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Chapter Text

Ben did not feel how the cold laid into his lungs like bleach and winter as he plunged into Starkiller’s dark forest. He did not feel the snow crunching beneath his boots and the sting of the frozen air whipping into his skin. He did not see the sun that had been stolen and evaporated from the sky, the skeletal trees bent and groaning, or the frightened creatures scattering into the shadows. His body moved on instinct, his mind hollow with a single, endless scream— 

His father. His father. His father. 

The image burned into his vision. 

A saber, igniting in the dark. 

A blade, bursting through Han Solo’s chest, one hand wrapped around the hilt, the other gripping the detonator of explosives. 

The weak expression that flooded his father’s face as he took one last look at Ben and fell down into the abyss. 

Han Solo. The smuggler. The rogue. The war hero.

 Cut down in cold blood. 

“Kylo!” Finn shouted, “The Falcon’s this way!” Ben followed as the ground beneath him trembled, Sector 47 lay groaning and smoldering like the ruins of a funeral pyre behind them. They sprinted forward, leaping over the opening of a crater— 

And then the air changed. Not with the shifting of the ground, or the thickening smoke. No- it was a weight deeper, a presence darker, unseen yet suffocating. It washed over Ben just before he heard it— The familiar crackle of a lightsaber being drawn.  

Ben stopped cold. Finn skidded to a halt beside him, breath ragged, his fingers twitching towards his belt. 

They turned to face the executioner of the First Order as she stood before them. A nightmare made flesh. 

Revanth . 

Smoke curled from the burns on her arms and face, whorling over the visible skin like war paint. Her singed, dark robes had ripped in her stomach where Chewie’s bolt had grazed into her side. Her double edged saber flickered blood-red against the trees, the snow, the ruins of the planet. The firelight caught her eyes, turning them into twin embers burning in the dark. Her hair was wild and half-loosened, and she bared her teeth in something between a sneer and a snarl. 

"You’re not going anywhere," she said. Cold air plumed from her lips, but the heat of her rage was suffocating. 

Finn took a step forward, face twisting in a contorted expression, “You’re a monster!” 

Revanth did not hesitate. She took a slow, deliberate step closer. “And you’re a traitor.” 

Ben barely heard them. His blood roared in his ears. His fingers twitched at his side. His breath came shallow and ragged. The weight in his chest crushed him.  

He was going to kill her. He was going to kill her- Hewasgoingtokillher- 

Revanth’s gaze snapped to him. Something flickered in her expression. Recognition. Realization. 

Ben pulled the trigger. 

The bolt of red light streaked from the muzzle- 

Her arm shot out, fast and reckless, fingers curling in a trembling claw. 

The bolt stopped, quivering in the air, crackling between them. 

Revanth tilted her head, almost amused. Then, with a lazy twist of her wrist, the bolt wrenched and swiveled around as though it had a mind of its own, and released, exploded into the tree between Ben and Finn. 

Shrapnel burst through the air—wood, fire, and smoke scattering like knives. Ben dodged the wood, charging. His boots pounded against the snow. His entire body coiled like a drawn arrow, ready to strike. The only thing in his mind was fire. Rage. A screaming in his veins and tearing through the woods. 

She did not flinch. Her face remained unnerving, unreadable, even as her gaze flickered to the trees around, to the ground beneath them, aiming. 

Revanth’s fingers curled, and the ground might as well have vanished beneath him. The Force crashed into Ben like a fist to the ribs, sending him hurtling backward. 

She didn’t just throw him—she launched him. Ben’s back collided against the tree in a sickening crack, spine and skull meeting bark and branches. The tree splintered under his form. Everything spun. Pain flared through his body, and his vision blackened as he freefalled- 

Down.

      Down.  

               Down. 

And into the crater below.

 “KYLO!” Finn roared, but Ben did not hear anything even as he tumbled into the earth beneath.  

Finn watched in dawning horror as Kylo the bounty hunter—no, as Ben Solo, his friend—plunged into the ravine out of his sight. The same Ben who risked life and freedom for strangers and family alike. The same Ben who had saved him. 

His lung stuttered, his feet slipped on the snow as he lunged toward the ledge, desperate to see if Ben was ali— 

A vice-like pressure clamped around his ankle. Finn only registered the sensation before he was yanked back, wrenched off his feet, and flung like a disc into the treeline. 

Finn’s not a stormtrooper anymore, not as of this week anyway, but he’s had the training of one. Drilled into his body as deeply as the schematics of Starkiller Base, as instinctive as the fear that spiked at the glare of Phasma’s helmet, or heard the tread of Hux’s boots. 

Which means he knows how to brace for impact. 

Mid-air, he tucked, curling tight, bending his head into his shoulder as the world spun. The ground rushed up to meet him. He hit hard, but luck was on his side, and he rolled with the impact, boring deep tracks through the snow. The momentum carried him as he slammed into the gnarled roots of a toppled tree. Pain flared in his back, but he pushed it aside and shook off the dizziness, palms scraping the snow as he scrambled to his hands and knees. 

The lightsaber—where's the lightsaber?  

His fingers clawed at the frozen earth, digging, searching. There—half buried, just out of reach. He lunged, straining, and finally, his hand closed around it. 

But before he could rise, a shadow moved in his periphery. 

Finn barely had time to throw himself sideways before the uprooted tree, now a weapon in Revanth’s hands, careened through the air where he’d just been. 

He landed in a crouch, boots skidding on ice, and snapped his gaze up. Revanth stood across the clearing, watching him with a lazy, knowing smirk. 

“Enough with the fucking Jedi tricks,” He growled, his voice low and full of frustration. 

Revanth laughed, a dark, hollow sound that echoed through the trees as she clutched her wounded side. If she weren’t a murderous psychopath, it might’ve been pleasant. “This isn’t the handiwork of a Jedi,” she taunted, voice laced with mockery. 

Finn didn’t answer. Didn’t think. 

He ignited the saber. The blue blade erupted with a sharp snap-hiss, flooding the clearing with tinted, electric light. It caught against the frost, against the sharp edges of Finn’s glare. “Oh yeah?” His voice was steady, defiant. He hoisted the saber between them. “What about this?” 

And for the first time, Revanth’s smirk faltered and her gaze went slack. 

“Where did you get that?” The words slip from her lips—almost as if she’s talking to herself. “How did you—? That saber.” her voice hardened, and her own lightsaber thrummed unsteadily, “Give that to me.” 

Finn tightened his grip. His stance squared. “Come get it then.” 

What a miserable display from the Resistance, Revanth thought, her mind seething with disgust as she stalked into the center of the battle field, past the slouched, puddling form of a traitor. Her boots crunched against the char and smoldering snow, each step a reminder of the chaos and destruction that had unfolded before her. 

Her gaze shifted to the saber before her—half-buried, yet still gleaming with a defiant glow. It lay nestled hilt-up, metal edge catching the dim light from the fissures that sprawled across the wasteland, stretching like broken veins beneath the surface of the earth. The magma red glow of the cracks made the lightsaber appear almost sacred, a cruel mockery of the Resistance’s last stand. The saber pulsed like a heartbeat, furious and resolute compared to the two other sigil beats she carried with her currently. 

There was something very much alive about that piece of krystal and metal. 

Her master would be pleased with its acquisition. Perhaps it would soothe some of his frustration over the failure of the mission, or even become a worthy addition to her own, growing collection. 

If only the damned thing weren’t so stubbornly fixed in the ground. 

Revanth’s gaze hardened, her arm shaking as she exerted more control of the force to compel the weapon into her hand, her stance wobbled and swayed, and her frustration mounted as the saber refused her. Mocked her. 

With a furious cry, Revanth concentrated harder, the black rage within her mind churning, growing, feeding. She pushed harder, her will snapping like a whip. 

The snow trembled as if the earth itself shuddered at her command. But just as she thought she had it, just as the saber began to loosen—it flew past her. 

Revanth whirled around in a blur of motion, her eyes flashing with fury as she saw the weapon soar, defying her grasp. She watched, almost in slow motion, as it landed firmly in the hands of— 

“You,” she spat, her voice low and dripping with disbelief and rage. 

The Jedi apprentice— Ben Solo —stood before her, battered, but unyielding. Sweat, snow, and mud matted his hair, and his eyes- those dark, burning eyes- glowed with the fire of a collapsing star. The rage within them reflected something she knew all too well, something she recognized in herself; a shared fury. His grip on the saber tightened, and it flickered to life in his hands, its blue blade cutting through the dark air like a defiant challenge. 

