A/N: Thanks for the follows/favs and especially the reviews, I can't wait to get your thoughts on this chapter as well! :D Only one more chapter to go after this one...*shocked intake of breath* ;)


CHAPTER 32

She breathed hard through the mask, the filtered air not tasting purer but staler. It felt like she was getting less of it too, or at least had to try harder to feed oxygen into her lungs. Rey nearly retched with the sensation.

With being so close but unable to reach out to him!

It was torture to have to face him from behind Hux's vile figure—to take in Ben's exhausted face and not see recognition there.

She thought she had felt a tug at their bond as she neared him, as she stood inches away from him, but she had quenched that lightest of brushes. It hadn't made her feel any less terrified he still knew it was her.

Not yet... Not yet...she feverishly repeated the words in her head like a mantra.

And then Leia finally grabbed the collar around his neck—absorbing its retaliatory surge without batting an eyelid—and pulverized it. The execution trooper remained tellingly deaf to Hux's frantic yells and Finn revealed his identity with a calm purposefulness she hadn't seen in him before. The executioner heeded the call, and threw off her own helmet. More followed their example. Hux and his officers stood stunned at what they were witnessing.

But wouldn't for much longer.

Ben acted on the warning impulse a moment before she did—Force summoning his saber to his hand. With it he sliced through Leia's handcuffs even though they hadn't been locked, then deflected with ease the bolts Hux fired his way with the blaster pistol he slipped from the folds of his coat.

Now!

Rey felt a thrill run through her at the smooth birth of the saber in her hands—even more so at the liberating hiss of her mask opening.

For one, mesmerizing moment she stared back into Ben's eyes, their onyx-brown pools shot through with hints of his soul and her own. The bond between them instantly blazed into life with a soothing roar. Minds and hearts linked, their Force presences mingled as easily as water—her strength pouring into him and his fervor spreading like fire in her veins.

Rey didn't even stir at the sound of the Knights' weapons igniting behind her; Marrek's mace emitted its low, rumbling drone, and Yara's dark saber crackled menacingly.

She was ready for their attack because she knew Ben would join her in time. And they would stop them.

Together...

Swinging her saber over her shoulder, it didn't even tremble as she caught the mace mid-stroke with it—the heat of its spiked, laser-riddled head radiating against her back. Ben had already rushed forward and skidded to a halt inches in front of her, his saber thrust past her face to meet Yara's.

Hux was backing away from the four of them, sending a renewed barrage of deadly bolts spewing from his blaster pistol as he retreated. Finn answered it with a volley of his own, scattering the cluster of officers, save for one who sheltered behind her datapad. It became apparent quickly, however, that her cowering had been deceiving: over a dozen white spheres now came flying towards them with a collective, insect-like whine.

The swarm of patrol droids bore down upon them. Ben pushed off Yara's weapon and Rey swiveled out of Marrek's way. The broad-chested knight stumbled forward for a second now the block on his weapon lifted and its momentum and weight suddenly returned.

Moving like her mirror image, Ben ducked and came out behind the Knights from the other side—trapping them between their sabers and the droids as the latter revealed their dormant programming.

"Watch out!" Rey yelled in the direction of Finn, raising her borrowed weapon in anticipation.

Recognizing the danger, Connix pulled Leia out of the way, both of them barely having hit the square when all hell broke loose. The droids unleashed plasma throwers and neural disruption canons on enemy and ally alike. Their ammunition created a wall of serrated circles a hellish purple through which blood red lasers pierced—both searching for lifeforms.

"Aaargh!"

Finn fell backwards with a cry of pain just before Rey and Ben's weapons spun around to send the rain of rays and lasers back at the droids. Cursing inwardly, it cost Rey all of her effort to stay where she was, trusting the Force that rolled away from her and touched upon her friend's fluctuating but reassuring presence.

"He's alright!" the execution trooper kneeling down next to Finn called out to them. More and more defectors swelled the ranks around her and Finn and the others, forming a protective circle of blaster fire around the group.

