29. Chapter 29

They are outclassed and she knows it from the start.  Fighting Snoke is like trying to take on a Star Destroyer with a speeder and a wrench.  Her strikes bounce off him in showers of sparks and steam.  Kylo’s voice roars in her head and darkness tears at their souls as he opens himself to the tainted power of this place, uses it to slow Snoke as she hacks at his sides.  The floor shakes under them and she stumbles, a corpse-cold finger grazing her cheek. Snoke’s power screams in her head for one blood-curdling moment.  It twists inside her and she almost loses contact with Kylo’s mind, becoming something great, terrible, monstrous.  Then it’s gone and the connection races back.  She trips over the heaving stones, falls hard.  Her head connects with the sharp corner of a stair and blood gushes down her face, into her eye, over her chin.  

She’s sent to her knees before she can fully rise by the pain that shoots through her chest.  She fights for breath, looking for Kylo with her unbloodied eye.  He sways, convulsing, writhing, trying so fucking hard to keep the pain to himself, to contain it within his own head. She hates Snoke more now than she ever has, wants nothing so much as to to plunge her saber into that hollow chest and burn out his heart.  Her legs shake as she drinks in the darkness of that hate, bathes herself in the black pool that boils inside Kylo’s mind.

The strength she gains is terrifying and she revels in it, uses it to power her leap. Rey flies over the cracking floor, slices down with her saber in a brilliant blue arc.  There’s almost no resistance as her blade connects with a spray of sparks, a sizzle of cauterized flesh.  Snoke lets loose a howl, wordless and agonized, as the lightning dies. His hand, severed at the wrist, spins to the ground where it lands with a gristly flop.  Another round of pounding explosions from above makes her duck, tucking into a roll past the still twitching hand, heedless of the stones digging into her back as Snoke turns the full brunt of his attentions to her.

Her hand twinges as Kylo pitches forward, catches himself oddly, and something in his hand snaps.  Snoke is still roaring and despite the pain, Kylo is able to gasp in a full breath, eyes going wide as they land on the severed gray hand.  His reprieve is short lived.  Snoke lifts his arms and lightning, dark and red as blood, pumps out of the stump of his wrist, shoots into Rey’s chest, flinging her across the room twenty feet or more.  The ache in her hand is forgotten as she hits the wall with a crunch.  The lightning rips into her and there’s no room in her head for anything but the agony.  She had thought that Snoke had been angry when he’d thrown her out of his chamber for a bit of impudence, but that was nothing compared to this towering rage. She falls, crumbling to the jagged stone and something at her hip cracks, crumples.

Yali!

Rey stops trying to comprehend the pain that wracks her body.  There is nothing to use as a comparison.  It is absolute.

The blasts barely register as the cavern shakes above, around, beneath her. Then Kylo’s voice slides through her mind, creating a defensive perimeter that gives her the strength to separate herself from the torment. He’s standing now, and Snoke turns back to him, attention diverted from Rey’s torture.   Get up, Rey! The cave is collapsing! We have to go, NOW!

She struggles to find her feet but her head feels so heavy and she almost falls again. Snoke is poised on the dais, one twisted hand raised to the ceiling, the stump of his wrist outstretched to Kylo.  Kylo has one long hand thrown out at Snoke, the muscles in his neck straining as he uses all of his strength to hold off his old master, but his attention flicks to her for a moment as she stands.  

“Look out!” Her voice is a weak croak that tears at her broken and bruised throat as Snoke moves to exploit Kylo’s lapse, now pointing both long arms at his apprentice. Rey sucks in a deep breath, pulling in the darkness and the light as a cadmium orange bloom of fire bursts through the cracks in the ceiling.  Both sides of the Force lick along her arm, speed out from her hand, following their connection as Snoke gestures to Kylo and pulls .

Digging her teeth into ruined lips, swollen from kissing, broken from the fight, she reaches for his power, his mind, his heart, everything that he is and calls it to her.  She winds a rope of Force around his essence and binds it to hers.  The stone buckles at his feet, wrinkling and bunching like a run in cloth as he is pulled between the two of them.  Kylo’s face distorts in a rictus of agony, every muscle straining as he tries to lash himself to Rey in return.

No longer supported by Snoke’s attentions, the roof begins to give way in earnest as another boom resounds through the cave. A massive chunk of stone smashes down between Kylo and Snoke, a boulder that splits into slabs the size of the bed they shared.  The impact throws both Rey and Snoke off and, for a moment, Kylo starts to fly back towards her, but another section of ceiling crashes down onto one of his legs, pinning him to the broken ground.

His scream reverberates in her mind and ears and something dark and terrible shifts in his mind.  A gale of Force power, wild and just past the edge of control, ripples out of him, ripping the broken paving slabs from the floor. The whirlwind sweeps up the broken pieces from the ceiling, the walls, lifts the boulder off of his ruined leg, and flings them at Snoke.