Revanth’s lip curled in disdain as she took in the sight of him. Typical rebel scum. They never knew when to stay down, when to accept defeat. He should have been dead by now, buried under the weight of rubble, grief, and stone. But here he was, stubbornly breathing.

Her body moved with a lethal ease, her stance nearly loose and fluid save for the stiffness of the wound in her side. She spun her saber around experimentally, feeling the twinge in her shoulder where the stormtrooper’s strike had landed. An irritation, nothing more. 

Behind, the sky rumbled, the mountains sagged under the weight of impending collapse. The world itself seemed ready to swallow him whole. 

Revanth wasn’t sure who moved first—him or her—but the moment ignited in an explosion of motion. They clashed, lightsabers keening and vibrating through the dark. He jerked away before she could trap him in blade lock, twisting the saber with swift, sharp precision. In the hands of a lesser warrior, his movements would have merely singed the bark of a nearby tree—but under his control, the blade cleaved straight through the column of wood, sending it toppling with a groan. 

Not a novice, Revanth noted, her eyes flicking over his stance, his footwork. But no master either. 

She darted around the bend of his strike, coming up behind him with a predator’s grace, but he was already waiting. His saber slashed back, swift and cutting, forcing her to twist away, their blades colliding again in a crackling storm of light. Their blades clashed, crackling in the frozen air, red and blue locked in a furious, pulsing storm. 

He thrust forward, the rounded blaze of his weapon streaking for her chest. She caught it beneath her own, deflecting with a sharp flick of her wrist before swinging again. He ducked, vanishing behind a thick tree trunk, but she was faster. Her double-bladed saber carved through the wood like it was nothing, slicing clean through its core. 

The tree groaned as it toppled, crashing down in his wake. He stumbled back, avoiding being crushed beneath its weight.  

She didn’t give him time to recover. 

Again and again and again. A relentless barrage of strikes and feints, her movements a blur. She drove him along the winding walls of the dried creek gully, her saber spinning in her hands like a viper coiling to strike. 

He grunted with effort as he met her blows, parrying with desperate efficiency. She could see the strain in his stance. The exhaustion in his limbs. He grunted and bludgered the saber down. She caught it, angling her blade to deflect, sending a shower of sparks skidding across the cold stone. The heat seared too close, but she didn’t flinch. She only pressed forward, cutting under his guard. 

This time, she did not miss. 

The side of her saber blistering through his tattered bounty hunter jacket, edging and lacerating into the flesh of his abdomen. 

Ben Solo roared, the sound raw, animalistic, torn from his throat in pain. Satisfaction curled through Revanth like a sick, seething flame. 

She meant to herd him into a corner, to strip him of options. She was going to cauterize his gutted innards, but not before she tore through his mind and made him scream the location of a ghost of a Jedi he called ‘‘master.” She would rip the saber from his ruined hands, shove the blade of it past his teeth, and watch the light die in his eyes. 

His breath hitched, uneven and fast, but he didn’t hesitate—didn’t dare. 

The apprentice noticed the incline of the gully beneath his feet. He turned his back on her and vaulted over the jagged edge, his boots skidding against loose rock as he propelled himself forward and out with a thunderous step. 

Fleeing. 

Revanth followed without pause, her body a blur of motion, vaulting up after him. She landed light, rolling into a sprint. The air between them crackled, thick with tension, with heat, with the ever-present hum of their weapons vibrating through the frozen night. 

She could see the way he carried himself now—fierce, desperate, sloppy. 

And afraid. 

It roiled off him, sickeningly sweet and cloy in the winter’s air, weaving a trail that she could tail and savour with primordial senses. 

He kept retreating, limping out of her range with fumbling steps, torn between holding his weapon and clutching at his side. Yet still he fought, barely keeping her at bay as she bore down on him. A tinge of pity—cold, brief—ghosted through her mind before it curled into something crueler.

Revanth leapt into his space, meeting his saber above his head with her own and locking at the crossguards. “You could be more than this,” She said over the din of the cacophony of the woods, voice hoarse, “I can see it. The doubt in you. The hesitation.” 

He didn’t answer, but his jaw tensed, his chest rising and falling in heavy, unsteady gasps.

“I don’t need to teach you how to use the Dark.” she continued, taking a slow, measured step forward. “You’ve already let it in. You feel it, don’t you? How easy it would be?”

The saber in her hand hummed as it blared and echoed it between them, not in threat, but in invitation.

“Come with me.”

For a long, breathless moment, they just stood there—two fractured figures on opposite ends of a broken battlefield, caught between the pull of something that neither of them could name.

Then, finally, his lips parted—his voice hoarse, barely audible beneath the distant wail of collapsing steel. “No.”

Revanth did not have time to react when he pulled apart and cut up, a single swing of his saber, and a tree branch split into thirds.

She dodged the first. She dodged the second. She even caught the heated strike of the sword.

But she never saw the third.

He caught it, jagged and smoldering, and handled it like a javelin. 

Fire tore through her vision. Agony ignited along her face, down her neck, slashing across her sternum, biting deep into her ribs—carved into her flesh by a crude spear of fire. Revanth screamed and fell back into the sting of hot blood and the biting grit of the snow. 

Through her one eye, she saw him approach. Saw him heave, pant, and drip above her like a weary executioner. He raised the saber to her face, and Rey’s gaze rippled closed. 

Then the earth beneath them tore apart.

A fissure split through the ice, the collapsing ruin of Starkiller Base keeled like a wounded beast. Snow, rock and fire ruptured across the forest, sending tremors up Revanth’s frame. 

The Jedi apprentice jumped out of the way of the darting crack and over Revanth, landing onto a narrow ridge just as the earth beneath them crumbled into a molten abyss of heat and steam. 

Revanth pitched forward as fast and as hard she could, past where Solo had stood moments ago, and mere inchings shy of the hellish cavern broiling beneath her. She shielded her face with her one arm, eye watering in the face of such oppressive heat. She staggered to her feet, lungs beating so hard she could scarcely believe they didn’t implode on themselves. 

He looked on from across the fractured ruin of the forest, standing in the pool of her blood, an expression on his face that could not be placed. Horror, she might have called it; fear, but that was not quite right. His already pale coloring grew more ashen by the second. His arm was wrapped tight around his upper abdomen, and she could see that his dirtied clothes were sodden with a dark stain that would not be staunched.

Her own face was dripping with blood, and she panted heavily as rivulets streamed from the curve of her cheek down to beneath her underarm. Her vision, if she tried to look through her right eye, was sealed in stubborn, agonizing blackness. Smoke filled her lungs to the brim, but her chest was burning with something hotter—something she has learned to channel throughout the years as she looked at him from across the rubble.

In his hand, he held fast to the saber.

A saber that he did not deserve. 

Thief, she thought, and then there was a word that followed in its wake, one that tasted of the rust of Jakku, and the rage of hell: Enemy.

She raised her own saber to him, aiming right for his chest. Red and crackling, it hissed as she declared a silent vow. In the distance of his eyes, she saw the reflection of her blade, the shadow that wielded it, and the flames that enveloped the ruins of Starkiller Base.

" I will find you, Jedi, ” She breathed under the chaos, voice low and unshaken, “and I will destroy you if it is the last thing I ever do. Now run."

His jaw tightened, features going hard and wary as he yielded a singular step backward.

She almost found the gall within her to smile.

Revanth of the First Order broke into a sprint down the maze of the crumpling woods, jumping over crevices and geysers and leaks and running for her life. A terrible sound rendered the air, a tremor that shook the trees, snow avalanching and shifting like sand dunes as she charged for the black fortress smoldering in the distance.

She risked a glance over her shoulder, wondering if her prey had met an early demise. Probing with the force for his signature she found that yes- he was alive. The signal flickered and grew faint as he escaped her range.

Good, she would have her chance at revenge. But first, she needed to escape and live to see another day.

Revanth ducked back into the ruined oscillator building, streamlining down the track among the crashing roofs and denting walls. Racing down the hallways, she hacked into the crook of her uninjured arm wetly, and was not surprised to see that it came away with black phlegm. It is a miracle of the force that she was still standing. Everything within her has been drained down to its last dregs and burnt to the last spluttering fumes as she forced a sealed gate open to the hangar.

It was abandoned, left in panicked disarray. Her pounding steps echoed strangely off the walls as she made her way to the lone, black and chrome ship left behind. Her working eye scanned precious, overturned cargo left behind in the evacuation.

What a waste.

Month’s worth of portions lay deserted, calling out for rescue from their inevitable fate. A starving girl calculated their worth and lost track of the cost. A desperate girl might even have been foolish enough to shove a few crates up and onto a ship.

But such a girl no longer existed.

