The muscles in her legs and arms are engaged as Rey launches herself toward Kylo during training. She's nimble, light on her feet, flitting about him until she finds the opportunity to strike. They've sparred with each other far too many times for Kylo to be surprised by any of her attacks, but she has gotten better and better at blocking his connection to her mind in battle. He throws his weight into his attack and she is swift to parry, as they flow in this destructive harmony of theirs, an imperfect balance teetering on the edge.
Snoke observes Rey very closely for the next few weeks, summoning her regularly to report on her progress. Still, she refused to reveal any information that may hurt the Resistance, and still Snoke continued to rip through her mind piece by piece. Some days, her screams echo through the halls and other days the agony is not her own. Snoke is brutal to Kylo, so much so that he leaves every meeting with the Supreme Leader staggering so badly that he collapses outside as soon as the chamber doors close.
But Rey helps him to his quarters and patches him up like clockwork, bacta and bandages at the ready. It is a destructive cycle, and Rey knows they desperately need a plan before one of them ends up dead. But until then, all she can do is train and wait.
He is at her door before she can wipe the sleep from her eyes, and when he presses the code in there's a visible change in his demeanor. His limp is barely visible as he rushes in and shuts her door, pulling her up quickly from her bed as she grasps her sheets to cover herself.
"You need to follow me," he tells her, and Rey suppresses a groan as he goes to lean against the wall, waiting.
"Wait outside for me, I'm coming." He shuffles out the door as she pulls on her tunic and leggings on quickly, hopping along while struggling to get her boots onto her feet. The moment she steps outside the door, Kylo's eyes flash quickly around before grabbing her hand and walking with long strides.
He leads her to a section of the base that she's never seen before. The stark white walls are replaced with smooth black stone, and Rey finds herself dragging her hands against it as she passes.
"This is it," he tells her as they round a corner, and Rey can hardly breathe at the sight. The room is massive, lined from wall to wall with shelves, piled high with holopads glowing blue in the darkness of the room. She looks up at Kylo, who nods at her to go explore.
"This was a Sith temple, long ago. This planet is called Malachor. They kept their archives here." Rey stops, recoiling from a holopad that she was reaching for. "The Sith collected all sorts of information, about the dark side and the light, as did the Jedi. You don't have to worry, go look around. We could find something useful."
"We'll never find anything here; this place is huge," she huffs as she looks around, sizing up the place. It would take them days to explore every corner of the chamber, and much longer to read through every file on record.
"Let the Force guide you, Rey." Kylo closes his eyes and Rey mimics his actions, letting the Force sift through the shelves and weave between each aisle, one by one. Sure enough, she finds one tendril in the Force reaching out toward her, and she follows it. It's high up, much higher than she expected, in fact, but she can climb it. She hooks her foot onto one of the shelves and pushes herself up. She's nimble and careful, scaling the shelves with such grace and ease that Kylo feels like he's seeing her scavenger side in action. Climbing is natural to her, as natural as breathing, and she is in her element.
She's nearly at the top when she finds what she's looking for, a small crystalline cube with strange blue markings etched into each face. It hums against her fingertip, as if it's just begging her to open it. If she could just lean over just a little tiny bit, she could reach it and-
Kylo shouts as he watches Rey lose her footing, tipping the cube to the floor as she plummets. He is quick to act, throwing his hand out and summoning the Force to the ground below her, willing the air between her and the floor to slow her fall. He runs to grab her right before she's about to hit the ground, and he hears a loud crack on the ground beside him.
"What did you think you were doing? You were going to get yourself killed!" He shouts at her as she scrambles away from him. She crosses her arms, and nods toward the cube on the ground.
"I was trying to get that." Kylo turns to his side to see the cube, glowing more brightly than anything else in the room.
"A Jedi holocron," he says in awe, reaching down to turn it over in his hands. There's no activation switch, but Kylo can feel the holocron being pulled toward Rey. "You have to open it, not me."
She takes the holocron into the palm of her hand, and it warms to her touch. Her eyes flutter shut as she draws a breath, and she exhales all the power that she can gather with the Force, sending it slipping into the cracks of the holocron. The holocron floats away from her palm and further into the air, and suddenly the room is filled with swirling text and diagrams and maps.
Two words stand out more boldly than anything else, and Rey reads them out. " Force artifacts . Kylo, this could be it!" Rey cries out excitedly but Kylo is busy staring up at something else.
"Rey, come here," he says, pointing up at an entry and expanding it. " The selkie maidens were a race of creatures born of the sea, with an innate Force sensitivity. Their pelts gave them the ability to change form and to communicate fully without speaking, creating strong Force bonds between the selkies."
Rey scrunches her nose, reading closer. " Although selkies prefer to stay in their natural form, they can remove their pelts and pass for humans, which is what many selkies had to do to become members of the Jedi Order. Any Force-sensitive who wears a selkie pelt can enhance their power in the Force, activate a Force bond from a long distance away, meld their powers with other Force-sensitives, or cloak their Force signature."
"This is exactly what we need," Kylo whispers, almost as if he can't believe their luck. "We need to get your cloak back, and your lightsaber. And then we need to get out of this place."
Rey shoves the holocron into the pocket of her tunic and turns to him. Her comlink beeps and she looks down at it. It is Snoke, summoning her once again for interrogation. She jolts and looks around in a blind panic. "Snoke's calling for me. What do we do? He's going to find out, I can't hide this from him."
