albinomilksnake | STAR WARS: possible spoiler warning

[It's the ghost of an inorganic snap in the dark: pain searing into the flesh of his shoulder, the way it tears when momentum spins him backwards on his own heel from some unregistered blow and then-- then, he chokes on his own breath in the snow, vision dulling by degrees. His spine is on fire, and his fingers won't move, and he thinks, only briefly, that he's screwed up again. Not for himself; for her.

And then it's pitch. Dull like water in his ears until he hears voices unmarred by electronic filters or the echoes of Starkiller's frigid halls. Warmer, he guesses - for as long as it lasts. Something at his side sets to beeping, there's a hand at his wrist, and he's under again.

He doesn't dream.

Not until there's a weight on his chest too heavy to shrug off. Seconds later, months maybe, there's no way to tell. Just that pressure that digs into his pores, eyelids fluttering over his blurred, useless vision. He's sweating, and he hasn't got a clue when that happened or why when the air feels thick enough to choke him, freezing cold besides. Something's wrong. He'd call it soldier's intuition if he ever proved himself to be one, but in truth (one he already actively recognizes) it's just instincts: no functioning subconscious mind ignores stimuli on that scale.

The voice that follows all, though-- it's not right. No, it's not real. Can't be real. The words are all garbled and they don't make sense as he struggles to come to, focus drifting in and out, coughing on his own spit where it catches ungracefully in his throat. It doesn't matter that he instantly recognizes polished metal over woven cloth, or the old, familiar rasp of Kylo Ren's lightsaber, fear cinching like a vice knotted somewhere deep between his ribs. It doesn't matter.] You're not real.

I'm dreaming. This is-- this is all a dream.

[Wake the hell up, Finn. Whatever this is just-- wake up.]

[For someone as attuned to the Force as Ren happens to be, he can hear a mixture of Finn's thoughts. He can tell that he has been caught in a dream, that he hasn't lived much since the moment in which Ren cut him down. That realization is worrying for him. Will he once again fail to achieve what he set out to accomplish? Will he simply finish what he started? He feels a twisting in his stomach, an anxiety that mixes with anger and almost sends him spiraling. Almost.

His fingers twitch ever so slightly, and he pulls on FN-2187 to drag him forward, indifferent to what pain might move through his spine. Ren kills his lightsaber, at least for the moment, but he is ready to call upon it. Too ready.]

This is no dream, [he says simply.] That pain you feel is real, is it not? No one feels misery such as this in a dream. [Even Ren himself. Though when he awakens sometimes aware of too fresh memories of good times with his family, he wonders if that's true. He hates that feeling, hates those memories. He wishes Snoke could cut them away, but he knows he needs his anger to be powerful, to achieve what many others have not in this galaxy.]

[Maybe it's the fact that even with Ren's well-executed coup in play, Finn's still carrying the safeguard of a few waning painkillers in his system. Maybe it's the fact that he's not the causeless, nameless soldier left floundering among the First Order's ranks. Hell, maybe he's just grown.

Whatever it is, however hard he cringes (eyes pinched shut, teeth gritted so tight they feel ready to crack) against the pull of gravity where it drags against healing flesh and bone, he manages not to scream. Sputters, struggling where his breath catches hard in his throat, straining out a few choked-off noises before his sight comes back. Dazed, vision riddled with spots, but he recognizes the uniform streaked with red at Kylo Ren's feet: Resistance. This is-- was a resistance base, maybe even the one he visited before, and dread sinks to the base of his stomach like a stone.]

--what did you do?

[To Rey, to Poe-- to all the people here he'd liked via merit of being the exact opposite of the First Order and its sickening addiction to control without mercy. They'd have ruined him if he stayed (he didn't run for anything less than the threat of reconditioning, the horror of watching innocent civilians die without justification, Slip's shaking fingers still tacky with blood...) he didn't know how, exactly, but he knew it was coming for him even before he grabbed Poe's cuffed arm and bolted. Now? Now his life, his sanity, all pales in comparison to the idea that everyone else's might be at risk.]

