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?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Right. These cultures are primarily bone marrow cells, both healthy and afflicted, paired with small amounts of lymph tissue to maintain an approximation of the normal immune response to the cancer. When I first rescued Kylo, his immune response looked like it was improving rapidly, and I was seeing the same thing reflected in the tissue cultures, but now... now it's a little more difficult to tell. It might be leveling off, and if that's the case, his body isn't going to fight this off on its own. Which means we'll be either relying on medical forms of treatment, which aren't guaranteed to produce the results we want in vivo, no matter how good the trials look... or on you and me getting this technique to work." The Force, at least, was on their side, and it would take care of them - that was what Jacob had to believe, anyway.

"I pulled seven other samples, so we're not limited to practicing on just this one. They're over in my hut, to try to keep them all from being affected at once when we start." And there were still more back in the ship that he could go back for, if he needed to. Meanwhile, he waited for Rey to pick a spot where it felt natural to sit down, and then joined her.

Growing up on Jakku, Rey didn't have the privilege of relying on bacta for the various ailments and injuries life brought. She sympathized with the thought of Kylo Ren being unable to combat this on his own. She'd seen people die from such things, especially infections from injuries. What surprised her was that there wasn't much they could do medically either.

It made her harden her resolve. "Then let's get started."

She found a comfortable place on the floor, and opened the text to the pages they'd been studying.

The technique could be broken down into two parts - essentially pulling energy from the world around them and redirecting it into what needed healing. The multiple ironies did not escape the Knight of Ren or the fledgling Force adept. First, that these were very different thing, relying on different ways of perceiving and controlling the Force. Second, that of the three of them, the one who could do all of these things already (albeit via a Force wound) was the only one who couldn't do it now.

"Lets practice the healing part first..." she suggested. "With my own energy. Maybe... maybe it will work on its own?"

It wasn't like she'd ever done that before either, so it seemed as good of a place to start as anywhere.

Jacob weighed the idea for a moment. On the one hand, perhaps it might help get a better grasp on the technique to separate the two parts. On the other, so far, there had been a clear lesson for them in all of this: not to struggle or strive, to simply accept things as they were, to respect the integrity of the balance - and that was saying nothing of the fact that even the two of them together would never be able to heal Kylo with their energy alone. The Force wound would tear them both to pieces.

He explained his concerns to Rey. "...But wherever the Force is telling you is the right place to start, I'm right there with you." He began a few basic meditation techniques to settle himself into the Force and open his own mind to it, extending his senses to take in the island's distinctive eddies in the Force, and the disruption that even something as small as the experimental sample brought to them.

Her mind was telling her one thing. The Force... it wasn't until she felt Jacob sink into a meditation that seemed to cover the entire planet that she realized she'd hardly even been listening.

Closing her eyes, Rey meditated as well.

Heal. she thought to herself, repeating it like a mantra. Heal. Heal. Heal...

But nothing happened. She wasn't feeling it, not the way she had been back in the cave. The pressure was mounting, Jacob's senses were like a blanket and she was both shivering and suffocating at the same time. This wasn't something that could be forced - she knew that. But knowing it didn't make it work.

Closing her eyes, she tried again. This time, she focused on aligning her breathing with Jacob's. She let herself fall into the rhythm of his thoughts and lose her own. After a while, once she was finally as centered as he was, she reached out to try again.

The sample container levitated. But nothing else changed.

Rey opened her eyes, and it fell back onto the ground. She slumped, defeated. "...I don't know how to Force heal."

It was about that time when Rey realized they weren't alone in the hut. Leia was standing patiently in the doorway.

"...I do."

Jacob turned around, his gaze searching her as though for any hint that this was some kind of trick. "General...?" On the one hand, he wanted to reach out to Kylo, to ask him whether this was something he wanted to accept his mother's help in, but on the other, he didn't want to disturb his rest - and besides, Jacob suspected that they didn't actually have a choice, if they wanted to learn this technique by the time Kylo would need it.

He compromised by challenging her, "How many times have you actually used that technique?"

She looked him square in the eye, and it was obvious in that moment that no matter what the number was, every single time when she had needed to use it was etched indelibly into her memory. She had a handle on this. "Four."

Jacob was the one who broke eye contact first. "...Fair enough."

Leia sat down on the other side of Rey, and after a moment, Jacob tentatively reached out to her, mentally. It surprised him, how different she felt from Kylo or Rey; he hadn't needed to take in that much about the shape of her thoughts when he'd visited her dreams, and now, it was initially a struggle to integrate them with his own and Rey's. Finally, though, he brought them all into alignment, and he allowed Organa to take point on leading them into the healing technique.

