adarkergray | Kenoma

Kenoma

Previously:
Escape From Starkiller Base
At the Monuments of Madness
A Living Weapon

To Jacob's surprise, they made it to Ahch-To's system without incident - but then, it was clear now that the Force was on their side. As per his calculations, they'd dropped out of hyperspace a few hundred thousand kilometers away, just beyond its outermost moon's orbit, and as they headed toward the planet at sublight speeds, he tried to ignore the way his protective instincts were going into overdrive.

However, the closer they got to the planet, the more he couldn't help being aware that everyone there, everyone they were going to see, was someone who'd hurt Kylo terribly, and Force, how could Jacob even begin to justify taking him down there? To put him in that level of danger, in the kind of condition he was in--

He made himself take a deep breath, though the fingers of his free hand were clamped tightly around the hilt of one of his lightsabers. The urge was incredibly strong to tell Kylo that he couldn't in good conscience do this, that there had to be another, better way to defeat Snoke, and they would find it - but, deep down, he knew that if there was, the Force would have shown it to Kylo instead. He had to have faith in his master, and in the Force.

Instead, right now, he had more sympathy than ever for why Snoke wanted to destroy the Force's will - not that he had any sympathy for Snoke himself. That thought was enough to settle his nerves slightly by reminding what they were here for, why it was important, why they could all work together just this once.

Snoke had to die. That was the one thing they all could agree on.

Finally, he calmed his mind enough to push his senses outward through the Force, to see whose presence he could detect. Even this close in, he still couldn't pick up Skywalker, but he could sort out Rey and General Organa from the background energy of the planet. He turned to Kylo. "...Your mom's still here. Do you want me to ask her to leave?"

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Rey didn't flinch when Jacob put his hand on her shoulder. Instead, she looked up at him with a gentle nod.

Just as she felt the Force through the rocks and trees of the island during her first meditation session with Skywalker, she felt the Force through his touch. There was a calming sense of conviction that, given her earlier lesson, she was positive wasn't a mind trick. She really wasn't alone. None of them were. Not here. Not as long as they had the Force.

"You feel like I do. In the Force." she observed. "Leia too, but not strongly."

They both knew that Skywalker had shut himself off from the Force, and the more she started to learn about it, the more it bothered her that he would do something like that at all.

"But Kylo is different. It's not just because he's sick. There's something... more. What exactly did Snoke do to him?"

Jacob turned his gaze back to his stew for a moment, poking it contemplatively with the spoon as he tried to decide how best to answer that question. Finally, he decided that there was no getting around the horror of it, so it was better to just address it head-on. "Kylo Ren was used as one of the power sources in a successor weapon to Starkiller Base. I should have pulled him off it sooner, but..." He paused for a moment to collect himself, prodding viciously at a lump of what he assumed was fish.

Rey didn't need to hear his self-recriminations, or how deeply Snoke had brainwashed them both to even get to this point. She probably already knew. "Being exposed to that amount of sheer destructive energy, and to the death toll generated by even its first, covert missions, caused a wound in the Force to develop inside of Kylo - a void that can suck the life from whatever it comes in contact with. I got him out while it was still small enough to be contained and managed, but right now, we still don't know how to close it, or if it's safe to try."

The beginnings of the Force wound had happened even sooner than that, but it was the repeated testing and ‘training’ that shaped it into what it currently was. The implications of something like that being possible, let alone inside a living thing, was heartbreaking.

“I think... I might have felt that too.” She admitted softly. It wasn’t as clear as the ghostly vision she saw here on Ahch-To. It was more of an ache, a cry for help that she couldn’t explain but she knew didn’t belong to her. “The weapon. His place in it. It was like the Force itself was hurting. If that makes any sense at all.”

She glanced back toward the hut. Closing her eyes, she reached out, familiarizing herself with his uneasy presence as he slept. She didn’t dare go any closer than that.