She stumbled up the open ramp of her ship and into the cockpit. Her subconscious guided her fingers over the appropriate switches and levers for take-off procedures, soon enough she coaxed the ship into powering on, beneath her the earth rumbled and shook. Revanth, her grasp on reality fading, sent out a hailing beacon for the fleet and led her ship out into the atmosphere.

She made for the black, killing the engines and stalling in space as she distantly watched the planet beneath her cave inward like a black hole. Angry, fiery chasms fissure the surface, cracking and splitting the station into parts. She placed her forehead on the cool glass of the ship; her head was heavy and slick on the smooth panels, her blood-damp skin slipping from its place. Her vision spun as she watched near-ultimate destruction take place.

It was gone, Starkiller Base, The First Order turned into a lifeless husk in such a finite amount of time. But not all of it.

The First Order might have been weakened from this encounter with the Resistance, critically so, but they were fools if they thought this was the end. They had no idea the reach that the First Order possessed, no idea how far they were willing to go, and just how much she was willing. General Hux and the Knights would come from her, of that she could be sure of, Snoke would never let her go.

And with that certainty, she let go, and let the dark take her.

Chapter Text

It was said that ghosts wandered the desert. That they emerged when the sun rode the knife’s edge between dusk and night, and the temperature dropped so suddenly that the unlucky traveler’s breath would fog, and they would listen to the wails that could come from no living being. It was whispered that they were the souls of those desiccated bodies found in the Graveyard of Giants, that they had been navigators of a sort, and knew the corners and roads of the galaxy like no others. Acolytes of the Pilgrim's road and Teedos believed that if these navigators studied the sky for long enough, they would collect their bearings and find their way home. Until then, they left small offerings on the sacred trails.

Rey was barely nine and already she knew better as she picked her way through the bone and scrap ridden dunes, sinking her grubby fingers into the sand when she spied the folds of a cloth parcel left behind by those travelers. She knew the dead were just as tethered to the sands as she was, stranded and lost to the shadows and crevices of the ruins of Jakku.

She crested a ridge and looked out onto the field before her and saw ships the size of moons lay dormant beyond, embedded in the wastes. Like industrial, iron mountains, their shadows stretched across the dunes, turning the sunbleached desert colors into shades of gray and black as deep as pitch.

The day was baking, sweat clung and evaporated to Rey's chapped skin, and the breeze that blew was stale and provided no comfort. Rey sighed into her thin face wrappings, adjusted her screening goggles, and considered, not for the first time that day, journeying westward on foot. Portions had been running low lately, and her stomach growled throughout the day more and more. But with her speeder out of commission it wasn’t smart to risk walking home after dark. Ghosts or no ghosts, there were things out in the badlands that she doesn't want to mess with, things that only come out at night.

Despite how hot it is, Rey shivered. Steelpeckers circled overhead, and landed beside her, cawing. Two pairs of beady, black eyes watch the parcel in her hands, wondering what's in there.

"Stupid buzzards," she grumbled, turning back to the parcel. The Steelpecker’s claws scratched and whispered as they shuffled, peering over her shoulder. Rey turned, agitated. "Go on then! Go!" she shouted, shooing them off. The birds fly away halfheartedly, only going as far as out of arm's reach, stubbornly keeping in sight.

She rolled her eyes. Whatever was in the package must be metal then, she supposed. The birds had a keen nose for it. Rey stuck her pink tongue out at them, scrunching her face up before she turned back, her small frame hunching over it instinctively as she examined. The object is hefty in her hands, and the cloth that bunched around it made its exact dimensions and shape unknown. Her curiosity piqued as well as her confusion, and Rey frowned, her bottom lip jutting out.

What was it? A piston of some sort? She untied the twine and brushed sand off the cloth, the grains scattering in the wind as she unfolded it and found-

The Steelpeckers shrieked, feathers and craggy gizzards exploding as they swarmed her. Stingy wings beat at her face, clawed on her flesh, tore her bindings to shreds and scored her arms. Rey screamed and pummeled them back.

"Kark off!" she shouted, whacking them and shielding her eyes with her arms, but the vultures were relentless, hungry animals. They continue pecking, screeching, kicking up sand, and drawing blood.

Desperate to escape, Rey tried to retreat from the feathery fray. The birds forced her back a step, another, another. Her eyes were closed against their assault and she skirted the edge of the dune. With their combined strength, they pushed her back. Too far, too far-

She hit the face of the dune back first. Hard. Making a dull sound and a deep impression as the air flushed right out of her lungs. Sand filled her mouth, gravel and bits of rock bruised and dug into her skin while she tumbled. Plateauing at the bottom, she skidded to a stop.

Her vision spun, and her face felt like it's been scrubbed raw with a pumice stone, her goggles have been knocked off. Rims of her eye's grated and watering, snot dripping down her nose. She tried to get up. The piston had fallen out of her reach, and the metal glinted in the hot sun as the Steelpeckers surrounded it and began to pick at it with their monstrous beaks. The clang echoed in her ears, so loud that the tremors ran up the back of her neck and into her skull, hammering on the nerves in her temples. She stared wide-eyed and disbelieving as they began to slowly break apart the metal.

She scrambled to her feet, slipping on the loose sand, began to shout and roar hysterically as she charged towards the birds. "No! No! Get off! GET OFF!" Rey swore the ground beneath her shook, but she hardly noticed as her small hands wrapped around the scrawny neck of one of the Steelpeckers. It let out a gurgling, mangled cry, vocal cords vibrating in her hands before she gets the better of it and breaks its neck. The other grabbed the prize in its talons and began to lift off into the sky, but she’s so angry; she jumped after it, feet lifting from off the ground, and arms reaching- reaching.

Her fingers skimmed cold, curved claws, and gravity began to pull her down.

No, no. 

No.

The bird crashed into the dune as if an invisible brick were dropped onto it. Sand clouded up and around it, and Rey didn’t hesitate to stomp on its wings, a sickening crunch as brittle cartilage broke under her boots. A horrible screaming tears into the dry air, animal and banshee-like, Rey could hardly stand it. She found the nearest rock and brought it down onto the avian skull, silencing it once and for all.

She stood over the remains, panting, hot breath on her cheeks. There was nothing but the whistling winds now, the taste of iron in her mouth, and her own heartbeat in her ears. Rey staggered off from the dead bird, ears ringing and lungs seizing. She gasped, tried to intake sharp, arid air as she buckled, choked, and then convulsed into the sand.

She rolled away from her mess, hic-coughing and letting sweat and tears trickle off the skinny edges of her face. 

This is what living on Jakku does to you. It makes you angry, sick.

She thought of home; an empty AT-AT with only a few portions left, shelves filled with flight manuals, her pilot’s helmet, and the straw doll that was coarse and itchy to hug, but all she wanted at the moment. She was tired, hungry and shaky all over, and she felt very small and very alone in the desert.

She can’t let her eyes well with tears: It’s a waste of fluid. 

Bottom lip still trembling, legs shaking like Happabore jello and breath reeking of the taste too, Rey came to her feet and pried the column out of the claws of the dead bird. If she's smart, the piston will buy her a fair amount of portions, enough to go into the next week or so. Anger now drained, guilt fills her. She felt like she needed to say sorry to them, the dead birds, but the feeling quickly passed as she finally got a good look at the piston.

The color drained from Rey, and she felt as if she were going to be sick again.

Because she was barely nine, and she knew that ghosts in Ship's Graveyard aren't nocturnal; that if she concentrated and listened past the winds that sailed through the ruins, she could hear their soundless cries. But she doesn't need to concentrate now, not as the voices amplified; so loud, so clear, it was like they had broken the surface of water, screaming at her as she held not a piston, not trading parts, but a sacred relic.

Rey's small, blood-encrusted hands shook on the smooth, perfect handle of a lightsaber, and she wondered what exactly it is that she's done.

Chapter Text

In his nightmares, he sees her as a girl, and not as the monster that he fought against on a frozen planet. Instead, she was small, freckled, and there were tear tracks from her red-rimmed eyes that trailed down her dusty cheeks.

She was screaming. Screaming at Ben.

He couldn’t understand her words, there was engine roar in his ears, gruesome and all-consuming. It scattered dust around them, whipping at his raw skin and eyes, yet she pulled on his arms, trying to drag him off to who knows where. Ben pivoted on his heels, frantic as he surveyed the scene.

It wasn’t dust that raked at his sight; it was sand. He was in a waste field of it, the wreckage of space cruisers rose and fell as dunes sunk, shifted, rippled, and gathered like a wave to the north. And before the rising tsunami, there was a black pinprick in the sandstorm; a silhouette that stood on the crest, watching them.