[When there is no gratifying release of sound, Ren can't help but feel a little disappointed. He wants to hurt the traitor, and he wants to know that he's accomplished causing him pain. Oh, he knows that it's happening. The telepathic connection that he can call upon in an instant helps him know that, but it isn't the same. Neither is the confirmation of what FN-2187 doesn't know. He doesn't know about the girl (Rey, he should start calling her Rey) and he doesn't know about the pilot or the mission he's on. Fascinating.]

I dealt with them. [The words come easily. There's no point to telling the truth here. It'll be more gratifying if he doesn't.]

She's not so strong when I'm healed. She was quite the sight otherwise, and very lucky that day. But she fell as quickly as you had. [His fingers twitch, and after a moment, he drops FN-2187 to the medical bed, allowing him to drop in the most dramatic way possible. It's meant to be a statement. It's meant to hurt, even if he expects no response.]

Only she didn't get up. She had potential, didn't she? [He'll get to the pilot in a moment.]

[It's more than impact, nerves too raw to stave off the jolt that comes with contact (even if it's only a mattress, the weight of bone and muscle is heavy enough to make it count for more) as he buckles, barking out some low, gurgling noise that tangles hard in the back of his own throat. There's dampness at the corners of his eyes where redness has seeped in, but it's not half from grief or pain so much as it is anger. Outrage. How many times he's lost everything at the hands of the First Order, stuck still without either the strength or the means to fight back.

It isn't right. It isn't right and he knows it now that he's seen what lies outside the sterile walls of their would-be empire.

So screw it. If it hurts him to work his shoulder back, burned skin splitting from the strain, he doesn't care; if it tears the artificial grafts, the scar tissue still wet with gel from his last treatment, he doesn't flinch; Finn shoves himself over on his side, preying on the notion of his own weakness (and what little space stands between them) as he grabs at the saber still in Kylo's hand, grip more determination than outright strength, unwilling to just let go.

Phasma would've been proud.] I'll kill you--

[For her. For all of them.]

Will you?

[The question is sharp, and he's surprised by the determination. He can almost admire it, can almost understand.]

You barely managed to protect her before. You won't avenge her now.

[Though his focus is split, it doesn't keep him from extending his other hand forward. Invisible fingers begin to wrap tightly around FN-2187's throat, holding tight. It's interesting, really, that he might think he has people he cares about, that he has people to avenge, and yet—

He hadn't been able to find that among the First Order. The First Order would have served him, would have given him a life without this trouble. He would not be in a medical bay. He might be expendable, that much is true, but he wouldn't be caught up in the belief that he has to muster up the strength for these pointless connections.]

[The press of it's sharp and keen, more blunt than wire but it isn't any less solid where it catches him, halting his grasping efforts in their tracks: he feels his muscle-- starved and weary-- constrict against his will, lungs pinned, lips curled back in a breathless, wounded snarl over teeth, too short of the mark to reach the saber still held fast in Ren's hand. It's hopeless. No wounded, bed-ridden recruit stands a chance against the First Order's leashed Sith, and if their surroundings (no blaster fire, no calls to arms or even a rallying cry for desperate retreat) are indicative of anything, it's that he's alone this time.

Which is why his hand rolls back against the grain, away from the monster ahead, pitching the image of yet another retreat at first - predictable enough to be expected. Only his fingertips strain past the edge of the medical bed, fumbling until they find cold metal. He can't tell what it is (a tray, a pan for instruments too far out of his eyeline, maybe, doesn't matter) only that it's solid, and if he pulls--

His vision's fading by the time he reels forward again with the only momentum left, numb and dazed and aiming for the noisy glint of metal just there ahead: Ren's mask, he hopes. Tools clatter to the floor, spit flecks his own lips from strain - he doesn't care. If this is it, if he's done for without a shot at revenge in the Resistance's name, the he's making it count.

For once in his damn life, he's making it count.]

