Pivot
By: Discord
A/N: Rey is never rescued from Starkiller Base, and Kylo Ren brings her to a remote planet to make her his dark apprentice. So far, it's not going well….
Most chapters will be drabbles (installments of less than 1,000 words) and hopefully updated every two weeks. Reviews are much appreciated!
Chapter One: Found You
From within his helmet's cage, Kylo Ren closed his eyes, calling to the Force around him, gathering it up like a second cloak. Its warm whispers had long ago quieted; it was cold and listless, resigned to its repurposing, and he hunted for impressions of the scavenger in his culled harvest.
She's been here, he realized, scanning the exposed planetary rock and chromed corners of Starkiller Base with new interest. A cruel smile twisted his mouth in a long-forgotten shadow of satisfaction. The prisoner's recapture was inevitable.
She's close.
The lure of Skywalker, a target for so many years, paled in comparison to finding the girl. Snoke had foretold her awakening like a coming storm, but hadn't prepared his apprentice for how dangerous she'd truly be.
Kylo knew better—now, at least.
Their initial meeting in the forest surrounding Maz Kanata's pitiful outpost had been nondescript; one of a hundred concluded flights of First Order undesirables. The girl was just as unremarkable – a trembling fount of panic and resolve he'd seen many times before.
Kylo had stolen her name from behind her fatuously expressive eyes, and it was as uninspired and forgettable as she.
Rey.
Seeping into her mind, he'd been surprised to catch glimpses of his father, and more importantly, the sought-after BB unit. Bringing her back to the base had been an easy decision; the piece of navigation chart the droid had shown her would finally end the Jedi.
But once aboard Starkiller Base, the girl's gritted tenacity had taken on a foreign edge. Rey had somehow been strong enough in the Force to have pushed back into Kylo's mind during his interrogation, forcibly plucking information before he could sever the connection. She had no training. No pedigree. Such a feat should have been impossible.
She needs a teacher.
Despite her lack of instruction, she had escaped her manacled restraints. Now, Kylo stalked down a corridor, rounding a bend with strides that lengthened in anticipation. Such tedious chase usually roused only anger – unbridled and splayed everywhere at the prospect of having to be methodical. Patient. But this time, a hummed sort of thrill lanced him. He honored his quarry with such notice, though he doubted she'd be pleased.
One of Hux's troopers approached at a near-run, and Kylo savored the trepidation the man tried to hide beneath his gleaming armor. The girl's fear was more sublime, but this would do for now.
"Yes?" He clipped out. The voice modulator of his mask made every uttered word thick with menace and never failed to gratify.
"We've searched through the lower levels, sir," the trooper managed to sound steady. Sure. "All clear."
He, like so many others, never knew the inner workings the Force imparted without permission.
"Keep looking," Kylo ordered. "She's just beginning to test her powers."
The man nodded and rushed off, his relief a tangible tang in the air.
A loud echo shook the ebbs around him, and Kylo turned on his heel, veering toward it. Rey was a crystalline shock in the Force, so clear and vibrant it jolted him with jealousy, polluting his excitement.
How could she possess such clarity, blazing a blinding trail, when she was nothing but a desert junk-rat? Her presence was growing brighter – it felt like she was in the next room – and Kylo sensed her movements easily now. She was down in the bowels of the base, scurrying furtively among its thermal oscillators.
What are you up to, scavenger?
Rey's hammering heart thundered in her ears as she planted another of the charges she'd stumbled upon in her progress through the Order stronghold. Somehow, she'd known exactly where the explosives had been housed, and where they'd do the most damage. The certainty was unwavering, like relayed intel at a fabled Resistance mission briefing, and she was too tired, clinging to her bleeding adrenaline, to care why.
The stormtrooper rifle she'd taken from her coerced guard was heavy on her back, an unfamiliar weight making her already-taxed muscles ache. Rey's thoughts strayed to Takodana, and she wondered if her new friends had survived the Order's attack. The closest facsimile to family she'd ever experienced – were they to be ripped away already?
Focus, she admonished silently. Think later.
Her hands moved on automatic, activating the charge. Stepping back, she stumbled against the beveled lip of a shadowed gangplank, bathed in emergency red lighting. A terrible dread rose in her, murmurs of tragedy threatening to encumber far more than the blaster rifle, and she shied away from the railed walkway.
Thudding boots sounded overhead, and Rey spun, looking up as they stopped.
The monster had found her. Kylo Ren. He stood on a metal-plated deck above, canting his head as he stared down. Appraising. Measuring. The tilt of his neck eased.
Finding her lacking.
"No one is coming for you," he called, making no move toward the laddered stairs at the platform's edge. "But that's nothing new, is it?" Beneath his tone's impassive calm, she heard derision. "You were abandoned on Jakku long before I brought you here."
"Shut up," Rey snapped, trying to resist the coil of anger unwinding within. "Stealing memories doesn't grant you insight. You know nothing about me."
Kylo palmed the deck's rail and vaulted over it in a billow of robes, ignoring the ladder entirely. He landed before her without any jarred impact, as if aided by invisible wires, and straightened in unhurried ease. She knew what he was thinking without seeing the face behind his mask.
She posed no threat. She was cornered prey.
Rey felt probing fingers reach into her mind, and she shook them off, staggering backward. She couldn't let him see images of the explosives. She'd blow them both away first.
"I know all there is to know," Kylo said. "You're a piece of discarded dune-trash. A disposable pawn in the Resistance's grasping, futile schemes."
Rey clenched the detonator she'd held hidden into a throttle, lifting it slowly until it came into view.
"Then my part in the game ends now," she choked out, pressing its button.