At the end of the empty hallway, the bolt rattled wildly against its clasps. The metal door gave a portentous groan as first one, then two rivets flew from it, striking the opposite wall before skittering across the floor. A sharp crack preceded the dent which appeared as if it from nowhere across the face of it, and then, with a final loud clang and the scream of hinges being bent the wrong way, the door exploded from its frame.
Rey paused a moment in the empty doorway, leaning against the frame as she caught her breath. The amount of power that throbbed through her veins was overwhelming. The pulse of the room behind her matched the beat of her heart, pounding double quick in her chest. As she began to walk away, the thumping pulse grew stronger.
She didn't know how long she had spent crouched on the floor of that room, afraid to touch the oddly lifelike walls, humming to herself to drone out that pulsing beat, covering her ears when the whispers started. The anger and hatred and hunger for revenge had started outside of her head—or at least she thought so—disembodied feelings that forced themselves on her as she did her best to resist.
She had repeated the Jedi creed until her voice had grown hoarse, but it hadn't kept her thoughts from returning time and again to Kylo Ren, and to everything he had done to her. She hated him for capturing her, for taking her from Master Luke, for forcing her to walk through that terrible, dark wasteland, for murdering Han Solo in front of her, and for dreaming about it, thereby forcing her to watch it again. He had tricked her into compromising herself. She hated him for the false tenderness he sometimes displayed in order to twist her into doing what he wanted, and most of all, she hated him for the disease he had spawned in her—a mental sickness it surely was, which made her want to see his face and feel his touch.
She could no longer separate her thoughts into reasons, they had lumped together so that there was only one thought in her head, one idea, repeating over and over with every beat of the new, strange power inside her: I will kill Kylo Ren, I will kill Kylo Ren, I will kill Kylo Ren.
Her feet moved without instruction. She could feel him, was being pulled toward where he was, and did not resist. They would fight, and she was certain that he would fall. She did not doubt the final outcome. Had the Chaata herself not assured her that she would die a long ways off?
Her footsteps slowed at the sound of metal striking metal. She was nearing the training room, and upon reaching the entrance, she stopped. The sound of combat echoed from inside. He was not there, she knew it, but it occurred to her that she would need a weapon. The training room contained a weapons rack.
Jaila's apprentice swung the curved metal bar. It flew through the air, slicing through the torso of the suit of armor at the other end of the room and then swerved, returning to him. He caught it with a grunt, and froze as a determined-looking Rey strode past him without a glance.
He spoke not a word until she reached the racks, selected a double-bladed staff, and turned to face him.
"I see," he muttered, "So you have decided to face me without your master. That is brave of you, little one… brave, but not wise."
As she paced toward him, Yure crouched into a fighting stance, waiting. It took him a moment to realize that she did not return his gaze. The girl's eyes were wild—unfocused even— as though she did not see him at all. He would not be tricked.
As she neared, he reached out with the Force- tentatively. It was a skill he had yet to master. He immediately encountered a powerful block and winced—the feeling was similar to touching a live wire.
With only a few feet left between them, he tightened his grip on the handle of his weapon and waited. Two feet… one foot…
The girl strode past him, again without looking in his direction. She was going to leave… she was going to walk through the door…
The desire to kill Kylo Ren grew stronger. The memory of him standing over her with a look of disgust upon his face was all that she could see. She was aware of the other apprentice in the room—could sense his resolve and his desire to prove himself, but it mattered not. He was nothing but an annoyance. When he called out to her to stop, her steps didn't slow for an instant.
A second later, she sensed danger that sliced through the air, aiming for her back. Rey threw herself to the floor, just as the curved weapon whizzed over her. As it swerved into its return, Rey rolled to her knees and heaved her staff at it. Her blade struck the end, which immediately changed the path of the curved bar. The ancient Massassi weapon hit the wall and stuck.
Rey shot to her feet and spun to face her attacker. Weaponless, they stared at each other before the dark apprentice gave a growl of rage and charged toward her.
