Rey flinched. It was the only movement she could make. Had he not been straddling her, she would have rolled immediately to her side and snatched up her fallen sword, but his reaction suggested that these visitors were no threat.

He glanced toward the speaker with an air of languid indifference, before standing slowly and straightening his robes. Rey sat up the moment she was freed, and scrambled to her feet beside him. She was suddenly and acutely aware of the absence of her own robes. It was a good thing she had chosen to leave her shift on beneath them.

In the doorway stood three masked figures and a black-robed acolyte. She recognized the three from the raid on Ka'vec. These were members of Kylo's Knights of Ren, and the way they stood, lax and at ease, suggested that they were on very familiar terms with him. The acolyte was the only one who stood with his head bowed beneath his hood.

"I am training my apprentice," Kylo began, his voice measured and low. "I do hope that this interruption is not without reason."

"Training?" the first repeated. It was a woman beneath the mask, Rey was certain. The timbre of her modified voice suggested it, and her body, even in its black armor, was noticeably slighter than her comrades. "I don't recognize the forms you're teaching. Is that the sort of training you learned on Ka'vec?"

The largest of the Knights snorted at this, and Kylo's eyes went immediately to him. He was not amused. Rey could feel his anger building.

"When you've finished your training, perhaps you'll let me have a go with her, eh?" the tall one scoffed.

Rey's eyes were on Kylo. She saw his head tilt to one side as the tall Knight fell to his knees and grabbed at his neck. He was making choking sounds which sounded metallic through his mask.

"Is that the girl you dragged out of the mud back on Ka'vec?" the woman inquired, ignoring her choking companion as she paced toward them. "You'll have to forgive me for saying it, but she doesn't look like much."

"Will I?"Kylo snarled, turning his attention to her. The choking Knight collapsed, finally breathing in great, shuddering gasps.

"You've waited so long to take on an apprentice. I suppose I had assumed that when you finally did, your apprentice would be… well, something more, perhaps."

Rey's hands itched for the cast-off sword. She didn't like the way the woman was sizing her up, almost as if she was looking for a fight. The woman was armed to the teeth, and moved with the grace and confidence of a skilled fighter. Rey wasn't sure she like her odds.

"And I suppose you believe your own apprentice to be far superior?" Kylo growled, and for the first time the woman glanced over her shoulder toward the black-robed figure standing with his head bowed near the doorway.

"Oh, I had almost forgotten. I came to present my new apprentice to the Master of the Knights of Ren. Kylo Ren, may I introduce Yure Vlock. Yure, bow to Master Ren."

The figure kneeled in response, dipping his head even lower.

"Yure has mastered six of the seven forms of lightsaber combat, and he's currently training in Massassai weaponry. He is a worthy apprentice, and I believe we can expect great things from him. We will soon test him in combat," the woman finished, as she slowly circled Rey.

"Fine," Kylo nodded.

"And your apprentice?" the woman asked.

"My apprentice isn't your concern, Jaila."

"What are her talents? Hand-to-hand combat, I take it? What else—is she force sensitive?" Jaila asked, ignoring the warning note in his voice. Rey continued to stand very still as the female knight appraised her.

"Her talents are considerable. I suggest you find somewhere else to train before I allow her to demonstrate."

"But I would like a demonstration," the woman urged him. "Yure, come here!"

At her order, the hooded figure stood and approached swiftly, bowing once again as he reached them. Jaila reached for his hood and swept it back revealing the sharp-featured, red-skinned face of her apprentice. His yellow eyes swept quickly across Rey before returning to the floor, and she thought she detected a hint of a smirk cross his face.

"What do you say we match them against each other and see how she does, Master Ren? Surely, any apprentice of yours has nothing to fear from mine," Jaila challenged.

Rey glanced quickly at Kylo, hoping that neither her shock nor fear showed on her face, but he did not deign to notice her. He seemed to be considering it. Rey wished she could kick him! Without her Force abilities, Jaila's apprentice was likely to beat her senseless. When Kylo nodded, she couldn't stop the angry huff of breath that escaped her.

"Very well, but my apprentice has only recently recovered from her latest injuries. She'll need rest, and time to familiarize herself with a new weapon. Shall we say three days hence?" he agreed.

Jailia's helmet jerked in a quick nod.

"Fair enough, Master Ren. I look forward to it."

"We'll leave you to your training then. Your apprentice will need it much more than mine," he sneered.

He extended his arm toward his helmet, and caught it as it flew to his hand. He passed Yure without sparing him a glance, and after a moments hesitation, Rey hurried after him, keeping her head up and her lips clamped firmly as they took their leave.

