Episode I: Kira

I'm waiting for you, supernova, supernova, supernova

Buzz. Buzz.

Knock. Knock.

Rey groaned and threw her pillow across the room. Her phone was still vibrating on her bedside stand, the alarm beeping obnoxiously at a constant rate.

"Rey, it's your first day with the new supervisor. You're going to be late!" Rose said from behind the door to her bedroom.

Rey dragged herself out from under the covers, slumping to her tiny bathroom to splash cool water on her face to hopefully wake up. She set her phone to play the live holo feed of the news while she fixed her porg's nest of hair.

The news anchor rambled off the news, the ones that saddened Rey a little.

"It has been one year since the disappearance of the famous defender of the city of Coruscant, Kylo Ren. No leads nor clues remain of what happened to the superhero who fought against the forces of the Corrupted, freeing them from special objects using his destructive abilities. Despite his powers, he was beloved and careful, always putting people first and taking the hits himself…"

Rey looked over her old picture of Kylo Ren in a frame, looking badass in black with a blue lightsaber. The masked hero wore a hood to obscure his identity, and no one could get close enough to him to get a good picture. The only thing that could be seen was his eyes, kind and fierce and bold.

She was heartbroken when he simply vanished without a trace. Her closet was full of old memorabilia, pictures, a fake model lightsaber, even her old hoodie and mask cosplay.

It was easy to cling to heroes when there wasn't anyone else to hold on to. Rey finished putting her hair into her triple buns and closed the holo newsfeed and saw the time on the Kylo Ren-themed chrono hanging on the wall. She had plenty of time.

She went out the door, dressed to perfection, and flew down the four sets of stairs, her leather satchel with Kylo Ren's beautiful blue blade printed on it half-open with her folders and mess of randomly thrown in papers and pens bouncing against her hip.

Walking out into the sidewalk, she made her way for the underground metro. She slumped against the open bench to wait for her train. Graffiti coated the scratched steel walls, drawings of Kylo Ren's unmistakable silhouette with big bright blue letters thanking him for his service and smaller ones begging for him to come back.

She looked at the chrono on her phone. Seven thirty-nine.

The rustle of a bag made her glance up from her phone. A man, his hair greyed with streaks of tawny coloration, struggled to keep the heavy bags in his arms while climbing the stairs out of the metro.

Without hesitation, Rey got up and walked over to the man. "Hello? Sir? Do you need help?"

The man blinked at her for a moment. "Yes please."

She took one of the bags and walked up the stairs. He followed behind her at a slower pace but eventually reached the top of the steps.

"I can walk from here," the old man said, adjusting his bag and taking the other from Rey's arms. He looked at her as if he was analyzing her and Rey squirmed a little in discomfort. "I'm Luke by the way."

"Rey," she rattled off without thinking, looking back at the chrono on her phone. "Oh shit!" She raced down the stairs recklessly. "Nice to meet you too!"

She missed her train. Great.

Rey had to wait for the next one, ten minutes later. The chrono told her she was late. Rey slipped into the train and sat down. On the bright side of being late like this, there was ample room to stretch out. Across from her seat was a teenaged boy with a backpack and a black shirt with Kylo Ren printed on the front.

Ah, a kindred spirit.

When the train arrived, Rey leaped out of the doors and sprinted upstairs. She was going to be a sweaty mess but she had a stick of deodorant in her bag, a folding-hair comb, and a small lavender-scented perfume.

First day with a new supervisor and she was late. Fantastic.

The office building for Amidala-Organa Corp. was massive and a recent construction in the last five years. Pristine and twisting upwards with windows facing out towards the rest of downtown Coruscant, it was a jewel and a marvel of architecture mixed with a spacecraft engineer's touch.

Rey rushed into the main entrance and slipped into a closing elevator, thankfully alone so she could pull out her phone to use as an emergency mirror to fix her strays flailing in her face. She managed to barely tuck in the last one behind her ear before the doors opened on the thirteenth floor.

She straightened her spine and pretended like nothing was out of the ordinary, shuffling to her desk with as much confidence she could fake.

Rose, her neighbor, smiled a sympathetic smile.

Rey sat down and placed her satchel on the back of her chair and booted up her system, reaching into her desk to take out the datapad tucked into the drawer.

"Ahem," a deep voice cleared his throat.