His blood, his very marrow, drained from him at the sight.

Ben turned, the girl still clinging to his arm, and ran. 

Then the tidal wave broke. 

His lungs hammered as the current came from beneath his feet, sweeping them off their dead-straight course. His heart pounded in tandem with his feet as he furiously, desperately tried to outrun the sand. But it was too fast. It flooded them at their ankles, a shadow of destruction at their heels. He heard ships splitting from the pressure, shrapnel the size of houses carried out to block their path. 

He came to the horrible realization that no matter how fast he ran, they’re trapped. 

Ben tripped and fell on rubble. Sand seized his legs and his waist in the same moment it took for the girl to come to his side. To try and drag him up. A shadow on the side of her face darkened her. Ben looked, and with dawning horror he saw another wave poised- ready to strike. 

He tried to warn her- to shove her off. At that moment, that nano-second that she’s sent staggering away from him- she sees, understands what’s coming- and reached for him.

The surge hit her anyway. Her body buckled to the force, and she was pushed away by the rip-tide current. They’re drowning in it. He’s up to his neck, body immobile, fear so strong it was paralyzing him, making his jaw go rigid as he looked at her form, growing distant, still reaching for him.

“Ben!” She screamed, “BEN!”

BEN!

Ben awoke, a scream in his throat building, to a dark bedroom in the Millenium Falcon. He looked around- still trying to- searching for…

The haze that blurred reality and the nightmare cleared as he struggled to compose himself. His breathing was irregular, body coated in a cold sweat. Ben worked a hand through his damp hair, and he wanted to curse at himself. 

The nightmares had returned. 

It’s always the same, as it had been for years, or rather there were the same, key components. Him. The girl, and the black figure. But it was different now, and that difference now lies in experience. Ben had some shade of context, of knowledge that came from his direct life. 

Her. The girl. A ghost. 

He’d figured that she was some figment of his imagination. Something innocent, something to protect. His uncle had once said as much, said that these dreams were messages from the Force made conscious in Ben’s mind. Ben had believed his uncle, for years his teachings had soothed the dreams, made them faint, whispers to the screams that had haunted him as a child. Ben had believed him- up until the point where it all came crashing down on his head.

He rose from his cot and changed into his clothes. On the Millennium Falcon’s board, it’s still dark cycle, and the Falcon ran on an invisible, robotic ghost crew. The shutters were closed against the windows, the lights low and the temperature lowered to both conserve heat and make sleep easier. It’s a different enough time zone to his old ship, confiscated then destroyed on Jakku, that it’s thrown Ben out of sync. 

That’s what he tells himself anyway. 

The door opened slowly, gears grinding as it drew itself in. Ben stepped out, adjusting his shirt, and took the old, winding and narrow hallways. The walls were stained with grease and black oil smudges from the working machinery above. He ran his fingers across the occasional, deep scratches in the white paneling. This place, he mused, was his first home. It’s these halls where he first learned to walk, it’s where Chewie taught him the rules of Dejarik, and where Ben spent hours mastering his strategy. It’s where he watched his parents bicker and laugh and dance in the main hold. Nostalgia coursed through Ben at an old scorch mark in the wall, a faded old blaster shot, his father’s no less. The result of when raiders boarded the Falcon, Han Solo, famed general of the Resistance and self-proclaimed best smuggler of the galaxy, held them off- at least until Chewbacca arrived. Well, the scorch mark had never come out, and Force knows his mother tried every combination of chemical cleaners known to the galaxy, but- to no avail, it stayed, and Han Solo treasures the mark like a trophy.

Or at least he did.

Flashes of the bridge jump to the forefront of his mind unbidden and unwelcomed. He remembered how Han had shouldered him across the narrow divide, Chewie waiting for them on the other side, and how with a tremor in the air, she appeared. 

Ben exhaled, his breath steady but shallow as he braced himself against the wall with one hand, the other pressing his eyes closed. Another breath—deeper this time, but harder to control. In the silence, he heard the break in his rhythm, the jagged edge to his pulse.

Then, a flicker behind him—not light, not anything tangible, but something that felt almost like a memory drifting too close. The smell of antiseptic came to his senses, and his face, tight with tension, began to relax ever so slightly. It wasn’t real, but it pressed in on him, distant like an echo of something he should know, but couldn't place.

His gaze snapped forward, locking onto the dim hallway ahead, narrowing on the spot where, for just a fraction of a second, he thought he had seen movement. The dust hung lazily in the still air, catching the faintest light from the emergency panels.

Then—soft as a whisper—a scuff against the floor.

Ben turned sharply.

“Dad?” His voice was hoarse, and his heart raced as he twisted, eyes searching for him—Han.

But he was met with nothing. The space was empty.

His pulse hammered in his ears, the dissonance of it ringing through his skull. There was nothing there, and yet—he could still feel it, under the hum of the Falcon’s engines. A presence. A warmth that curled up his spine. Not Han. Not his father.

Disappointment clenched him. His jaw tightened, fighting the pull of something much more complicated. Had he really been imagining it? He could’ve sworn, for just a second, that something had been there—something…

He wondered, not for the first time, but the first in years, if he’s begun to lose his mind.

He stared at the dim corridor ahead, at the corner hidden by cargo crates and shadow. A laugh escaped him, dry and bitter.  If this had indeed been Han Solo and not his pathetic imaginings, he wouldn’t have hidden, wouldn’t have been a shadow in the corner. No, Han would’ve called out. There would’ve been something—a response. Anything.

But the presence lingered, pressing against his chest with an ache he didn’t want to name, distant but persistent, filling the space around him with an invisible weight. He couldn’t shake it—he couldn’t escape the sensation that something was watching, listening, just out of reach. It was like trying to catch a shadow with his bare hands.

Ben's eyes slivered at the empty hallway. He stared hard at the spot, his thoughts narrowing like a tunnel. The dust motes, the faint outline of the crates—everything pointed toward that space. A pull, like gravity, and yet it wasn’t pulling in the way it should have. It bent and stalled like it was falling and landing onto something .

Ben frowned, made to step toward it, but something changed in the air—something small, almost imperceptible, and the connection broke.

He blinked rapidly, a sharp exhale leaving him, but before he could make sense of it, Chewie's voice cut through the tension, grounding him. Ben jumped from his stupor, that nagging sensation snapped away, like a thin thread severed. The air cleared from the buzz as he blinked into the main hold for a moment, truly staring at nothing now, perplexed and admittedly- a little lost.

“Fucking Jedi hallucinations,” he muttered, brushing a hand over his face. The words felt bitter, but they didn’t come with the usual sting. His heart was still racing. Still unsure.

Chewie trilled again, this time more insistently.

“Yeah, Chewie,” he called out, turning and walking away, leaving that not-quite-something behind him. “I’m coming.”

Ben followed more on his own speculation than Chewie’s sound, it led him to the med bay. It's a small room. The lights were sterile and bright, and equipment laid scattered on the counters, syringes from the med bay and wrenches from the toolbox. Figures that Chewie would mix his tools together, the Wookie had never been great at organization. But there, set into the wall was a bed, and in that bed, attached to strings of IVs was Finn. Finn's probably seen better days. The bruises on his face were purple, and swelling sat heavy on his face. Glancing past his shoulder, Ben could see the disposable parchment bedding stained dark in a spotty, vertical slash. The ex-stormtrooper’s eyes blinked open when Ben entered, trying to focus.

“He’s up?” Ben asked Chewie, coming to Finn’s side

Chewie shrugged, and in his furry paws he held gauze and scissors. He gestured with them, his meaning clear: “Time to change the bandages.”

Ben nodded and made to bend over Finn when he mumbled out a word. “Ben,” It sounded like a question. 

“Yeah,” Ben answered, he slid his arm under Finn’s shoulders, about to set him up. “It’s me.”

“But…” Finn started, “The forest… you fell- Revanth pushed you.”

“Yeah, well that ravine wasn’t as deep as she’d hoped. Smacked my head pretty good, and I was out for a minute, but other than that-” In perfect timing, he winced, remembering the binding he had wrapped around his middle, and the cauterized wound that had sliced through his abdominal muscles, the ones he was currently pulling. “Never better,” he finished. 

