Kylo had never felt such pain.
Snoke was tearing through his mind, the intensity and brutality of his invasion sending out shockwaves through his body, his muscles seizing and his back arching as he screamed.
There hadn't even been a chance to defend himself, either lashing out with a futile fist or throwing up a mental barricade to stall Snoke's attack. And now he was completely lost, a being crafted of pain and stitched together by agony. If Kylo had been able to form a rational thought, he would have found himself unable to prevent Snoke's intrusion anyway – he was, after all, the very voice Kylo had heard in his head for as long as he could remember.
Snoke paid no heed to Kylo's torment as he ravaged his thoughts, brusquely sifting through his memories, ripping them from his mind. He'd throw aside some with savage disinterest and vivisect others with sickening thoroughness, violating Kylo's sense of self without compunction. Snoke saw everything. His first flight on the Falcon to his last angry words with his father. Waking up early for the sunrises on Chandrila with his mother to watching her on the holonet giving impassioned speeches in the Senate as he read his books, waiting for her to return. His many playful sparring sessions with Rey so many years before to their first real kiss just hours ago. Snoke shredded through every memory as though it were trivial, worthless, and Kylo could do nothing but observe helplessly.
When Snoke retracted his vice-like hold on Kylo's mind and his body crumpled to the icy floor of the throne room, he felt as though he had lived another lifetime. His bones ached and his muscles twitched as though he had just run for hours on end. Each breath seemed to burn his lungs with fire and his throat throbbed, tender and raw from the endless, involuntary screaming. He tried to move, to curl into himself in some semblance of self-preservation, but his limbs refused to respond, leaving him sprawled in a heap.
Snoke let out a rumbling laugh. "For someone who expends so much effort attempting to distance himself from his blood, you have a very strong attachment to them, my boy. They've prevented you from reaching your potential." He leaned back on his throne and smiled with artificial benevolence. "Fortunately, the solution is already in motion."
Kylo rolled onto his side as Snoke was speaking and lifted himself onto his elbows, looking back at Rey over his shoulder where she knelt unmoving. As residual tremors ran through his body, Kylo felt his heart squeeze with a sense of betrayal. He wanted to ask her what she'd hoped to accomplish by bringing him here, but her mind was walled off, hidden behind smooth, indefinable shields that gave nothing away except an intense need to not draw attention.
Rey's eyes flickered up to his for just a second, but he caught the muted look of distress she sent him. Kylo realized then that Rey was deathly afraid. The shift in her demeanor in the turbolift had been palpable, a dulling of her Force signature as though she was shrinking into herself. Kylo did not doubt she had been subjected to the same excruciating violation he'd just experienced more than once.
But what incensed Kylo more than anything was the realization that Snoke had been violating them for years, speaking thoughts of hatred and Darkness into their minds. He had just given up any guise of concern and goodwill.
Kylo felt the rage swell. He saw red, and not just the carmine drapes that enclosed the space.
Kylo stiffly leveraged himself upright until he stood on shaking legs to face the leering figure on the throne. He snarled, thrusting out a hand and feeling for something. It thudded into his palm, the lightsaber's energy vibrating up his arm as it ignited with an angry sputter.
Kylo roared, charging towards Snoke with Kira's unruly blade clenched in his fist. Snoke smirked and flicked his finger, sending Kylo skidding across the floor. The back of his skull struck the floor, dazing him, and his hand opened, letting the lightsaber hilt spin away from his grip. The red-shelled guards stayed tense as he tried desperately to suck air into his lungs.
"Such spunk," Snoke praised. "Look here now."
Kylo writhed as Snoke suspended him in the air, directing him over to the red curtains as they parted, revealing the vastness of deep space. The stars seemed to be spinning and Kylo blinked, trying to control the shifting starscape.
"I am very patient," Snoke mused aloud. "But patience is only the temporary suspension of action. I will no longer delay what I intended to do all along."
His hold on Kylo vanished and he slumped to the floor. He dragged himself upright with a hand pressed to the transperisteel plate. The glass began to hum under his fingers as the stars stretched out, blurring together not because of the burgeoning migraine in his head but because the Supremacy jumped to hyperspace.