Kriff.

Rey slowly turned around and tilted her head up to a giant of a man standing there, arms crossed, his suit looking like a million credits. Why was he wearing a suit to a rather casual setting—oh, right. Her new supervisor.

"Are you Rey Niima?" he said once he had her attention.

Rey swallowed. "Yes sir. You are Ben Solo, right?"

He gave a short nod. "Don't be late again if you can help it," he said.

She was not about to take that tone. "Excuse me sir but I was only late because I missed my train helping an old man—"

His eyes glanced at her satchel with a scoff. "What, you trying to play superhero too?"

Her eye twitched. "Excuse you, what is your problem?"

"Besides your poor choices in merchandise for a washed-up wannabe superhero, your tardiness. Don't do it again," he said, then turning on his heel with stupidly expensive shoes—she betted fifteen hundred credits at least for those—and walked away.

Rey glanced at Rose who shrugged, having seen the entire exchange.

Great first impression to leave. No "Hi I'm Ben Solo, your new supervisor. I noticed you're late. No big deal just let me know next time if you're going to be late." Nope. He was one of those rich assholes where time was money. No being late ever, for any reason. That targeted comment about Kylo Ren being washed up added salt to the open wound. The nerve!

Rey reached into her Kylo Ren satchel and pulled out her phone and earbuds and cracked her fingers, opening up her emails to answer while listening to her favorite podcast when she was irritated. Eventually, she calmed down when she thought about how it was kinda worth it being late like this because she helped someone on her way there.

Lunchtime came and Rey cracked her back. The calculations Teedo sent were wrong, again. Leaving it to her to fix the mess.

"So what do you think of our supervisor?" Rose asked while Rey poked at her sad order of bread roll and a pathetic salad. By the time she'd re-doing Teedo's figures all that was left was limp lettuce and congealed-egg-salad.

"He could have at least introduced himself properly," Rey grumbled. "I bet his suit was worth at least ten-thousand credits."

"Pfft, more like twenty thousand. He's the son of the CEO, Leia Organa."

Rey rolled her eyes. "Nepotism at its finest."

Her other coworker, Finn Storm, sat down next to them at the round table with much more appetizing lunches in their hands.

"Hey Rey, Rose," Finn greeted. "I heard about your twenty-minute lateness. Solo wants to make you employee of the month already?" he teased.

Rey groaned. "And Mr. My-Mom-Buys-My-Clothes was less than kind to me in his zero-lack of introduction. He just scolds me, makes a snide comment based on my bag, and leaves!"

Rose patted her shoulder while Finn cringed.

"Could be worse Rey, could always be worse. He could have fired you on the spot," Finn said.

"Like he would fire her anyways. Everyone knows you're the best and who else is gonna fix Teedo's mistakes?" Rose joked.

Rey shoveled food into her mouth, grabbing her satchel and digging around for her credit chip. Time to hit the vending machine for something sugary and unhealthy to get her through this rather meh day.

"Oh, you still have that satchel?" Finn asked, a light and teasing tone in his voice.

"She's still in love with him, give her a break." Rose formed a heart shape with her fingers. "Her poor heart isn't over it."

Rey wanted to dunk her head into the nearby park river and never pull back out. "I am not in love with Kylo Ren! I just think he was cool. Very cool."

"It's been a year though," Finn said. "Isn't it time to let go?"

Rey pouted, clutching her satchel to herself and stroking it. "No. Besides, I spent good credits on my merch. This bag has been with me for years. If it tears or falls apart, then yes I will go down to the second-hand store and get another boring bag. But until then, Kylo stays."

Ben Solo's day went from shit to worse.

On every single holoscreen on his way to work this morning, he'd seen Kylo Ren's face staring back at him. He could punch the ones nailed high on the skyscrapers to get the attention of the ones who take hovercraft to work like the overly rich idiots they were. He was thankful that there weren't many holoscreens at his new place of employment. The walls were covered with schematics for the next line of spacecraft.

He took in the seats at the meeting. There was one empty. He got up and awkwardly introduced himself, his last name making some eyes grow wide before it adjourned and he wished them all a good day.

Ben noticed out of the corner of his eye from his new desk a woman with three buns making her way through the office and towards the empty desk space next to Miss Tico. Ah. Late by twenty minutes.