[Too divided in attention, too focused on the feeling of choking the life out of FN-2187, he doesn't seem to give much weight to the grabbing of the tray. Oh, that isn't to say that he doesn't notice it. Ren just doesn't care, inwardly dismissing the possibility of this mattering in the least. It doesn't matter, it shouldn't matter—

But then a transmission comes in at the same time. Just as the tray goes slamming toward his face, a communication comes in and disrupts his focus entirely. It takes too much to keep the calm, collected portrayal of himself for others—to be able to access his power to the greatest degree, as he needs to right now.

He stumbles back, and the transmission plays loudly in the room. The rebels are returning. Leading them is the identified black commander—called exactly that, but that's Poe. General Organa is leading the rest of the troops back, as well, to ensure their base isn't taken—they'll have to pull out, and try to absorb what information they have.

The hold on FN-2187 is decidedly gone, and he reaches down to push the button on his saber, expanding it once again within the room.]

You believe an agent of the First Order now, but not then. Gullible. Inexperienced. A murderer of his brothers and sisters in arms. [He's scrambling. He knows he should kill him, should give up when there is no information to extract, but he wants to drag this out, to get the satisfaction from it.

He twists his arm and stabs closer, the crossguard pressing closer to FN-2187's throat. Just a twitch of his hand would cut into the skin, and he feels the innate power of holding this traitor's life in his hands.

It feels more empowering than all the other lives he's taken somehow.]

[So instantaneous is the rushing high of that transmission hitting his ears (Poe-- it's Poe, somehow he's alive--) that even as he sputters and chokes against air surging back into his lungs, he's fighting off the ghost of a pale grin for it. They were dead. God, he thought they were dead.

And it hits him then, all the trouble Kylo Ren and his entourage must have gone through, how determined he had to have been to come running this far only to wind up here, stuck grasping at nothing but empty clues to Skywalker's location and a wounded, former soldier. Maybe it wasn't winning, but for the cadet that went to bed and woke up every day to the tune of the First Order's invincibility and strength, it's close enough.

Or at least it is until he hears the sickening rasp of that fragmented saber where it sparks up at Kylo Ren's side, blood running cold in his own veins from a potent mixture of fear and dug-in memory. The rest that follows is unnecessary: Finn's already stock-still by the time the crossguard edges in, hot and livid and reeking of scorched ozone, his breathing low and shallow in his chest on instinct alone. He swears his heart is hammering in his throat.]

--then do it. [Finn's voice cracks when he says it; it's far from convincing.]

Screw me up the way you did him. That's the idea, right? [He watched it all play out from the rafters, when the good man that was Han Solo died. Never heard what was said, but it didn't matter: he deserved better.]

They'll be here any second.

[They will be there any second. And with that, two options appear to him.

First: to kill FN-2187. It would be easy to twist his wrist ever so slightly and send him toward his death. Without a bridge, it would be meaningless, and then Ren could easily fight his way out. He knows none of these Resistance fighters are truly prepared to fight someone empowered by the Force, but he also knows that his mother will be there soon. She hasn't come yet, but he can sense it. It's only a matter of time.

Second: he realizes a single truth: these people drown in so much sentiment that they keep returning for one another. It's pathetic and weak, but he realizes that if he makes a conscious choice now, he'll be able to draw Resistance fighters to him. He may even draw the girl. He thinks that last one is likely, and that the Resistance will be crippled by then.]

No. You may have a use yet.

[His hand hovers close.]

I gain nothing by killing you. [He adds these words partly because of the need to posture, and partly because it's important for FN-2187 to know that he has no place beside Han Solo in his mind. He's a traitor, yes, but a pawn as well.

He closes his lightsaber, rehooking it to his belt, and he extends a hand forward over FN-2187's face to knock him out swiftly.

*

In truth, the First Order is still in so much disarray that it would be illogical to bring the traitor back. That's how he reasons it to himself, so he drags him alone through the galaxy toward one of the planets in the Outer Rim, a place called Akiva. There's some irony in bringing him here, as this had been one of the locations for the last stand of the Empire, but he also knows that they're unlikely to be found.

