Ben leans back, watching as Rey and Finn try to levitate R2 and BB-8.
"R2! You're flying!" crows C-3PO.
"Glad you decided to show," Ben teases, raising his hand in a threat.
"Oh, no, Master Ben, don't do that!" 3PO shudders. "I came to find out—has Poe Dameron been around?"
Ben frowns. "No. BB-8 said he was talking to Bazine Netal."
"Well, the General is looking for him, and no one seems to have seen him," 3PO reports, a definite undercurrent of anxiety in his tone.
Bazine… Dread seeps through Ben. Rey and Finn laugh, and Luke joins. Ben stands. "Where is Bazine's room?"
What's going on? Sensing his darkening mood, Rey sounds alarmed.
I'm going to look for Poe. Ben stalks back towards the base.
I'll come.
No—stay with Luke and Finn.
"I don't think that you're supposed to be wandering around alone," snaps Admiral Ackbar.
Ben pushes back the red creature he's known since childhood. "Get out of my way."
"Well, really!"
"Excuse me, sir," begins C-3PO behind Ben. "He's actually acting on the General's orders—very important—"
C-3PO's lying for me. Ben wishes the circumstances would let him turn around and thank the droid, but the Force is urging him on, simmering with menace.
Do you feel it? he asks Rey.
Yes.
"Down the stairs, take a right, and a left, three doors down!" C-3PO calls after him. "No, I'm sorry, Admiral, you're not allowed to go with him!"
Ben grabs the hilt of his lightsaber as he turns, turns again, and counts three doors. He raps on it, and with a creak it swings open.
Ben steps inside, finger ready to ignite his lightsaber when something slams into his knees, toppling him. The lightsaber flies out of his grasp, and a black boot kicks it away.
Ben! Rey screams.
"Move and I shoot you. And your friend!" Bazine's voice snarls. Still gripping his knee, Ben turns to see her pointing a blaster not at him, but at a barely conscious Poe, tied up in a corner with blood caked on his face and down his neck, stemming from his temple.
"Poe!" Ben cries.
I'm coming! Rey vows.
"I mean it," Bazine warns, backing away but still keeping the blaster aimed.
"Ben," Poe groans. "Ben, the First Order—they're coming—"
Bazine snatches the lightsaber and makes for the door. Ben scrambles to freeze her with the Force, but she dodges him and races out. The door shuts with an ominous click.
I failed, Ben realizes. He's never been so slow.
The Light. It's weakening you.
No. Ben tries to think of other things, of other people—people who matter to him—
Ben tries to yanks at the handle, but it doesn't budge. Rey! He turns around, seeing Poe moan, his head wobbling.
Is he okay? Rey shrieks.
"Poe." Ben rushes back to his friend, untying the rope around his wrists. Rage shoots through him a familiar, consuming feeling. He tries to push it away, block it. His hands shake.
"This is a change from the last time I was a captive," Poe rasps.
Ben grasps Poe's face, turning it to check the wound. It's not terribly deep, but the skin around the gash already swells maroon. "Rey's coming," he reassures his friend. Focus on her, on Poe, on the fact that you have the chance to atone... But the rage and the murderous anger—how Bazine had infiltrated them, how she lied to them, hurt them, put them all in danger—he wishes he'd come in swinging the lightsaber, taken her down before she took him down. Humiliation rakes at him.
"The First Order is too," Poe mumbles.
Please, no.
Does Snoke want him dead, or dragged back? He prefers the first option. He can't be a puppet anymore.
An explosion shakes the room. Something rattles inside him. Don't. Don't hate.
Kylo kicks at the door and screams.
"Get down!" Finn grabs Rey and tackles her to the ground as dirt and bark and stone whip through the air like blaster shots. Luke crouches behind them, sandwiched between R2 and BB-8.
"Bazine," Rey breathes, and something like dark fire spreads through her. "They're going to try and kill you!" she shouts at Luke. "And your sister!"
"I know." Luke ignites his green lightsaber. Rey lights up hers, a brilliant blue.
"Let them try," Finn says grimly. "I need a blaster."
"Finn, you find Leia!" Luke shouts.
"I don't even have a lightsaber!" Finn screams. "Won't she be safer with you?"
"Just go!" Luke screams back, racing ahead towards the distinct crunching of trees being pulverized by landing ships.