He made his way over to the late woman's desk, hoping to break the ice.

Then that damn satchel of hers blew all that out of the water.

It had that stupid famous image of Kylo Ren on top of an older model of vehicle, a sleek Silencer model from two years ago with his cape bellowing in the wind with his blue lightsaber. Even in a place without the holonews blasting all about it, Ben couldn't escape it.

And he had enough.

"Besides your poor choices in merchandise for a washed-up wannabe superhero, your tardiness. Don't do it again," he said with his big fat mouth, trying to leave as soon as he could.

That frown and twitch of her eye did not go unnoticed.

Fantastic impression he was leaving on his new coworker. He was supposed to get along with her, supposedly she was the smartest of the group on this floor.

Ben retreated to his desk in shame, sitting down and flipping through his phone for something that wasn't the holonews or the holowaves rambling about oh how Kylo Ren disappeared a year ago today and oh it was such a damned bloody shame and oh they want their hero back. Hero worship needed to die in the sewers below and let its corpse stay there to rot away into a skeleton then to ashes.

He settled on a nice, peaceful, nature documentary about the lifecycle of porgs.

Fixing this mess, on today of all days, was not in the cards.

So he endured his lunch break alone, trying hard not to think about anything else other than the nanoscopic-size of a porg's brain leading to less than intelligent instincts. A nap was required when he got home; he was going to need it.

Rey slumped onto her bed, exhausted from the long walk and her emotionally draining day. Her satchel rested half-open on her Kylo Ren bedspread. Rose went to her sister Paige's for the weekend.

She groaned into the pillow. Her new supervisor was a jerk who ignored her all day and he got his position by virtue of who his mother is, while Rey had to claw her way to her position without stumbling ever since she decided in high school to complete her initial extended education before she got her diploma and went off to college.

In short, Ben Solo represented everything Rey Niima never had.

She cracked open a lazy eye and noticed something noticeably making a big lump in her satchel. She sat up and grabbed the bag and reached inside for the source of the lump and found something hard.

She pulled out a small box that was the size of her palm. It was circular and looked like a jewelry box. When did this end up in her bag? How did it end up there?

Morbid curiosity took over and Rey opened the box and gasped. A pair of gorgeous earrings. Pure, white diamonds lined with rose-gold glimmered in the early evening light pouring through her sheer curtains. These stones on the studded earrings weren't diamonds though, they were different, somehow older, and they were humming. Calling. Whispering to her to put them on.

Rey bit her lip. She shouldn't, she should go back to work tomorrow and report these to the lost-and-found and be done with it. Something this beautiful was expensive and worth her paycheck five times over. It would be wrong.

But oh, she could try them on. Just to see. She never wore anything this pretty before in her life.

She plucked one earring from the velvet hold and put it through her earlobe, then repeated with the other one. She reached for her phone to take a picture of herself to send to Rose in a text message but froze up.

Hello Rey.

"What the kriff?!" Rey exclaimed, dropping her phone. "Who is there?"

You can call me Kira. I'm your potential. I reside in those earrings you wear.

Rey stared in horror around her room. That was her own voice speaking, but she wasn't saying anything. This voice was bolder, more confident. So certain of herself. It may have been using Rey's voice but it was decidedly not her talking. This was some sort of bad B-list holo gone wrong where the voice snatchers came to life.

"Who are you?" Rey asked, not sure if she should rip the earrings right off and destroy her lobes in the process.

Kira. You. Or what you can be. You've been chosen.

Rey scoffed. "Ah right, I'm the Chosen One. Something something brings balance to some mythical power something or whatever. Crazy voice snatcher inside my head, you watch too many holos."

Not balance specifically, but you have access to powers no one else does, and you can use them to protect people.

Oh no. "That… No way." Rey held up her bag to her invisible audience, bearing the side with Kylo Ren on full display. "I am not cut out for this superhero nonsense. I am a fan, an observer, a mere bystander." she gestures to her entire room full of Kylo Ren merchandise. "As you can maybe see, I do the hero-support business. Heroes don't come from poor orphans who take a lax fencing lesson every week at most. I don't even work out! I stuff my face full of glazed donuts and eat the saddest lunches known to humankind."

But the city will need you. You had a hero once, but he disappeared, right?