Heedless of the onslaught of falling stones, she runs to Kylo.  Rey tries not to look at the twisted mess of his leg, trains her eyes up on his face instead. She wipes more of the blinding blood out of her eye - her hands are slippery with scarlet now. Kylo, you have to get up. We have to get out of here! She doesn’t pause to speak aloud, just moves to heave him up.  He grimaces, cries out in pain, and she wants to scream at the agony in her back, the numb terror of his leg.  He struggles to stand and leans, heavy, on her shoulders.

“You cut off his fucking hand, Rey.” His breath is hot against her ear and blood bubbles over his lips as they struggle towards the stairs out of the cave as fast as she can hobble.  He’s in shock.

Yeah, I know . She doesn’t have the energy for speech, focuses her attention only on creating a dome of protection around them to deflect the sharp edges of stone that plummet around them.  They both glance over her shoulder at the deafening impacts as his whirlwind breaks apart against itself, tearing chunks from the black stone throne.  Snoke is nowhere to be seen.  Rey swallows the blood in her mouth, adjusts her grip on Kylo’s waist, and together they stagger out of the crumbling temple.

Explosions ahead and above them reverberate through her bones.  Now she’s relying just as heavily on the Force for support as he is relying on her physical strength.  His weight on her shoulder is excruciating, but he’s working hard to keep up with her as they ascend, so she doesn’t flinch when he looks down at her.  She’s alive, he’s alive. They can still make it out of this.

Of course, Snoke is still alive, too.

She redoubles her pace, soothing his hurts as much as she can through their mental link.  The floor buckles as they reach the top of the stairs.  She thinks of Yali, of the crushed holochron in her belt, and tucks as much of her pain as she can into a box in her mind.

Kylo directs them towards the hangar, giving her sight through his eyes when the blood obscures her vision again.  He takes the burden of the shield from her as a spray of glass and duracrete bursts from above them. Thick ashy smoke burns their lungs, clings to the gore around their mouths as the planet’s toxic atmosphere flows through the holes punched in the structure around them.

The entrance to the hangar is a heavy blast door reinforced with steel, but together they crumple it inward with a burst of power that makes her ears ring.  They lurch, off balance, into the intact building, Kylo’s intent guiding them down the rows of craft to his personal shuttle. The Force alerts her an instant before a cluster of Knights emerge from behind the closest ship. Kylo’s bloody hand clenches around her arm, the grinding of his shattered bones just more noise in their shared symphony of agonies.

“Kylo Ren-”

He pulls power from deep within himself, from within her, and raises his other hand, still holding his saber in a death-grip.  The knights stagger, and then two fly back, smashing head first into the side of the ship hard enough to dent its exterior.  Rey feels them die, and Kylo ignites his saber. I wish that had worked better flits through her mind and he sounds exhausted . The remaining knights ignite their weapons, electricity crackling as they drop into fighting stances.

She feels him dismiss some of the pain in his leg, washing away his weakness and hers with another sip from the pool in his mind.  The darkness burns along her veins, and though he can’t stand on his own, can’t put any weight on his broken leg, he gives her some space as the knights advance.  Information on their opponents drops into her thoughts: their fighting styles, their skills, all the ugly, bloody history they have with Kylo.  The tallest, armed with a long pike, holds the center.  The one to Rey’s right has heavy metal gloves covering his arms to the shoulder.  The other swings two short blades in lazy arcs as he moves to flank them.

The knight with the gloves is familiar.  She recognizes him as the fucker who tried to kill Kylo on her first day here.  He’d also broken her nose, which had not endeared him to her.  Rey spits blood, splattering the floor between them, grins up at him and winks.  She keeps Kylo at her back, one arm thrown out to support him, steps forward, igniting her own saber, and engages the closest knight, the littler one with the two blades.  He moves to strike at her, rains little blows, tiny slices, all around her.  She hates him, this short-assed speck of nothing.  She hates that he tripped Kylo in the hall once.  She hates that he laughed when Gloves had broken her nose.  She hates that he’s fast, so fast she has to defend rather than attack.  She hates that he’s standing here, one more layer of shit between them and safety.

Blood roars in her head as she pulls the Force around her, catches the knight’s foot with the snare Kylo taught her.  This underling is no Snoke - he trips, is pulled forward by her trap, and she doesn’t even care when he lands a glancing blow on her forearm as he flails.  Kylo’s blade swings down, engages the knight now that he’s in range.  Rey slips out from under his arms, slamming her saber up in time to parry a heavy punch thrown from the bastard with the gloves, who had circled around Kylo’s back to exploit his limited mobility.

Gloves is strong and Rey grits her teeth, shoving back against that with the Force against his muscle. He bears down, pushing the blade of her saber towards her face, too close, almost scorching her skin. Her boots slip against the duracrete and she can feel Kylo’s labored breathing, his back heaving against  hers as he fends off Two-Swords and Pike.  