Nor did she even have to ask if this was something they planned on using in their fight against Snoke. Clearly, one could be weaponized, and something capable of destroying a planet could easily destroy a person. And possibly everything else - them included. She wondered if the ancient texts had any record of these Force wounds, or if Luke had any idea how to contain one. Everything was so complicated, and she didn’t know what to do.

Eventually, she just let out a long sigh. “When I called him a monster, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”

"It makes perfect sense." Jacob had felt the same thing, after all, and he knew exactly what Rey was trying to communicate.

Finally, he managed to get himself to take a few more bites of his stew. Unlike Rey, he at least had some faith that the fact that things were complicated didn't make them insurmountable; for once, the Force was on their side, and it would show them the way. Wounds were nothing new to it, either - for at least the past forty thousand years, there had been beings who sought to create and weaponize them; however, closing them was something different, and it didn't seem to have a way to do that yet on time scales shorter than centuries. Kylo might just be the one who could change that, and Jacob was incredibly proud of him either way.

He hadn't intended to end up defending Kylo to Rey, but it came out before he could think the better of it. It wasn't a reprimand, however; his tone was still quiet and gentle. "He's done plenty of monstrous things, but that doesn't necessarily make him a monster. He's just been hurt so many times in, so many ways, and had it all twisted up inside his head by Snoke, that he doesn't know how to deal with it anymore other than by lashing out. There's still more good in him than you'd think is possible, and if you don't believe me, just try being kind to him, and see what you get back."

Jacob had far more knowledge and experience to draw from than Rey. And the time she’d spent here on Ahch-To with Skywalker hadn’t really helped her close that gap. Or lessen some of the pain that she experinced the last time she crossed paths with Kylo Ren.

“He killed his own father!” She shouted. The memory played back inside her head. The first person (aside from a slavedriver like Plutt) that really took her under his wing, cared for her and made her feel like she had a tiny inkling of what was taken from her as a child... murdered. Just like that. No remorse. “I will never forgive him for that!”

She wasn’t entirely sure if anyone really deserved to have a void like that inside them. But at the same time, Kylo had everything she ever wanted - namely, a family. And he destroyed it all! He deserved to suffer for...

No. This was exactly what Snoke wanted them to do, wasn’t it.

Rey closed her eyes and reached out with the Force. It took a few long seconds to calm down, but she eventually did. And when she did, she could feel that Force wound - open, raw and bleeding. The planet itself seemed to be feeding it.

“Sorry... it’s just...” she sighed, standing up. “I think I need some time alone.”

"No, I'm sorry. I'm..." Kriff, but he had stepped in it. He hadn't known about the bond that Rey had evidently shared with Han - after Starkiller Base's destruction, he and Kylo hadn't been together long enough for it to occur to Kylo to mention it, and there hadn't been a reason for it to come up since then. "The reason why I'm so protective of him is because he never gave up on me, even when I tried to make it the easy choice because I'd given up on myself. He's the only reason why I'm still alive. Speaking of which, I'd better get back to making sure he stays alive."

He stood up to make his way back to the hut; before they'd both gone very far in their own directions, though, he realized that perhaps there was one more thing he ought to say. "...He regrets it. Killing Han, I mean. It took almost thirty years of Snoke whispering into the back of his mind to get him to do it, and he still realized as soon as it happened that it was a mistake."

He left it at that, returning to the hut and setting his bowl down on the desk for a moment as he checked on Kylo. He was still sleeping peacefully, and Jacob was careful not to disturb him as he pulled the blankets a little closer around him and brushed a stray lock of hair back from his face. Snoke had put him through so many terrible things, but at least now it was finally at an end. He just wish it hadn't needed to go this far for them to realize how badly things needed to change.

Jacob finished his dinner before settling himself down into his sleeping bag to continue reading, until at last he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer

Rey paused when Jacob spoke. She didn’t turn around or even acknowledge the comment, but she did listen. In the morning, there would be a bottle of nutritious green milk waiting outside their hut - not quite a peace offering, but a kind gesture nonetheless.

