A/N: WHy hello there all those of you who have read chapter one! How are you this week? I'm sorry it took so long to crank out this chapter, buuut, if it makes you feel any better, the thing was eight pages long. Twice the size of the last chapter. I hope you enjoy it. Also, as I have said in previous stories/chapters, I have no beta reader, so please excuse any spelling errors or, if they bug you too much, PM me and tell me where they are and I'll edit them as soon as I can. REALLY IMPORTANT UPDATE GUYS I AM THINKING FOR CHANGING THE NAME OF THIS FIC TO PEOPLE CHANGE. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.
Oh! One last thing:
Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to Star Wars in any way, shape, or form. The only characters that belong to me are the Original Characters that might show up every now and then.
Chapter 2 - Rey's Arrival
3 years later...
"I'll be fine, Luke," Rey promised, smiling up at the older man. He tilted his head forward and gave her a look that suggested he had heard and seen those same assurances before, only to have them revoked for some reason or another.
Rey had too, but unlike her parents, she intended to make good on her promises. Slowly, the corner of his mouth turned up to form a lopsided half-smile.
"I know. But this is your first time on a solo mission. Meaning you don't have anyone watching your back, not even Chewie," he replied. "Just be careful."
Despite his unexpected sense of humor, Rey's respect for her elders prevented her from laughing at them. Or rolling her eyes in this case. She smiled instead.
"It'll be alright. I've got BB-8 with me," she said, hesitantly taking a half-step towards the junk ship the Resistance had commandeered for her undercover mission. She wanted to head out as quickly as possible, but Luke was making that difficult. His brow creased slightly in worry.
"I know. But seriously."
"It'll be alright," she reiterated, her exasperation beginning to creep into her voice. "What could happen?"
Apparently, as Rey soon discovered, a great deal could and did happen. When she had dropped out of hyperspace in the system that had previously been home to Starkiller Base, she realized she'd made a mistake.
A very big mistake.
The entire system was infested, if not crawling, with star destroyers. She had had no idea that the First Order fleet was so large. Among them, was the Finalizer. The ship she had been taken captive on. It was now the First Order's flagship.
It was also the one that hailed her.
She had swallowed and answered the call, feeling confident that she wouldn't be discovered. After all, Snoke never traveled with the Order and Kylo Ren had disappeared a few years prior. She herself had felt it through the Force. The disappearance of the oppressive shadow that seemed to crackle and burst with unspent and building energy. In any case, she felt that getting through this gauntlet the preferable way should be relatively simple if she could keep her story straight.
She was just a junk trader taking a shortcut through the Unknown Regions to get to Miralin System, neighbor to the now-destroyed Hosnian system. She hadn't wished to cross the dangerous asteroid field it had become. She was just passing through.
However, it was not to be. Along with being oblivious to the size of the First Order's fleet, she was also unaware of the lengths of their paranoia.
The Resistance had made an error in where they stole the ship. Apparently, one that looked just like it blasted out of a port in the Western Hemisphere of Nar Shaddaa. Rey had lied enough to lose track of the fallacies she was weaving and eventually the person on the other side, General Hux - the commander of the Finalizer - had tripped her up in her own web.
Found out, but not caught, she had then attempted to pilot the dirty quad-jumper as best she could out of range. However, the command to apprehend the fleeing vessel spread quickly and she soon found herself being fired upon by upwards of fifty Star Destroyers.
Unfortunately, the freighter was not as maneuverable as the Falcon was, incapable of the graceful arcs and spins she could normally perform from the old Corellian YT-1300 freighter. That coupled with a laser blast slamming into her engines, she was knocked off course just as she thought she was in the clear. She'd just managed to get the hyperdrive prepped again and her trajectory out was calculated when she'd been jolted forward in her seat and red warning lights had flashed all over.
Apparently the quad-jumper's shields left a lot to be desired and the first carefully aimed shot managed to disrupt them and damage three of the four engines. She had looked at the control panel frantically, her eyes darting from alert to alert, overloading her brain. She froze.
It was that moment of panic, that brief moment in which she didn't know what to do and found herself incapable of doing anything, that another alert blinked on.
WARNING: CAUGHT IN PLANETARY GRAVITATIONAL PULL! PLEASE REDIRECT TRAJECTORY!