Rey and Kylo  can’t win like this and she refuses to let them lose. Baring her teeth, she spits blood at Gloves, splattering his mask with crimson as she kicks down at the knee joint  in his armor. Pain shoots up her leg as it connects and Kylo falters, but it’s worth it to feel the bones crunching under her boot. The knight goes down with a low grunt, rolling to get away from her but she doesn’t let him get far - she can’t leave Kylo on one leg.  She stomps again, fast and hard, on his other knee, and it shatters, too. He screams and it feels perfect, profound, to shove her saber through his chest as he sits up to grab at the wound. She snuffs his life out like a candle and it feels so good .  Then a panic that isn’t hers flares and she turns back to Kylo, tearing the lightsaber free.

Something hard and cold pierces through the meat of her shoulder. There’s a sick, dull ache and then the barbed head of the pike scrapes against something deep in her back. The electrical current hisses and sizzles, burns her skin, burns her bones. She sees Kylo yelling but she can’t hear him, can’t tell if it’s a scream of pain, anger, or fear. It doesn’t make any sense, the numbness in her chest. Her eyes trace the jut of metal embedded above her right breast but she can’t process it. She’ll worry about it later. She follows the haft to the armored gloves holding it, then up to the visor of the grey helmet. She tries to speak, but all that comes out of her mouth is another trickle of blood.

“REY!”

A vise of black rage clamps around her head, darkens the edges of her vision. The Knight’s head jerks, neck cracking, vertebra slamming together and he collapses, limp and lifeless. She watches him fall, but she’s too cold to feel glad about his death.  The metal buried in her chest jerks and she tries to scream as the knight falls. It comes out weak, a whisper. There’s a clatter beside her and Two Swords crumples, cut down at last.

Kylo’s face swims before her eyes - is she crying? He’s dragged himself to her, looming high above her and the sudden movement makes her stomach lurch but he’s so beautiful to behold that she almost doesn’t mind. He wrenches the pike out of her chest, and she does mind that because fuck fuck fuck that HURTS . He presses down on the wound and blood gushes up over his hands.

“Fuck, Rey! We’re almost out! Fuck. Get up, Rey. You have to get up!” Kylo doesn’t wait for her to respond. He stuffs the hilt of his saber into his belt, grabs the blood-slick pike and hauls himself upright, using the staff as a crutch.  

Still alive.

The Force is shy of her now, as if she’s offended it. There’s so much darkness, so much void echoing around her head. Everything hurts. Kylo’s hand, hot and heavy with life, with power, brushes across her cheek and a night sky burning with a million stars floods her mind. Light . The Force. Hope. She struggles up, her chest no longer numb but now a tattered minefield of pure, savage pain. The stars grow in her mind, burning back the emptiness, filling her with a final push of strength.

The butt of the pike taps in time with the patter of droplets against the duracrete floor as they stumble down the hangar and into the shuttle, the ramp lowering with a hiss at their approach. His weight is nothing against her shoulder as she helps him on. She smacks the button to close the ramp behind them and together they shuffle into the cockpit. There seems to be an awful lot of blood on the floor behind them.

Kylo grunts as he falls into the captain's chair, and begins flipping switches. The shuttle shivers as it rises, glides towards the mouth of the hangar and the smoky dawn beyond. Med kit’s under the seat. Get a bacta patch on your chest right fucking now. He saves his breath, his energy, hands shaking over the controls as begin to climb into the atmosphere.

It takes several attempts to get a grip on the the kit. Her hands are clumsy, slippery with someone’s blood - hers? - , and she almost drops the plastic shell several times as she sags back against the wall. Her eyes want to close but she forces them open wide, fights the urge to just sleep , as they soar up beyond the smoke and ash storms that blot out the sky.

She can’t get the film off the back of the bacta patch so she just holds it, still in its wrapper, watching the stars around them. They’re bright, as wild and beautiful as the ones Kylo had shown her. They whisper comforts against her mind, sing to her in sweet, high voices, and she nudges the song to him.

I hear it. He gives her a wan smile. She wants to kiss him again, but she can’t make herself move anymore. She’s getting truly cold. She wishes, almost laughing, that they were back in his room in the now destroyed base, snuggled close under heavy blankets. Then his face freezes as something beeps on the console. We’re being hailed.

Her head weighs a thousand pounds, and, even propped up by the strength of the Force, it takes huge effort to hold herself upright, to fight off the exhaustion that drags at her. She’s sticky, wet and so cold, colder than she’s ever been in her life. Who is it?

He’s gone white under the blood, the dirt, the bruises and he punches the switch to open video communications, tilting the transmitter so it picks her up in the background.

Poe Dameron’s face is bright, flushed with victory, but his wide grin transforms into a look of utter horror when he registers what he’s seeing. “Rey, what the hell? What happened?!”

“Hey Poe,” Rey croaks, and succumbs to the heaviness of her eyelids, lets them shut. “This is Kylo.  Kylo… be nice.  Poe blew up Snoke’s base for you.” Darkness overwhelms her, her knees buckle, and she slides to the floor.