Rey laughed and held her arms out to him. Had she actually been afraid of this thick-headed slug? How ridiculous! He was all bluster and muscle. He could swing a heavy weapon, heavy enough to crush her skull… but she could crush his without lifting a single finger. It was no match at all.
The apprentice stumbled before he reached her, and fell to his knees. He glanced up at Rey, a look of confusion on his sharply-angled face, followed by an expression of fear as he gripped the sides of his head and bent over in pain. When he lifted his head again, black blood dripped from his nose.
It wasn't enough!
Kylo had warned her that the other acolytes would try to kill her. The Knights didn't believe her fit to fight beside them. They thought her weak and unworthy. She would show them. She would show all of them! Jaila's apprentice would serve as an example.
Rey clenched her fist and felt the overwhelming power of the Force surge from her and wrap itself around the dark apprentice.
Pain, she thought, Pain… break him… more blood…an example of what will happen to all of them…
The beat inside of her grew stronger and faster. She could feel his life force now—Jaila's ridiculous apprentice—he was already growing weak under the pressure she commanded.
His arm twisted backward, giving a deeply satisfying snap, and the blood from his nose ran heavier. He opened his mouth, and she saw that his teeth were also blackened by blood. Why didn't he scream? He should scream and beg her for mercy!
Angered, she clenched her fist tighter, and the apprentice fell forward, twitching.
"Stop!" hissed a metallic voice.
Rey recognized it.
Jaila had come. Perhaps she felt her apprentice's pain, or maybe she sensed that he was dying.
Rey did not stop. She would squeeze until she was sure that that he was dead. With an inhuman shriek of rage, Jaila charged.
Rey turned to face the doorway, and the figure of the Knight which raced toward her, wielding a light saber. This threat was also no match for her, and it surprised her that one of Kylo's knights had no better sense than to know as much.
With the flick of her wrist, the light saber flew from Jaila's hand, extinguishing itself as it hit the floor and rolled. Rey laughed again. The power of the Force was almost too strong. It grew inside of her the way insta-bread did, only there seemed to be no end of it. The beating in her ears was so fast and so loud that she could no longer sense Kylo Ren through it. Small matter! It was easy to kill these dark ones. Perhaps she would kill them all, one-by-one as they came for her. Kylo would be among them sooner or later.
Jaila snarled and crouched to pull a dagger from her boot as she ran. She was upon Rey now. She raised her arm high to strike, and then… froze.
She could not move. Her arm shook as she strained to break from Rey's invisible hold, and at last, Rey felt a Force power strong enough to push against her own contending with her. She smiled as she walked slowly around the enraged Knight—the woman was weakening, she could feel her growing weaker as she herself grew stronger. Her head was pounding now and she could barely feel her own body—the Force inside of her was strong that it seemed as though her very body was made of it, and she knew that when Jaila's defense gave out, she would be crushed in an instant.
"Force-reaper!" Jaila hissed.
"Stop,"
Rey whirled to face Kylo Ren himself. He stood in the doorway, his hands clasped lightly behind his back, his face exposed but impassive. He stared back at Rey as though he were only mildly interested in the spectacle before him.
She moved to take a step toward him, forgetting Jaila in her desire to kill him, and was immediately stopped by a sharp, stabbing pain in her shoulder. Jaila had brought the knife down, driving it in just above her shoulder blade.
Rey gasped and stumbled. Her anger caused the Force to surge within her again, and her vision faded to a blurry wash of subdued colors. She fell to her knees, and realized that she could feel her own body again, and that the muscles in her legs and arms were spasming and she could not control them, and then the pain seemed to come from everywhere. The power was leaving her. She fell forward, still shaking as she heard the sound of his boots padding across the floor toward her.
"I said stop, Jaila," he growled, and Rey realized that the Knight had withdrawn the dagger from her shoulder and had pinned her to the ground with her knee, gripping her face with one hand and pressing the point of the blade against her throat with the other.
