133 Galencia House Spa – Int. 133
The house spa is clean and calming. Floors of marble, lit only by soft orange fixtures. Massage tables, a steam bath, and a lineup of SRR healing pods (same as the one from The Hidden Danger, though shining in gold decoration).
Rey is rejuvenating in a healing pod while Ephrath waits on a chair in front. Two Knights of Ren in the far corner watches both. Ephrath furrows her brow while looking at Rey, her soft bathrobe gives her no comfort.
The pod opens. Ephrath lights up.
EPHRATH Heyyyy, how's it feel to be the one worked on finally?
REY Like I should have charged a lot more. I feel wonderful!
EPHRATH I knew you would! oh, let me help you up ther—
While trying to lift Rey out, Ephrath herself slips on the damp floor, The Knights of Ren move in to help, but a quick Rey catches her first. Rey gets fully out, helping her cousin up while laughing.
REY Easy, Ephie! You almost broke your skull! I'd have to stick you in with my new rate, and I can't do that to family!
EPHRATH Oh, hush! I didn't spend the last hour waiting for you to rip me off.
Both women get to their feet. Rey is in a pretty shrink suit with the symbol of House Galencia. It is cut off at the arms and nape to show off skin.
REY I appreciate your waiting, but you didn't have to. Where did the servants run off?
Ephrath stares at Rey. She makes her decision.
EPHRATH Oh. I sent them away. I wanted to be the first one to see you, And you look radiant!
Rey laughs at looks at her new skin. Every scar, nick, burn, replaced anew in perfect molding. It feels like wearing the "you" that has always been in your mind for the first time.
REY Haha, thanks, Ephie. I... really love it. It's something I always wanted fixed.
EPHRATH Well... try not to wreck it with Jon.
REY Oh, about now then?
EPHRATH Uuuurrhhh, yeah. Honestly, wouldn't you rather stick with the schedule I made for you? Lanz's casino ship will do better by your skin than training.
REY I've been putting it off for a while. It's important to continue if we want a future.
EPHRATH I know... Is it going to be a regular event?
REY Every day, if possible. I don't know when Ky— Jon will be sent off.
EPHRATH Okay, but promise me the LeMondi Pod Races. It's all day and plus-one, and I need somebody!
REY Haha, I'll make an exception then, and for the Ides of Juzar.
EPHRATH And for Execution Day the week after.
REY Isn't that only for Main Branch Imperial Family?
EPHRATH Yes, but everyone wants to see the peasant that charmed the roguish Captain of the Knights of Ren. And we need you to look your best.
REY I'll try.
EPHRATH ...if you get chewed up, let me know. We can come here again. Just you and me.
REY Aren't you busy?
Kylo Ren enters the room.
EPHRATH Oh, absolutely. But it's rare to find someone here that appreciates a girl's spa trip.
REY I'd like that.
EPHRATH It's a date!
Rey heads off to a waiting Kylo. Ephrath waves bye.
EPHRATH Take it easy on her for the first day, Jon!
Kylo waves back, and the two exit the spa.
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134 Galencia Internal Elevator — Int. 134
Small elevator unit going down. Black walls with white marble floor. Opulent glass covers the back, the light of late evening on the ocean filling the vessel. Rey and Kylo stand straight, staying silent until:
KYLO You and Ephie have grown close.
REY She's made the last two months the best of my entire life.
KYLO Treasure it while you can.
REY What?
KYLO Life changes fast for us of the Imperial Family. Always for the worst. This could be the best it gets.
REY That's cheery.
Kylo feels he is struggling as a teacher. He shifts a little to loosen up, trying to change tactics. He takes his helmet off.
KYLO ...for me, the best years were with Master Luke...
The door opens, revealing Kylo's Mansion:
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135 Kylo's Mansion – Int. 135
His mansion is immense in scale; Kylo removed every indoor wall and level, showing naked a single room matching a stadium.
A mini-elevator leads to the far ceiling, connecting it to the Waiting Room and String Elevator Station.
The four frame walls are deep black, and this vast room's ground is bedded by blackish-blue grass and tranquil dried black trees (same from The Hidden Danger). Scattered glass tubes hold trinkets (from the Original Trilogy). The most splendid memorial of all, an X-wing, rests near the windows. The glass is vertical and thin, stretching from ground floor to ceiling, lighting the area like a garden. Thick load-bearing pillars hold the mansion from crushing under Galencia Tower's weight. Lights mounted around them four meters from the floor. A waterfall feeds into a small pool in the corner.
A lit white walkway leads from the entrance to the windows, the waterfall, the mini-elevator to the second floor, and to a large square in the very middle. Next to this square are a batch of black cubes, ranging from ten cm to two meters. A simple hover platform is next to the elevator.
The sight stuns Rey. Kylo walks forward.
KYLO (cont.) ...I will try to channel him in our lessons.
Kylo steps onto the platform and waits for Rey.
REY Is every floor in Galencia Tower this big?
Rey gets on. The platform floats to the center square.
KYLO The Emperor permitted me the renovation of the bottom floor; this is the smallest mansion.
REY Incredible. What do they fill it with?
KYLO Vaults for treasure, dungeons for pleasure, museums, galleries, synthetic beaches, restaurants, entertainment for the monopolers and titans of the galaxy, and still with such incredible space, they find places for secret rooms.
Rey takes the room in, growing her understanding of the Imperial Family's wealth.
KYLO All distractions that I removed.
Kylo makes a gesture, and the windows darken as black as the walls. The pillars' purple-tinted lights brighten in smooth correlation. The ceiling is swallowed in shadow, the rolling hills of the grass hide where the walls meet the floor: the view is of an ethereal garden floating in a black void.