Carefully, he brings him to an old droid factory, and he chains him up in one of the old living quarters. Though droids largely took care of this place, building more and more battle droids throughout time, there were some Imperials who had the unfortunate fate of being posted here.

Ren knows that there are Resistance fighters from this world. He knows that appearing here could be risky, but unscathed like his grandfather, a dark cloak and no mask hides his true identity well enough as he briefly abandons FN-2187 to retrieve goods (food and other supplies). He knows that Snoke will wonder where he is, but he hopes that his choices here are wise. The girl must come, and they must be in a place where it would be risky to perform an attack with the Resistance. Akiva is good for that, as it will potentially cause conflict in their ranks.

When he returns to the factory, he settles in beside FN-2187, gloved hands brought together. There is no mask, and dark hair falls over his forehead. He will not wake him forcibly, not yet. But he wonders how long they will be holed up here. He does wonder.]

[The thing about abandoned facilities is they're generally pretty cold. Finn feels the chill of it well before he bothers to open his eyes or register the chains leashed to him, and for a few, blurry moments he swears he's back on Starkiller, catching the crisp scent of frigid ventilation just before the morning wake-up call hits home. Stupid, he realizes, once he feels the dig of the chains leashed to him, and the ache of his healing back, gone dry and angry without any of the daily medical attention he'd been receiving. But It's not until he opens his eyes that he catches how off the mark he'd been, tilting his head up to squint blearily at a prison that isn't nearly polished enough for regulation standards. Rust and grit, pooling condensation, high walls and--

Ah.

His eyes narrow when he catches sight of Kylo Ren, nose crinkling from the strain involved in finding focus in that dim, shallow light. He can't be sure, but something about his features looks...off since he last saw him unmasked, stalking hungrily towards him between trees. A brand, maybe? Some sort of burn, grotesque where it sits across those sharpened features. Good, he thinks, taking at least a fraction of contentment from it. He owes a drink to whoever left that autograph.

After that, he adds, sharply:] What, General Hux kill the budget for you guys this cycle?

[Better than asking what happened, he figures.]

I had to take matters into my own hands.

[Among the Empire's records, as well as in his teachings from Snoke, he had learned about how Lord Vader (his grandfather) had taken matters into his own hands following the destruction of the first Death Star to find information about Luke Skywalker, as well as obtain a droid army of his own. The droids proved to be indispensable, far more useful than anything present in the Clone Wars, all due to the modifications provided to them. They had helped propel Vader upward through the ranks of the Empire, and he had regained his authority after he lost it in the destruction of the Death Star.

Now, the First Order is in a similar predicament. Ren has not lost his authority (Snoke knows better than that), but they don't have the same resources. He knows that. Going to the Resistance base had been risky, and the only reason they scattered so quickly is because many of the stormtroopers are still in training (and after FN-2187's case of defecting, they can't risk any others like him). But Ren also knows that he has to find the girl, has to ensure that she and her rebel friends don't cause problems while the First Order regroups. Even if the New Republic is all but destroyed, the Resistance is what it is, and it can't be allowed to have a Force user on its side. Getting rid of both of them would prove necessary.

Of course, he doesn't care to tell any of this to FN-2187.]

You're outside the Order's jurisdiction. [He thinks it likely that Snoke knows where he is, but he doesn't think anyone will come to find them. Not yet.

He doesn't add more, in part because he wants to see how FN-2187 takes to this.]

That's a dangerous road to go down. [There's a certain dry mildness to it this time, meeting his stare rather than watching the branded gash shift across Kylo Ren's features as he talks.]

At least in the eyes of the First Order, anyway.

[Because they're not alike-- they can't be alike-- not after everything he's done (how cruelly he cut down Han Solo, how he took Rey-- how he hurt her) but Finn knows hypocrisy when he sees it: if he hadn't, he'd still be FN-2187, dutifully serving under the First Order's flag. Ren had a name, he had a life, and it came with the freedom to walk out the front door whenever he wanted to. No one Finn grew up beside could say the same.