Kylo Ren had swallowed his pride once, accepting his mother’s aid and protection here on Ahch-To. There may have been precedent, but it was percariously balanced with years of neglect and desperation. Kylo would be angry at this - but at least that meant that he would be alive.

Leia felt the reluctance, and while she could never truly understand the depths of it and certainly never make amends for it, she could do this. She could help Rey the way Luke helped her before he turned his back on the galaxy.

Rey made space for the older woman to sit in front of the sample. Both of them likely felt a pang of sadness when Leia looked at this small, disease-ridden piece of her son. It took a few moments for her to gather herself. However, as closed as her mind always was, it was impossible to tell exactly what she was thinking until she spoke.

“When Ben was a child, Luke taught me a little. I didn’t have his strength or his abilities, not the way my son did. But at the time, I thought that if I learned a few things, perhaps I could help him.”

Her strength could be argued. Had she devoted the time, she could have reached that level. She could have done so much more for Kylo. But this was neither the time, nor the place, to state the obvious.

“Force healing. Luke used to say It felt like touching the Force. Reaching inside, through the pain, and then soothing it.” She explained. “When he used it on himself, he said it felt cool. When he used it on someone else, he always described it as warm. Those descriptions helped me understand what to do.”

She held out her hand on top of Rey’s. “You reach out with the Force. Feel its warmth coating your hand. Then, you find the source of the pain, and let that warmth spread.”

Rey blinked in surprise. Leia’s hand truly did feel warm. it was a strange, soothing kind of warm - not at all like the Jakku sun or a burning fire. All the tense muscles in her hand relaxed. Her wrist felt loose and nimble.

“I feel it.” Rey gasped.

“Good. Now try it for yourself.” She directed Rey’s hand over the sample container. “Feel the Force. Feel the warmth. Find the pain and then bring that warmth to it.”

Softly, but sternly, she repeated her instructions over and over again. It took a little while for Rey to do the same, but eventually, she had a breakthrough.

“I felt it! It’s warm!”

“Good.” Leia gave a nod of encouragement, but brought her focus back to the sample in front of them. “Now find the pain. Breathe, open your mind. If you can feel the warmth, you can also feel the pain. You can feel what’s not right.”

Rey nodded, closing her eyes and trying again.

Once she knew what to look for, so to speak, finding it wasn’t difficult. The sample of Kylo’s cells felt so wrong against the orderly life of the island. It was twisted, malformed. It didn’t belong. She felt the pain, and just as Leia instructed, she brought the warmth to it. She felt the Force within her, and let it flow into the sample until she no longer felt its pain. It was a miraculous feeling, really, and one Rey would not soon forget.

She looked up at Jacob with a look of awe. “I think I did it...”

If his master was angry with him, Jacob would accept that. Unlike Leia, he would never try to invalidate Kylo's feelings, or claim the ends justified the means when it came to something like this.

Jacob listened carefully, and focused on facilitating and smoothing the connection between them - but this time, he didn't take an active role in the technique itself. However, he could still feel what Rey felt, and he gasped softly when he realized that it wasn't the connection purely to the light side that he had expected. It was still undeniably of the Living Force, but still, it felt somehow more... fundamental than the light side or the dark, almost primitive in a way. A distant part of him wondered if that was somehow Leia's own adaptation of the technique, because it seemed like something the Jedi Order would never have encouraged, and as the last heir to their teachings, Luke might have been equally wary of it.

However, most of him was still focused on keeping their minds working in concert, and on helping Rey maintain enough focus to actually apply the technique. He didn't let the realization that maybe, just maybe, he could learn to do this distract or unsettle him.

It would have been difficult to maintain their collective focus when he felt the pain beginning to recede from the sample, had he not been incredibly aware of exactly how important it was, not to disrupt this in any way. Only once Rey finished treating the sample did he realize he'd been holding his breath. "...I'll pack it away, and bring one of the others in to try it again on. Once we've tried it on all of them, I'll take them back to the ship and test them to see what results you achieved."

As he re-wrapped the sample to fit into the carrying rack and took it back to the other hut, he examined it as best he could through the Force. Even his senses weren't refined enough to get down to the cellular level, as he'd figured out two weeks ago when he had tried to see if it was possible to take this sickness for Kylo the way he'd taken his wound, but still, what he felt was... more encouraging than he wanted to admit even to himself. He unpacked the next sample from its outer wrapping and brought it back, setting it down to begin the process over again.