"She killed Yure!" Jaila snarled.
"You wanted a match between them. Will you punish my apprentice because she bested yours?" he asked.
"You tricked me! She's a Force Reaper. You never said she—"
"You assumed she was weak. You insisted they spar. I conceded to your demand, and she won. Now take your hands off my apprentice."
His footsteps stopped, and Rey knew with sickening certainty that he now stood over her.
Jaila removed the blade from Rey's throat, but did not move fast enough for Kylo Ren's liking, for Rey immediately felt the loss of her weight as she was flung forcefully to the side. It was Kylo's hands she felt next as the slid under her back and legs. He hefted her up from the floor and readjusted her gently in his arms before he began to walk.
Cradled against the chest of her most despised enemy, she thought she heard Jaila whisper something else, but couldn't make it out over the strong beat of the Force which came from him.
He walked quickly as Rey struggled to stay conscious. Soon she heard the hiss of a door opening and felt softness beneath her as he laid her gently on the bed, and walked away.
She wasn't certain how long she laid there. It was likely she passed out for a short time, for suddenly, her thoughts were sharpened by a fresh wave of pain from her shoulder. The haze cleared from her eyes, though the world seemed dimmer than she remembered.
She lay on his bed and he was there, leaning over her, sponging at her shoulder with a damp cloth. Her wound hurt, but not as much as she suspected it should. Even stranger was the realization that she had desperately wanted to kill him only moments before, and now, being so close to him, caused no reaction in her. She had no emotions—even her hatred of him seemed to have dissipated. She felt nothing.
"That won't last," he murmured, as though she had asked him a question. "You were overwhelmed. Your body isn't trained to handle that level of power, and began shutting down. You were drained, but you will recover. After you rest, you'll begin to feel like yourself again."
She glanced away from him. She did feel tired, and though she couldn't muster the energy to hate him, she would have rather been alone. He should have brought her to the medbay. Brick was surely better equipped to deal with her wounds.
"Your friend is no longer with us," he answered her. "MT-5927 was discovered while returning from an unauthorized trip to the Resurrection Field last night. It seems that he was illegally gathering resources and participating in black market activity for personal gain. He was assigned to reeducation and was picked up during the last sleeping cycle- while you were still… training."
Rey knew that this would normally cause her anger and fear—sadness even, and for Brick's sake, she desperately wanted to feel those emotions, but try as she might, there was only emptiness inside her. Master Luke had once told her that the Force—dark or light—always took a toll on its wielder. That power always came with a cost. She hadn't known it would be so high. Stealing a quick glance at the lean face which hovered over hers, she wondered how much he had paid.
If he heard her thought, his face did not betray it. He dipped the cloth again and rung it out, reaching for her hand. Slowly, he cleaned the dried streaks where the blood had run down her arm and dripped from her fingers. Although she felt nothing, she guessed that she would later regret her passive acceptance of him, and mustered the energy to open her mouth.
"Is that why you are the way you?" she rasped.
"How am I?" he mumbled.
"Empty. An obedient shell that does your master's will. A calculating, cruel monster without any real feeling," she replied. "It's because of the Force, isn't it? The dark force… you've wielded it for so long, that there's nothing left of the real you. That's why you say Ben Solo is dead, right?"
He did not give her an answer, but his lips tightened at her words, and when he scrubbed at her fingers, she winced at his forcefulness.
"Jaila's apprentice is dead, isn't he?" she whispered.
When he nodded, Rey at last felt something—the faintest stirrings of regret. She suspected that when her feelings did return, this one, regret, would become almost unbearable.
"Jaila called me a force reaper…" her voice trailed off uncertainly.
"Yes," he agreed. "Skywalker never told you, did he?"
"I don't think he knew-"
"He knew. He knew from the moment he met you. It took me longer. The Force had barely awakened in you on Starkiller, and then, when we met in the woods… when I was trying to disarm you… at first I thought you'd somehow discovered battle meditation, but I kept growing weaker and weaker while you grew stronger."
