Chapter 34

As Neri awoke, she had the strangest feeling of emptiness. Her eyes opened to a dimly lit room, cavernous and damp. She could hear water dripping somewhere in the distance and she wondered fleetingly how big the chambers she found herself in were. She was exhausted, feeling as though she hadn't slept in days, and when she opened her mouth to yawn, her tongue felt gritty and dry. It took her a few moments of rubbing her eyes and pushing her hair from her forehead to realize that she had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there.

She sat up quickly and looked around, eyes landing on the tall, gaunt figure of a creature she had never herself seen but who she recognized immediately.

"Snoke," she said, her voice barely a whisper. The emptiness became suddenly painful and, though she tried to soothe it, no calm came to her. She felt as though every bit of her power had been drained from her body, leaving her a shell.

She looked down at her pale hands and moved her fingers, trying to no avail to move something, anything, with the power that had come so easily to her before. She looked helplessly at her enemy. "What have you done to me?" she asked, well aware of how pitiful she sounded.

Snoke smiled down at her, the gesture stretching his already disfigured face to the point of grotesqueness. He moved towards her, eerily graceful for someone who seemed to be decomposing before her eyes, and crouched down. His gnarled hand reached out to her and Neri backed herself away as far as she could before she hit a wall.

"I have done nothing to you. Your power left of its own accord." His voice was strong, all hints of breathlessness gone. He was well rested for this meeting, had been looking forward to it since his former apprentice had betrayed him. "Perhaps the Force realized that you weren't worthy of it." He chuckled to himself, the skin of his cheeks shuttering as he wheezed at his own humor. He hid the fact that her power's absence puzzled him, that he had been quite taken back to find it gone when he attempted to leech it from her small body. It was of no matter. She would be easier to destroy as an ordinary human girl.

"That's not possible," Neri said after a long moment, her voice shaking. Was it possible? Could she be deemed unworthy after a lifetime of being granted access to the Force? What could she have done to make it leave her now? How could she save Ben if she was powerless? She barely knew who she was without it thrumming quietly through her, hidden and reassuring.

Snoke twisted his fingers into her short hair and held her in place. His papery skin was cold, felt brittle against Neri's scalp. "You're grasping the depths of your desperation now, I see. Did you really think you could save him? That you were some kind of hero? You were a momentary distraction, a small bump in the road of his training in the Dark Side. You, a small, insignificant girl, could never truly take him from me." He stood, pulling Neri up painfully by her hair. She bit her lip to keep from whimpering, telling herself that she had suffered worse at the hands of her masters.

Snoke chuckled again, reading her thoughts. Even her mental defenses, so strong before, had left her. She was nothing but an unprotected, feeble human. Snoke was everything she was not.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head," Snoke said, settling her unsteadily on her feet. "I'll show you how much you can suffer. I'll show you how much he'll make you suffer after he pledges himself once more to his true calling."

Neri mustered up all of her strength and lifted her chin to him, determined to be defiant to the end. "He'll never go back to you," she said, jaw clenched and strong as could be. "You're nothing but a sad, old fool. He has found his true calling, and it is to the Light."

Snoke tilted his head, appraising her. With nothing more than a flick of his wrist, he sent her flying into the wall behind him. Neri crumpled to the floor, the breath knocked out of her, just as the door opposite her opened.

"Snoke!" called a familiar voice, echoing around her in the cavernous room.

Neri was filled with equal parts comfort and dread when she heard him, feeling as though there was perhaps hope after all but wishing he had never come. It would be better if she were dead and he safe, able to continue with his training under Master Luke. He would be able to overcome Snoke once and for all then, no longer tempted by the seduction of the other side. Ben couldn't go back to his former master, wouldn't abandon her and everyone she loved for the Darkness. He couldn't, could he?

Snoke turned slowly, in no hurry, and smiled at his apprentice. It had been so long since they had met face to face, and Ren seemed to have grown into himself. No longer was he an unsure, gangling adolescent but a truly grown man, filled with resolve and strength. Though Snoke knew that his resolve was to end his master's life, he reveled in the sensation of it crowding the chambers, nearly stifling all else. Such power could be harnessed for his own aim of conquering the galaxy and beyond. Never had his knight been so void of self-doubt.

"Kylo Ren," breathed out Snoke, clasping his hands before him comfortably. "How kind of you to finally join us. I was just becoming acquainted with your…woman."