While all three of them felt the technique working and sensed the change it had made to the sample, no one dared speak of it. Instead, they held their breath around the house of cards and prepared to try it again.

Each time Jacob brought a sample into the hut, Leia walked Rey through the same steps and thought process. There was a memory wedged in, here and there - like a warm hand on a scraped knee or a toddler with dark hair wiping tears from his eyes.

Perhaps it was a little unorthadox compared to the old Jedi order’s way of doing things. Leia, after all, had to mix very limited training with real world experience. Or perhaps, she merely saw the technique from a different point of view.

By the time Jacob had brought in the last sample, Rey had nearly figured out the process for herself. She’d whittled down the time it took to find the pain and begin applying the Force itself to it. Whst started as an hour of failed attempts became about ten minutes. Not ideal, but incredible progress for someone just learning.

“This is more exhausting than I thought it would be...” she admitted.

“You’re using your own energy. Giving it to someone else.” She put a gentle hand on Rey’s shoulder. “It is tiring. A lot like being a mother.”

Jacob had to suppress the incredibly nasty insult he wanted to snap at Leia regarding her skills as a parent before the words even fully formed in his mind, lest she or Rey hear it even though he didn't plan on saying it. It was harder to suppress the spike of anxiety in the back of his mind over the fact that that was the analogy Leia had chosen, especially after the discussion he and Kylo and Rey had been forced to have the day before. He truly hoped it wasn't some kind of sign, because Rey didn't deserve to have to go through any part of what he and Kylo were experiencing now.

"...For the last sample, I think we should try to execute the full technique. You already have a good handle on the healing side of it, so what's left... is drawing in." Jacob aligned his thoughts and energy with the outermost edge of the distortion Kylo's Force wound created, trying to determine if they could learn what they needed from it. However, it didn't take him long to determine that more pain wasn't the answer.

Because this wasn't a drain, a suctioning of energy into a singularity in the Force from which nothing might ever emerge. This was more of... a redistribution. A re-balancing. It was finally the place where Jacob's subtlety and control were meant to be used.

He manipulated the energy of the Force as it flowed around them, just small perturbations at first, but the resonance slowly built, into a standing wave that drew more and more of that energy toward them. When it finally reached the level he'd sensed from Rey when she was executing the other part of the technique, he murmured, "Try it now."

It took a moment, but when she felt the energy nudge against her mind. Rey understood. “Together. We do the technique together.”

She closed her eyes and opened her mind. She didn’t have to worry about drawing it in. Jacob was teaching out across the island itself, stirring the sediment and making waves. All she needed to do was float here. She was merely a conduit. Just as before. Feel the Force, and find the pain.

She could do this.

Jacob had expected to find himself beset by uncertainties that would only hamper the process, but instead, none materialized. There was nothing, no room for anything, in his mind except executing the technique. "Right - together." When he felt Rey center herself on the pain in the sample, he focused on connecting her to the energy he'd gathered, providing her what she needed to carry out the healing. It was superficially similar, in a way, to the wound transfer technique; it required that same level of awareness of the boundaries of the pain, and the energy surrounding it. Completely absent, however, was the violence of that technique, and rather than tearing out the injury and the damaged energy surrounding it before filling its place with something better, it was a balancing process, an evening out, with the damage leaching away and being absorbed by the much greater energies of the Force, where it could dissipate without harm.

When they were done, the sample felt... clean, on a level that even the others didn't. Jacob drew them slowly back out of the trance. "I... think that was the key to it, right there." He got up to re-package the sample. "Once I get back to the ship, I'll analyze these, and tomorrow I'll give you a full report on the results and any variations between them that we might not have expected." Right now, however, he did need to get straight back to the ship - they were close to the three hours he'd promised Kylo, but he could definitely tell that the results were more than worth it.

"I'll see you later." Under different circumstances, he would've asked if Rey wanted to join them for dinner - but he figured he'd have to break it to Kylo sooner rather than later the degree to which Leia had been involved in the latest breakthrough, and he didn't want Rey to be in the path of the fallout from that when she wasn't the one who was to blame here. Jacob was the one who had known all along that this would most likely feel like a betrayal to him, no matter how logical they both tried to be about the necessity of it.

Kylo was still asleep when Jacob arrived back at the ship, but it wasn't a restful repose. The not-so-subtle twitches were punctuated with grunts and groans. Muffled pleas of 'No... don't... don't fire it again...' mixed with soulless mutterings of 'Yes, Supreme Leader... I just need your guidance.' He was sweating, panting. The nightmare felt real enough that even his Force wound was reacting to the stress.

