Now. This was his chance. He would do it now. Hux felt the small power he grasped flickering and mercilessly tightened his grip. Ren would do it now. It was the perfect opportunity. He would kill Skywalker, or at least weaken him. Any second now...
Snoke was right beside him, hovering in anticipatory watchfulness.
Waiting for Ren to make his move. The final decisive move.
.
.
Rey didn't know what else to say. The experience of seeing what felt like the whole universe was too vast even try to describe, and something wove through it all... something far too similar to the threat that connected her with the presence beside her.
"I..." she said, but the sentence never came.
He wasn't even listening to her.
Confused, and a little hurt, she followed the path of his attention and went just as still.
It was Luke. Silent and unreadable but clearly watching them from the very edge of her perception.
"Luke..." Rey began, but again, didn't get any further.
Luke's presence pulsed with an almost effortless energy and suddenly she was back in the real world, her back slamming hard into the ground, her head pounding.
With a groan of pain, Rey sat up, blinking against the too-bright afternoon sun.
The thread on her wrist twitched with concern and she tugged back gently in reassurance. Taking a deep breath, she threw herself back towards the Force but rebounded, physically flinching back as the pain in her head escalated. Something was keeping her out.
No, she realised, as she pushed against the barrier. Someone. Luke. He was keeping her out. Gritting her teeth, Rey pushed to her feet. If he was keeping her outside of the current, she would find him in this world instead.
.
.
The girl was gone, now he would act. Hux tensed, but still nothing. Even he could sense Ren and Skywalker, both exquisitely aware of the other, and gloriously oblivious to them watching. But as the standoff lengthened and Ren still made no move, Hux's anger flared. He wasn't going to do it. Such a failure. Another anger was building beside him, terrible in its intensity.
Yet even as it felt Snoke's anger would sear the entire world to ash, it was contained with a sudden cold logic.
.
.
Kylo was frozen. Too much was happening. Rey, Yoda, the vision, the hint of a revelation that he simultaneously wanted to accept and reject. Now his uncle was here, and Rey was gone.
After so long searching, finally, Luke Skywalker was right there. The legend, his mother's brother... the one who'd tried to kill him, who had let Rey go so recklessly deep into the current unaccompanied.
Still he did nothing.
"Ben."
His old name, that would once have sent a spike through his heart, did nothing to him now.
What was he supposed to do? There had been a plan, hadn't there? Why could he no longer remember what it had been?
Skywalker shifted in the current, drawing slowly closer.
But before either of them could do anything else, Kylo felt something else. Another presence, one that made the sliver of his soul that had been called to the surface by his uncle's use of his old name recoil away.
"Why, Skywalker."
Snoke's voice, ringing through every fibre of his being, was filled with cold triumph.
"Snoke," Skywalker said, his tone controlled but disgust still leaking through.
"What are you doing here, and so... alone?"
There was half a second of silence, when Kylo felt Luke drawing in power from all around, and still didn't know what to do.
"Well done, Ren. Just like we always planned."
Skywalker's focus was like a physical pressure as it snapped back to him, and his anger was boundless.
"You," he snarled.
"No!" Kylo objected. "I didn't have anything to do with this!" But it was only half the truth, and in the Force, the lie was obvious to all.
"Now," Snoke growled, his disgust not quite enough to cover the pleasure in the order.
The onslaught was instant and far stronger than even Kylo had expected. He was rocked by the waves as many more presences than he'd expected suddenly shot towards Skywalker, smothering him.
Kylo would have drawn in a breath if there was air to be breathed, a two-letter word on his lips.
Even as he was sure Skywalker would crumble and be crushed into oblivion, there was a surge of turbulence, all the power that Kylo had sensed Skywalker drawing in being released in a sudden explosive force. The tiny sparks that had attacked flickered as they were thrown away, and even Kylo was rocked by the shockwaves that blasted through the Force.
"Get him," Snoke growled, and Kylo could feel that the words were directed at him.
He tensed, preparing. Skywalker had tried to kill him. Hadn't even tried to talk, just crept into his room in the dead of night with murder in his eyes. And yet... and yet... Something held him back. Something that felt like a pressure on his wrist.
"I'll do it!" a new voice cried. "For you, Supreme Leader."
Kylo recoiled in shock at Hux's words. He shouldn't be here, couldn't be here. He had never been even the slightest bit Force-sensitive. Yet there he was, rushing towards Skywalker in a blind rush, his presence blurred, as if hidden behind a layer of falling water, but still horribly obvious.
"No!" Kylo finally managed to speak, but it was too late.
Skywalker, sensing or anticipating the attack, with decades of experience, was more than ready for the headlong attack. Another blast of power shook the current and all its occupants, stronger but less contained than the previous one. Hux was gone instantly, his presence dissipating in an echo that Kylo felt twice.
Skywalker's presence wavered and Kylo heard Snoke's hiss of triumph as if through a haze, but then Skywalker was gone, sending shockwaves with his sudden, messy departure. And Kylo had done nothing.
.
.
Storming up the steps, Rey grumbled to herself, furious that Luke would dare keep her out like that. She could feel Kylo's fluctuating emotions even if she couldn't identify them, and ran even faster.
Just as she reached the plaza and took two steps towards Luke's hut, the door opened.
Her anger seemed to turn to ice as Luke staggered through, leaning on the frame, eyes wild and knees trembling.
"What happened?" Rey demanded, striding over.
Luke's eyes roved around before finally settling on her face, though they didn't focus.
"Ben," he croaked. "Ambush." And he collapsed to the ground.