peace when they shared the force bond. In any other circumstance, Rey would have at least tried to bludgeon him to death.
But she didn't, and it was that realization that she knew her destiny was bigger, even just for a moment, that kept her composed. She could feel the air of his breath on her face.
"But the future…" she said softly, still with apprehension in her eyes and her voice.
Kylo didn't know how to vocalize the way he felt; it was too impossible. He could see the unsurety in her eyes, and the resentment was stripped for the moment being, leaving her with only the consideration of what could be.
His hand was still gripped on her arm, and he didn't falter, he only tightened it with each uncontrollable swell of his heartbeat. He didn't mean to, but it was a conditioned reaction to his thumping heart whenever he sought to muffle it. It only continued as the space between their proximity closed in. Lowering his head toward her, Kylo enclosed the space between them.
"Don't be afraid."
The words came out on their own, as his lips touched hers.