She read and reread the warning, aware that the cockpit was beginning to feel warm. A beeping behind her jolted her out of her reverie. She whipped around to see BB-8 rolling back and forth nervously. He beeped an inquiry at her, moving in an agitated circle. She paused for a moment, wondering what her response should be. There wasn't any time to repair the engines and the quad-jumper's auto-pilot wasn't programed for defense.
Meanwhile, the ship began to tilt forward and to the side, revealing the icy surface of a planet, blindingly white and filling up the viewport. Another warning flashed.
WARNING: ENGINES FAILING! UNABLE TO REDIRECT TRAJECTORY! YOU ARE ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH UNKNOWN PLANET! IMPACT IN 20 SECONDS!
The ship's computers words were enough and she looked back at BB-8 who had already extended his tethers, hanging in the center of his web and ready for impact. She gave him the barest smile and a nervous nod. "We'll get out of this one, buddy! Just hold on!" she called back to him above the overwhelming noise of the beeps and alerts. Instantly his lighter popped out in a thumbs up gesture and he beeped optimistically. Rey responded with the same gesture, the little droid's confidence giving her enough to enforce the smile on her face for a moment.
She turned back around and strapped into the harness, tightening it around her torso, before gripping the armrests with shaking hands. The ship shuddered beneath them, the effects of entering the atmosphere. Snow was beginning to splatter onto the viewport, melting into condensation and then fog then ice as they neared the planet and the ship cooled off. She diverted her eyes from the nearing planet surface to the time on the displayed countdown.
...5
...4
...3
...2
…-
She braced herself as best she could, but she still wasn't ready.
.::.::.::.::.::.::.::.
Kylo sat leaning his back and head against the stone boiler, letting the warmth flood through him. His eyes were closed as he just listened to the sound of water flooding through the heated tubes behind his head. He twisted a smooth stone through his fingers, flipping it over one and turning it under the next until he reached the end of his hand. He ran his thumb over the engraved symbols in the top before inverting it once more and running it over the runes on that side.
I give, I gave, I have given. I choose, I chose, I have chosen. I feel, I felt, I have felt, he thought, his new personal mantra. He'd discovered it when he had been learning the trade language on this icy planet. He took a deep breath, inhaling the tranquility of his rest moment.
Then the ground shuddered. Slowly, he opened his eyes and paused, fisting the flat stone in his palm.
A crash!
He got to his feet, and placed the stone back in its place on the bracer covering his right forearm. He hadn't planned to go out into the wastes until the next morning, but if one of the Star Destroyers hanging around the atmosphere had blown a fuse and caused it to come screaming down out of the sky, then he would make an exception.
A new crash meant a fresh supply of materials were to be scavenged. And the more you managed to scrounge up, the more rations you got. It beat the long double shifts he had been pulling recently. Leaving before what this planet considered to be dawn and not coming back until well into the night. Sometimes without a meal.
But he had long since adapted to it. His arms were strong, much stronger than they were before. And though he was thin, and his ribcage was disturbingly visible at almost all times, what weight he did have was mostly muscle. It helped a great deal when climbing up and down cables, removing little treasures that were stuck or welded in place, and needing to haul whatever he managed to find back to the compound.
He'd also been around long enough to know that if you weren't the fast Tooka, you missed the claw mouse.
He darted up the stairs into the main compound. Up here it was frighteningly busy. People were chattering and bargaining for food or parts with dealers or each other. He spotted a few familiar faces in the crowd. Namely, several people he had made the mistake of "sassing" when he first arrived and had made him pay the price.
And the was one face in the crowd that he had a few good memories with. Enen Jarrick was haggling with one of the dealers for some supplies when they locked eyes. The other man looked away quickly, resuming his bargaining. Kylo himself turned away, feeling heavier than he did before. I feel. I felt. I have felt.
He needed to go.
He pushed his way through the rest of the crowd, making for the blast doors that kept the cold air out. He stepped into the small hall, and waited for the first door to shut behind him. A moment passed.
Then he was assaulted by the freezing cold air of Kohara Prime's frigid atmosphere as the second set of doors parted. He reached into the satchel hanging at his side and removed his goggles, putting them on over his head and pulled up the thermal fabric mask that covered the lower half of his face. Finally, he pulled his dark hood over his head and charged out into the unforgiving weather.
It was dark, but then again, it always was.