"I'll find Ben!" Rey calls to her friends, racing with BB-8 on her heels. R2 sticks by Finn.
Blaster shots pew through the air, and another explosion sends her diving to the ground. Her chin scrapes against the gravel. Jessika Pava races by, leaping into an X-wing and taking off within seconds to meet the TIE fighters in the air.
Rey, don't be stupid! Stay safe.
I'm coming to find you! she snaps. What if a bomb goes off right over the bunker you're in?
She can feel his rage swirling, his embarrassment at needing to be rescued, and she wants to quell it, but she can't. It's contagious. It envelops her, sweeping it up into its adrenaline surge.
A stormtrooper rushes her, and Rey blocks his blasts with her lightsaber, reminding her of the time Kylo Ren followed her into the woods, and it was like a game to him… But this isn't a game, and she stabs the stormtrooper through a gap in his armor at the neck, killing him.
BB-8 squeals, and two more stormtroopers leap at her. One Rey slices at, and the other flies meters away, shot but Chewie's bowcaster.
Something silver and black dances to her right. Rey whirls around to see Bazine Netal leaping over the flaming remains of a starfighter, hurtling towards the forest. Rage, black and steaming, grips at Rey's lungs. She can't get away—she knows too much! She hurt Poe! And locked Ben… "BB-8, get Chewie to help Ben and Poe!" she shouts, before racing after Bazine.
Bazine glances behind her to see Rey charging, and smiles.
Finn snatches a blaster from one of the stormtroopers Rey took down. "Keep up, R2!" he shouts over his shoulder, looking for any sign of Leia, feet pounding the pavement, heart pounding against his ribcage.
Something gold glints to his left, and R2 shrieks and races towards C-3PO. Finn skids and chases after the droids, who take cover behind a starfighter. "3PO! Where's Leia? Where's the General?"
"Over there!" wails 3PO, pointing to the crumpled remains of what was once an X-wing. Leia crouches behind it, aiming and shooting her blaster at stormtroopers.
"You stay here!" Finn directs, firing and then running towards Leia.
"Finn!" Leia greets him. "Luke should know I can take care of myself," she mutters, picking off stormtroopers with an expertise that astounds Finn.
3PO and R2 dash over to them. "What are we going to do, what are we going to do?" sobs C-3PO.
"Beat them, that's what!" Leia shouts as a flaming TIE fighter spirals into the nearby forest.
Ben howls and pounds at the door, but it won't budge. There are no windows. Infuriated, he kicks the bed, smashes his fist into the wall.
"I could be wrong," mutters Poe, sweat soaking his hair. "But I don't think that's gonna help."
The door blasts open.
"Oh wow," Poe says, agape. "Maybe it did."
Chewie storms into the room, roaring, bowcaster aimed. The Wookiee lowers it when he sees Ben standing awkwardly to avoid further damaging his knee, and Poe, slumped against the wall.
Chewie reaches out and grabs Ben by his arm, moaning a message: are you okay?
Ben nods, a lump in his throat. The Wookiee cuts through his fury, quieting it. He searches for Rey in his mind, realizing he hasn't heard her in the past few minutes.
Good, Chewie snarls. Because we need you.
"Poe," Ben says, and Chewie squats to take the pilot in his arms. Chewie nods towards the bowcaster. Take it.
Rey, I'm safe, Ben reports as he leads them out of the bunker. Rey?
Nothing but black silence.
Ben races outside, craning his neck to see starfighters taking down TIE fighters. The Resistance is going to win. The rest of the Resistance may not know it yet, but he does.
Something green and familiar sparks to his side. Ben whirls around to see Luke cutting down a stormtrooper, but three more charge at his uncle's back. Ben fires the bowcaster, taking down two of them, and a blue blaster shot takes down the third.
Luke glances at Ben and nods, and Ben spots his mother behind a downed ship, blaster already swiveling about to take down another enemy.
Rey! Ben calls again.
Something throbbing and dark prevents him from reaching her. Something from the forest… Ben runs, as fast as his injured leg will carry him.
"You," Rey seethes. "How could you?"
Bazine's slowed and faces her, grinning maniacally. She ignites Ben's lightsaber, and Rey's heart stops.
"Come to get your boyfriend's tool?" Bazine croons.
