Author's Note: We are so close! So close to Rise of Skywalker and I'm seeing that I'll probably not finish this story in time, but maybe I can manage at least one more chapter before I see the movie. I'm trying to avoid spoilers at all costs, but it has been hard! They are everywhere! As always, thank you for reading Reylo family. I appreciate each and every one of you!
A hundred pounding footsteps came roaring down the hallway toward where Rey stood with Ben and Kezzik. It sounded as though some of the bodies broke off in another direction, but there was definitely a flood of people still incoming.
If any of the temple recruits headed their way had heard about what Ben was accused of doing, there was no way they'd let him pass. She had to do something. If they ran, they would only look suspicious. But there was really no place to hide.
"There!" She shoved Ben into a small alcove where the hallway began to curve and she turned to stand in front of him, shielding him from the view of any passing crowds.
She felt his large hand wrap around hers and squeeze tight in thanks.
Kezzik, seeing what she was doing, shoved her aside and stood in front of Ben himself.
She was grateful after she saw the reason. Kezzik and Ben were about the same height, while she was a good head shorter and would be no use shielding anyone.
It didn't seem to matter much, though, because when the crowd of recruits and pilots ran by, they didn't bother giving the three of them a second glance.
After most of the crowd had passed, she spotted Bosma running along behind.
Sweat streamed down the sides of his bearded face. When he spotted Kezzik, he put a hand to his heart.
"Thank the Force," his voice came ragged between panting breaths. "Ledo, Den, and Volas have just landed. They asked me to come find you." He looked back and forth between the three of them. "What's going on?"
"Long story," Kezzik said, "Kind of boring."
Bosma gave him the typical annoyed-with-Kezzik glare in response.
"Any word on what's got everyone in such a panic?" Rey asked.
"Just after the other Knights arrived," Bosma said, "First Order ships were spotted by the scanners on the other side of the planet."
Ben spoke for the first time, then. His voice calm, measured. "I sense something else. Are you sure those are First Order ships?"
Bosma looked back and forth between the three of them, looking for corroboration.
Kezzik shrugged. "I can't sense anything beyond whatever has taken up shop at the core of this temple. Whatever it is, isn't allowing me to sense a kriffing thing through the Force. It's like a giant shit is clogging the plumbing."
"Thanks for that eloquent assessment," Rey said.
"I'm going to find out what it is," Ben said, his voice still freakishly calm.
Kezzik found this amusing. "Since nearly dying once doesn't seem to be enough this week, right?"
Ben leveled a glare at the other Knight.
"You shouldn't go alone," Bosma said.
Rey wrapped an arm around Ben. "He won't be."
Ben's dark eyes found hers, his gaze warming her from the inside.
"How romantic." Kezzik's lip curled. "An excruciatingly painful death as a couple."
Bosma looked over his shoulder as another alarm screeched a high pitch wail that echoed off the stone walls. "Kezzik's right, we should all go. Wait for the other Knights and we'll all go together."
Ben shook his head, his voice suddenly sharp and commanding. "No. You two need to figure out what's going on with that fleet."
Bosma's lips tightened, but he nodded. Kezzik looked - well he looked like Kezzik, and Rey wasn't sure whether he would listen or not.
"I need to find Samra," Kezzik said with finality. "She might have more information on those ships, then we'll see."
It was as close to following an order as they would probably get.
Ben nodded and Kezzik stepped toward him, punching him in the shoulder amicably. "Flush that giant shit, eh Ben?"
When the two actually smiled at each other, Rey thought she'd stepped into another dimension completely.
At the squeal of yet another alarm, they parted ways with Bosma headed up the hall to where most of the recruits had come from and Ben turning down a corridor leading to the outside.
"Where are we going?" Rey asked.
They turned another corner and she was immediately blinded by the light of the sun coming through the passage. She put a hand over her eyes as they moved into the outer courtyard. The towering trees of the jungle glittered, as though gilded with the golden light of morning.
"Whatever, whoever this energy is at the temple core, he wants us to find him. He showed me the entrance, and the chamber itself."
"That doesn't make me feel better about this, Ben."
He reached for her hand, lacing his fingers with hers as they continued on.