REY Of course.
KYLO The blades of grass flow with the Force. When these trees reach their natural end, the midichlorians enrich them. A sensitive will feel no more attuned than in this room.
REY It's beautiful.
KYLO It is.
The platform lands on the square.
KYLO I have thought about how you have described your current power with the Force. Can you tell me what insights Luke has given you?
REY He taught me my relationship with the Force. While the Force binds all things together, I entangle all those around me. My early outbursts were from fear and rejection of these relationships. That was before Luke and Poe... and Finn...
KYLO Hmm. Has he taught you the revised Sith teachings?
REY Yes, the "tipping," as he calls it. To reach into the raw power of the Force, then pulling one's self back into balance before becoming lost... whenever I try to tip, I fall in and can't stop the power from flowing through me.
KYLO I see.
REY ...will you teach me more of the Sith ways?
Kylo shoots Rey a "you really just say that?"
KYLO No, the Emperor has purged all the records and cults. Every trick I learned after Luke was self-discovered.
REY Ah, right.. meaning you will teach me those?
Kylo gives her the same look again. He takes both hands and strains while lifting a 1-meter black cube onto the square in front of Rey.
KYLO No, Rey. You are already beyond where Luke and I could ever reach.
REY I don't understand.
KYLO You will come too. This is a cube of black phrik metal. Eight tons.
Kylo turns on his lightsaber and plunges it into the cube's side. The blade scatters violently on the surface. He takes it off to show only a faint glow of red on a still perfect cube.
KYLO Indestructible. You will shatter it.
REY You just said it was indestructible?
KYLO Yes, for everyone who isn't you. The core of your struggle is thinking you have one at all, Rey. Do you know what every Force-sensitive feels when around you?
Rey looks at Kylo in concern.
KYLO It's like walking next to a sun, Rey. Overwhelming, even when passive. Only one as bold as Luke —or as pathetic as Finn— can ignore the terror of your divinity.
REY I don't know what you mean.
KYLO It means Luke taught you as he did me. He taught you the equality of all objects under the Force, a revealing humility that size matter not. One shares no greater stake in this universe than the clothes they wear. We are all equals. But not you.
REY Then what—
KYLO Your relationship to this indestructible cube is not one of equals; you have no equal Rey. You enter every room as the most preeminent object there. You aren't meant to be a healer serving hicks or a vital member of a three-man team: you are the lone master above all in the galaxy. Tipping into the Dark Side doesn't unbalance you. Trying to stay on our plane does.
REY Kylo, that's not how it works. I can't even lift rocks or—
KYLO Not true, look to how you manipulate machines. Describe it to me again.
REY I... I envision the blueprint in my head. I picture how every piece flows into the next. When I finally... uh... connect them together, the machines work as designed to—
KYLO As you dictate them to.
REY No—
KYLO Yes. A Jedi focuses on a rock and imagines it drawing near, shares that vision to that rock, and requests it follow, and finally, the rock chooses to. You are beyond this. You suggest a path in your mind, and every piece, every electron, all the millions if not billions of moving parts follow your request with such precision and timing— They follow you, as you are different. Superior. And this is effortless to you. Do you see now how different you are? Luke asks —Finn begs— and you, Rey Galencia, COMMAND.
Rey is realizing what she kept herself blind to.
REY Even if you say all that... I don't know how to break... this. Can't we start with anything easier?
KYLO Heh, I said before you will come to understand. Rey: with all the power you have, this is easy for you. Extend your hand and focus on the cube.
Rey is unnerved but does as Kylo says.
KYLO And remember: Do not ask.
Rey struggles, and a bolt launches from her hands, hitting the cube then bouncing harmlessly off it. Rey can't stop and is terrified the straying discharge will destroy something important. Kylo freezes the bolt, then re-focuses it at the cube.
KYLO Keeping going, I can catch what you throw.
Rey looks on thankfully to Kylo and pushes herself further. As the lightning leaving her fingers grows thicker, its path grows more curved and reckless. Kylo quickly orchestrates the energy, stray strands still escaping the stream, The cube stays still.
KYLO Good! You have more! So much more! Release it!
Rey is breathing fast, starting to panic, feeling no control of the boundless power. The lighting continues to intensify, its erratic thrashing starting to spread wider than Kylo can catch. But, he stays calm.
KYLO Rey, don't focus on where it could go— what you could hurt. Your thoughts command it. Command it to one point. COMMAND IT.
This grounds Rey. She feels safe and starts subtracting the distractions from her mind. One by one, until all the sound goes away, then —for an instant— the lightning constrains into a beam.
The side explodes, liquidated mounds spew forth, carried across the room by the momentum. The cube only shifts a scant, and even despite a blow melting a third of its mass, the rest of the cube holds its shape perfectly. The wound glows a fixed spectrum of color.
Right when the explosion happens, the beam stops, and Rey gasps for air. Her hands are smoking. She stares at them, then the cube, in awe of the power that was always available.
KYLO Incredible.
REY I— I— wow. I did that.
KYLO You always could. And you can do much more. You have to do much more.
REY To face the Emperor?
KYLO Yes. To face him, to fight through his men and his Four Cardinal Knights.
Kylo gestures to the many other black phrik cubes.
REY I see.
KYLO ...you have made one breakthrough today Rey. You may take a rest if you wish.
Rey is surprised by this. She rubs her hands together.
REY I'm ready to start again when you are.
Kylo smiles, and readies another cube.
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