Kylo slept the entire night without waking. Exhaustion, or perhaps the will of the Force itself, kept the usual nightmares at bay. It wasn’t until the sun started peeking through the tiny slits in the door that he blinked his eyes open. Despite Jacob’s initial concerns about their accomodations, he felt surprisingly well-rested, and better than he had in days.

He sat up slowly, letting the blanket fall into his lap. Jacob wasn’t inside, but Kylo could feel him nearby.

The Force flowed so freely here, that it took very little effort at all to feel every single living thing on the island - except, of course, for Luke Skywalker. He found Rey meditating where the ocean met the cliffs as the water surged powerfully beneath her. He found his mother sitting beside her chosen hut, her mind wandering like the air around her. He found Jacob on his way back, each footstep echoing through the ground.

Kylo stilled his mind and sunk into himself. He could feel his heart beating, pumping bad blood throughout his body. He could feel the Force wound leeching energy from a planet that seemed to be giving of itself far too willingly. He could feel a burning passion deep in his core, a fire that could burn Snoke alive right now if only he could make the leap.

Now was the time, he decided, to pour this power into the books scattered around the hut. He reached out, pulling them into his hands with ease. He arranged them neatly on the cot, and closed his eyes again.

Show me the way...

A thousand images assaulted his mind all at once - figments from eons past and futures that would never come to pass. And with them, the Force was a pendulum, swinging in a spiral between extremes. Galaxies were born, planets died, people bent the Force to their will and the Force bent them in turn.

Kylo reached out over the tomes. When his hand brushed against the worn leather, he saw the same visions, but this time, from a different angle. Beyond light and beyond darkness, he saw a ghostly specter of a man holding the pendulum and watching it swing.

’It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ the phantom whispered inside Kylo’s mind. It sounded so much like his own voice, he thought he must have been speaking aloud at the same time. The entire universe can be felt with just one fingertip. A pity that everyone still wants to hold on with both hands.

‘Snoke...’

‘One touch is all it takes...’

When Kylo opened his eyes, he was not alone. And his finger was resting on a passage in the third book.

’You taught me that... Father.

Jacob woke up just as the first rays of dawn's light crept into the hut. The damp and chill were making their way in as well, so the first thing he did was rekindle the fire; there were a few things Jacob needed to accomplish this morning, but Kylo could rest as long as he needed, and Jacob wanted him to be comfortable. At least, Jacob noted as he checked in on him, Kylo looked noticeably better than he had yesterday - still pale, but less ashy, and his cheeks seemed just a bit less sunken and the dark circles around his eyes a little less pronounced. The planet's readily accessible Force energy was having a positive effect on him.

As Jacob stepped outside to head back up to his ship, he noticed he wasn't the only one who was already up and about. He eyed the bottle of green milk speculatively, then opened it up and sniffed it, and then finally decided to try it. Finding it palatable enough, he downed half the bottle, figuring he'd wait to see how it affected him before deciding if the rest was safe to give to Kylo. He tucked it into the ship's refrigerator before going down to the hold to check on his experiments - though the ship was nearby enough for his datapad to still pull readings from the sensors connected to them, he still wanted to do a visual inspection to make sure everything was as it should be. With something as important as the means to his master's recovery, he wasn't going to risk missing something that might damage or contaminate the samples.

Fortunately, the temporary clean room was still perfectly sealed, its air filters were running, and there was no sign of moisture infiltrating the room or slowing down the filters - though, Jacob made a mental note to seal up the craft and run the life support systems for a few hours later today to keep the humidity from climbing too far. The tissue samples themselves were already showing signs of progress, of the treatments beginning to have an effect on the cancer cells, some more so than others - but that was precisely the reason for running the trials another three weeks before beginning treatment, and continuing them even once a treatment option had been selected. The cancer might adapt to resist the very regimens that currently appeared to be the most effective, while others might continue to show slower yet steady advances.