He looked around, but there was nothing but snow. The crash was nowhere to be seen. He turned back toward the compound and climbed up the side, getting on top of the stone structure. He rummaged around in his bag for a moment before coming up with his microbinoculars. He held them up to his eyes and took a look in all directions. Again nothing but snow.
He turned on the infrared and swiveled around.
Bright oranges and reds assaulted his vision and he grinned. It was less than two kilometers away. It was smaller than the star destroyer that he had hoped it would be, but still sizeable. Even TIE fighters were worth scavenging for anything.
Microbinoculars in hand, he scrambled down the side of the compound and charged off again into the blizzard-like conditions of Kohari night. His feet sometimes caught in the deep snow, but he had long since learned how to run properly without snowshoes affixed to his boots.
Mentally he tried to gauge how long it might take him to reach his destination.
Two kilometers...a little more than two basic miles…
He could make it in less than fifteen minutes if he kept his pace.
With a burst of energy that belied the fact that he had only eaten a meager breakfast - consisting of instant-rise bread and two nutritional packets - and hadn't eaten since, he lunged forward. His legs were stronger too.
A part of him was proud. He had managed to survive these conditions, despite everything being against him. His injuries. The memories of his past. Snoke literally crushing him and then leaving him to die.
But he hadn't been alone. He'd had Enen to help him. And, more importantly, he'd had her.
He stumbled on a snowdrift that he hadn't seen coming, but balanced himself before he could face plant in the ice.
He jerked his head and creased his brow in concentration. He had to focus, otherwise he would get lost or lose time. Then he might never find the crash site. He couldn't think about her right now.
Finally, a dark blotch appeared and the blizzard was turned black from smoke. On closer inspection, he could see that three of four engines at the back of the ship had been on fire, a large scorch mark had made a direct hit in the center of the four. It had done its job neatly and precisely, just like the First Order tried to do. And mostly failed.
He circled the wreckage like a predator attempting to deduce whether or not its prey was alive. Finally he came around to the front. The viewport was damaged; cracked in places and shattered in others.
Cautiously, he stepped closer, gauging the heat. After inching forward for a few minutes, he finally reached forward to touch the transparisteel. It was covered in a layer of frost, no doubt from having dived through the blizzard.
The remaining warmth of his hand melted an imprint on the window, enough for him to see inside. He cupped his hands around his goggles and peered into the cockpit. It appeared to be quite the mess inside, machinery and wall platings had come loose or undone and had fallen to the floor. He brushed more frost off near where the pilot's chair should be and looked in. He jolted back at what he saw.
Inside, the seat was occupied. There were someone sitting, slumped forward in their restraints in the pilot's chair. It was a young woman to be precise. He stood there, frozen, his boots sinking into the snow, for a moment before he began gingerly clawing at the holes in the transparisteel so he could climb in. Chances were, they were unconscious, but he stilled reached a hand forward to poke her cheek.
"Hey! Are you alive?" he queried, semi-quietly. He withdrew his hand instantly after making contact with her skin. She was freezing. Freezing but not death cold. If there was one thing she had taught him, it was how to tell when a person was dead based on how cold their skin was. A dead person would be well on their way to stiff by now, whereas an unconscious person would be cold, given the fact that the viewport was partially shattered, but their skin wouldn't have hardened. He reached forward again, using his other arm to support himself in his awkward position hanging half inside and half outside the ship, and pinched her cheek.
When he pulled back, he could see a small red spot form. Her blood was still circulating, albeit more slowly. He would have to act quickly if he was going to save her. Besides, he had a promise to keep and a debt to repay. He owed it to her.
Knocking more glass away, he leaned into the cockpit even more, testing the strength of his core as he reached to his belt and removed a small knife to cut the woman out of the frayed straps of the safety harness. One had already snapped and the other three were held together by bare threads, the only things that had prevented her from completely bashing her head in on the ship's controls.
If I didn't know about the Force, I'd say she was lucky, he thought as he sheathed the knife again and then reached forward with both hands to carefully pull her limp form over one shoulder. As dead weight, she was heavy, though she appeared to be light, but he was strong. He could handle it.
Taking a look at the back of her head, where her hair was wisping out of its three frazzled buns, he couldn't help but feel that she seemed familiar.