“Rev…” Finn tried again, his grip tightened on Ben’s shoulder, “Revanth!” he gasped, lurching, lunging for Ben so fast that Ben couldn’t track it, couldn’t expect it. “Solo- did you kill her? Tell me you killed her! TELL ME YOU KILLED HER!” He’s shouting now, shaking Ben in his tight fists, his eyes are bloodshot, and he was frantic, one hand on Ben’s shoulder, the other tight like a vice around his neck. Ben choked, and Chewie bellowed, rattling glass jars as Ben pushed Finn backwards. Finn hit the back of the alcove with a heavy thud, he cried out and hissed as his scored back made contact with the wall. Chewie stepped in, pushing past a heaving Ben. Adrenaline made his vision blacken in and out, and for a moment it was all he could do not to kneel over.

Chewie growled at Finn, pinning his hands to his sides, effectively clasping Finn into Chewie’s grasp, Finn would be hard pressed to squirm, much less attack anyone in a Wookie’s grip. Distantly, Ben was grateful for it. He came to his full height, a gentle grip on his neck as he nursed it. A prod told him all he needed to know, it’ll bruise, and quickly. Ben looked around the room, dazed before he found Finn again. 

“You don’t…” Finn is dogged about his point, even as he trailed off, breathless. He met Ben’s eyes, head bowed and sweating, “you don’t understand- she’s coming. She’s coming for us. We need to get out of this system-”

“You don’t even know what system we’re in,” Ben snapped, his temper simmered, and his throat ached.

“That doesn’t matter. You have no idea what kind of resources she has-”

“I think the planetary Death Star at her disposal gives me a clue.” 

“LISTEN TO ME!” he shouted, spittle flew, and Chewie had to forcefully shove him back against the wall as Finn elbowed himself forward. “Forget Starkiller, forget Hux and the fleet. We need to jump ship. Disappear. She’s got this squadron- they’re monsters, Ben!” 

Ben considered this and stared Finn down. Scanning, he saw nothing but stark fear on his face, no rationale to his eyes, and of course- he caught how Finn’s shoulder bled, just one of the wounds Revanth had inflicted.

Ben had been lying at the bottom of a gorge while Finn faced the dark sider above. It was Finn’s screams that had woken him. He did not need to see the fight to understand the marks on his back, and how she had toyed with him. Ben, if he tried, could probably mimic the exact movement she used to cut him open and leave him exposed to the elements. When Ben had found Finn, there had been ribbons of flesh and leather, streams of trickling blood amongst the breaking earth as he had limped and dragged him aboard the Millennium Falcon.

That kind of encounter changed a person, instilled fear into a soldier like no other, and Ben faced that now.

The outmoded coding, the patched-together engine parts—those weren’t flaws of the Millennium Falcon. They were the very reason they hadn’t been discovered already.

No one else alive but Ben, Chewie, and maybe his mother understood that stealth was part of the Falcon’s legacy, its utility—that, and its stubborn refusal to die. No matter how banged up, outdated, or ugly it was, the Falcon always returned—just like it had with Han, just like it had with him.

But trying to explain that to a man half-lucid and half-crazed with fear wouldn’t go far or well. There was too much at risk here. Too much that could go wrong if Finn blew their cover.

BB-8 had buried the map to Luke in the hull of the ship on Takodana, and even with the Falcon’s camouflage, the map’s signal worried him. Finn was right about one thing, they were already at risk of being found—Ben couldn’t afford anything else compromising them. He didn’t need to sacrifice a perfectly good ship to keep their position safe, but he needed to control and drop the deadweight.

He sighed and turned to the counter. 

“Chewie,” he said softly, and from the corner of his eyes he saw Finn relax and drop. Chewie looked at him from over his shoulder, a question in his dark gaze. “Hold him down.”

“What-”

“Sorry about this,” Ben muttered. He faced Finn again, this time he had a syringe in hand. And it’s then that Finn’s expression dissolved into pure betrayal, and where he started to struggle.

“YOU’RE GONNA KILL US!” Finn raged, twisting, fighting and swearing as the needle sunk into his skin. “YOU’RE GONNA KILL US ALL!” He struggled to stay conscious, eyes blinking rapidly and falling, finally drifting closed. Chewie let go of Finn, who sagged down into a slump, quiet again, and Ben threw the needle to the floor, disturbed even as the glass shattered.

“You think that was the right choice?” he heaved after a moment, uncertain.

Chewie shrugged and shook his head in a way that told Ben he didn’t know. The Wookie didn’t linger on the moment for long. He bent over to gather the forgotten gauze and scissors and handed them to Ben. The Wookie then stood and went to leave the med bay, muttering something about needing a drink. Ben isn’t sure if that entailed a cup of Kaffa or the Sullustan gin stashed behind the portions drawers he found in the mess hall a week ago. Probably both. By the way it wasn’t even five’ o-clock, Ben could tell it was going to be a long day.

He looked down at the supine man in front of him. His eyes twitched, but other than that, he was as still as the dead. In the few minutes that he had been awake, the bedding had leached more red, flaking on the crinkled paper. The stitches in his back were most likely torn, and Ben could tell that a simple gauze wrap won't cover it. He would know. 

He sighed, and went to grab sterile thread and needle, and set to work.

Ben left the med bay a while later with that same antiseptic smell from earlier scrubbed onto his hands, and found himself in the cockpit of the ship sitting in the old, sunken-in pilot’s chair. He ignored the simple wrongness that came with the action. On Jakku he’d sat in this spot before, but there’d been a rush of action and blaster fire overwhelming him that he hadn’t had time to mind the ineptness he now felt.

This was not his seat. This was not his ship. This was not his place.

The stars streaked past the viewport as his hand drifted toward the deep holster at his thigh. Normally, an old blaster would have rested there, nestled into the worn leather. But the gun was gone. In its place sat something just as foreign as it was familiar.

Luke’s lightsaber, and the lightsaber of his Father, and the galaxy’s greatest enemy. Darth Vader’s lightsaber.

Ben swallowed hard. This relic did not belong to him either. His hand flinched away from the holster, and instead he reached for the comm. The console flickered to life beneath his touch in a glow of soft, blue light as he tapped out an old code—one pressed into memory, even if it hadn't been used or seriously considered in years.

A secure link. If it still existed.

The signal buzzed, resting against the panels, rattling through the cockpit. It rang, and rang, and rang. The hologram remained empty—no features, no flickering outline. Too much time had passed. The link was corroded, abandoned.

Ben was about to cut the connection when a live static filled the small space. His chest tightened. He curled his fingers into his palms, bracing in a last minute preparation of the moment. Too last minute because in that moment he knew nothing could have readied him for the sight of his mother before him, older than he remembered. Silver threaded through her hair, new lines creased her face. But her eyes—their depth, their steadiness—that hadn’t changed.

" Ben ?" Her voice was quiet, balanced between readiness and disbelief. Light-years stretched between them, yet she was looking at him, her son, a stranger.

“It’s been a long time.” Ben answered coolly. He kept his hands still. Or tried to. He wondered if the hologram would betray him. If she would notice, or blame it on the flicker. “General Organa.”

The openness in Leia’s face shuttered, like an old wound sealing over. She exhaled. "I take it this isn’t a social call?"

"Has this link ever been used for social calls?"

Leia’s expression wavered between hurt and fire. “If memory serves, then no.”

Ben nodded. No need to voice the thought running through both of them—this had been his line to his mother when he was a child. When she was away on diplomatic trips. When life at Luke’s cold, monastic temple grew too hard. When the nightmares came in full force.

Back then, this line had been a lifeline. First, used frequently. Then ignored. Then forced onto him.

And then, one night—a fateful night—it went silent.

Until now.

“Take this as a status report,” Ben said. “Your infiltration operation into Sector 47 was successful. The oscillator was destroyed, as you’ve surely gathered, and Starkiller Base has been decommissioned. I’m aboard the Millennium Falcon with the map to Skywalker.” He kept his voice steady for the next part. Surprisingly well.

“Han Solo is dead.”

If any of the news Ben shared with Leia surprised her so far, she did not show it.

Ben continued. “We engaged with Revanth. Your new resistance fighter, Finn, was wounded in the altercation, and whether Revanth is dead or alive, I can’t say for certain. Last we saw, she was fleeing the base. If she survived—she’ll be after the map.”

Leia leaned back. Behind Ben, Chewie entered the cockpit and gave a small wave. Leia spared a kind look for her old friend—one that he returned. A raw understanding passed between them in a simple glance before she turned back to Ben.

“You’ve given me the facts. Now tell me, what’s your plan?”

Ah .

Ben looked away, his jaw ticking. “The Millennium Falcon has avoided their tracking system so far, but the map can’t stay here. Skywalker is a Resistance matter—unless you’d rather hire a bounty hunter to track him down.” He shrugged, tone flat. “But even that would take credits you don’t have.”

Chewie let out a surprised grunt. Leia raised a brow. Ben didn’t react. 