They skirted the outside edge of the temple, past the training grounds, nearly to the hangar bays at the opposite side.
There wasn't much reason to venture to this side of the temple. It was darker here, always in shade as the temple towered above and blocked the path of the sun. That, and there were no entrances on this side of the temple. There wasn't even much of a path here. The foliage was overgrown and they had to pick their way through plants and over roots to make their way.
Ben stopped suddenly, looking down at a circular ventilation shaft of some kind. It had a slatted cover, partially hidden by overgrown vines and creeping ferns. Ben stooped to pull at the handles until the metal groaned and came loose. She peered over the lip of the entrance, now able to see that it wasn't a ventilation shaft at all, but an access port with ladder rungs leading down into the darkness.
Rey felt her pulse quicken and a sudden overwhelming sense of foreboding overtook her senses, plunging her into cold water reminding her of the terrifying descent into the dark cave on Ach-To.
Ben squeezed his hand protectively around hers and pulled her close. "Whatever this is," Ben's eyes burned with an intensity that made her breath hitch. "We are stronger together."
Her voice wouldn't work when he looked at her like that, so all she could do was nod and cling to his tunic.
"Rey, I want you to know," he began, clearing his throat ceremoniously, "if anything happens to me, I want you to know that – "
Rey rose to her tiptoes and pressed her mouth against his, stopping his speech mid-sentence. His lips were warm, and he eagerly gathered her closer, tenderly deepening their kiss as he did so. She inhaled, leather and sweat and spices, tasting him and falling farther into him, his Force. And oh Kriff she just wanted more of this. More of him.
"Mmmm." She hummed her appreciation against his lips and he took her even deeper into their kiss.
When Rey finally pulled back, it took her a moment to find her voice. "Nothing is going to happen to you, or me, or any of us."
Her heart was still hammering in her chest, her fingers numb when she heard him release a long breath and felt his emotions even out again through her bond. She took his example and found a calm, soothing rhythm in the Force. Then she followed Ben down the ladder into the depths underneath the temple.
Kezzik and Bosma kept a heart-thudding pace as they raced through the corridors toward the command center of the temple.
When they crossed into the room, all eyes shot up in greeting, though no one said a word. The faces of Samra and Qi'ra along with the two newer faces of Quinn and Finn all wore the same, grim expression. Several other humans he hadn't met before leaned back down into their stations, pressing buttons and sending communications. The air was thick with tension.
Bosma spoke through the silence first. "The First Order?"
"Worse," Quinn answered.
"Worse?" Kezzik echoed, rounding the first station to look at the images coming through.
Star destroyers, dozens of them. But these were different, somehow. They looked like battle of Endor era star destroyers. He hadn't seen any like them in ages, aside from wreckage or old holo vids of the battles.
"At least two dozen star destroyers," Qi'ra's voice was as cold and sharp as the edge of a blade. "Of the old Imperial Style." And it was clear who she blamed for their arrival.
Bosma leaned over Kezzik's shoulder to peer at the screens, his voice cracking as he slowly spoke words to the emotion hanging thick in the room. "I have a bad feeling about this."
The air below the temple was heavy - cool but damp with the smell of algae and mold. Ben navigated the narrow, winding tunnel by the light of his saber with Rey a few steps behind. It was so tight, they couldn't walk shoulder to shoulder, and the ceiling was so low, he had to keep a half crouch to keep from banging into the arched stone ceiling overhead.
Rey's breath came in pants from behind him, not from exertion he suspected, but from anticipation of what they would find.
The air was becoming thicker the farther they travelled. Thicker, not just with moisture, but with the Force itself. The weight of dark energy that hung like a cloak over his shoulders pressed down harder and harder, as though it was growing heavier the closer they grew to the core of the temple. Soon, it was difficult to sense anything else in the Force besides the cold, icy touch of the Dark Side.
They walked on in silence for what felt like hours until finally, light was visible in a chamber just ahead. He approached cautiously, crossing into a wide square-walled space at the core of the temple. Dim, bluish-tinged light filtered in from several overhead shafts which probably opened to the outside from hundreds of feet away, illuminating dozens and dozens of massive kyber crystals cut into fist sized gems. These gems littered the floor, a stark contrast to the dark stone of the chamber.