That was all Rey had time to register before her and Ben's true opponents managed to find an opening in the storm of violence and charged.

Their bond whirled around them, a tangible current that offered guidance and raw strength. As one, Rey raised her saber with Ben's just before they both clashed with the Knights' weapons.

They stood their ground, back to back as the Knights surrounded them, parrying every strike aimed at them. Yara lunged forward but Rey saw the dark saber's path before it arched toward her. She deflected it with a backhand swipe of Keeva's elegant blade. Its narrow end scraped an ugly gash across Yara's mask, severing the connecting rivers of silver.

The Knight's avenging jab came swift but expected. Rey flicked her wrist, angling her weapon to send the stroke awry then grabbed the saber with both hands to block the next blow; the impact traveled through the hilt and tingled her palms.

Yara withdrew the black, hissing shaft—breaking the gridlock and lashing out with a horizontal slash instead. All Rey had to do was lean back on the balls of her feet, molding her arching back over Ben's as he bent his to trap Marrek's mace with his saber. The impact of the heavy, crude weapon shattered stone and sent a tremor up her ankles, prompting Rey to instinctively anchor herself in Ben's firm stance.

It was like being back in the Throne room; the Force giving them another chance to merge and fight as one. She didn't have to glance over her shoulder to know how Ben was doing. Her muscles were connected to his. His vision was hers. The sounds and smells around him were her own. The bond now sang between them—it was nearly impossible not to listen to its captivating chorus as it shuddered with its promise of harmony.

Of belonging...

(…)

Her presence so incredibly close, her back pressed against his own, felt as surreal as that moment when she had taken his hand. Ben still saw the mask falling away to reveal Rey's face—the hazel of her eyes instantly melting with his own.

She had come back for him...

Everything in him wanted to let the overwhelming sensation wash over him until he believed it. But something still held him back—something that retaliated against the truth of it. Ben pressed down harder with his saber, it snarled eagerly as it ground Marrek's mace even further into fragmented stone. He wished for nothing more than for Rey to be far away. Far away and safe. And yet, having her this near—once again fighting at his side—struck him as the most precious gift the stars could have granted him.

Marrek growled in anger—the sound distorted by his mask into something half machine, half animal. He made to kick out against Ben's chest, forcing him to free his enemy's weapon. Instead he concentrated the Force and hurled it at the Knight.

They might have chosen the same path that day when the Temple burned down, but they had walked very different ones in the end...

Only just retaining his hold on the mace, Marrek flew backward, the soles of his boots grating over the square as he fought the collision with the unseen fist buried in his diaphragm. He found his balance surprisingly fast and swung his weapon outward, missing Ben's face by a hairsbreadth.

The nudge in the Force that Rey sent his way helped Ben steady and lift his saber to the mace now plummeting towards him. He caught it near the hilt, his own weapon shaking a little in his tight grasp. Ben clenched his jaw in concentration, tilting the crossguard towards Marrek's wrist. The Knight let out an enraged yelp the moment it made contact. The acrid scent of smoke filled Ben's nostrils as the scarlet beam of erratic energy burned through robe and glove.

Marrek jumped out of reach, nursing his injury and flicking a quick look at his companion. It didn't take Yara long to join him, though her signature oozed disdain and annoyance. The two of them started to retreat amidst the droids still whizzing about, roughly pushing away stormtroopers who were on their side and ricocheting back some of the bolts Finn and the others harried them with.

He could feel Rey relax against him for a heartbeat, leeching comfort and affirmation in that infinitesimal short span of time.

They were going after them...

"Dax!" he called at the top of his lungs to be heard over the noise of battle. She looked up from the blaster cradled in her arms, deftly falling back from her many brothers and sisters who had joined her cause.

"Get Ika."

Ben knew in the way the trooper's shoulders set that she understood even what he hadn't said.

They wouldn't hold out for ever against the troops loyal to Hux and the First order.

"I will go with her."