“Yes,” Leia said with a thin, humorless smile. “I heard about your career choice. It’s not exactly the path I envisioned for you. Extorting your own mother, though... that’s a new low, even for a bounty hunter."

Ben huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “You really think that’s what I’m doing?” He exhaled, the ghost of a smirk on his lips. “I’m not looking for a job. I’m giving you a professional opinion.” He gestured vaguely. “Facing the First Order to chase after a ghost? No one’s taking that job. And a map? No one wants it. Not even me.”

His voice flattened out, losing the edge of humor. “You want to find Luke Skywalker; I have what you need. I’m just suggesting you send someone to collect.”

Chewie let out a low, rumbling breath—too soft to be a growl, too full of sorrow to be anything else. Leia didn’t look at him, but he saw the way her shoulders tensed, the way her throat worked as she swallowed whatever emotion she refused to show.

“Understood. I’ll take care of it from here,” Leia murmured. Her voice was steady, but Chewie heard what Ben couldn’t.

The grief beneath it.

Chapter Text

Despite all her years away from desert living, the sensation of being submerged in water was still unusual to Rey. It was the first thing she felt- the weightlessness, the slow dreamlike drift of her limbs, the strands of hair floating like weeds around her face.

A dull, persistent hum vibrated in her ears. She cracked a bleary eye open.

Beyond the murky water, a pale, distorted face peered back at Rey. Watching.

Rey flinched. A sharp inhale sent a burst of bubbles up toward the wavering light above, the thin, chemical air burning the back of her throat. Her heart slammed once—twice—before instinct kicked in.

“ Wake up.”

The voice was not her own, but it was one she knew all the same.

Panic sharpened to awareness. The cold needled into her spine, and the manufactured oxygen filled her lungs with a swampy, artificial taste. She was in a bacta tank. Suspended. Trapped. A rising pressure pressed against her chest, suffocating despite the mask.

She jerked, thrashing upward.

The light above swam closer—her fingers clawed for something, anything, until—

She broke the surface.

A gasping, ragged breath ripped from her lungs as sound rushed back in. Alarms screaming, voices barking orders. The clatter of footsteps on metal. Water streamed down her face, sticking along the seams of her eyes, blinding her. She grabbed the rim of the tank and went to heave herself up, the wet fabric of her undergarments clinging, dragging her down. Someone moved to the edge of the pool, blocking her.

She came face to face with polished black boots. So pristine that her warped reflection glared back at her.

Her breath hitched. For a moment she thought… she thought it was-

She forced herself to look up through strands of soaked hair, stomach twisting, pulse hammering against bruised skin.

" Hux ," she growled through the breathing mask, her voice strange and garbled to her own ears.

The general of the First Order smiled thinly down at her. "Revanth," he greeted, voice cool, detached. "You look surprisingly well-rested. Did you enjoy your time in the tanks? I imagine it was... refreshing."

Snake-tongued bastard. She pulled herself up out, attendants swarming to her with robes and tools, but she shoved them away. With a sharp jerk, she tore off the mask, flinging it aside and turned to level him with a glare.

“Careful Revanth,” he said, “those breathing apparatuses are expensive.”

" Why are you here? " she snapped, ignoring him.

Cold, sterile hands appeared over her arms and goose-prickled skin, peeling away adhesive tags and removing tubes and needles found all over. Unease crept in as she took in her surroundings—an isolated chamber, dimly lit. The bacta tank stood alone on the first level, while the second, separated only by a short flight of stairs, housed medical droids, doctors, and beeping monitors. The egress to the pool lay in the center of the floor. The blue glow of the water warped Hux’s reflection against the floor.

For the first time she really looked at him. His face was sharper than she remembered, sunken from lack of sleep. Dark circles smudged under his pale eyes, and flakes of stress-induced dandruff clung to the gel in his hair. He looked like hell. Rey savored it.

"You've been summoned by the Supreme Leader. I’ve been sent to fetch you." He eyed her with a flicker of contempt. "Personally, I would have preferred you remained sedated.”

"And I’ll bet you've made your opinions known to Snoke, then?" Revanth simpered. A robe is threaded over her arms silently, covering her sodden, thin fatigues. She resisted the need to shudder; the water had been so cold.

"Of course."

The droids filed out one by one, leaving behind a dark folded pile of what was likely to be clothes. She admitted a single, dry sound. "How long?"

The general did not need any clarification as to what she was asking, that was his only redeeming quality. "You've been incapacitated for ten days," he answered, folding long arms behind him, "all of which were spent in the tanks. Had there been any more damage you would have died. But here you are: alive and in one piece- more or less."

"What do you mean?"

Hux’s expression barely flickered, but she saw it—the restrained, almost gleeful malice in his eyes. It was a look she recognized, the same one she had seen in Jakku’s traders when they promised a fair deal, only to snatch her portions away and vanish into the crowded markets of Niima Outpost.

"See for yourself," he said, pulling a compact mirror from his jacket.

Of course he would carry such a device with him at all times, conceited in every way possible. Revanth glared at the proffered mirror, but accepted it, flipping the lid open and finding-

R'iia , a steel woven Bacta patch covers the right side of her face, a deep depression in the socket where her eye had been. The patch tapered out into a thick slash of scar below and above her eye, following her cheek and neck, slivering into her brow and disappearing beneath the high collar of her black robe. She already knows where the scar will end without having to follow it, the puncture ebbed with a dull ache on her upper ribs, and she wondered how it was that she survived. She swallowed a dry lump down her throat and shook off the thoughts of disfigurement, snapping the chrome compact closed hard enough that he winced.

"My eye," she said in a deadpan, tossing it back to him, "it will have to be replaced." 

Not for cosmetic reasons of course, that is the furthest thing from her mind. No, she needed both eyes to see. She could not rule the First Order, could not duel and be of use to her master half blind now, can she?

Hux quietly checked his compact and exhaled when he found spidering cracks. He slipped it back into the front of his trench coat. "Yes, the Supreme Leader said as much. A donor is being looked for as we speak."

"A willing one?" It was hard to believe anyone would be particularly excited to give up an organ for their superior, loyal as the First Order was.

"Compensated," he said coolly, "it is all the same."

She wanted to point out that it isn't, but was too exhausted to continue sniping at him. She ached nearly everywhere despite the intensive care she had received. Her bones were leaden and pulsed to their marrow, and a headache blossomed in between her brows from dehydration. The sooner that she could abandon Hux and retreat to her quarters, the better. So Revanth nodded, and ran her fingers over the clothes, ignoring the tremor to them. "Yes, general," she said, "I suppose it is."

Hux guided her down the Supremacy, steps echoing off the steel floors. Her weeping mask had been slotted over her face once more, covering her head. She breathed through it, and the vents hissed as she exhaled, inhaled, exhaled. Through the visor, stormtroopers marched in squadrons, blasters at the hips, radio channels whirring, but then- they saw her. She felt their disturbance ripple through her, their silence, their fear, it came to her as though she had pulled it to her side with the force. Like a loyal dog, it pooled in her hands, her stomach, and she drew it in with practice. 

“Look at how they scurry from you, like rats catching sight of a snake.” Hux whispered into her ear, “What a pity it would be if they learned the truth.” 

Revanth’s body tensed. He straightened, a smirk on his pale lips, and fingered his collar. She wanted to choke him with it. She turned away from him, from the fog in her mind, and walked in stony silence. 

He led them further down into the belly of the ship. The officers were fewer on the ground here, and the drones whirred and scuffed quietly. Ahead, at the end of the hall, there was a final, black durasteel door. 

He stopped before it, and she glanced at him from the corner of her vision, “Snoke will not see you?” She asked. 

“No. No, I am afraid that this meeting is for you and your master, alone.” 

The door opened. Sweat beaded down her neck, her eye twitched, Hux saw none of it. 

She walked into the dark, familiar already with the dimensions of the sloping tunnel. The air was thick; laced with a presence, a voice. Revanth came out of the tunnel and into the dimly lit amphitheater that held her Master. He sat on his throne, a tall, simple structure of stone and iron, a distant, dusty light cutting his silhouette and shading his face. He did not look up when his voice rumbled throughout the room. 

“Revanth,” Snoke said, “You have disappointed me.” 

She fell to her knee, a lancing pain at the impact made her wince, “forgive me. I answered your call as soon as I heard.” 

“And still, it was not soon enough…” Pressure touched her temples, the beginnings of a headache appearing. “Have I not taught you the story of Darth Plagueis, my apprentice? Have you forgotten so soon?” 