It wasn't right.]

For a stormtrooper ... yes. [The words are simple. Ren believes in the organization of the First Order. He believes that everyone beneath him should be willing to align with certain goals. But he knows he's outside the typical jurisdiction. He knows he only answers to the Supreme Leader, and nothing will change that.]

But I have a different goal. To finish what someone else started. [The words are crisp, like he's said them before.

(He has.)]

Tell me, what do the trainee histories contain about the feats of Darth Vader? [If they're going to be here for a time, they might as well talk. Plus, he wants to shake this traitor's resolve.

He believes he can.]

Edited 2016-01-10 20:02 (UTC)

[He could ignore him. The thought digs in as he lies there, eyes shut - just turn away from the hierarchy of the First Order that always listens to Kylo Ren, show him that he can't always get what he wants just by shoving through anything-- or anyone-- in his way.

But if that were true, he realizes, he wouldn't be here.]

A lot. [It wasn't his favorite collection of vids or files to page through, but a lot of the other troopers were into it - legendary stuff. Stories that touched on some greater universal power, a bigger purpose worth serving instead of just piling into gear and shuffling along in rank and file. For Finn, though, it just always felt out of touch compared to everyone around him. That was real, and Vader? Even if he was everything they said, he's dead. Gone.

But then he puts two and two together, and his eyes open, realization more than evident in his expression:] --you're supposed to be him, aren't you?

[Not directly, and he knows that, but it's unmistakable once the line's been drawn: whatever Vader was to the people who sympathized with the Empire, having that nearby again in Kylo Ren was the smartest move to make. A warrior tied to both the Force and their cause, a faceless, terrifying presence - it'd make them feel like they never lost him in the first place.]

[There is a moment where Ren's features soften. It's brief, fleeting, with his features looking wounded—because he isn't him. He isn't nearly as powerful as Darth Vader. Though Vader had been held back by sentiment, he had proved to be stronger for years upon years. Even when Palpatine challenged his role as his apprentice, Vader still rose above that and proved that he deserved that place in the Empire.

Unlike Vader, Ren doesn't know that he would ever accomplish the same thing. He defeated that sentiment, cutting down his father. And he had naively believed that that moment would lead to some new strength within him, some new ruthlessness that he had never tapped into before.

But it unleashed something else: emotions, love, compassion. Things he meant to cut away. Things he's trying to cut away even now.

But that expression, that wounded look, is brief, and it looks misplaced on his scarred face. He replaces it with something unreadable, but that's him schooling his face that way. It's obviously meant to hide something else, and anyone good at reading people would be able to see that he isn't very good at passing between emotional states casually. That's because he's always emotional, always out of control, always dealing with that.]

Symbols carry a lot of power. If someone on the dark side represents that power and succeeds, it would guarantee the return of a power as great as the Empire had been. [There's a pause.]

But there is a legacy, too. One that only I can carry. That others have failed to carry. They wouldn't chance ruining his legacy. [Vader's.] But he was a Skywalker. One of the very first, and as far as I'm concerned, the last. [His uncle didn't deserve to have the power of the Force, too caught up in idealism and a need to bring back the Jedi order without acknowledging that true balance could only be achieved through callousness and ruthlessness.

(Or so Ren believes. It's an idea that doesn't carry all the weight that he'd like it to carry.)]

[Sharp as Finn is-- as quick as he's always been to scope out the truth with his own eyes-- he doesn't miss the way Ren's expression flickers, even in dim, that stagnant light. What to make of it's a different story: he already knew the First Order's monster was human (he knew it the second he checked his arm back on Starkiller, watching him reel in aggravated pain) but looking deeper than that and understanding why is strange. Miserable.

He shouldn't feel sorry for the man that nearly killed him and Rey without a second thought, that took Han from them and acted like it was nothing. He shouldn't but-- he does.