Rey scooted her butt on her bed to look at the holoscreen and flicked it on with her remote, turning to the holonews that will no doubt be going on and on about Kylo Ren's legacy and history. "Yes, but again, that's not me. He works out and has the cool cape and sword and wears a mask and is not a walking disaster."

Hmm. you're very stubborn. That's good for a Supernova wielder like you.

Will this voice just go away already?

"Supernova?"

The sun had finally set.

The wind was light tonight.

A glance at a small, subtle silver ring with a little clear kyber crystal embedded into the band, and he took a breath, looking over the cityscape before him from the shadows. Screens of the holonews and ads of the same image of a gone-hero plagued his rather nice view.

Time to begin.

"I am Supernova," he said. The ring blinked and before he knew it, his body was covered from head to toe in tight black robes. His cape, now torn and frayed at the edges, fluttered in the gentle breeze. The cowl covered his head, hiding his wavy locks from any inspection. A mask covered his mouth and nose, only his eyes to be seen. He reached for his belt and grabbed his lightsaber and felt it tremble and cry in his grasp.

He ignited it for the first time in a year, and it was red and volatile in its beam of light, with a crossguard added.

Taking out his phone with anti-tracking implemented, he began to record his message, voice distorted but keeping his dark and deep tremor intact.

"It has been one year since I made my exit from heroism," he explained as if he was going on about the weather. "But rest assured, that doesn't mean I made my exit entirely. No, I seek something beyond the patheticness of protecting people who cannot protect themselves, who rely on heroes to the point of helplessness. I seek Supernovas, much like the one that fuels my power, much like that one that fuels the villain Snoke, my master. I refuse to fool you, so I will make myself clear: I am not your friend. I am not your hero. I will get what I want, and I will not hesitate to destroy anything that gets in my way."

Kylo Ren didn't show his masked face, only the cityscape. He didn't need to. They all knew.

Within minutes he could hear his distorted voice being echoed across the city.

Rey dropped her remote. Her phone buzzed with notifications and instant messages but she couldn't be bothered to answer them.

What the living—

"Kylo Ren is a supervillain?!" Rey almost shouted. She scrambled off her bed, as if it was dirty to touch the bedspread. "And working for Snoke?! The man who terrorized Coruscant until a year ago?! That's why Kylo Ren disappeared?" she asked herself, or maybe she was asking the voice inside her head. She was confused and didn't know what made sense anymore.

This day was the worst. It went from being shit to worse in about forty-five seconds of a holonews cast.

There was no way, just, no way. Kylo Ren was the villain now? He didn't care? Surely it was a joke, an elaborate prank by some stupid teenagers who were good at replicating his voice modulator, or maybe Kylo was being controlled by Snoke. Mind-games were a thing within Kylo's work. He sometimes used this weird ability to get idiotic people out of harm's way with a wave of his hand.

That would be the Force.

"Not. Helping."

This is why we need you, Rey. We need you to be Kira. Kylo Ren is a threat. You need to be their hope, a light in the darkness.

Rey snorted. "If you're implying people should rely on me, then you truly have watched too many holos."

Just repeat after me. I am Supernova.

"Can you explain to me first what a Supernova is other than a space-explosion before I say 'I am Supernova?'"

Perhaps Rey made the greatest mistake of her life. In a small flash of golden light, her blouse and nicest pair of pants were gone. Her body was wrapped in grey, her leggings and tunic a darker hue of grey than the muted wraps around her torso and waist, draping down to her knees. On her back was a long metal rod, and she could no longer feel her hair in its triple-bun style.

"What, what just happened?!" Rey panicked, looking down at herself. Her hands were covered in off-white wraps and her fingernails were covered in sparkling golden polish for some reason.

You're Kira, holder of the Leo Supernova, defender of the city.

Rey looked over to the mirror on her wall, unable to recognize herself anymore. Her hair was in a half-up bun, the rest of her locks flowing between her shoulder blades. Glittering gold makeup surrounded her eyes in stark contrast to the dark eyeliner. Her lashes were fuller and her brows were contoured. She resembled someone going to a costume ball with this heavy makeup application.

"What the… I don't even recognize myself," she said.

Comes with being a superhero you know, with secret identities and all.

She reached for the metal rod on her back, detaching it from its clip and waving it about. She used to do lessons with a staff, it was her preferred weapon of choice if she had to get into a fight with someone, but she stopped, unable to afford the costs and the commute, sticking with fencing instead.