Jacob had just finished re-racking the samples into the treatment rig and setting it to run a scan on them when he sensed the fluctuations in Kylo's Force wound. "...Shit," he muttered. He could sense how bad the nightmare was, and that rushing up to the ship's cabin to wake him would only have cataclysmic results.

Instead, Jacob settled himself in a corner of the cargo bay, and forced himself to sleep. Within moments, he was there with Kylo, inside his dream.

They were back in the power chamber of the Finalizer's superweapon, only the dimensions of it were so skewed from what Jacob had seen when he rescued Kylo that for a moment he almost took it to be a dream-composite of multiple locations. Then, he realized that this would have to be how the chamber would look to someone much smaller than his master - and immediately, he sensed the presence of another outside influence on the nightmare, besides Jacob, one working to shape and distort it.

The mechanised dreamscape didn’t just look bigger. Kylo looked smaller. He could have passed for one of the children if it hadn’t been for the identifying scars he’d gained over the years and a literal representation of the Force wound sinking into his chest like a three dimensional tattoo. Clearly the association was there - and the malevolent force acting on this dream wanted Kylo to make it.

Petrified and in pain, his limbs pulled tight in all directions. His body was wrapped in wires and tubes. Electric pulses riddled his body with Force enegy. A familiar and terrifying voice echoed in the weapons array.

“You serve me so well, Kylo Ren. How grateful you must be... I always knew you were something truly special. Just as you always knew that you would never... never...be free of me!”

Lightning ricocheted off the floor. In the dream, and in real life, Kylo screamed.

"He doesn't belong to you anymore. Never again!" Jacob snarled, wrapping his arms around Kylo as he pushed back against the dark presence in his master's dreams. Slowly, bit by bit, the tubes and wires binding Kylo tight began to unravel. Every time they tried to gain a new hold, Jacob pushed them back again, shielding Kylo with his body.

"You are free, Kylo," Jacob murmured softly in his ear. "We're both out of his clutches, and before long, he'll be dead and never able to hurt you or me or our children or anyone ever again. You'll be whole again and you'll regain your strength and our victory will be complete, because Rey found us the secret of undoing everything he's done to you. All he has is this stupid extinction burst, and even that-- isn't enough!" With that, he began dragging Kylo back into wakefulness.

"Lies..." the voice countered. A face that was far too young for its pained expression pleaded silently with Jacob. "It's all lies!"

Wishful thinking turned into believing, though, when Kylo remembered Rey's part in all of this. They'd made solid and measurable progress. He could feel it in Jacob's mind, even though he kept most of it safely tucked away.

It was enough to crack the nightmare apart.

The mechanical prison started to break. Tubes and wires slithered away like scared snakes. Snoke hissed at them both.

He was gasping for air. His heart hammered in his chest. Excitement mixed with terror, and both of them felt everything all at once. The real Kylo Ren opened his eyes in shock before they fluttered shut again. An even more terrifying thought tore through Jacob's mind before everything fell deathly silent.

It's happening... Need to go... Now...

Jacob startled awake as well, with a gasp as he realized exactly what he sensed. Snoke had finally figured out how to link his mind to those of the children to amplify his power - similarly to how Kylo and Jacob did with each other, albeit much less efficiently - and he'd used that to reach across space with a strength even he wouldn't normally have been able to manage, and punch right through Kylo's mental defenses.

They were out of time. Snoke had found his way to them, and they had no more opportunities to prepare against him. If they didn't strike soon, he'd be the one finding a way to prepare against them, and he had more power, more minds, to backstop himself with, if he figured out how to bring them all into line with each other and himself.

Jacob was by Kylo's side in a matter of moments. "Right now..." He tried to catch his breath, still not fully believing the reality of the situation. "We're really going to kill him now?"

Kylo's eyes were closed, conserving his strength as much as he was hardening his resolve. They both knew that was no normal nightmare. "...or die trying."

It was crucial that they act now. First, because if Snoke was capable of reaching him, he may be able to reach the others. No one on the island was safe. Second, if he truly mastered this technique, everything they had been preparing would be for naught. The time they'd bought themselves was borrowed and spent. Third, and most importantly, Snoke had forged a path through space that Kylo could take as well. He wasn't sure how he knew this, but the feeling ran as deep as the planet's core.