Kylo's eyes dart around the room as plans race through his head. "You can, you're strong enough. He keeps your pelt and lightsaber in the heart of the base, but it's heavily guarded."
"Can you get them?"
"I can try, but I can't guarantee that I won't have company when I come to find you. And we'll have to steal a ship." Rey considers their plan as quickly as her mind can process it. We can do this , she tells herself, but she feels Kylo's fear flooding her senses. She touches his face, tracing her hand along the scar that she once dealt him, and sends all the calmness she can manage his way.
We can do this , Kylo repeats back to her, and there's nothing left to say.
Rey can hardly walk fast enough toward Snoke's chamber, her legs shaking beneath her with each step. She steels herself when she reaches the entrance, and puts her entire being into controlling her thoughts.
"Are you willing to cooperate this time, girl?" Snoke's voice pierces her like venom. He rises from his seat, dragging her forward with the Force. He rakes through her mind carelessly, not even bothering to search for anything in particular, only wishing to cause her pain. He twists and pulls at her mind until her screams choke up in her throat, and Rey falls to her knees.
"Y-yes," she managed to gasp out, and a cruel smile spreads across his face.
"Good. I've been watching you, Rey. You could be strong, you could bend planets to your will, but instead you have wasted my time, squandering your potential. You think the light side is what you need, but it will only make you weak, girl. I want you to prove to me what you are worth, and I will return what is yours." In his hands lie the pelt and the cloak, and Rey's heart beats hard against her ribs. Their plan will not work, and they will both suffer.
"You will kill Kylo Ren, or both of you will know the consequences of crossing me." Her heart stops as Kylo is kicked forward, legs giving out as Rey glances at his bloodied face. Behind him stand the Knights of Ren, weapons at the ready and masks gazing hungrily at the opportunity to witness a kill.
"I have no weapon, you fool," she spits at him, and Kylo cries out as rage flashes across Snoke's eyes and his hand whips out toward the mangled heap of a man. Kylo writhes on the ground, unable to move or to do anything but scream in agony.
"Do it, Rey!" Kylo shouts as another fresh wave of pain courses through him, like a thousand daggers tearing through him, and Rey can't stand to watch him anymore as a pool of deep red blood stains the floor.
She lets the emotion fall from her face and replaces it with a sick grin at the sight of Kylo's pain, and for a moment Rey think she sees a flash of fear behind his eyes. Trust me, please , she sends at him with all the strength she can, and then turns toward Snoke. "My saber, so I can know what it feels like to kill him with the lightsaber he wants so desperately."
"Very good," Snoke says, as his bony fingers release the saber into her hand. She activates it immediately, twirling it between her shaking fingers. With Snoke distracted by torturing Kylo, Rey whips around and calls the pelt toward her, and it streaks through the air into her hands. Snoke shout of outrage echoes through the chamber but Rey pays it no attention. Instead, she feels the pelt's power meld with hers and she gathers it all into the very core of her being, until she can no longer contain it all. She lets it burst in Snoke's direction, blasting his throne apart beneath him as Rey dives toward Kylo. She swipes her hand and the Knights are knocked back in an instant. Saber in hand, she grabs Kylo around the waist and heaves him with all her strength toward the door. With the pelt, she can feel him pushing all of his power toward her as she drags him through the halls. She tries her best to use their combined strength to her advantage, wiping their presence in the Force away until they are nothing more than two blotted dots.
We need a ship, she tells him frantically as they wind through the halls toward the docking bay, the sounds of footsteps echoing closer as they inch along.
I managed to get the tracker off of my shuttle before they captured me , he answers as they finally reach the docking bay. An alarm starts to sound and Kylo points Rey toward the ship as blaster shots start to streak toward them. Rey shouts as one of the shots grazes Kylo's side, and she pushes him toward the ship so he can climb in. She ignites her saber and slices down at the cable that anchors the ship and dives inside just in time avoid a blaster shot headed straight for her chest.
"My belt has a tracker too," Kylo croaks as he tries desperately to peel it off of himself, but his arms are too weak. Rey rips the tracker out, crushing it under her feet as she turns to man the controls.
"We're leaving now!" She jerks the throttle up and forward as the shuttle's wings unfold and it lifts off of the ground, zipping away from the atmosphere. Rey's eyes flick rapidly around the control panel until she finds the switch that controls the hyperdrive, and the the ship lurches backward with a sharp jerk.
"We're safe." There's only a moment of relief before Rey remembers that Kylo is bleeding out beside her, and she whips her tunic off of her shoulders, wrapping it around his wound. He's fading fast, and Rey's mind is flicking back and forth between cloaking the ship's location and focusing on Kylo's injuries. She calls on the cloak and clears her mind, imagining the push and pull of an ocean wave as she breathes deeply. "I'm taking us to the Resistance."
Kylo's eyes widen suddenly with panic. "I can't go there, Rey, they'll kill me. I deserve it, for all I've done to them."
"I won't let them. I won't stand for it. Neither will your mother." An ache appears in his eyes as he looks away from Rey.
"I can't see her, Rey. I'll only see my father, I can't do it." He clutches her hand like it's his only lifeline, and for a second he's a child again, too afraid to face his mother after all he's done wrong.
"It's our only option. Do you trust me?" she asks, and the look in his eyes says it all. With my life , he says, and with that, he collapses.