Gently, he laid her down in the snow, starting with her legs and ending with her face, so he could look at her. He removed his goggles so he could see her clearly. His eyes widened immediately and he took a step back when he saw who it was. He backed away until he was standing pressed against the side of her ship, gasping for breath.
He remembered the first time he had seen her. Remembered when he had dueled her for the first time on Starkiller Base. Right after he had murdered his father. Then she beat him. Wiped the floor with him really. In Koharan prisoner terms she'd "wrecked" him.
Kylo couldn't help but hesitate. He stared at the prone figure lying in the snow before he swallowed and closed his eyes, succumbing to a flashback.
He was very angry.
Or, at least, he was telling himself that he was.
Deep down, he knew it wasn't true. He wasn't angry. He was stunned. The girl, Rey, had beaten him. He had known the Force for years, trained in use of it for almost as long, and yet he had been defeated.
Defeated.
By. A. Scavenger.
He could feel himself bleeding out. Nausea was churning his stomach. His face felt cold while a large area ranging from between his brows to halfway down his right cheek was warm and sticky. He wanted his helmet. He didn't want anyone to see him. See the shock and humiliation on his face, made even more blatant by the mark of shame the girl had inflicted.
The scarlet liquid seeped from the wound to his nose to under his eye. He felt it travel down his cheek and drip from his chin, followed by more. He paid the cascade of blood no mind and busied himself with staring at the wall.
If only he'd trained more, sparred with troopers more often. He could have chosen to use a kendo training stick rather than his lightsaber. It wasn't as though there hadn't been options. But he knew he would hurt someone. His anger would get out of control and someone could die. He already had enough blood on his hands.
He looked down at his gloved hands, coated in coagulating body fluids, from more than just himself. The traitor stormtrooper, FN-2187 - Finn, apparently - and his father.
His father…
He broke down then. He was glad that Hux had disappeared to pilot the ship. He was still feeling the horrible pain and torment tearing in his chest. It had not been stemmed by the elimination of Han Solo.
If anything, the pain and the light and his demons screamed even louder. The girl only made it worse. She radiated the light and when he was around her, the screams and pleas only intensified. It had taken all his resolve to perform the interrogation.
Fighting her had been worse. The voices were screaming not only to be released but they berated him for his actions, flaying him alive for all he had done.
He'd lost focus, spread his concentration too far.
And in the end, it had cost him.
He felt the swell of anger that had been missing rise up as he clenched his fists. Everything that should have come easily for him had been so hard and so easily shut down by the girl! He felt a surge of jealously at the thought that she had grasped so simply things that he hadn't understood let alone been taught for years.
But she's not as strong as you. Train. Get stronger. Don't be such a fool next time. You'll crush her, he thought. His face hardened into a mask of staunch determination, fueled by the rage simmering in his gut. He would finish his training and grow more powerful. She wouldn't stand a chance at their next encounter. No mercy.
...However, as time passed and he did get stronger, the light still called. He felt when the girl was nearby, chasing her with the ferocity of a hungry predator. He still never caught her, and he often wondered why.
The thoughts of the girl plaguing his mind and the incessant fighting between the dark and the light had sparked great debates within him about his life choices. Was the light really stronger than the darkness? Was the darkness really so all-consuming as everyone thought? Was the light meant to be so strict? Or were the two meant to mix and meld into the grey hues that he saw in average people who held no connection to the Force?
Those little debates had caused little hairline fractures in his defense against the light, thus allowing it to hook its tentacles in his mind.
It was what had brought about this entire situation. This situation that had so changed him.
Really, it was the girl who had caused all this to come to pass. After all was said and done, it was her actions that had caused him to reconsider the path he had taken in life. Caused him to do what he had done and therefore be left broken and beaten by Snoke in the icy wastes of this planet to die.
But, if it wasn't for Rey, Kylo would never have met Kandri. The girl who had protected him and watched after him, despite being almost ten years his junior. He shook his head at the memories that flashed through his mind, returning to reality.
He focused on Rey's body, which had put on a small layer of snow in the time since he had put her there. She wouldn't last long if he went with his first tentative impulse and left her there.
Still, he had made a promise to Kandri that he would repay his debt and save someone in need. Repay mercy with mercy.
He sighed and then took a step forward, his legs somewhat numb as he did so. He made to take another until he heard a quiet beep emanating from inside the quad jumper.