She said nothing, and he continued, voice taking a different edge. “Darth Plagueis studied the ways of the dark side, and through his studies, he found the power to heal himself, to bind his life to the very center of the force and save himself from the brink of death…” the headache deepened, drummed into her skull. “I taught you this technique, didn’t I?” 

The pressure notched, too sudden, too heavy. She closed her eyes against the thudding.

“ANSWER ME!” Snoke roared, and she shuddered in her spot.

“You did,” she said finally. 

“And yet… you were lost to me for ten cycles. I roused you from the deep, where you could not find yourself.” 

She groaned as the weight of the pain increased, and her shoulders started to buckle. “Master-” 

“You!” Snoke snarled, and her head exploded with thunder. Rey staggered back on her knees, clutching at her head. Snoke’s pale hands trembled as he exerts the force onto her, “You so rife with power, yet still so weak! So easily bested!” 

She choked, and her body slid and lifted against its own will, feet grazing the floor where she met the pale, enraged face of Snoke. His gnarled lip leers upwards, the sunken cavity of his cheek stretches thin, and his piercing eyes burn. Their ire burned through her as her veins congealed, as her face reddened, and she scrambled to relieve the pressure at her jugular: Her consciousness began to falter. 

And then- it withdrew. 

Snoke released her. She fell, body collapsing, shuddering against the floor. She heaved, and gasped for breath. The room spun, and above her Snoke stood, poised and regal like an executioner. She remembered this feeling, this wetness to her eyes. He reached out, and with the force the mask she wore clatters to the ground. She flinched at the lights, the sound, at Snoke’s cold, gnarled hand directing her chin upwards, bringing her gaze up towards his. 

“Oh my apprentice…” his voice was soft, “you are still the same girl I found in the sands all those years ago. So young, so strong, but not strong enough I’m afraid, the padawan…” 

Revanth blinked into the harsh light and shook clear of the last vestiges of Snoke’s punishment, roused by a fire. “Let me search for him, Supreme Leader. I will find him, and bring him and Skywalker to you. The padawan’s force signature- I had it, there in the forest, I sensed it,” she sounded desperate, she knew, but she couldn’t bring herself to care, “I can find him again.” 

His nails dug into her skin, “You can track him? Are you certain?” 

Prove yourself, prove yourself, prove yourself. The words echoed in her mind, entirely her own. 

“Yes,” Revanth said, “I’m certain.” 

Snoke leaned close, his brow etched in concentration as he considered her, cataracts shining in the low light. “Good,” he said, his hands pried away from her face, leaving tiny crescents on her jaw, “You will find Skywalker and his apprentice, and General Hux will focus on hunting down the resistance. You are dismissed, ” 

She rose from the floor, head spinning as the knot in her stomach cinched, but she nodded all the same. There would be time to worry about the fleet, about Hux, his unbidden control, and how she will keep him in check, later. For now, she straightened, placing the mask over her head, hiding the determined set to her jaw, the slight smile on her lips. She will gather her forces to her, and then she will hunt.

Chapter Text

She returned to the Finalizer in her own star-craft, landing in a private dock. It was a small dock compared to the grand, multi-level shuttle bays that both the Finalizer and Hux boasted of- intimate almost, and startlingly different. Here, the lights were not overtly bright and carried the slightest tinge of colour, in each corner radiators were stationed, and toolboxes were shelved to the side. Engine parts were mounted on the high and easily tradeable and manipulated through the Force. The only ships that occupied this steel hangar were hers and hers alone, down to every last nut and bolt.

She stood at the entrance of the ship as the hatch door slowly fell open. Steam covered her boots, and brushed against the corners of her visor as she took the pneumatic ramp down. There were no delegates, or a squadron of stormtroopers to meet her, no leering admirals and droids scuttling around the edges of the landing pad. The privacy of the dock served her well, sparing everyone the forced extravagances of fanfare, deception, and rumours.

Her hands came to her mask, gently pulling it from her head as she took a deep, clarifying breath; inhaling the scent of engine fuel, singe, and iron, the air was easy and dry on her face as she crossed the hangar.

A beep. The intercom crackled with static before a voice spoke.

“General Revanth,” the voice was distinctly masculine, familiar, “Welcome back to the fleet.”

“Lieutenant Commander Nemarst,” she greeted, her eyes tracked to the exiting doors to the hangar as they noiselessly slid open, and she stepped into the long, sleek hall. “It’s good to be back.”

“Quite,” Nemarst responded. Still bodiless, his voice floated from speaker to speaker. She never bothered to pinpoint her assisting’s exact location, but she suspected he stayed near her quarters, always within reach.

Revanth felt his approach rather than saw it. Like durasteel drawn to a magnet, Nemarst emerged from the shadows with the same quiet precision as always- rigid, calculated, his hands clasped behind his back. Revanth didn’t spare him a glance as she relieved herself of her helmet, and strode down the hall.

“Will you be needing anything today? Perhaps a medical droid?” Nemarst’s voice did not waver, but his gaze flicked just for a second, to the scar cutting through her eye. A minor hesitation, but enough.

“Spare me. I need the full incident report on Takodana. And Nemarst—when I say the entirety, I mean the entirety.”

“Understood, General,” he said, “I will see to it personally that it's collected and sent to you by the end of the cycle.”

They approached the elevator at the end of the hall. Out of the edges of her periphery, she watched him. The man was older, brown and grey hair buzzed to his scalp, as was common amongst the officers of the First Order. Lines had begun to creep along the corners of his mouth, his expression was flat and dull.

No gumption. No bite. No spine. Complacent and pliant to her will. Her gut twisted, and her fingers twitched.

So much incompetence ran unchecked in the First Order, and a lack of conviction to match. It was why turncoats like FN-2187 had begun to crop up. Deserters, traitors, and orphans too stupid to understand what they owed and sent to reconditioning to be reminded. She had thought it was an anomaly. But now, standing beside Nemarst, she felt it again. The machinery of the Order grinding, catching.

She turned to him, but she didn’t see the weathering of age, the dullness to his eyes. She saw FN-2187.

“You will send it to me within the hour. I do not want a repeat of the last report where key movements were not delivered until it was too late. Do you remember what happened to your assistant the last time a report was incomplete?”

Silence reigned heavy in the hall. Nemarst kept his gaze on the ground as his throat bobbed. “Yes, General. I do.”

"We lost the map to Skywalker then, and now we are behind. How is the trooper holding up?” In front of Revanth and Nemarst the elevator doors rolled open without either of their notice.

The balanced expression on his face flickered, there and then gone before she could study it. “He is still under sedation, on the disposal list now, or so I’m told.”

She turned on her heel and stepped into the elevator, leaving him in his place. “Then we have an understanding. See that this is done with competency, Lieutenant, the First Order has no room for mistakes.”

The elevator rose. The doors slid open to her quarters—a simple fare. A bed lay to the left. A carbon slab made the base of the canopy where black-out curtains hung and perimetered the mattress. One door led to a wash station, and the other a walk-in closet. She saw her reflection in the mirror but paid little mind to the silhouette of her armour. Other doors led elsewhere; A gym, an office, and a meditation room. You could live your whole life in these halls. Some officers did, but Revanth couldn’t- wouldn’t. She turned to the last door and entered the meditation room. 

The room was dark and serene save for the blur of the bluish glow of light speed that poured in from the window. It highlighted the black walls lined with artefacts from other systems, planets and nations.

Her trophies.

Her travels. Her life displayed, to be viewed and reminiscenced upon in the few and far moments she had to herself. She took one such moment, glancing to ensure everything remained in its place then moved past spears, ceremonial robes woven with shining thread, and vials of thrumming clone embryos. Nothing escaped her notice, but nothing held her focus—until she reached one of the few remaining gaps on the wall.

Her hand went to her hip and brushed past the heavy material of her outer skirts, where she pulled out an old, scorched blaster, half melted, and set it into the wall. The faint force signature of Han Solo still resided, scribed into the barrel, the trigger place, and in every other curve and inch of the antique. It was strange to feel its echo still. It was one of arrogance, old tales, but behind the bravado that belonged to its owner, a heavier emotion tarried.

She stepped away from the wall and frowned. It seemed that Han Solo was more complex a man than the smuggler captain from the old propaganda pieces had led her to believe. But that didn’t matter anymore if it ever did. He was dead, cut down like the rest, and she had other things to focus on: old connections to shake the dust off of.

She didn’t need eyes to search the room for the signatures, the Force did that for her. It was like fingering for a pulse—quick, instinctive. Just beneath the surface, always there.

She found five signatures of the knights of Ren and slammed into the sixth like a barricade. Cold. Dead. A husk tucked into the sand.