"That doesn't belong to you," Rey snarls, powering up her own lightsaber. Bazine's face falters, but only for a moment.
"Soon it won't belong to anyone," Bazine taunts. "Snoke will punish Kylo Ren, turn him back and kill him, you'll see. After he kills Skywalker and your pathetic General today. And then you'll be no one to anybody but Snoke."
Rey swings at her, and almost instantly hits Bazine on the hand. Screaming, the woman falls, straight onto Ben's lightsaber, which Rey picks up.
Bazine writhes, gasping and screeching in pain, but Rey doesn't care. Rage stabs through her, biting and churning and invigorating, intoxicating, thrilling. She holds both lightsabers dangerously close to Bazine's smooth cheeks, watches as the girl panics and cries as Rey presses both sabers into her shoulders.
BB-8 screeches and rushes away.
"Netal!" booms a voice. A stormtrooper's voice. Rey whirls around to see seven of them, all aiming blasters at her.
"Well done," one of them tells the still gasping woman on the ground.
No. Panicked now, Rey summons the Force with a strength she's never used before, freezing three of the stormtroopers and sending two month into a tree. Wielding both lightsabers, she deflects the blasts of all but one shot, but the pain only increases her strength. She lunges and stabs the stormtrooper who shot her, then the other one who's free, and turns on the ones feebly stirring beneath the tree, consumed with red darkness.
A shout tears through it, dampening her resolve with blue. "REY!"
"Rey!" Ben screams, watching with his stomach clamped in horror as the woman he loves looks to kill two already downed stormtroopers. BB-8 shrieks by his side. "Rey, stop!"
Oh, but don't they deserve it, though?
Ben's heart aches and his lungs burn. The darkness slips in around him, tugging at his mind, pulling him along—this is what you want—this is what you need to do—
No!
"Rey! Ben!" pants Luke, appearing behind Ben.
The darkness retreats. Rey's still looking at Ben, frozen except for her eyes, which broil with terror and rage.
"Please," whimpers one of the stormtroopers, and Rey raises both lightsabers.
"Rey!" Ben screams again, plunging towards her. "Rey, please! Please, Rey." He could stop her, he should stop her—except he can't, it doesn't work that way—his mind won't even connect with hers.
He does the only thing he can, and holds out his hand to her. "Come on, Rey. You don't want to do this."
Rey gasps, and he feels the darkness melt, feels her light enter his mind again. The lightsabers drop onto the earth and Luke instantly snaps them into his hands.
Rey clamps her hand over her mouth, looking from the living stormtroopers to the dead ones, to Bazine, and screams.
"Rey, Rey, it's okay!" Ben grabs her, pulls her against his chest, holding her quivering form.
"I killed them!"
Ben hears something rustle behind him and jerks around to see Bazine scrambling to her feet to lunge at them both. Ben summons the Force, but before he can blast her into a tree, Chewie appears and rips Bazine's arms off.
Rey screams louder, and Ben grabs her face, forcing her to look at him. "Look at me, Rey, look at me! Don't look at her! At them! Look at me," he pleads.
Rey wilts in his arms, still sobbing. "The Dark Side—I let it—"
"I know," he says, breath hitching, and now he's crying too. "I know, Rey. Believe me, I know."
Was it her darkness, or yours?
"Luke!" Mother charges towards them.
"Leia," Luke says wearily. "We have some prisoners. Some need medical treatment."
"Poe?" Ben inquires, still holding Rey's shuddering body against his.
"He'll be all right. Finn's with him," Mother says, taking in the scene with a white face. "Is Rey hurt?"
"She'll be okay," Ben says. "I just need—we need some time." He tries to walk, but Rey's legs aren't working, so he picks her up like he did that time on Takodana, carrying her back towards the base. "Keeping looking at me. At me, Rey."
Her fear, her disgust and horror, fill him, and Ben would give anything to wipe it away, wipe away the scars the Dark Side leaves on her, because he too bears those scars; he, too, feels the pulse of shame, far stronger than she does.
You're no good for her.
Ben rushes past the battlegrounds, past a dazed Jessika Pava and past a frantic Finn and moaning Poe. He takes Rey back to their room, the room they spent the night wrapped in each other's arms in, and lays her on the bed.
"What have I done?" Rey cries, clamping her hands against her forehead. "What did I do?"