It was Leia who had spoken, striding over to Dax and looking perfectly at ease despite the hunting lasers, blaster bolts and spurts of plasma electrifying the very air. For a moment Ben felt the strange urge to grin. There was no point in dissuading his mother. He knew it. She did too. The familiar brown in her eyes glinted in apparent amusement as if to say 'You didn't get that stubbornness from him, you know'.

He nodded and watched Dax lead the way with a handful of other troopers, his mother effortlessly mingling with them as if the Resistance's fight and that of her new allies had always been the same.

"We'll secure the shuttle!" Connix bellowed in her turn, gesturing to Finn, who immediately set off after her, blaster taking care of the first helmeted stormtroopers blocking their way—expression grim but unwavering throughout.

Ben turned to face the whirling shapes of the patrol droids. The two Knights disappeared behind them to join Hux and the overwhelming numbers still at his command. Rey stood next to him, her saber, like his, rebounding their enemy's fire with an almost casual twirl this way, then that in the evanescent lull.

'Ready?' he asked, and it was dizzying to share their thoughts again—to feel that same thrill go through her and then hear her voice answering in his head.

'Ready.'

They rushed forward, tearing through the first few droids, sending others crashing on the square with a fierce pull of the Force. One clipped his shoulder with a neural disruption ray as Ben jumped over the molten wreckage of another. His teeth chattered with the paralyzing buzz but before he had recovered himself Rey had dissected the droid with a series of well-aimed sweeping strokes and its parts rained down on yet another hovering below—effectively burying both of the persistent devices.

The way ahead was free. Or it had been. The moment they broke through, the massive shape of an assault tank already lumbered into view. Its front was like the chelicerae of a Harch—though it was spitting laser-bolts instead of the human-arachnoid's venom.

Ben just caught a glimpse of Hux disappearing behind the heavily armored vehicle, the two Knights letting it pass between them without so much as a careless, taunting glance over their shoulders.

He knew he shouldn't be riled by their arrogance—if he didn't keep his temper in check it could cost him; them. Beside him, Rey gasped and he looked up to find that the behavior of the Knights suddenly made a lot more sense. A second tank slowly rolled up, a unit of flametroopers marching along behind it...

(…)

Their visors nothing but narrow slits, the horde of flametroopers spilled around the tanks and towards them like a shoal of eyeless phantoms. Rey couldn't stop herself from trembling when their protruding mouthpieces emitted an eerie refrain as highly efficient filters sucked in air with an almost pitiable wheeze.

She didn't feel sympathy, though, when their new opponents raised their long rifles, black tubes connecting them to bulky fuel tanks on their back. Next instant, far-reaching jets of fire shot from every muzzle, turning their corner of the battlefield into an inferno.

Sabers would be of no use now. Ben stretched his arms before him, both hands palm out. Rey hurried to follow his lead, concentrating the Force in front of them into something that was almost solid though still as invisible as the air around it.

The streams of fire were redirected at the last possible second, breaking on the unseen obstacle like waves on rocks. Rey blinked, for a moment the wall of flames all that she could see. Mere inches away from her, she could feel the heat of them on her face.

'Almost...' Ben said, and she could sense his teeth grinding in concentration as he sent the thought her way. 'There will be a short lapse soon. Those tubes will overheat if they don't disengage the fuel tanks now and then.'

'How short?' Rey asked warily, narrowing her eyes against the fierce glare of fire still tirelessly effusing against their barrier and reaching out to detect the first signs of the attack letting up.

'Short,' Ben simply answered, breathing with some difficulty and head lowering a little as if in exhaustion.

Rey swallowed hard, worry flooding her. 'What did they do to you?'

Ben didn't immediately reply but she knew he'd heard her voice in his mind. She could tell by the subtle twinge in his signature as his thoughts led him back to memories too fresh to put into words.

'Not enough to kill me.' Ben tilted his face towards her and she felt not the torrid heat of the dispersing fire, but the pleasant warmth of his gaze. 'You may have had something to do with that.'

Rey grinned despite the severity of the situation. 'Better not waste the trip I made to get here then.'