"I can feel this urge to let go... to follow it..." he whispered. "The Force will take me to him. How quickly... can we get into the caves?"

"...Faster if I carry you." Jacob disconnected the IV line, then stepped back away from him. "I'll be right back - once I've packed up everything I need to keep you from dying of hypothermia while we're down there, we'll go."

Just like last time, the fastest way in - taking the tide into account - would be through the entrance shared by the mirror cave. He just hoped that Rey would be able to handle and adjust to it much more quickly this time than last. Jacob pulled a waterproof pack out of the ship's entryway and hurriedly stuffed it with a waterproof blanket, heating pad, pitons and ropes and harnesses in the outer compartments, and - upon returning to his quarters - a change of clothes for Kylo.

As they made their way out of the ship, he reached out mentally to Rey. I hate to have to do this to you again - but we're out of time. Snoke has found his way to us, and if we don't kill him now, while he's still in that transitional phase of figuring out how to bring his full power to bear, we will be helpless against him. Meet us down in the caves, right away.

“Do it.”

There was no hesitation. There couldn’t be.

Kylo might have been impressed at the speed with which his apprentice readied their supplies (using the Force to enhance it even more), but his mind was focused on other things entirely. He was actively resisting the urge, as he described it, to simply let go. It was the time, but it wasn’t yet the place; he had no choice but to hold on until it was.

Rey was having a meal with Leia when she heard Jacob’s voice echo in her mind. The shock alone was enough to make her accidentally spit her soup. If it hadn’t, the message alone might have.

Leia looked up, visibly concerned.

“What is...”

Rey interrupted her before she could finish. “I have to go.”

Leia attempted to interject again as she ran out of the hut as well. “What is it? What’s going on?”

“We’re going to kill Snoke!” She shouted back, stopping only long enough to shout, “Make sure Luke doesn’t interfere.”

She didn’t have the same animosity toward him that Kylo did, but she still didn’t trust him. He’d started to show a little remorse for his role in how this all turned out, but it wasn’t enough. And if what Jacob said was true, that Snoke had found a way to reach them, then a mentally tormented Jedi master was a perfect target - and a perfect tool. Rey couldn’t let that happen.

She ran to the shore as fast as her legs would carry her.

[ooc: sorry for the delay. Been busy. And... I just passed my 7th degree black belt test!!]

((Congratulations!! And no worries about the delay, I'm not always speedy myself x_x))

Jacob had gotten them down there in record time, the Force enhancing his every movement, and he had just started anchoring their belay lines to the same rock as last time when Rey arrived. "Here - get this on." He snagged a climbing harness out of the bag and tossed it to her. "Then, start focusing on meditation techniques to get your heart rate and respiration down. I want to be able to head into the caves as soon as possible. We have to get this done, while we can still minimize the damage, because I don't know what he's told them or done to them to get them to this point."

Their mental connection filled in the gaps - Snoke had gotten to them by drawing on the children's strength, and on their minds. To do that, he'd needed to break their natural mental barriers down in ways that he'd previously been unable to, and that boded ill for how this was going to go as a rescue mission.

The three of them were down into the cave within moments, where Jacob insisted on a moment to regroup, and calm their minds - if only for the moment - so they could be sure they'd make it through the caves. It was low tide, and he could sense there were pockets of air in the labyrinth that had been entirely underwater when they negotiated it the last time, but they were still too far apart for them to make it through without careful control of their heart rates and respiration.

Rey caught the harness and immediately began putting it on. Any trepidation she had about making the trek through those underwater caves again was immediately shoved aside when she saw Jacob assisting Kylo with his gear.

He looked like he was on the verge of losing the fight before it even began. Compared to the Force wound, his own energy was like a star on the edge of a black hole - slowly being pulled into the void and he was holding on by sheer will. His spirit was going to leave them, one way or another.

Which meant Rey could not fail. She had to get down in that cave. There would be no second chances.

Fortunately, Kylo’s state was a convenient model. Even as she climbed, she could feel her heartrate start to slow down and her breaths growing more infrequent. It wasn’t anywhere as controlled as Jacob’s, but it would have to do. After a moment or two to calm her mind, she gave him a nod. Her thoughts still bargained, Don’t let me die. And I won’t let him die., but she went under all the same.

As long as you trust me, you won't die. He reached into her mind and body, deeper than he ever had before, to help her adjust her heart rate and respiration into line with his own and Kylo's. As he'd mentioned, if she trusted him, this would be sustainable for just long enough to get them through the tunnels. If she fought, though... keeping any of them alive would be a struggle.