"Soon, my boy, you will have nothing to hold you back."
Finn wasn't sure exactly how long he'd been locked in the holding cell, the over-bright glowpanels and shiny white walls giving him no frame of reference and doing nothing to calm his agitation. He knew it had just been hours, definitely not days. They hadn't fed him, which wasn't a surprise, but he knew what long-term hunger felt like from his training. The feeling in his gut right now was only boredom and anxiety.
When the door slid open with a sharp hiss, Finn jumped to his feet. Two guards entered, one holding manacles that clicked open as he approached, the other holding a shockprod. After a brief hesitation, Finn held up his arms, wrists together. If he was going to put up a fight, it wouldn't be here in this cramped cell with who knew how many more stormtroopers waiting just outside. He hadn't even been processed per Phasma's orders, so there was literally nothing between him and an open airlock to say he'd ever existed.
The guard yanked his hands around behind his back, holding them at an uncomfortable angle that made Finn's shoulders ache.
"Come on, traitor." He gripped Finn hard around the upper arm, jerking him forward, and the other jammed his shockprod into his abdomen. Finn groaned, his knees buckling as the electricity jolted his system. They laughed, hauling him to his feet as he tried to hold back the vomit that pushed its way up his throat and sat burning at the back of his mouth.
Their lack of sympathy didn't wane as they dragged him out of the cell, his feet fumbling to catch up. He remembered to look around as they pulled him down the corridor, but he didn't see Rose or Poe anywhere. And Paige –
Finn felt a stab of harrowing guilt. He hadn't really gotten to know her, but she seemed smart and she cared about Rose and the Resistance. She shouldn't have died like that, bleeding out on the floor while no one did anything to help.
And Rose had had to see the whole thing, see the last of her family die right in front of her while she was totally helpless to do anything. Finn had seen several people die, but something about this death struck him as entirely wrong. He shuddered to think of how they'd disposed of Paige's body. She didn't deserve to be tossed out like a piece of rubbish, as if she had never been a person.
Not that it will matter in the end, he thought as they marched him into a hangar, filled to the brim with legions of stormtroopers all standing at attention. Even though he knew what it was like, knew that under each helmet was an individual who had their own thoughts and feelings, it seemed like every eye was fixed on him with disgust and shame. If things had been just a little different, he would've been one of them, watching them drag the weak, cowardly traitor to the center of the hangar where General Hux and Captain Phasma stood waiting.
"The traitor, General," the captain announced as they shoved Finn to his knees.
Finn glared up at Phasma, his lip curling as he remembered how quickly she had turned traitor when they were on Starkiller.
"Well done, Phasma," Hux complimented, his pale green eyes burning with manic anticipation. "It turns out that your hunch was indeed correct."
"What are you looking at, traitorous scum?" one of the guards shouted, slapping the back of his head, jolting him forward before he caught himself from faceplanting on the ground.
"I'm curious to know what you hoped to accomplish, FN-2187," Hux said. "Running away like a coward only to stow aboard the Supremacy? I find it hard to believe in the span of a week you suddenly developed a sense of loyalty, and to the Resistance, of all things. It's a pity we don't have more time to explore your rather fascinating derangement."
Finn bowed his head, almost impatient for the general to finish his gloating. He felt absurdly calm, all things considered, but with his foremost fear in the grip of the First Order being realized, there was nothing really to do but wait for it.
"Let. Me. Go!"
Finn's head jerked up and his heart plummeted. He looked towards the sound of the commotion to see Rose struggling in the uncaring grip of two more guards. They tossed her down next to Finn, but she popped right back up and launched herself at Phasma.
"Murderous snake!" she shrieked before two hands clamped on her shoulders, restraining her as she wriggled in their hold.
"Let her go," Finn begged, wincing when Rose somehow managed to kick one of her captors in the back of the knee before they decided to restrain her ankles too. "She didn't know what I was doing. She had nothing to do with anything!"
Phasma snorted and Hux raised an eyebrow. "You expect us not to know the identities of your compatriots?" He approached Rose, who eyed him warily as he sneered down at her, lifting her chin with a finger. "Rose Tico has been known to us for a while now. It's unfortunate that we didn't recognize her talent when she was with us on Hays Minor. She would have excelled at the Academy."