It was harder to keep her mouth shut while following him through the Citadel. She wanted to stop him, accuse him of using her for sport, and demand an explanation, but she suspected that any attempt she made would be quickly shut down with one wave of his hand. There was no telling who might be listening, and she knew him well enough to know that he would not tolerate any expression of doubt from his apprentice which wasn't made behind closed doors.

She was breathing heavily by the time he stopped and finally turned towards her.

"You will begin a new type of training now," he said, and motioned to the door before them.

It was a heavy, and oddly-shaped metal door which tapered up to a point at the top, and appeared to be bolted shut from the outside. Something about it was foreboding to her.

"What is this?" she demanded.

"Go in and see," he ordered.

Glancing again at the heavily bolted door, Rey could not help the look of suspicion that crossed her face.

"After you, Master Ren."

Kylo smirked, but threw the bolts and stepped through the darkened doorway. After a brief second of hesitation, she followed, cringing away from the walls as she walked through the darkened, narrow hallway.

There was something wrong with the room beyond the door, something that raised the hairs along the back of her neck, and across her arms. Standing in the dark, she tried too place it— and recognized, at last, the tingling sensation that raced through her veins.

She drew in a sharp breath feeling the Force in her hands as she hadn't since coming to Baudere… but that wasn't exactly true. She had felt it, had sensed flashes of it when she was angry with the monster who held her captive, and then she understood what was wrong.

The Force was dark.

A light flared in front of her, sparking bright blue and then white before glowing brightly, revealing the space around her.

Rey gasped.

The room was spherical, with only one, massive chair in the very center of the floor. The chair reclined backwards slightly so that anyone sitting in it would be staring at the center of the ceiling, from which hung sheets of quivering gray and pink matter. She mistook it for material at first, but upon closer inspection, the pinkish grey sheets seemed to pulsate slightly. Glancing quickly around, she realized that the walls were made of the same stuff, and that the entire room seemed to pulse and quiver like a human's spilled innards. The room was alive!

She covered her mouth, and stepped back, crashing immediately into Kylo Ren, who had moved behind her without her realizing. He stood between her and the door, and she could not get by him without touching one of the walls—something that she had no intention of doing.

"Wh-what is this place?" she stammered, repressing the urge to push past him and run from the room.

"A remnant from the days when this citadel was a Sith stronghold. This is called a meditation sphere—a space which almost has its own consciousness. It multiplies a Force-users abilities many times over if used correctly," he explained.

"Why is it moving?" she demanded, lowering her voice, 'walls shouldn't move."

"Technology borrowed from the Yuuzhan Vong—the greatest bio-architects this galaxy has ever known—though they themselves came from far beyond it. From now on, we're going to work on strengthening your Force abilities. You won't beat Jaila's apprentice with your meager combat experience. However, I've seen your Force abilities and they are… formidable. There is not an acolyte or apprentice on Baudere who could match you."

His words rekindled her anger, and she almost forgot her trepidation of the pulsating room as she regarded him through narrowed eyes.

"You had no right to say that I would fight him!" she accused.

"As your master, I have every right," he replied coolly.

"No! Not in this. You're training me as your apprentice, he is training as well, we are not enemies. There is much that I have compromised to save my own life, but not this. I do not fight for honor. Not for my own, and certainly not for yours."

She flinched, waiting for his anger to come, but it did not. Kylo remained cool and detached, reaching past her to set his helmet on the arm of the chair, and removing the cowl from around his neck. This he began to twist slowly between his hands, Rey swallowed… hard.

"Is that what you think I did, offered you up to serve my own honor?" he asked lightly.

When she didn't answer, he smiled bitterly to himself and nodded.

"What you don't realize, scavenger, is that Yure and his fellow acolytes have served at this Citadel for years, training, competing against one another for the slim chance that one day they might be chosen to ascend to the rank of apprentice. Yure has proven himself in skill and wit, time and again. He did not gain his position easily. It is likely that he killed many of his peers to gain his place. You, however, are an unknown. You came here upon no one's recommendation but my own. Your skill has been displayed to no one but me. You must understand that the position you inhabit is one of great envy—"

"I didn't chose it!" she spat.

"That may be true, but no one but you and I know the way of it. Yure is well known to be an exceptional fighter, a warrior of great strength and cunning. He has little to fear from any of my knights nor from the jealousy of the acolytes. There are few who would challenge his place. You however… you have yet to prove yourself to my Knights. They do not yet think you worthy to fight among them—and that can have dangerous consequences for you—"

"You mean… you mean that one of them might attempt to assassinate me," she murmured.

"But if you were to win against Yure…"

Rey thought it over briefly.