"The Dark Sides tempts every Jedi, Rey." And it's me. He shields the thought from her, but the terror corrodes at him. What if their bond—what if his darkness is corrupting her?
There's Light in you, too. Focus on that. Strengthen the Light.
She lifts her hands away, staring at him with her eyes running. "I gave in to it, though, Ben. Why?"
"You're not perfect," he says.
"I'm so scared."
He reaches out and strokes her face, strokes her cheek the way Han stroked his. He can't speak. Tears run down his own face. I'm sorry, Rey.
"I'm sorry," she sobs. "They didn't deserve that. And—Ben—" She gulps. "I felt powerful, Ben, so powerful. And—" She lets him in, and he sees her secret: she liked how it felt.
Of course she did. Hadn't he liked the power, the spinning, giddy exhilaration it afforded him? I know. I felt it, too.
You need a teacher! I can show you the ways of the Force!
Ben sees Rey in the forest and knows that it was wrong, all wrong, even in her moments of power. This isn't who she's meant to be.
Or you.
It's not worth it. Not with this pain. The remorse.
I know. "Even Luke grapples with the Dark Side," Ben tells her. "He almost struck down his own father."
"But, he stopped."
"You stopped today." And I didn't. And that was Ben's worst fear, when he saw her—that she would reject his hand, reject what he offered her, just as he rejected his father.
"You stopped eventually, too," she reminds him and sits up, leaning against him. She looks up at him, almost as if she wants to kiss him, but she doesn't: in her mind, Ben senses that she just wants him to hold her.
He does.
"What happened out there?" Leia demands as Luke wipes his brow.
He shakes his head. He can't fault Rey, but his heart bleeds for her even as his anxieties rise and crash inside him. Could he handle the fall of another student? "Ben will take care of it." If there's anyone who can calm her down, it'll be him, Luke tells himself, because Ben knows.
What if he was too forgiving of Ben? What if his nephew is corrupting Rey? What if the Force bond is destroying them both?
There's Darkness in us all.
"Is Rey okay?" Finn demands, his hand resting on Poe's shoulder.
"She'll be all right," Luke answers, because he needs it to be true.
Sobbing comes from a corner where Jessika Pava stands. Leia heads over to her, putting her hand on the girl's shoulder.
Finn's eyes follow a pilot carrying Bazine's deceased body, catch on the distinct lightsaber burns visible on her torso. He gulps.
Luke sighs. Part of him wants to burst in, tell Rey what she did wasn't really that bad, but he did that with Ben once, when the twelve-year-old boy had used the Force to beat another boy who had cruelly mocked him, and Luke knows how that turned out.
And Luke walked away from Ben after that, and now he can't avoid Rey.
Luke cranes his head and studies Finn. "Think your friend will be all right for a moment?"
"I'mma be fine," breathes Poe. "Go talk the Force… and shit."
Finn squeezes Poe's shoulder. "I'll be right back." He follows Luke. "Rey killed Bazine, didn't she?"
Luke nods.
"Defense?"
Luke doesn't answer, which is an answer itself. "Ben's comforting her. He can offer her what we can't." Luke hopes.
"The Dark Side? I worked for the First Order, don't forget," Finn reminds him.
"You never killed for them, kid. You never even wanted to. Because you never fully gave in to the Dark Side. Ben has. He knows what it's like." Luke grips Finn's shoulder. "The Dark Side offers intense power, Finn, but always at a terrible cost. Remember that." Please don't turn to the Dark Side, too.
Forever will it dominate your destiny…
What if Luke's brief dalliances with it have forever dominated his, and his students'?
Finn nods. "Can we ask to see her?"
"I think we should," Luke croaks.
BB-8 pops up behind them, bleeping that it wants to come along.
They knock, and Ben tells them to come in. Rey's head rests on his shoulder, her arms still tightly wound around him. Finn swallows, and then smiles.
"Hey, Rey." Finn sits next to her.
She lifts her head, nose swollen from crying, and embraces him. "Finn."
He hugs her back, and Luke puts his hand on Rey's head. With his other hand, he offers Ben both their lightsabers back, even as his conscience screams and calls him a fool.
When did hope become a danger, a threat, for him?