That is your lightsaber. It takes on the form of the Supernova holder's choice.

Rey noticed a little knob to twist on the rod. She held it out, making sure nothing was within ten feet of her or the weapon, and she switched it on. Twin golden beams of light extended out on both ends of the rod.

"This is insane. I've definitely gone insane. Can I wake up now? Am I really about to march out there and challenge Kylo Ren, who has years of experience on me, to fight me, and how dare he go full supervillain?"

You have access to many abilities, but your main asset, as all Supernova wielders do, is the Force. With it, you can perform many of the feats you witnessed Kylo Ren doing. You also have a special ability unique to you, but since you're inexperienced, it will only last five minutes at most before you de-transform.

"Special ability?"

You're the Leo Supernova wielder. You're made of warmth and fire and life and creation. You can repair the damage that is caused during fights, the equal to the Scorpio Supernova.

She deactivated her saberstaff and put it back onto her back. "Oh lovely, so I need to escape before I'm caught, right?"

Indeed.

Rey pushed open the doors to her balcony, thinking about how she was crazy for going along with this. What was the plan? Go marching up to Kylo Ren and declare herself the new hotshot in town while not knowing how half this stuff worked fully? What even was a Supernova?

She breathed in and out. Then she heard it. Or felt it. Humming through the planet, through the city, through everything living. A power that connected everything together.

She jumped.

She did not go down as gravity dictated.

Kylo watched the mass chaos unfold on the holonet. Denial. Anger. Outrage. Disbelief.

He shut off his phone and leaped down from his perch on top of the skyscraper onto another building. The screens everywhere were playing his message over and over, crowds of people stopping to look and stare and murmur to themselves what it all meant.

He was quite clear in his intentions. There was little to interpret.

Come on out old man…

Kylo took out his phone again. One particular fansite (which was quickly able to change their banner to #KyloRenIsCancelled) was trying to console the devastated hero worshippers when one particular comment stuck out to him.

I just saw a figure running across rooftops and had a golden staff or something? Someone explain to me what's going on?

Golden staff? He scoffed. What nonsense was the old man cooking up?

His answer came from the building down the street.

Suddenly the cameras were focused on a figure in silver robed wraps, her eyes decorated with gold. Her locks of chestnut swayed in the breeze.

"Come on out, Kylo Ren!" she declared for the crowd watching. She turned her head and he knew she had spotted him on top of the building.

She flicked on the metal rod in her hands, two magnificent, glorious beams of light extended from both ends. It illuminated the bleak night sky she stood against.

Kylo had seen many things he would consider pretty or pleasing to the eye. The fountain statue dedicated to his grandmother. The stars outside of the city on a clear night. The kyber crystal of his ring when he first laid eyes upon it. All of these were beautiful. But this woman was stunning. He leaped from the building to get closer to her. One street was separating them now.

When he got a moment of clarity, his blood boiled. This was the old man's answer to his threat? To send some other wannabe hero to challenge him?

"Who are you?" he demanded.

She tilted her head, falling into a battle-ready stance. "Call me Kira. You must be Kylo Ren."

Kira. What a lovely name.

"Where is the old man hiding? Your master?" he asked, reaching for his lightsaber. His finger twitched on the button. "He gave you a Supernova. You know where he is."

An expression of genuine confusion flickered over her face. "What?"

She was a good actress, that was for sure.

"Don't play games with me and I won't play them with you." Kylo's saber activated. He pointed the blade at her from across the way. "Tell me where your master is."

"Sorry, I'm not interested in cowering to a monster like you."

She leaped across the gap separating them, landing with a clumsy step forward.

Ah, she was new to this. Untrained. Her potential was strong and malleable. This would be a smooth victory lap.

She attacked first, swinging her staff high. Easily parried.

He side-stepped her next move. And the next one. Her actions were easily plucked out of her head, and he wasn't even trying to read her mind.

She leaped up from her position onto a scaffolding. He rolled his eyes and snapped his fingers. His hand glowed with a red aura. His signature move. With a press of his hand against the scaffolding, it designated into rust before crumbling to pieces. She slipped and fell with wide eyes onto her knees, panting.

He lowered his lightsaber as he approached her. "You need a teacher," he stated. "I can show you the ways of the Force. Of the Supernovas. Your master will fail you before you've begun."