She had barely finished the thought when the streams of fire sputtered. Rey dropped her arms and ignited her saber as she sprinted forward, Ben less than a step behind. She could feel some of the lingering flames briefly singe his skin; they licked her own heels when she leapt up to the first and closest tank.

Through their bond rather than her senses, Rey sensed Ben working his way through the surprised flametroopers as she landed on the tank like a Loth cat. Her saber skewered the trooper exposed in the hatch, going right through the durasteel and his torso in the same, swift movement. She lifted his body from the only opening with the Force, having to dodge a rain of blaster bolts coming from within the moment she had done so.

Cursing through clenched teeth, she leaned back on her haunches, only just managing to keep her balance and ward off the bolts that still got too close for comfort. Rethinking her defensive strategy, she pushed herself off. Her body rolled up into a ball as she arced backwards, horizons swapping for a split-second until her feet touched the tank's surface again. Arms flailing and her toes clinging to the edge of the vehicle, she corrected her balance then flipped the saber around, burying the red shaft in the tank.

Ash and smoke wafting her way almost made her wish she had Keeva's mask back, but she simply held her breath instead. She ran her weapon through the entire length of her perch as Ben caught up to her, slicing through its guns and mirroring her jump to the next tank.

Making use of the higher vantage point, Rey cast a quick, surveying look around while Ben dealt with the tank's crew and armament. It didn't help her much. It was chaos. The flametroopers had either been killed or dispersed—their corpses lying everywhere. There were different pockets of fighters scattered around the square; helmeted troopers engaging those who had discarded their anonymity, the latter sheltering behind whatever cover they could find as they desperately returned fire. She couldn't see Finn and Connix, nor their shuttle. Leia, too, was nowhere to be seen.

It was dreadful not to know if the others were okay. But the truth was that it hardly mattered. It was impossible to keep track of what was going on everywhere. This had been about saving Ben. About taking out Yara, Marrek, and Hux if they could. Because they would not get another chance soon. They were never going to win the entire battle. Not if they wanted to win the war. Not if they all wanted to make it back alive—

A loud screech rent the air. Then another. And another. Within moments the sky was crawling with TIE fighters—their bulbous shapes rapidly grew bigger. Some of them had smoke trailing from their flat wings, green laser-fire peppering what should have been their own pilots.

One TIE veered off course, making straight for their position and releasing both its missiles with an ominous whoosh. In the same instant there was a roar of engines and Rey swiveled around to the source of the noise. Three speeder bikes raced off in the opposite direction, away from the battle.

"Ben!" she called out, pointing ahead at the receding figures of the Knights and Hux.

"I know," he said tersely, whirling his saber to deflect the blaster bolts back at the last of the tank's crew.

She hastily looked up at the sky again when the screeching of the TIE grew louder. It wasn't nearly as loud as the missiles' high-pitched whistling. This time she didn't have to voice the danger. Or use their telepathic connection. Not that there was time for either.

Instead, she relied on their bond—on the Force flowing between them, unhindered and strong. She rode its guiding current like he did. Both of them slowing down their breathing, nearly stopping it as they waited, muscles coiled.

They jumped a heartbeat before the missiles hit their target. The tank exploded with a loud grating of steel, sending forth balls of fire and debris. Rey and Ben rode the wave of the impact, adding speed and height to their momentum by calling on the Force.

Rey landed hard, a surge of pain shooting through her ankles. There was no time to pay it much heed or do so much as catch her breath. The tank was still a fountain of shredded steel, spewing fire and smoke high into the air.

And then the TIE burst through the curtain of destruction, releasing a barrage of deadly, vibrant laser-fire...

(…)

Panting, Ben countered the barrage. His saber danced through the air and splintered the streaks of green into smaller sparks that hammered their surroundings like a meteor shower. The hilt was a feverish warmth against his palm and increasingly shook in his hands with each impact. Ben muttered a heartfelt curse under his breath.

He was doing more harm than good this way.