It didn't take long to finish his checks, and with the sun still creeping its way toward the horizon and Kylo still asleep, he decided he was going to actually take the time to work out. His regimen had mostly gone by the wayside lately without him even noticing, between everything that had gone on lately; it felt good to get back to it, and the exertion made it easier for him to immerse his mind in the Force. Here, he could feel both the dark and light sides, the endless motion of their interplay, one giving in to the other only to surge back again, like the waves breaking against the cliffs. The Force was an ocean, and for the first time, he realized just how limpid its waters were, if only he dared to look down.

That, he didn't know if he could handle just yet.

After a sonic, he decided he should probably touch base with Leia and Luke - the former was watching the sun come up, mulling over the contents of the text she'd been up half the night studying, and Jacob figured that, together, they might be a little quicker to come up with the way all the pieces fit; the latter, he was surprised to find himself able to locate despite Luke's absence in the Force. It wasn't that different from the Dashade he'd once encountered, and Jacob found himself able to track the former Jedi by his vitals. He'd go to Luke first, he decided - their most important failsafe, if they could manage it, would be cutting Snoke off from the Force, and the more time he could devote to figuring out how to actually do it, the better off they'd be.

He was halfway across the island when he sensed Kylo awakening, and decided promptly that maybe the rest of his plans could wait a little longer. He had to check in with his master, first, to see whether there was anything Kylo needed from him.

As he made his way back, he had to fight to keep the surge of his master's presence in the Force from pulling him somewhere he realized he couldn't handle just yet. He kept his gaze fixed on the hut, instead of downward into the depths where the Force was trying to drag him, and finally the draw subsided just as he stepped inside. "Were you able to find what we needed, already?"

As he came out of his trance, Kylo was as shocked as Jacob was. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, how long his apprentice had been standing there or even what passage his finger was resting on.

“I don’t know...” he admitted as he caught his breath from the experience. His vitals were heightened, but hot dangerously so. “I found something, though. Or rather... they did.”

He didn’t need to specify who. The image of one of those children - an exact, albeit visually distorted, copy of Kylo Ren - carried over their mental link. It had never felt more real to him as it did right now.

He called me father.

Finally, he looked down at the passsge he’d uncovered. To his surprise, it had nothing to do with projecting oneself through the Force. Instead, it gave a series of anecdotes f turning the Force against another sentient being. A Jedi could disrupt everything from connection to the Force to life force itself with little more than a meditative touch, and meditating on different aspects of the Force yielded different (and yet very similar) results.

‘How peculiar,’ the text read, ‘that immersing oneself in the light can produce an effect just as destructive as immersing oneself in the dark. And that it is the dark that possesses the power to revitalize as well as kill. Perhaps the two extremes are not so different after all.’

“Force light...” he recalled Luke mentioning the technique. It was the very thing that could seve someone’s connection to the Force, and what he most likely used. “And Force drain...”

He looked at Jacob. “Combined, perhaps that is what we need to take down Snoke.”

[ooc: FYI, I’ll be traveling on business most of this week, so I don’t know how much internet connection or free time I’ll have. So I could be spotty with replies. Just wanted to let you know.]

((No worries! Good luck with everything on your trip, and if nothing else I'll see you when you get back!))

At the vision in both their minds, the realization hit Jacob all over again with dizzying intensity - Force, we're going to be parents soon. The wave of fear and joy that swept over him was so strong that he had to take Kylo's hand to steady and re-focus himself. There were much more immediate things they needed to worry about; finding out whether either of them were truly equal to the task of fatherhood was something that couldn't happen until they dealt with Snoke, and that, in turn, meant not underestimating the resources he had at his disposal.

"...It hurts me to have to think this way, but I would be cautious of anything that comes from them. Snoke still has them firmly in his clutches, and he might use them to try to deceive you, knowing that your guard won't be up as high when it comes to our children. At the very least, he might use them to try to anticipate our strategy and guard himself against it." If Jacob's own visions were accurate, Kylo's children were no more than six years old, and at that age Snoke would have no trouble bending them to his will.