Rey stepped around him, bending low to inspect one of these crystals. She stiffened, eyes wide. "Ben, look at this," she whispered.
He stooped for a closer inspection, his breath catching in his throat when he saw it. A face, contorted in pain, floating in the crystal as though mired there in fog. The face drifted in and out of the mist at the heart of the crystal.
Soul snares.
A chill scuttled down Ben's spine as he bent to inspect the other crystals.
Dozens and dozens of faces, all different, but expressions all twisted into the same pained grimaces, trapped in the crystal.
All at once, the dark shroud that hung over his consciousness was ripped away.
Rey's hands shot up to her ears, her palms pressing flat against them in attempt to keep back the flood of voices that came in that moment. But it was pointless. The sound was being projected directly into their minds, through the Force. It was a hundred screams, all at once. A cacophonous sound that did not only echo in his ears, but left an echo in the very core of himself. Men and women, in a morbid symphony of torture ripped through him until he fell to his knees, unable to endure the cruelty of it.
Then, as though it never was, the sound ceased, replaced by an unnatural silence.
Followed by laughter.
A sharp, cackling crescendo of a laugh that was somehow more disturbing than the hundred agonized voices.
Then that voice spoke. "Finally, you have come together. Mmmm, so much power." The voice wheezed, as though the very act of speaking had been physically exhausting. "And now is the time, for the return of the Sith."
From another dark entrance at the far side of the chamber, a shape stepped into view.
Temiri.
Rey jumped forward, looking ready to whisk the boy away. Ben raised his hand to her, a signal to stay where she was and he staggered to his feet again. Whatever was happening here, was not what it seemed.
When the boy spoke, his voice was a perfect mismatch to his slight body. "Hello, my young apprentice."
He would recognize that snarling voice anywhere, the voice of his dreams, of his nightmares. Snoke's voice.
Ben swallowed hard, stepping forward and brandishing his saber. Though he saw the shape of the boy, Temiri, before him, he knew that there was nothing left of the child. The boy was a husk, with no hope of return, and Ben would do what he must to rid the galaxy of Snoke's influence. He would stop this.
So he took another step forward, ready to slice into the vessel that Snoke was using to continue his unnatural physical existence.
But before he could, another figure took shape as it stepped into the light from the darkened doorway. This time it was Aayla. And she held something under her arm, cradling it like a small infant.
A wicked smile unfurled over the girl's lips as she unwrapped the bundle, never breaking eye contact, revealing a black mass of melted plasteel, the remains of his grandfather's helmet.
His grandfather's voice, the voice he'd heard speaking to him all these years, was in his head again. That's right, my boy. It's me.
A hunched, withered body came into view seated on a hoverchair. It looked more like a pile of black robes and bones, set at unnatural angles. Its black cloak hung nearly completely over its face.
Ben tried to push back his shock, reaching out through the Force to sense who or what this was. The answer came immediately as the return of the dark cloak of Force, pressing down upon them again. Rey took a steadying step, obviously struggling to fight off the energy of this creature. Ben, too breathed deeply, reaching for Rey's light through the bond, finding a balance to hold up against the creeping feeling of desperation hanging heavily around him.
Images crashed into him through the Force in that moment, and the bond that linked him with Rey was suddenly a live wire. A silent assault of memories tore down that sacred bond and he stumbled, taking a knee as he was forced to endure the barrage. Feelings and emotions crashed into him, Rey's warmth, moments embracing her, the first time they touched hands, the roaring fire in his own core that was his desire for her. All of it was laid bare all at once. Their bond was being ripped open, memory by memory. He was being flayed, lashed by emotion again and again until tears streamed down his cheeks.
He tried to lift his head, but he could hardly move. It was enough, though to glimpse Rey on all fours, struggling against the same onslaught.
Finally, the images, the feelings slowed and he grappled with the immense effort of simply breathing evenly again.
After a long moment, a shaky, skeletal arm rose from the bundle of robes to push its hood back, revealing a face that was all too familiar. A face that belonged to someone long dead.
The face of the late Emperor Palpatine.
"Now you see. It has always been me."
And as the tortured cries of countless trapped souls begged for mercy, the Emperor's cruel laughter continued to rise until it drowned them all out.