It's possible Kylo Ren was just as much a victim of the First Order's hateful agenda as he was.]

Luke is still out there. You know that.

[He hunted them down for that - all of them.]

And what legacy does he carry? He only brings imbalance to the Force. He led his father astray from what truly mattered. He made him believe in some false ... sentiment, as if it was the thing that truly mattered. [This is practiced. He's spoken similar things to his grandfather's mask while alone. He's asked him why sentiment, why love, can cut through the darkness. Why did he feel weak to it, as well? How could they find a way to defy it? Over and over, he's asked, and he's never truly found a place inside of himself to hate his family. He knows hatred is what matters. Not indifference—indifference does not fuel him in the same way—and he could never muster it inside of himself.

He still can't.]

A name is just a name. A legacy is something different.

[Or so he tells himself. Luke did not follow in his father's footsteps, and Kylo Ren's version of Darth Vader is a man disappointed with his son the same way that Ren is disappointed in his father.

It's tidy and poetic.

And false.]

I don't get it.

[He's aiming for something more than just the baseline, that much is obvious. But by how much or what it's meant to mean? That's the part that has Finn struggling to catch up-- if he even should be in the first place. Some part of him has to keep reminding himself exactly who he's talking to in that too-small space. That letting his guard down could be just as stupid as it might somehow help them both.]

What's a legacy supposed to be if it's not-- I don't know, some part of the person that started it?

And what did Luke Skywalker start? All I see are false starts. [Because of him, the Jedi Killer. He had decimated the Force-sensitive youths that he had lived with day in and day out, believing that their return to the galaxy would only taint what had been established by his grandfather and the Emperor.]

Do you really think it's a coincidence that he hasn't brought hope to the galaxy? For years, it was Vader who succeeded there. He brought everything into its rightful place.

You did that to him. [He snaps it out without thinking, lips going entirely flat just a moment later as if he's already chastising himself for aggravating an already terrible scenario, but-- no, he's done biting his tongue out of fear, and he's done letting Kylo Ren intimidate him.]

You ruined everything he was doing to fix-- [Hope? The Light? His mind races over every conversation with Maz, every memory left burned into his mind from when Han was alive with his hand on his shoulder and a tired, affectionate voice, trying to pinpoint an answer that makes sense.] the Force. The universe.

All of it got screwed up because of you.

And now he's a man who runs from everything.

[To Ren, it's a clear question of resolve. He doesn't deny that he's the one who destroyed everything, ensuring that he could follow in the path of Vader. He doesn't deny any of that, but he also knows that Luke Skywalker fled.]

Tell me. Do you think he'll return? Or will he give up even with the girl?

[The girl, the mysterious girl with so much power from the Force. The girl, who was even more powerful than him. He's certain that Snoke recognizes it, and that makes him worry.]

[ Because he had to is what Finn thinks. Wrongly, maybe, but he knows what it's like, having nothing, needing an out when the whole world is hunting you down. If someone like Luke Skywalker fled, Finn likes to think it was for the same reason.] No.

Whatever he went out there to do, he's doing it. That's what I believe.

[And Rey-- Rey's better than anyone at shedding light in dark places. She'll bring him back. She'll be okay.]

[Ren laughs, and the sound he makes is cold, cutting, and certain, as if he doubts that Luke Skywalker (doubts that his uncle) had gone anywhere to do anything. In his training, he had heard of the different Jedi Temples spread throughout the galaxy, but Snoke assured him that his uncle would become no stronger while immersing himself in those settings.]

He's been gone for fifteen years. What takes fifteen years to accomplish? In that time, the Supreme Leader has only grown stronger. He's abandoned your people. He doesn't even stand by your foolish ideals. [In fact, he may not even know about the Resistance at all.

There's an irony in that, one that he appreciates. He knows that Luke is strong with the Force, though, so there's a certain twisted idealism in him wanting these words to be true.]

STAR WARS: possible spoiler warning

WOW RUDE REN the only douche here is u buddy

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