He sighed softly. "We should probably be a little more careful to shield our thoughts completely from anyone who's not on this planet." And while the contents of the passage showed promise as a strategy, and played well to Kylo's strengths, they also needed to be leery of taking a tack that was too obvious. Snoke was wise, after all, and would have defenses laid against anything he could anticipate.

The chapter he'd found spoke of all kinds of comparisons between the supposed light side of the Force and the dark side of the Force, in the days when one was just beginning to distance itself from the other. If not those techniques specifically, then there might be other combinations that required true balance. He felt as though he was on the verge of a legacy he would be honored to teach his children.

One touch is all it takes.

The thoughts played back in his head. As much as Kylo wanted to insist that this was different, Jacob was right. He'd lived a lifetime of Snoke planting far too many memories in his head to truly take this at face value.

Looking at the Force from outside the Force... It sounded a lot like something Snoke would do. And from that perspective, it wouldn't take a lot to metaphorically squish the entire universe between two withered fingers. Kylo gulped, looking back up at his apprentice. Could that vision have actually been a threat?

"If you're right, and if Snoke can reach me or any one of us here, then we have an even bigger problem."

Jacob sat down on his sleeping bag next to the bed, still keeping hold of Kylo's hand as they looked over the text. Even from just the brief glimpse of the knowledge stored here that he'd gotten already, he knew there was something incredible, perhaps even revolutionary, in all of it - and that there had to be a reason why it was making its way out into the galaxy again now, just like there was for Thuban's research. The Force itself was changing, but not in the ways Snoke had wanted nor anticipated, and Jacob knew the time was right to accomplish something incredible.

If only he could figure out how to do more than just go along for the ride.

He sighed softly when Kylo spoke again. "The most important thing to keep in mind is that your children are just as strong in the Force as you are - that's why Snoke chose you in the first place." Not only was Kylo incredibly powerful, but Snoke knew the kind of foundation sire he'd make. "If he can link his mind with theirs and draw off their power the way you and I plan to do with Rey and General Organa, then we're putting ourselves at a great deal of risk by not exercising the utmost caution." The modifications being made to the Finalizer's weapons array told him that Kylo had at least three children, but Jacob was all too aware that it didn't tell him what the upper bound on that number was - Plagueis's research had indicated there would've come a point when Snoke hit a wall in trying to create new Force sensitives by more traditional means, when the Force simply wouldn't allow any more to be born unless it was manipulated in ways that neither Jacob nor Snoke fully understood how to do yet, but gauging where that wall stood was pure guesswork. Was it just the three? Maybe double that? Or maybe even more?

Kylo cringed. “Then perhaps that vision was a threat in more ways than one. And if not a threat... a warning.”

He didn’t dare speak any further words. His thoughts were bad enough. He knew that as a living Force wound, he could drain the energy of everyone and everything around him. And if he were to have any chance against Snoke, that was exactly what would happen. If Snoke could do the same thing (even if not to the same extent), he could easily threaten to drain them dry in order to stop Kylo from attacking. Or worse, kill them and break Kylo’s spirit for good.

Regardless of whether the vision was real or not, Kylo’s children were Snoke’s trump card.

They had to find something to counter that, to cut them off from his omnipresent influence, to keep them safe...

“Do you think there’s any merit to that... wall of light?” he pointed to the reference in the jedi text. It was a power that was well beyond the reach of the dark side, but maybe not to the new generation of Force wielders.

Jacob nodded. "There are a few historic instances of a similar technique being used against fallen Jedi like Snoke - though not always successfully." However, after what they'd experienced in the battle with Thuban, he had more faith in the efficacy of older versions of some techniques; the Sith's Transfer Essence was a weak, diluted version of the attack Thuban had used against him and Kylo, and in that same vein, he suspected - hoped - the Jedi's Sever Force was a degraded version of the technique these texts described.