"I never would've served you, you bastard!" Rose spat, then clamped down on Hux's hand.
Hux yelled, pain and surprise twisting his face as he tried to pull away. A shockprod jabbed Rose's side, her body going taut then collapsing as the
Hux drew back, cradling his injured hand, and pulled himself up, seething. "If only you'd have learned along with the rest of the Otomok system. We always win." He shoved away the medic that offered assistance, strands of slick hair falling across his forehead. "As for your other friend," he continued, looking back to Finn, "we've already met Poe Dameron before, haven't we?"
As if Hux had timed it, Poe was hauled in next, hanging limply between his escort. When they dumped him on Finn's other side, they had to arrange his limbs for him so that he could stay somewhat upright, swaying blearily. When Rose caught sight of Poe's condition, she abruptly stopped her struggles, fear stilling her fruitless scuffling.
Poe looked like he'd been stampeded by a herd of blurggs, and if Finn had to guess, he probably had sustained equivalent injuries to a trampling. One eye was swollen shut and his face littered with more bruises, a line of spit and blood trailing from his lower lip. It wasn't the careful, precise wounds of a torture droid, but rather the infliction of pain for the sake of it. Finn felt shame rise in him, knowing that the stormtroopers must have had some fun with Poe, probably for putting up a fight when they'd been taken. He couldn't see any other injuries, but with the way Poe held himself, trembling and breathing shallowly, Finn knew there was more unseen under the stolen pilot's jumpsuit.
Hux stepped forward and clasped his hands behind his back, looking particularly pleased. "We made a little trip while you were otherwise occupied. Since this charade of letting the Resistance exist has outlived its usefulness, it's time we end this annoyance once and for all." Hux gestured towards the containment field keeping the atmosphere within the hangar.
Finn had been too preoccupied, but now that he looked over the rows of white domes of stormtroopers, he could see an ashy-white planet. It took him a few seconds to recognize the orb in the black sky was the planet where he'd spent the last week wondering how he could escape the inevitability of the situation he currently found himself in.
He'd hoped that he wouldn't drag anyone else down with him, but that hadn't worked out.
"Look at them," Hux marveled. "Even now they still hope to evade us. Pathetic."
Finn squinted and saw the flicker of movement between the planet's surface and the fleet locked in synchronized orbit. He suddenly felt cold. The Resistance had finally decided to make a break for it, just in time to be blown out of the sky by the First Order's armada.
"Don't do it," Finn shouted.
Hux ignored him, turning to the lieutenant standing to the side. "Fire on their fleet until there's nothing left but atoms."
"Yes, sir."
"No!" Rose cried with a weak thrash.
"Captain, execute the prisoners," Hux ordered, then turned on his heel and strode away between the rows of troopers.
Phasma stepped forward, blocking Finn's sight of Crait and the doomed Resistance fleet. "Execution by blaster is too good for them. Let's make this hurt."
Kylo spent the short journey through hyperspace trying to fight the tide of hopelessness that was rising over the throbbing headache in his skull. Making another play now would be foolishness. Snoke seemed to realize Kylo had yielded even if temporarily and ignored him for the moment, leaving him to slump against the viewport as the stars flickered by.
Instead he turned his scrutiny to his apprentice, regarding her unmoving pose and downcast eyes. Her face twisted when Snoke drummed his fingers on the arm of his throne and he suspected Snoke was speaking into her mind, forcing himself into her thoughts. Kylo wanted to reach out to her, to remind her that she wasn't alone, that he was right here, Rey, I'm here. But he couldn't do anything but watch as Snoke toyed with her mind. He turned away, pressing his cheek against the cool glass. Kylo didn't know where Snoke was taking them but he knew he wouldn't like it when he found out.
His premonition was confirmed when they dropped out of hyperspace less than twenty minutes later and he could see the familiar shade of Crait against the emptiness of space. It didn't take nearly as long for them to reach the pristinely shining mineral planet as it had for Kylo and his friends to travel from there to the Supremacy, and Kylo realized they must have already traveled part of the way while he was wandering around the mega star destroyer trying to figure out what he was doing.