"I steal the Force from others?"
"It isn't as simple as that, Rey. When you become angry or afraid you draw that sort of energy from those around you. You thrive, becoming more and more powerful. There have been Force reapers before, the archives mention such things, but beings like that were always extremely rare."
"I thrive only on the Dark Force?" she whispered.
"Yes. Do you understand now? You were not meant for the light, Rey. Skywalker knew it. You struggled with your training under him. I saw it in your memories. He didn't want you to know, he was afraid that you'd turn to me if you understood. He worked hard to block you from drawing on dark energy when you were frustrated or angry, and tried to train you to use the Force as a Jedi, the way he was trained."
"And that's why you locked me in that room. That's why you trapped me there, left me feeling angry and afraid and… and… humiliated… because you knew. You knew what would happen when I got out," she accused.
"The meditation sphere is like a reservoir, filled with Dark Force. I knew you would draw it in, becoming more powerful if you were angry and afraid, yes," he admitted.
"And you knew that I would kill Yure."
"No. I couldn't have known exactly what you'd do."
"But you knew when I freed myself. You must have. You must have felt my anger, you must have felt so large a disturbance in the Force."
"Yes."
"And you didn't come. You didn't stop me."
"I had an audience with the Supreme Leader."
"You let it happen. You knew if I was in control of myself, I'd never do that, and you let it happen."
Rey closed her eyes, not wanting to see his face anymore. She heard the cloth drop into the bowl as he laid her hand gently across her stomach. A moment later, his gloved fingers spread hers apart, intertwining with her own as he squeezed her hand.
"It gets easier," he whispered.
"I don't want it to."
She opened her eyes to glance down at their hands, clasped together.
"The happiest moment of my life," she murmured, "the happiest moment I can remember, was on Starkiller base. I was trying to escape, and I opened a door and I saw… and I saw Finn and Han. They came for me, and I knew that Finn didn't care about the resistance. He risked his life to come and get me. I spent my entire life alone. No one had ever came back for me before… no one. I knew then that I wasn't alone anymore, and I thought… I thought I never would be again."
"The traitor could never understand you. He doesn't know what it's like… to have such power… to fear yourself… to be so alone…"
"But you do," she interrupted. "Is that what you're getting at?"
"Yes," he agreed, gripping her hand tighter.
They stared at one another for a long moment, but as he reached out to lightly stroke her cheek, Rey abruptly turned her face away.
"You do understand," she agreed. "You saw how alone I was from the very first time we met, and you've used it against me- used it to manipulate me into doing what you want. I was so afraid of being alone again that I made myself believe that your compassion was real, that your touch was something I wanted. I knew that you were a monster, I saw you kill your own father, and yet like a fat-headed lump, I still hoped… well, I don't hope anymore. I don't hope."
She pulled her hand away and tucked it under her arm as she turned on her side, away from him.
"You're tired," he murmured. "You'll be yourself again soon."
She felt him stroke her hair and moved further away from him in response.
"I'm going to Korriban," he said. "The Supreme Leader has work for me to do there. I want you to come with me…"
When she didn't answer, he sighed.
"There's sunlight on Korriban—not the sort of warmth that you're used to, but I promised you sunlight—"
"I don't care. If you order me to go, I'll go. If you tell me to stay, I'll stay. I truly don't care anymore."
She heard the rustle of his robes as he stood.
"This will pass, Rey. Sleep now, and when you wake, you'll be yourself again," he said, though he didn't sound entirely certain. The thought occurred to her that he was speaking more to reassure himself than to comfort her.
Rey closed her eyes again, relaxing only when she heard the door shut behind him. The last thought she had before falling asleep was of the Chaata. In her mind, the tiny, wrinkled, old seer leaned over her pot and stirred it with great concentration. "If Ben Solo offers you the opportunity to accompany him to Korriban," the Chaata began.
"Ben Solo is dead," Rey murmured, correcting the old creature. The Chaata chuckled knowingly.