Having a perfected version of the technique meant that less power would be needed to use it effectively - which was crucial when there was every possibility that they were outmatched and outnumbered. They just needed to refine their own ability with it until they could strike like a snake with it, to hit too fast and hard for Snoke to properly counter it. However, their follow-up would be crucial as well; they might not have more than a few seconds before Snoke's hostages - Kylo's children - managed to figure out a way to undo the containment. Personally, Jacob hoped that having Snoke out of their heads might lead their children to make a bid for freedom instead of helping their captor, but he wasn't counting on it. Children that young were impressionable, afraid of the unknown, and would instinctively follow the only authority figure they'd ever known, regardless of the abuse they'd suffered at his hands.

Not to mention that Snoke was an expert at poisoning even the minds of adults against each other, and there was no telling what he'd led them to believe about their father - or about Jacob, for that matter. The battle that Kylo and Jacob had ahead of them would be difficult in ways they'd never dealt with before. However, it would also be more worthwhile than any other challenge they'd ever faced.

Snoke clearly knew the inherent value in mastering ancient techniques that the Jedi had lost over millennia of complacency. It was part of why they were sent to investigate Thuban’s research, and why Snoke viewed the hellish mutations done to Kylo Ren as a necessary sacrifice.

“If only it could be used to create a small place outside the Force.” Kylo pondered aloud. “A place beyond space and time where Snoke would be utterly powerless... Do you think that might be possible?”

If the Force could pull his essance across the galaxy, perhaps it wasn’t too far-fetched that it could pull it outside of space and time. The vision he’d just experienced used it as a metaphor, but perhaps it wasn’t as metaphorical as Kylo believed. (However, if this was Snoke’s doing, and he was just leading them all down this path deliberately to gain access to something that would make him even more powerful, Kylo and Jacob could still be pawns to his schemes, even now...) No. He had to silence that voice, and look inward. Not outward.

He had to trust in the Force and the Force alone to guide them.

“If so... then perhaps that is where this battle is meant to take place.”
“

Jacob turned the idea over for a moment, furrowing his brow. "...We've seen something like that once before." Inside the monolith built atop Thuban's laboratory complex, there had been that doorway to elsewhere - a pocket reality, an alternate universe, or whatever it was. "How we'd create a space like that, though, or access it through anything other than an existing portal... I have no idea. The sheer amount of power it takes would be comparable to..." Then, the realization set in. "...To what it takes to operate the planet-killer weapon aboard the Finalizer."

Could it be possible, then? To operate that monstrosity remotely, and control its output so tightly as to focus it only on Snoke instead of taking out the ship and anything else within half an astronomical unit? ...No. There had to be another way. Snoke was only one being, and even if he had Kylo's children serving as his backup battery, there were ways to work around his strength that didn't require bending the laws of reality. A mind was just a mind, as their battle with Thuban had proven, and Jacob could find a way to crack Snoke's, whether or not they were completely successful in cutting him off from the Force.

"I think it's too risky. Especially because of the nature of the potential collateral damage." Their number one priority had to be the safety of their children, and that limited their options - particularly since Snoke would probably have those children physically present with him. They were the best bargaining chip he had, after all, should he find himself at a disadvantage.

So much had happened, that Kylo had all but forgotten that. He visibly shuddered at the thought of sharing that man's (if you could still call him that) fate in addition to his power.

"It would take a Force wound..." He touched his chest with his hand, feeling his heart beat against the central line. "But not necessarily the Finalizer itself. Thuban didn't have that kind of weapon. Aside from himself..."

The Finalizer's array was one way to release the destructive power Kylo could build up inside himself. When Jacob first rescued him, they'd encountered others - albeit when he still had some of that serum in his bloodstream.

"Maybe it's not about how big an attack I'd be capable of... But how small of a point that energy could be directed into." Not a planet. Perhaps, not even Snoke. But a single point in space. Tear through that, wall it off with inescapable light and drag him through a black hole.

Kylo sighed. That part was just wishful thinking.

There was no way of knowing what was beyond space and time - if it would aid Snoke or destroy him. And the same could be said for its effect on Kylo Ren, unless he figured out how to project himself the way his earlier visions seemed to indicate was possible.