She glared at him and his heart-stopped. "I have no idea what you're talking about, and even if I did, why would I want the help from the likes of you, Kylo Ren!"

She grabbed her staff and managed to swing at his knee, cutting a rip and grazing the skin enough to burn. He stumbled back and readied his blade for retaliation.

Kira got up and waved her hand, swallowing with nerves. The metal pipes on the building snapped open and puffs of smoke and gas poured out, obscuring his vision.

He saw the glow in time to block it, trying to hold back a cough. His mask was great for air-filtering but his eyes still stung with tears. He pushed back at her, trying to corner her on the edge and off into the streets down below.

"You're playing with fire, Kira," he gritted out, finding he was being pushed back. She was giving as good as she got. "Do you not realize I have years of experience ahead of you? Do you even know what I can do?"

"I know what I can do," she fired back.

She talked a big game.

In the faint haze of smoke, he could see her face up close. Her eyes were hazel and brilliant, grey in the light. A gleaming golden jewel on her ear lobe caught his eye.

His blood boiled in pure unfiltered rage.

"You… You… That Supernova in your ears, it belongs to me!"

"Funny, I didn't see your name on it when I got them."

She twisted his saber out of his hand, sending it flying across the roof with a heavy clang.

"Hand over your Supernova," he demanded, his knee stinging through the adrenaline.

"I'd rather kiss a wookie!" She charged at him with her staff held-high.

His ring vibrated in his hand, a sensation he had not felt in years. Years. Why was it doing it again now?

He took one last glance at her before he shoved her back with the Force and jumped away, out of sight.

This was the usual running he hadn't done in a long while. It was impossible. Simply impossible. He hadn't to worry about de-transforming for so long.

He ducked into an empty garage and let his ring fade back from black and red to silver and white. He slumped against a concrete pillar, fatigue taking over.

Ben Solo looked at his ring, confused, conflicted, and above all, he couldn't get Kira out of his head, her fire, her passion, her silver tongue. She gave as good as she got.

For now, he would have to worry about what caused his de-transformation so soon.

Kira stared. What had him running so fast? She wasn't that terrifying a threat. She was small compared to his size. She always knew he was a big guy but up close and personal was different from photos in her hands.

She snapped her fingers as the voice instructed and an orb of golden light appeared. This, supposedly, was to fix the damage caused. The light bounced around, restoring the scaffolding and the pipes.

Five minutes.

She ran off; the threat is gone for now. Dancing across rooftops, she arrived back into her apartment and her transformation wore off. She flopped onto her bedspread, looking at herself in the mirror. No longer Kira. Just Rey. The earrings were grey, as if they were drained of its beautiful white color.

She was so glad tomorrow was Saturday.

Without even bothering to move, she fell into a deep sleep.

When she woke up in the morning, her earrings were back to their white color.

She sat up and groaned before mindlessly turning on the holonews.

And regretted it instantly.

Images of Kira, the newly declared superheroine of Coruscant, fighting Kylo Ren, the new supervillain in town. Many people hating Kylo for what he had done while praising Kira for stepping up to the plate.

Kylo kept going on about some master, an old man. Rey had not run into or spoken to—oh.

"What am I getting into?" Rey whispered to herself, looking at her phone and wincing at the dozens of texts she missed from Finn and Rose.

Once she changed clothes and showered all the sweat and grime off of her body, she began to trace her steps back to the day before, at the metro with the old man with groceries. Luke was his name.

Let the Force guide you where you need to go.

Thanks, weird voice inside her head.

She stopped at an old apartment complex from several decades ago. Something told her that down the stairs into the basement level covered in shrubbery was the place to go.

Rey knocked on the door, ready to pull out her pepper spray in case it was a creep, but no, the door opened to Luke, the old man she helped the day before.

"Ah, I knew your Supernova would lead you here," he said in greeting. "Come in."

The place was cozy and very calming, a small fountain ran on a shelf, a loveseat, old and worn, was nestled in front of the holoscreen. The kitchen was small but suitable for one. Mats were on the floor with a small table to eat on.

Luke gestured to the mat and pillow and Rey sat down, crossing her legs.

Luke grabbed some weird blue-milk concoction in a glass and sat down across from her. "I saw you on the news. You did well for your first time with little training," he said.