"I've been here… well, I don't know how long, and no one has ever tried to kill me," she muttered.

"It was assumed that you were my prisoner. I had not claimed you as my apprentice."

"It is against the Jedi code. We don't fight unless we have to… we don't—"

"You are not now, nor were you ever fully a Jedi, little scavenger."

"I… I don't… I don't know—"

"This you will do, girl. You will do it because I order it so, and I am your master."

She scowled, and twisted her hands nervously together as she backed away from him. It was true that she had agreed to follow his orders—one of the many compromises she had made in order to stay alive. She could not deny that, nor did it seem that she would be able to deny him in this.

He watched her reaction, his eyebrows drawing down, as he stopped twisting the cloth between his hands.

"I will give you something," he murmured after a moment of silence between them. "Succeed in this and you will win a concession from me."

"What? What will you give me?" she asked, pricking up almost immediately.

"What do you wish?"

"My freedom!" she said at once, and saw her mistake almost immediately.

He sneered and turned away, almost as though she had spat at him, and for a moment, she feared that he would leave her there, bolting her in, and in a panic, she sprang after him, grasping the back of his robes. He froze at her touch.

"The sun," she whispered. "I want to see the sun, any sun. All this darkness and cold all the time. I'm not… I can't stand it."

He turned slowly to face her, and she let go of his robes, and backed away, ashamed of her fear and the desperation in her voice.

He took a step forward and then another, forcing her to back away farther, until she was stopped by the brush of the chair against the backs of her knees.

"Then you will train in the Force again," he said, and with one swift movement, he wrapped the twisted cowl around her face, tying it tightly behind her head so that her eyes were bound.

Rey fought blindly to free herself, only for her wrists to be caught and held.

"Peace, scavenger, peace," he growled. "All beginners must first learn not to see with their eyes. Surely Skywalker taught you in the same way."

He was right, of course. Master Luke had tied a scarf around her eyes and forced her to deflect small rocks he tossed at her for hours. She remembered the bruises, and how she loathed being blind, but it was different with Master Luke. Being blinded before him had never made her feel vulnerable, or exposed. Blind before Kylo Ren, she shivered, and for the briefest of seconds imagined his hand stoking her thigh the way he had in the training room.

"You must be able to sense an attack before it happens. You must use the Force to predict what your opponent will do before they do it, and finally, you must learn to do what Skywalker did not teach and use the Force as a weapon," he instructed.

His voice was moving, coming from her side at one moment and from behind her at the next. He was circling her slowly. When his voice stopped, she tilted her head nervously, listening for any telltale rustle or breath. Would he attack, or would he toss objects at her as Master Luke had? Perhaps that was part of his training. He wanted her to determine his intentions for herself.

Rey took a deep breath and tentatively reached out with her mind. He was easy to sense. His Force signature was so strong, that even on the dead planet, Baudere, she could almost always feel him.

The steady beat of his presence throbbed in her ears almost immediately, and she turned toward the source of it and was rewarded with a low chuckle.

Still he did not move, and once again, she tried to move the flow of power she felt in her veins outside of her body to push against him, to sense his thoughts—a skill she had never tried before.

But that wasn't quite true. She had done it once before, driving her will into his thoughts to pull out whatever might hurt him. She had been under attack then, however, and her duress had certainly added to her abilities—darkening them as she now understood. This was not a Jedi skill.

Her senses sharpened to her immediate left, and at once she could feel the shift in the air, and visualize his hand in the darkness. He was reaching slowly toward her.

She turned and shot her arm out, neatly catching his wrist.

"Good, but had I been trying to attack you, your reaction would have come too late. Attack wasn't my intent, Rey. What did I intend to do?"

"I don't know," she growled.

A force hit her from the opposite side, knocking her back so that her knees bent against the chair and she fell back into it. She made immediately to get up, but was stopped by a pressure against her chest.

"My intent was to off-balance you. To focus your attention to one side, so that you would not see my true attack—an old trick. One you would have easily seen through had you attempted to ascertain my intent and not my position."

"Alright, I see your point. Let me up," she hissed.

"No. Try again. My intent, Rey. What is it?"

Before she could sense his movement, she felt his fingers sweep lightly across her cheek and down her neck. She drew in a quick breath, and repressed her own thoughts, flashes of the moments before they were interrupted in the training room… his hand moving slowly up her thigh.

His intent—focus! Gritting her teeth she drove every bit of the tingling, burning sensation in her veins towards him. She would dig into his head the way he once had hers.