Dodging the next round of laser-fire, he flicked a quick look at Rey. She understood his intention within seconds. As he pushed himself off, he felt her energy mingling with his in the Force, propelling him forward. Then he soared past the TIE that was upon them, feeling its slipstream pull at his body. He lashed out with his saber, infusing the stroke with the Force to lend it more strength.

Even before his feet hit the ground he knew it had worked. The TIE let out a mechanical scream as it received its fatal wound. Ben glanced back at it as he slowly rose to his feet and, like Rey, watched how it spun around its axis. With one wing severed there was no way for the pilot to stay in the air.

Despite knowing they were at a safe enough distance, Ben felt the instinct to raise a protective arm in front of his face when Rey lifted hers as the TIE crashed. It skidded and tumbled like a broken toy, shedding parts and trailing dark, burning smoke as it threatened to catch up to the three speeder bikes still bolting away at full throttle from the square.

'Come on!' Rey's voice was loud and urgent in his head. She sprinted ahead, following the path the downed TIE had made. Ben tore after her, saber tight in his fist.

He reached the edge of the square when Rey was halfway clearing the smoldering wreck. She waited for him on the rim of the wall the TIE had collided with. Beyond it the Palace gardens carried the scars of the crash too. There was rubble strewn over its silky lawns, some large enough to have created sandy pits with burning but no longer recognizable contents.

More importantly, there were three crippled and abandoned speeder bikes scattered along the winding path leading further into the gardens.

His skin prickled and he looked up to find Rey's gaze on him. Her expression was calm but purposeful, and yet there was a question in her eyes.

If they continued their pursuit beyond this point, there was no going back...

A tremor traveled up his spine at the possible outcome. They could turn around. Flee.

They could be safe...

The hint of an earnest grin played across her face too when he felt it tug at his own mouth.

They had made this decision a long time ago.

"I say we finish what we started," he said, increasing his grip on the hilt of his saber, the erratic, crimson blade crackled eagerly in response.

"So do I," Rey answered solemnly. The scavenger she had once been more pronounced in the way she deftly perched on the crumbling wall even as she appeared wholly different—Keeva's black robes both suiting and a glaring contrast. The borrowed saber in her hands cast her freckled face in a vivid red glow that yet failed utterly in diminishing the soft brightness of the brown of her eyes.

They continued on without the need to say more; their Force signatures entwining as they ran and the bond humming encouragingly between them when they came out on the beach. Apart from themselves there were three figures hurrying along the curve of the water: it lapped against the sand with gurgling foam and the repetitive rumble and rush of waves rolling in and retreating.

Marrek was lagging behind. He dragged one leg, a hand grabbing his bleeding thigh. Ben and Rey were nearly on him before he halted, his mace extending from his free hand and his broad shoulders slightly hunched in anticipation.

The three weapons clashed, sending sand flying. They tangled again. And again. Rey and Marrek's robes swayed wildly around their ankles as they moved. The Force, too, was a whirling mass of energy around them. The zinging of their weapons punctuated the strained growls of the Knight whenever they landed a hit. Then the Force seemed to part like the branches of a willow in a breeze and Ben knew the moment was there. He raised his saber high over his head and it plummeted down with such overwhelming power that it went right through the Knight's weapon and it disintegrated in his trembling hold.

Marrek staggered to keep standing, the wounds on his arms and torso glowing an angry, hot, orange. Although void of expression, his unadorned mask radiated nothing but disgust, the two narrow slits of his visor tilted towards Ben. With his weapon gone there was no hint of emerging remorse. The fact that Yara and Hux weren't coming back didn't even spark a sense of betrayal.

Ben hadn't expected a plea for forgiveness—hadn't thought the boy he had studied with at the Temple was still there. The corrupted man that had replaced him heaved with his laborious breathing, biting out an embittered, "Finish it then."

It wasn't a plea. A wish for it to be over. It was a last, spiteful attempt to take at least one of them down with him. Ben steadied his stance, angling his body so he shielded Rey as he swung his saber in a wide arc.