Jacob sighed softly - they couldn't afford to take any unnecessary chances in this, and it was probably better to make the danger plain sooner rather than later before they started banking their hopes on something that might well be unusable. "Kylo, I'm not talking in metaphors here. I'm saying the literal amount of energy, as in mass times the speed of light squared energy, it would take to punch through the fabric of reality and out into something else is at least equivalent to what it takes to destroy a planet. Possibly more - I'd have to do the math." For all he knew right now, it might end up being orders of magnitude greater. "And we don't know if Thuban was the one who created that chamber, or if it was somehow created by someone who used the site after him, or even if it existed before him and was the part of the reason why he and his researchers chose that planet. We know nothing about how it came to be, or even what it truly was. All we know is that it's possible for it to exist."

It seemed unnecessarily risky and complicated to try on every level, when Snoke was just another being like them, albeit an incredibly, insiduously cunning one, not some ascendant monster like Thuban was. However, Jacob wasn't the one making the final judgment call. "If the Force is telling you that that's the way to do it, then we'll figure it out. But I just want to make sure, first, that we're not overlooking something less dangerous. After all, the Force made us what we are, who we are, for a reason, and part of that reason is that it intends for us to kill Snoke. The skills and knowledge we already possess are part of that plan in one way or another."

"...You're right." Kylo sighed as well. Force visions weren't an exact science (and if there was one thing Jacob was an expert at, it was science). It also wasn't really all that long ago where he would go to Snoke for a clearer interpretation of what he saw.

Now, he wasn't sure what to believe anymore. He'd been adamant that Ahch-To was where the answers lay, but what if they'd taken that vision too literally too? What if they were still just pawns in Snoke's greater plan... No.

He couldn't allow doubt to cloud his vision any more than Jacob could allow any plan, dangerously reckless or otherwise, to be put into action without proper due diligence. They needed to depend on each other.

"It means something. It has to mean something. Maybe it is only metaphorical, but I know it means something..." he tried to focus on it again - this time in a far less literal sense. "A new perspective? Some kind of balance outside of the conflict between light and dark that doesn't have to be forced... just... just touched..."

Jacob nodded. "Beyond light and dark... there's a whole ocean down there that we can drown him in." And perhaps, sealing him off from the rest of the Force while he was in a place he couldn't get himself back from would do their job for them - if that turned out to be the right technique to use at all; it was thousands of years old, and well proven, but that might just mean that Snoke had devised a way to strike back against it, to protect himself if it was rediscovered.

A sudden thought occurred to Jacob, one that he couldn't help flinching at: Maybe whatever is down there in those depths will tear him apart before we need to figure it out. The Force was an ocean, and in its depths, there slumbered a leviathan - the Chosen One - but right now, after everything they'd seen, it seemed unlikely to think that was all that was down there. Plagueis's writings had indicated as much; he was the latest in a long line of Jedi and Sith who had examined the idea that balance between the light and dark sides was guided by a group of discorporate entities who had merged themselves with the Force thousands of generations ago; he had theorized that perhaps there was a way to get past their function as intermediaries, guiding the fate of the galaxy, to accomplish the same thing Snoke wanted.

Which meant that they wouldn't have to - indeed, shouldn't - drag Snoke all the way down, and the Force would tell them when they were just far enough. Perhaps it would be more like how they'd beaten Thuban than he'd imagined. "The Force made us with gills - metaphorically speaking - and this means we need to start using them."

“Dive in...” he muttered thoughtfully. “Breathe. Flow....”

He caught a glimpse of their battle wth Thuban in his apprentice’s mind, and for a moment, thought to consider whether the Force had been preparing them for this.

“Do you really believe we could do to Snoke what we did to Thuban?”

Even boosted with all the strength his Force wound could provide, could Jacob pierce Snoke’s consciousness? Could they find something, like the disembodied Force spirits, to tear him apart? Was there something in his past, or in the Force itself, that he simply couldn’t defend against?