Fortunately, they were all absolutely united in their sense of purpose, almost to the point where Rey didn't find anything abnormal about the degree of Jacob's influence on all of them. Even when she started to question it almost against her own will, all he had to do was press the thought that it's necessary into the back of her mind to get them all back on the same wavelength.

Finally, they reached the meditation chamber, and Jacob released his grip on their autonomic nervous systems, knowing they would need to bring their minds back into alignment in an entirely different way for this to succeed. In the meantime, while they each sorted out all the detritus within their own heads that might prevent that alignment, he got Kylo's wet clothes off, toweled him off, and this time, actually had a heating pad to tuck inside his dry robes in an attempt keep his body temperature at something approaching normal through all of this.

He'd brought a much smaller ground cover and pad this time, knowing what they were all in for, and got Kylo situated as comfortably as possible before beckoning Rey in to join them again. As they sat down, back to back, he let Kylo draw them all into alignment with the Force.

This time, their attempt at projection was met with only a void, at first - the three of them, still hanging in the eddy currents of the Force energy surrounding the planet. Snoke had done everything he could to camouflage the origins of his attack on them, and while Jacob knew that soon, it wouldn't be enough - the contact he'd made, to push himself into Kylo's nightmares, had left traces in the Force, no matter how well disguised, that led back to their origin - alarm bells were going off in his head as to why Snoke had bothered with the delay tactic at all.

Rey didn't resist. She let herself be pulled under until her head poked through the surface of the pool. It was a surreal, out-of-body experience, even as she hoisted herself out of the water. The feeling of the Force resonating through the chamber centered her, and brought her back from the brink.

She glanced at Kylo, expecting to see him struggle. Instead, his expression was serene. His eyes were closed. His breathing was shallow, but regular. Jacob was tending to him in a way that felt all too intimate.

Rey averted her eyes, and focused on the Force.

Kylo's outward expression was a stark contrast to the turmoil that was spinning to life inside of him. The Force wound was active, already clawing at the energy of this place. The planet's very essence was his to command. Were he anything like Darth Nihlus, he would have been already lost.

As they settled at his back, Kylo became a beacon in the Force.

Take what you need. his mind whispered in theirs. Drain me dry if you have to. Today, I am a conduit... in the hope that tomorrow... we won't be one with the Force...

Sobering words as he felt himself starting to finally lose his grip on consciousness, but not on Snoke. Maybe they were being pulled into a trap. But that was a chance they would have to take.

Jacob was already familiar enough with Kylo's incredible strength in the Force to be able to channel and guide it effectively; he'd done it before, after all. And while their opponent this time was an entirely different creature than Thuban... he had to believe that the outcome would be the same. Finally, he found the last, fading trace of Snoke's incursion, like a crack in space, and pulled it open into a rift wide enough for him to draw himself through.

And there he was, not on the bridge of the Finalizer, but in Snoke's throne room aboard the Supremacy. All at once, Jacob could feel things shift in their favor, sense that the Force was truly with them.

The same vulnerability exploited by the malware that the master codebreaker was writing, wasn't only present in Resurgent-class star destroyers, but in the Supremacy itself - and an attack on it would be far more crippling. Instead of an hour, the ship might be inoperable for as long as a day. He could've laughed, if it wasn't for the sight that greeted him. The sight that made it seem as though the feeling that was still with him, of the Force's absolute support, was somehow nothing more than a carefully crafted lie.

Snoke sat in his throne, surrounded by his Praetorian Guards - their weapons pointed inward, rather than outward, at the small forms kneeling between them and Snoke. Jacob drew a sharp breath when he counted twelve of them, and at the realization - not far behind - of what, exactly, had seemed off about them at first.

A chill ran down Jacob's spine when he realized he was looking at six sets of identical twins.

Eight of the children were male, and the other four were female, and all appeared to be between the ages of four and six - and he was so distracted by observing them, hoping that this wouldn't be the last time he laid eyes on any of them, that he barely noticed when Snoke had begun talking. Perhaps Snoke realized he hadn't been paying attention, since he'd only begun with, "I don't know what you said to Luke Skywalker, but it seems that he has picked an especially inconvenient time to develop a spine. No matter; I have no true need of him."

Snoke narrowed his crooked eyes. "Just as I no longer have any need of Ben Solo." He spat the name like a vile, disgusting thing, the words a total renunciation of their bond as master and apprentice.

A total renunciation of the one thing that could've held Kylo and Jacob back from his throat, once they figured out how to get to him.

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