Ben stopped in his approach, taken back momentarily. His eyes searched the dim room and found her, in a heap, behind Snoke. She wasn't supposed to be there. He should have defeated Snoke before she was able to leave the Resistance base. He could see the steady movements of her chest as she breathed, though her breaths were far too shallow. Reaching out to her through their bond, he was met with nothing. It was as though she wasn't even there.

"What is this trick? That is not Neri Lei." Ben smiled, reassured, thinking Snoke had tried to deceive him. There was no way that woman, who looked and moved as Neri did, was his powerful complement. That woman was empty, void of the Force. His had power seeping from her very pores.

Snoke smiled back at him, sending a chill down Ben's spine. "It is indeed, Kylo Ren. It is the strangest thing, but when I touched her, all power disappeared, as if chased from her body. What have you to say to that? Do you think perhaps it wasn't truly hers to start?"

Ben looked from his former master to the woman and back. Her eyes met his and held him; in that instant Ben knew that the helpless form was the woman he loved. He looked back to Snoke. "What have you done to her?"

Snoke merely shrugged, as though he couldn't be bothered by the situation. He rolled his wrinkled neck, stretching it leisurely. "As I told your friend, perhaps the Force deemed her unworthy. Perhaps it was only on loan." His face twisted again into a smile, amused by his own cleverness. He hid the fact that he was utterly perplexed by the situation, that he had no idea what had happened. All that mattered was bringing his apprentice back into the folds, in the Darkness. His plans could not move forward without Kylo Ren. Losing what power could have been gained from the girl was secondary, a nonissue.

Ben shook his head, finding his resolve once more, and faced his enemy with a clenched jaw and hand grasping his lightsaber firmly. Snoke had done something to Neri, had stripped her of the very power that had drawn him to train her in the first place, and he would determine how to restore her once his master was dead. "Let's end this," he said, his voice gravelly. He squared his shoulders, gathering himself to his full height, and strengthened his mental defenses as best he could. He wished he hadn't given any of his power to Poe, that he was wholly himself. He wished that Neri were somewhere else, anywhere else, where keeping her safe and unbroken couldn't distract him.

Snoke walked towards him unhurriedly, his quiet steps echoing throughout the chamber. He knew his angle, his attack. He could not beat Kylo Ren in a physical assault, had lost that prowess years before, but his powers of manipulation knew no bounds. "End it? It's only just begun my boy. Let's end this infatuation, this fascination with an insignificant, powerless girl. After all, she's obviously just a manipulation of the Light, a tool meant to destroy you. Perhaps the power left her because it was never really hers; perhaps someone granted it to her for the sole purpose of deceiving you. What better way to destroy a man than to make him believe he is loved?" Snoke stopped a foot away from his apprentice, his foul breath against Ben's cheek. "The powerless could never love us, only fear us. Your parents, your pitiful uncle, even that beast your father spent his life beside – they could never love you. I have given you everything, taken only what I needed to make you better. End this now, come back to me and we will continue your training as if you never betrayed my trust."

Snoke's words were like a seduction, their cadence lulling Ben into a trance state. It was a rare person who could compel him, make him do anything other than what he wanted to do, and Snoke was such a person. The hand holding his lightsaber lowered to his side, quelled by the words that had been repeated to him over the years as his master broke him down.

It would be so easy to accept Snoke, to be brought back into the folds of his Darkness. He had always been right, hadn't he? Had never lied to the young man he so mercifully took care of?

Snoke leaned into Ben's ear, whispering in his mesmerizing tone. "Kylo Ren could never be loved by one as powerless as she. The powerful can never be loved, only feared and respected."

Ben closed his eyes, feeling the pull of the Darkness dragging him under, making him complicit. He had been groomed for this; a decade or more had passed of being told that love was never something he could attain. Pacified by Snoke's familiar words, he felt himself weakening, believing that it had all been a farce.

He didn't see Neri stand from her helpless state, eyes wide and angry with renewed strength. He didn't feel the humming of her power as it returned to her, vibrating beneath the surface of her skin. He barely heard her as she spoke, voice clear and determined. "You're wrong," she bellowed, causing Snoke to turn around suddenly and let go of his hold over Ben's mind. His eyes grew wide at the sight of her, restored to power and nearly bursting with it.

Ben opened his eyes as Snoke's hypnotic presence left him. He blinked several times before he saw her, approaching his master like a vengeful spirit. Coming back to himself, Ben drew his lightsaber and readied himself, knowing that he must protect her at all costs.