((sorry for lack of tags x_x tonsillitis is the worst and I long for death's sweet embrace))

Jacob took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, carefully considering the question. "I think his mind would be much more difficult to get into than Thuban's, if it were anyone fighting him but you. You know Snoke better than any other living being in the galaxy, and I'm sure that he's shown you his weaknesses many times - he's done everything he can to blind you to them, but you still know what you're after, at least subconsciously." Snoke had the advantage of knowing them personally, of knowing what made them tick, where they were vulnerable, how to exploit it; however, he'd already overused it, making Kylo and Jacob wise to his tricks, without seeming to consider the idea that they could come back with the same trick against him.

As for whether they'd have help, the way they had with Thuban... that was a tossup. Snoke had wronged a lot of people, no doubt some of them very powerful, a lot more recently than Thuban had, but the Force itself had gone through just as many restructurings and upheavals even in that much shorter time. Their best bet might still be to just appeal to the living, and try to get Kylo's children on their side, but that was equally uncertain.

For now, all they could do was focus on what they were here to accomplish, and let the Force guide them. "All our answers are here," Jacob murmured, closing his eyes.

[never had it, thankfully. But it does sound awful! I hope you’re feeling better, or at least start feeling better soon.]

Kylo considered Jacob’s words very carefully. Although Kylo had been on the receiving end of Snoke’s mind probing many, many times, he hadn’t thought much about the connection itself. It wasn’t until Rey fought back, breached his mind and read his own thoughts that he even realized such a thing were possible. Snoke was furious. At the time, Kylo assumed it was his failure that drew his former master’s ire, but perhaps it was simply the first string to unravel.

Of course.

“There’s no such thing as a one-way connection...” he glanced around the hut, before settling back on Jacob’s. “The Force binds us all. You and me. And Snoke. The bridge... it’s already been built... But I have to find it. And find the strength to cross it.”

And if that plan truly did take shape, Kylo would need to hold that bridge up as long as it took for Jacob to dismantle everything on the other side. A wall of light to keep him from using the Force (or Force-users around him) couldn’t hurt either.

((It's hella stubborn, and I'm still sick with the tail end of it, but at least I'm sort of functional finally.))

If anyone could do it, it was the two of them; of that, Jacob was certain. "You know I have faith in you." He gave Kylo's hand another gentle squeeze, then re-focused himself on the Force.

Though they were investigating a few different routes to accomplish it, their overall strategy was the same: cut Snoke off from the source of his power, crush his mind before he could connive his way out of their trap, and then strike the finishing blow. The shock of Force projection might just be enough of a distraction to catch him off-guard so they could strike the first blow, or perhaps a diversion to keep him from recognizing what their target really was - or perhaps it was meant to distract Kylo's children, who, if they were by Snoke's side, would no doubt make some kind of effort to protect their captor. Either way, the Force had told Kylo it was integral to their success. As for the rest...

Jacob let the island's Force energy wash over him, feeling the ebb and flow of the light side and the dark; it took some time for him to find his way back to that place where he could sense the fact that he was only on the surface, that the Force was a whole ocean beneath him. Remembering the breakthroughs that Kylo had made while they were on Xashiri, Jacob didn't try to draw on the power of those depths the way he would the dark or light side, didn't go into it with any expectation of the Force bringing him anything - he just let it come to him. He stilled his mind, as though trying to stop swimming so he could allow himself to sink.

If Kylo was a bridge to Snoke and the connection could indeed work both ways, then it was far more like their time in Thuban’s temple than he previously considered. He couldn’t trust himself. Not fully. Not without his apprentice to parse through what was real and what wasn’t.

Drawing a deep breath, Kylo pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the cot. He was as quiet, careful not to disturb Jacob’s meditation until he had centered himself properly again. He didn’t focus on the light or the dark. Instead, he stayed in the space between, on the edge of the Force wound where energy itself seemed to swirl like stars around a black hole.

“...Feel what I feel.” He whispered. “Let it flow through you.”

He put a hand on Jacob’s back and closed his eyes. Their breath fell into line and their heartbeats synced.

“Don’t fight it. Don’t accept it. Just... just direct it...”

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