Snoke already knew.
Kylo pushed himself up and looked back at Snoke, who was grinning at him.
"I promised you, boy, that I'd remove the last obstacles keeping you from freely submitting yourself to my tutelage." Snoke's fingers twitched and Kylo was lifted into the air again. "Look here."
Kylo found himself suspended in front of an oculus that focused on the eclectic collection of ships that made up the Resistance's fleet hovering in Crait's orbit. The focus shifted, narrowing in on the stream of shuttles fleeing the planet's surface, too late. As he watched, green ionized bolts leapt from the Supremacy's cannons and streaked towards the unsuspecting ships.
"The entire Resistance is on those vessels," Snoke narrated with barely suppressed glee, "including your mother. Soon, they will all be gone. For you, all is lost."
Kylo felt a cold wash of dread, followed by a drowning sense of despair.
Leia. Mom.
Kylo thrashed, but all he succeeded in doing was twitching in Snoke's Force grip. After a few fruitless seconds, he went limp, panting.
"Still, that fiery spit of hope!" Snoke chuckled. He dragged Kylo back just as the first round of cannonfire struck the helpless shuttles, creating pockets of flame.
"Coward!" Kylo spat, choking on a helpless sob as he dangled before Snoke once again.
"Hmm," Snoke murmured, unfazed. "Not anger, I sense from you now, but despair. How unfortunate."
Kylo was yanked to his knees, his heart pounding in his chest.
Snoke observed, "Unlike my apprentice, who chose to mold her disappointment into anger and power, you let it weaken you. If you had come to me before," he waved a hand, "maybe. But now, you will always have doubts. And because of that, you must die.
"Rise my worthy apprentice, take up your weapon," Snoke said, his voice ringing throughout the hall as his ice-blue eyes moved beyond Kylo. "My empty vessel, forged in darkness. Where I once sensed conflict, I now sense resolve. Where there was weakness, strength. Complete your training, and fulfill your destiny."
Kylo was sent spinning across the throne room, freezing in a kneeled posture of servility before Rey, who rose to stand above him, her lightsaber loose in her grasp. Her eyes were strangely dim and detached as they fixed on Kylo's face. Kylo wondered what Snoke had done to her. He wanted her to be here, to see him as she had right before they kissed, when her eyes had held the hope and light of a galaxy.
"Rey," he pleaded, heedless of the tears falling down his face.
"I know what I have to do," she said to him, toneless. Kylo felt Snoke's satisfaction smothering him.
"You think you can turn her? Pathetic boy," Snoke mocked. "I cannot be betrayed, I cannot be beaten. I see her mind, I see her every intent. Yesss."
Kylo felt his throat closing up and tried to swallow, all the desperate emotions clogging before he could get them out.
You're not alone.
Neither are you.
Rey's grip on her weapon tightened.
"I see her turning the lightsaber to strike true."
He could already imagine the burn of a lightsaber in his chest, and now that it was almost there, he realized he didn't want that.
"And now, foolish boy..."
Kylo didn't dare turn away from her eyes.
"She ignites it, and kills her true enemy!"
Kylo collapsed into a heap at the sharp hiss of a lightsaber igniting. Rey was still staring down at him, but the hilt her in her hand was dead, leaving the space between them empty of the flickering blade Kylo had expected to connect them.
He rolled over just in time to see Snoke's severed torso topple to the ground, the glittering Skywalker blade blazing across the throne. Kylo rose to his feet, reaching out a hand to call the ignited saber. It flew to his palm, his fingers curling around the familiar hilt, and turned to Rey.
He found she had ignited her own sputtering blade, the light in her eyes returning a reflection of the crimson lightsaber she held. He was vaguely aware of the Praetorian guard coming to life, closing in on them, but once again the world was reduced to Rey as he stared into her eyes and saw the galaxy opening to them.
Her lips twitched in the briefest of smiles before they turned in complete synchronicity and crouched back to back to face whatever dared assail them.
Author's Note:
Hello! Thank you so much for reading my story. I'd love to hear what you think, so leave a review and follow for updates! Next chapter will be up in two weeks.