Rey's eye twitched. "You put the earrings in my bag. You shoved this Supernova Leo mumbo-jumbo nonsense onto me. Suddenly I'm fighting the former hero I looked up to. Explain, right now."

Luke took a sip of the blue milk and began with a sigh. "A Supernova is a trinket that carries powers within, forged from kyber crystals a long time ago. Your earrings are one. The ring that Kylo Ren wears is another."

"Kylo Ren has a Supernova?"

"Yes. His powers are fueled by it. His is the Scorpio Supernova. Yours is the Leo Supernova. The two most powerful Supernovas."

"There's more?"

"Thirteen of them, yes. Two are currently missing from the collection. The Scorpio and the Capricorn."

"The Capricorn one? Who has it?"

Luke reached for a chart of the zodiac on the table and slid it over. "Snoke, Kylo Ren's master. The very villain he was fighting over a year ago. I am asking you, Rey, to help me retrieve their Supernovas. They've fallen into the wrong hands and can cause extreme devastation. Please."

"But I'm not a hero. I'm just… Not. I'm an engineer at Amidala-Organa Industries, not a fighter. I'm just trying to survive, not pave the way."

Luke shrugged. "You looked like a hero to me last night. It takes time to get used to it. Outside training will help, but most of your strength is supplied by the Supernova itself." He stroked his chin. "You also have a natural affinity for the Force already, which gives you an advantage over others who might wield a Supernova."

"But why me?"

Luke gave her a sad smile. "Because the world needs someone to wield the Leo Supernova to prevent the Scorpio Supernova from destroying everything. I think you're perfect for the job."

"How would I even get Kylo's ring? He ran away from me before I had the chance."

"He hasn't used his Supernova in a year from the sound of it. His strength isn't as high as it used to be. He used his destruction power, and didn't know it was back to where he started, draining him to the point he would de-transform, like you when you used your creation power."

"So we're on even points in a way."

"Exactly. You have an advantage despite your lack of experience. Unfortunately, the Capricorn Supernova is one to worry about, but there's no sign of it since last night."

"And let me guess, no one is to know."

Luke nodded.

Lovely. A terrible new supervisor and now the biggest secret to know this side of the planet was on Rey's shoulders.

She took a deep breath. "Alright. I will do it. Get Kylo's Supernova. Find the Capricorn Supernova."

"Thank you, Rey. I would once do it myself but wielding the Leo Supernova on top of the one I already own myself would take its toll."

She tilted her head. "What one do you have?"

Luke held up a jade-colored bracelet on his wrist, hidden by his sleeve. "Pisces."

Rey went in on Monday, sweating, and dreading. Rose came back and practically jumped on her about Kira and Kylo.

She slumped down on her computer desk, spreading her stuff in her hands. All she had was a tiny pathetic purse to use until she got a new bag to replace the Kylo one.

Next paycheck her room was getting a damned makeover.

A throat cleared itself behind her. She whirled around in her seat, ready to get yelled at for her mess on her desk.

In her face was a sunflower and a little gift card to a fancy restaurant she had never been to but had seen on her way to work countless times.

"Uhh…"

"Rey Niima right?" the voice holding the flower said. She looked up to look into the molten amber eyes of Ben Solo. His hair was tousled and perfectly done, and his suit still looked like three times her paycheck.

"Y-Yes," she said.

"I'm very sorry for my behavior last week. I had a rough day but that is no excuse. I know it's not enough compensation but um," he shoved the flower at her, "Here. For you."

She took it with a tremble of her heart. "It's no problem," she said with a wide smile on her lips. "We all have our bad days."

He breathed out a sigh of relief. "Good. I'm not great at expressing my emotions when I'm upset and I took it out on you. Anyways. I'm Ben Solo, your new supervisor. I look forward to working with you. I saw your corrections on Teedo's work and they're brilliant."

He retreated from her to his desk.

Rey was frozen on the spot, the sunflower in her hand still. Her face was hot and she couldn't stop thinking about how deep and nice and sexy his voice was. He was so sincere in his apology. And he complimented her on her work. She got that sometimes before, but there was something about how he said it that sent her heartbeat through the roof and made her giddy like a teenaged school girl.

She turned around, putting down the flower to the side of her binders with a smile as she booted up her datapad.

Next week: Depict.