"Defeated?" rages Snoke, and Hux feigns his own humiliation. Well, not quite feigns. It's real. He can't quite believe the Resistance fought off some of his best troops—Phasma's best troops—but now, their plan…
"The only thing that makes sense now, Supreme Leader," Hux begins primly. "Is to redouble our efforts on the new Starkiller Base. Then, we'll be able to obliterate the Resistance once and for all." Or, at least, I will be able to. He doesn't look at Phasma, but even though her helmet, he feels her gaze on him.
"Fine," Snoke acquiesces.
Hux waits for the inevitable "go," but it doesn't come.
"I heard Netal gave us a piece of valuable information," Snoke drawls.
"Oh?" Hux's pulse quickens. Phasma lifts her shoulders in a shrug.
"It seems the stormtrooper who betrayed you—"
"FN-2187," Hux supplies, to prove that he still remembers the soldier, that he hasn't forgotten, that he's a worthy commander. To prove it to himself, far more than Snoke, but maybe also to Snoke.
"FN-2187—is still with the Resistance."
This is hardly news. "Indeed, Supreme Leader."
"And it appears he, too, is Force sensitive and training with Luke Skywalker."
Hux tries to swallow and can't. No. Will these damn fucking Force users never cease to make him feel the fool? "We shall destroy him, then," Hux manages.
"I want you to go through all our computerized records, starting with your father, Brendol Hux's, cadets," Snoke commands, resting back in his throne. "I want you to look for any families with a Jedi history."
"Supreme Leader, we've done that," Hux protests. "You converted them all into Knights of Ren, or had Kylo Ren slaughter them."
"Apparently, you and your worthless father weren't thorough enough!" Snoke thunders, and Hux cringes. "We have a grandchild of Obi-Wan Kenobi's, and what appears to be a grandchild of Mace Windu's."
Who? Hux struggles to remain impassive. It doesn't work, and Snoke's words strike out, thrashing him worse than his father ever had with a whip.
"You ignorant fool. You're only mindful of your own importance, General, and only useful to me in that you've been able to develop what seemed to be a strong program for training our troops—but starting with FN-2187's desertion, your program has begun to show its weaknesses, and with each day, you look a little less like your father—who wasn't even brave enough to work with me—and more like the sniveling, desperate waste of potential your mother was."
Hux's face burns. "I can still be useful, Supreme Leader. Let me comb the records. If I have made any further errors, I assure you, I will correct them." He manages to spit the last syllables out without his voice cracking.
"Good," sneers Snoke. "I await your report, General."
"The most complete records we have are already on the Starkiller Base," Hux ekes out.
"Then go." Snoke vanishes. Hux still senses Phasma's gaze and wants to slap her. Anything to get this shame off of him.
Phasma walks out ahead of him. When they're outside, she speaks. "The records might give us a cover for finding more information."
"Indeed." Hux doesn't want to talk. He wants to be Emperor, right now, right this second, make her bow before him, make Snoke die because this burning sensation, it's eating him up.
He imagines himself going through those records, all of them, reading the names, and knows he'll read the name of the one he killed at thirteen.
The trouble is, he won't recognize it.
It's never bothered him before, Hux thinks angrily.
Yes, it has.
"Our victory here was temporary," Leia says to the gathered crew of Resistance members, some with purple and blue bruises and red gashes on their faces, some human, some not human, but all looking to her for instruction. "It won't matter, so long as they craft a new Starkiller Base."
"We'll have to stop them," Jessika Pava says. "Like we did last time."
"Jessika's right," Poe puts in, a bandage still around his skull. Jessika shoots him a grateful smile.
"I know where the base is," Ben says quietly. "It's not yet finished. It's far more vulnerable than the first one."
"And yet we still managed to blow that one," Poe says, smirking.
"He remembers," Finn says. "Trust me."
"We'll have to go there, won't we," says Luke. "Shut down the shields…"
"Like Han did," Leia whispers.
"I can do it," Ben volunteers, unable to look at his mother, and it hurts her.
"We can," Finn says. "You, me, and Rey."
"And your master," Luke puts in.
"I will go as well," Leia says. She's not letting her son risk himself without her there. Not when she's just gotten him back.
"General, you can't!" cries Ackbar. "You're too—"
"No one's too important," Leia says. "While I'm gone, Ackbar, you will call the shots."
The red creature's eyes fill with tears.