Immediately, she felt fear. It was all her fault. She wanted too much too fast. Now the girl was grievously injured and not healing. Her skin was cold to the touch and she shivered beneath the heavy blanket. When the medic came and went, he was always muttering, pretending that he didn't notice her standing there. As soon as he left, she once again lifted the blanket and slipped into bed beside her, pulling the girl's small, cold body into her arms, breathing hot against her neck. She was all bones, small and breakable, and yet the girl relaxed against the heat of her body as though comforted, yet her own fear intensified. She would soon have no choice but to leave the girl and get the Bacta herself.

A sharp stinging pain across her cheek brought her out of the memory.

"You slapped me!" she accused.

"Focus, Rey. What is my intent?" he demanded.

"I can't… I don't know how to find it. There's… there's too many other thoughts in a person's head!"

"Because you look too deep. Intent in battle is a shallow thing. Again."

This time, she felt pressure in her own head, and realized that he was forcing his way into her thoughts. Struggling with the power that flowed through her, she once again directed it at him, forcing him back, away from the embarrassing feelings she harbored.

He slapped her again.

Rey screeched in frustration.

"You will battle those who will use the Force as a weapon, wielding it at as fast as they swing a light saber. You must learn to shield your mind as well as your body," he snapped. "Your very thoughts will be used against you."

"I'm trying!"

"Again."

His hand moved across her knee, and slowly up her leg, his trailing fingers lightly, massaging her inner thigh. He was… he had seen her thoughts!

Intent, she reminded herself, and immediately directed the Force at him—not trying to dig into his mind, but allowing the power to brush lightly over him. She sensed emotions first. His anger was always there, though not the strong beat that she normally felt. His frustration was much stronger. Was he frustrated with her?

By focusing on his feeling, she found that his thoughts relating to the feeling unfurled easily around it. He was frustrated by her. He was frustrated by a need involving her. He intended to—

Her focus was suddenly shattered by the sensation of warmth and wetness against her inner thigh. His mouth… he was kissing her there, and then the tip of his tongue was tracing a line up and up, as his hands slid under her shift, and over the thin underwear she wore. His fingers hooked around the edge of the material at her hips and tugged gently downward.

With a gasp, Rey stiffened and grabbed the arms of the chair. He froze, his lips still pressed against her thigh, and then he slowly lifted his head. An instant later, she heard the rustle of his robes, and the creak of the chair as he leaned over her, his fingers still wrapped around her undergarments.

"My intent, Rey?" he whispered. "What is it?"

"I… I think I know it," she stammered.

His lips pressed against hers and without thinking, she opened her mouth to his, and he moaned as her tongue moved against his. His hand tightened around the fabric gathered at her hips, pulling the material taught against the throbbing between her legs, before hastily yanking it down, his mouth moving down her neck as he pulled, and she felt the rush of air against her most sensitive parts.

His hand moved between her legs, his fingertips trailing lightly across her sex, and she shivered violently at the sudden contact, and at the realization that he his mouth was moving closer and closer, kissing her stomach, and then his breath, hot against that tight throbbing before she felt the tip of his tongue—

"OH!" she cried out, digging her nails into arms of the chair, knocking his helmet to the ground.

Her legs were shaking now, and his hands slowly massaged her thighs as though he was trying to calm her, but his tongue… his tongue…

Rey bit her lip, trying to stifle the uneven gasps of breath she took. This was… this was wrong. This was all wrong. Kylo Ren was a… he was a… monster… an enemy, and she wanted this, wanted his hands on her, wanted him to… no. NO!

She was blindfolded. Better to pretend that it was someone else. Better to think of anyone else. Someone she loved and trusted. Finn! No, not Finn. Her mind raced to find anyone, anyone but her nemesis, the murderer who knelt between her legs.

Poe Dameron! The pilot who had once flirted with her and bought her a drink after the destruction of Starkiller Base. It was Poe Dameron whose finger was teasingly circling her wet entrance. His mouth which sucked at the sensitive nub above it. Poe Dameron who stopped abruptly, causing her to whimper with loss.

"Poe… Dameron?" Kylo Ren hissed. "Poe Dameron, scavenger?"

Rey ripped the blindfold off as he stood up, noticeably adjusting his robes. Disgust showed plainly on his face, but she felt it as well… disgust with her.

He snatched his helmet up, and turned his back to her.

He was leaving! He was leaving her there!

"The door locks from the outside," he growled. "You'll stay in here until you can use the Force to open it. Train hard, scavenger, the bolt is heavy."

"Kylo, No!" she screeched, jumping to her feet.

She was too late. The door closed behind him, and she heard the bolt fall into place as she reached it.

"KYLO!" she screamed, beating the heavy door with her fists, but he was gone.

She was alone in the strange, pulsing room.