Marrek howled out in agony and fury, the punch he had been trying to land never reaching its victim. The Force he had hurled with it in their direction went awry too. Ben felt Rey's intention a second before she wrenched the volatile current out of its course and it dissipated like an unseen wisp of smoke.

Defeated, the Knight dropped to the sand with a dull thud. His signature wavered, then spluttered to a definitive halt. Ben looked away, relief and regret battling for dominance as the wind carried the spray of the sea to stain the dark form at his feet with white specks. But there was no room for a pause—for contemplating the life he had taken.

He locked eyes with Rey next to him. At her grave nod they took off after Yara and Hux, resolution perhaps lending them greater speed than even the impelling nudge of the Force could manage.

(…)

Rey grit her teeth as she ran, determined to make up for the last time they had faced the same enemies. The sand felt familiar under her feet. She was different though. It felt like she was fully awake now: conscious of the cruelty of the galaxy at large, not just the harsh, monotonous reality of living on Jakku. But there would be justice. Atonement. A balance restored. And they would spark that chain of events today. This was where it began.

She didn't have to look sideways to know Ben was at her side—his presence was a soothing and steady pulse.

Sucking in a quick breath, Rey launched herself at the lithe shape of Yara as Ben met Hux's round of blaster fire. The Knight pivoted around, catching her assailant's saber with her own. She snarled through her mask and pushed Rey back so that their weapons disconnected, one leg kicking out in the same instant.

Rey crossed her arms and took the blow full on, calling upon the Force to cushion the impact. Her bones rattled all the same when the Knight's boot made contact. But she didn't stagger with it, her heels simply digging a little deeper in the sand. Her face taut, Rey swung both arms outward, making Yara stumble backwards in her stead, the Knight's saber only barely missing her chest.

Reducing the negligible distance between them, Rey changed to a backhand grip and gave the lurching figure a mighty push with the butt of her weapon—the hilt cracking a rib by the sound of it. Yara fell, despite her pointless, floundering swipe with the dark saber in her hand. Rey pinned her down with a knee, grabbing a fistful of the robes so like the ones she wore and holding the slender red beam inches away from the Knight's throat.

She was a heartbeat away from ending the one-sided duel when she felt a sharp sting in her shoulder. It was as if her senses were dulled all at once. She was suddenly blind and deaf and isolated to everything around her.

Even the Force had retreated from her touch...

Letting out a gasp of surprise, her confusion lasted but a moment longer when she realized the sensation wasn't hers. It was Ben's. The Force was a restless vortex; their bond all but vanishing like a star being sucked out of the fabric of space so that its surrounding gravity was left grasping desperately for its reassuring presence.

Reeling from the sudden imbalance, Rey raised her saber only just in time to block Yara's attack. She rolled off her, struggling to stand up in the surrounding water that drenched her robes. Rey only caught a brief glimpse of Ben's wavering form before Yara was upon her again. Rey met the blow and twisted away, the pull of the sea dragging at her ankles and legs, the salty water splashing and frothing around them.

And then there was nothing but all-consuming pain. She flew backwards, slamming hard on the beach. Rey groaned and barely managed it now all air had been ousted from her lungs. The immediate world around her was riddled with lingering blue roots of electricity that seemed of a mind to claw her eyeballs out. She lifted her head an inch, the sand coating her skin and the wet strands of hair sticking to her temples itching and blurring her vision.

Another charge of lightning struck her, traveling from Yara's gloved fingertips like filigree wires that hooked themselves in Rey's flesh—chewed on her bones. Instinctively, she reached out to Ben, retching with the nauseating pain when she groped around and found nothing.

She tried again, fear gripping her throat. This time there was a rush of energy that engulfed her. His energy. It receded as quickly as it had come but it was enough to dispel the torturing lightning holding her in its excruciating grasp. Judging by the enraged yell rending the air, Yara's retaliation had been thwarted by Ben.

Rey struggled to her feet, her saber nearly sliding out of her hand. She had only just tightened her hold on the hilt when an arm caught and crushed her like a vine and something cold and hard pressed against her temple...