The BB-unit, he thought, recalling the droid that had appeared in both her and the other prisoner's - the pilot called Poe Dameron - minds. Kylo rolled his head and whirled around, climbing into the cockpit once again through the window he had created.
He crouched on the fried control panel and glanced around the dark space. The toppled panels of durasteel that had previously covered the many wires in the walls of the cockpit shifted and rustled as something underneath them moved and another beep sounded. He vaulted off of the panel and dropped to the ground, approaching the heap.
Having studied Binary alongside Kohari, he understood the frantic sounds that the droid had emitted. One was a name, more specifically, "Rey." The others were pleas for help and queries as to whether or not Rey was alright. He thought he should put the small droid's mind to rest.
"It's alright there, friend," he called, attempting to be congenial. He wanted to smack himself for tacking the word "friend" on last second, but he let it go. The droid stilled and was silent, having heard him and recognizing that his voice did not belong to the young woman he was familiar with. Kylo swallowed and shifted his weight slightly.
"Are you stuck?" he asked, essentially stating the obvious. There was a sarcastic slur of beeps and bleeps as the droid told him so. He pressed his lips into a thin line and inched forward.
He made to move away some of the durasteel sheets, but the droid gave an alarmed cry and began to violently shake the pile. He huffed in annoyance.
"Look, I'm trying to help you, alright? The more time we spend in here with you fighting me gives us less time to get Rey to safety!" he shouted. The droid was silent for a long moment. Kylo waited, itching to straighten up and go back outside to save Rey and leave the droid behind to short circuit from the cold.
A quiet and humble-sounding beep sounded which he could easily interpret as the droid's consent.
He sighed. "Good," he replied before beginning to shift the metal from atop the spunky mech. When he finally found him, he was still tethered to some of the panels. They must have caved in on him in the crash. He stepped back from the dirty and battered white and orange droid as it righted itself and retracted the tethers.
Something seemed to be off and it couldn't roll without tilting forward and clanging what Kylo assumed was its head on the floor. It beeped an inquiry.
"Well I can't just leave you here, now can I?" he asked, smirking at the droid, who had yet to right itself and was staring at him upside down from the ground. The droid beeped an affirmative and attempted once more to correct the issue. "I think you're going to need some work done," he stated, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Fortunately for you, I've taken an interest in that sort of thing in recent times."
He looked around for a minute, but he didn't see anything on a cursory glance that he could use to carry the droid. He snapped his fingers when he remembered the tethers.
"Can you let me use your tethers. I can't carry you in anything and you can't exactly go anywhere on your own yet," he suggested, shrugging. It beeped, giving the verbal droid equivalent of a shrug and tilted slightly. It opened the sockets for the tethers and gently released them. Kylo smiled and reached forward, tugging them out gently.
When they were as far out as he wanted them, he tied them all together and then picked the droid up and hauled the surprisingly heavy thing out the cockpit. It gave an alarmed squeal when it dropped into the snow. Fortunately, Kylo grabbed the tethers and stopped him from sinking beneath the surface of the icy crystals. He jumped down himself, landing between the droid and Rey.
He hauled the makeshift strap over his shoulder and dragged the droid forward through the snow. Due to its spherical underside, it rolled relatively easily through the freezing ground cover. Reaching Rey's side, he stooped down and gathered her up in his arms. She hung stiffly for a moment, his skin cold and covered in frost. He reached around her for her wrist and searched out a pulse.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he felt two distinct beats beneath her skin. They were strong and clear, not very far apart. Still, he needed to get her back to the compound before even the Force used up its ability to keep her from fading away.
But then, he'd given up on the Force a long time ago. He'd move as though she were a normal person, get her back fast like he would if she were a normal person.
Like Kandri, and admittedly Enen, had for him.
Taking a deep breath for determination, he began to plow forward through the blizzard with hopes that the heater hadn't broken down and his medical kit still had enough supplies.
A/N: Haha. I didn't warn you about the time-skip. Whups. Oh well. So, just a recap, I would imagine that Kylo has been on the planet for about three years now, four years since the move. At my estimation, he is about 28 rather than 33 or 34 like he would be in the new/inverted canon standard timeline. Well, hope you all enjoyed that. I will make an attempt to update more regularly, and with that I bid you all a fond farewell as I journey to slam my head into the wall that is chemistry homework.
Send help,
IMSP, out.