A shudder crawled down Revanth’s back as she stumbled backwards, and away from the western wall where the echo was.

Trugden.

He had been stationed on Starkiller. Stalking the halls like a caged animal and monitoring the council on her behalf. He’d been a loyal warrior of the Ren, with a knack for overhearing the most disturbing gossip, and odious plots. But he’d never been the best about taking note of his exits. He’d liked to cut his way through them.

How he died, she didn’t know. But she would. Revanth screwed her eyes tight, let the sickness and shock curdle in her gut, and stored it away. She rallied herself and delved into the murmurs of the surviving members of the Knights of Ren.

They pulsed with stories, like threads. Revanth found herself tugging on them at different intervals and rates. Back and forth. Back and forth. Speaking. She called out in a code of dashes, dots, and breaths that connected like writing, scrawling out a message through a power of sensations they all carried within them.

A rhythm took shape. A drum rippled out into the corners of the galaxy. Time stretched, yawning, and for a time, she was lost—carried with the echo.

Until a ping from the intercom on her wrist blared, shattering her focus, and sending the walls and shelves rattling. She growled and looked down at her wrist.

It was Nemarst and the battle report. Prompt and within the hour as ordered. She wondered, not for the first time, why she'd been given a personal assistant such as the Leitentant, and what could have qualified him for such a role. Nemarst was useful, but no different from a droid. Perhaps he had qualities that set him apart from other subordinates—but if so, she had never needed them. He was just another relic, sitting in her orbit. The Force knew she had a talent for collecting them.

She left the meditation room and entered the study. In the centre of the room, a hologram projector flicked on, displaying shifting statistics, casting grainy recordings of a green planet and its forest-dense battleground. The footage of the stormtroopers assaulting the rebel fort flooded into the room. The footage was muted, but she could still hear the blaster shots arc, smell the mulch, and feel the earth beneath her boots as she trekked through the forest with her squadron behind her.

It had been weeks since the assault, but to her, it as well have been yesterday. Her time in the tanks blurred the line between past and present, making it difficult to grasp the Order’s new aspirations. She was not just looking for an old Jedi lunatic and his friends anymore. Now, there were new insurgents to root out.

His face flashed to the forefront of her mind.

Revanth swiped the interface of the hologram, isolating her own squadron’s feed. The footage enlarged, the camera shaking with each hurried breath of the stormtrooper. She watched herself—a dark figure striding ahead, cutting a path through the thick bush.

Stones and boulders began to crop up with old arches and crumbling stairs and steps. The BB-8 unit whirled and chittered nervously up ahead, hiding in the rocky nooks before it approached a wall. The droid found a small dugout beneath the old wall and burrowed, its round frame kicking up dirt in a desperate escape bid. Blaster fire scorched the stone inches from its plating, sending up plumes of smoke.

“Go around!” One of the commanding troopers said, the others made to fan out, to surround.

Revanth didn’t wait. She threw her hand up, and the wall groaned in protest before it collapsed, landing in a heap of rubble. The dust settled. There was the droid. It grinded to a stop against its will, seizing mid-motion against a force hold.

It was trapped. Nowhere to run.

Then—movement. A figure leapt from the ruins, landing with the momentum of a storm, blaster fire cutting through the chaos.

The bounty hunter from Jakku .

A battle cry tore from his throat, raw and unyielding, as he shot at stormtroopers with the reckless fury of a beast. “BB-8, RUN!”

In an instant, the droid seized its chance. It whirled on its axis, discharged a stun bolt, and shot off like a streak of white and orange. She dodged, barely, the electric crackle hissing past her.

Then it was gone—vanishing into the trees, and the bounty hunter was right behind it…

Revanth growled and killed the projection. She’d seen enough.

Long presumed dead, the wayward heir of the Skywalker line had finally resurfaced on a barren wasteland, not as a warrior or a conqueror, but as a hired gun. A bounty hunter, chasing scraps. And for what? To protect a zippy droid carrying the location of his cryptic, cult-brooding master. And Han Solo—his father—was fighting tooth and nail nearby. A well-oiled, genetic, and familial nuisance.

But the stormtrooper? What was his place in this mess? A deserter turned rebel? A stray looking for a cause?

She needed to see it. Needed to understand.

Revanth scanned the logs, squinting as she leaned forward. And there he was, buried in the archives, staring back at her with that damned lightsaber in his hands.

She selected the video again and watched as the scene unfolded.

FN-2187 wielded the weapon like a club, all blunt force and wasted potential, a disgrace of technique. Brutal sacrilege to a weapon of that pedigree and history. He rushed up behind a stormtrooper, speared him through his armour, and cast a level glance around. A trained and collected killer of the Order’s calibre indeed. He certainly had no issue with turning and killing one of his own.

Her blood boiled.

Then, behind him, through smoke and chaos, a stormtrooper caught sight of him, armed with a blaster, riot shield, and baton.

“TRAITOR!” The soldier shouted over the screaming jets of engines and the garbled lingo of commands. FN-2187 steadied as the soldier tossed his blaster and shield to the side, whipping his melee weapon with precision.

The solider charged, and they collided. The blow reverberated throughout the field.

They moved with an unspoken rhythm. Up and down, weaving around each other like they’d done this a hundred times before. Because they had, hadn’t they? That would be the only explaination. They sparred in training drills together, ate together, and were raised together. FN-2187, and the other, FN-2199.

It looked near choreographed, unnaturally smooth and fast. It was a mental fight as much as a physical one. FN-2199 battered down on the kyber blade. Sweat dripped down FN-2187’s brow.

“Don’t do this!” he urged, “Nines, just let me go! Nines!”

But he did not fall for those pathetic cries of mercy. He kept on the offensive, waiting for his opening in the traitor’s guard.

FN-2187 swung down in a desperate act to get space. Nines, as he’d been called, caught the blow. The baton lit in a white sizzle of electricity, sparking on the other’s unprotected skin. He pushed FN-2187 back, the stormtrooper lunging before he could catch his footing. The baton bludgeoned FN-2187’s side, sending him falling onto his back. FN-2199 stalked forward, meaning to deliver the killing blow-

A bowcaster shot sprung. Hitting FN-2199 and sending him flying through the air, limp before he hit the ground and smoking.

Revanth shot to her feet. Hand clasping her wrist.

“Nemarst!” She barked into the set. “Report on FN-2199’s condition post-Takodana. Immediately.”

Nemarst hesitated, shocked by the request, but responded at once. “Yes, General.” She heard the rapid tap of fingers against a console before he spoke again.

“He’s alive.”

Revanth’s breath caught. Shock jolted through her.

“But he’s been in stasis, in the tanks since Takodana. Minimal activity from his CTA scans…” He trailed off, the silence stretching too long.

Her patience snapped. “Whatever it is, just spit it out.”

Another pause. Then— “He’s being moved to the disposal chute as we speak.”

The room lurched, twisting in on itself. Revanth’s stomach bottomed out.

“Stop them,” the words buzzed against the shell of her ears, distant and unreal. Then her body moved before she could think, and she ran. “Stop them at all costs!”

Revanth barreled through the ship’s corridors, troopers diving out of her way. Officers and droids scrambled, exclamations and glances sliding over her as she tore through the maze of halls.

Her eyes narrowed. She shoved aside an admiral, one thought drilling into her mind, over and over.

“General,” Nemarst sounded in her ear then. “The squadron’s comm links are shut off. I can’t reach them.”

Dammit.

Revanth stormed into the ship’s belly, blowing past the infirmary’s rows of beds. She pushed deeper into the next section. Eerie rows of bacta tanks lined the space, each holding an unconscious trooper floating in suspended animation. The silence was broken only by the soft hum of bubbles. Above, a revolving sign displayed the names of those marked for disposal—troopers deemed too injured to serve, too much of a liability, and too costly to keep alive.

Her blood ran cold at the sight .

A medical droid craned over the charts of a patient. Revanth grabbed it by the metal lapels and shoved it into the glass of a nearby tank, a flurry of bubbles bursting from behind.

“Where is the disposal chute?” She growled. The droid pointed to the ground to a set of tracks. She followed them, gaze landing on a door past rows of tanks. Revanth released it a fumble and threw herself into the control room.

Four stormtroopers whirled on her in shock, blasters raised. They stood stationed by the controls, and behind them, the viewport revealed the trash bay. On the other side, laid on cheap stretchers, was the cycle's death lineup, unconscious and awaiting ejection.

The force detonated in the room before Revanth could control it, throwing the gravity off each trooper and slamming them into the walls and ceiling. They gurgled and choked, legs dangling like vines that she dove under to get to the viewport.

Her eyes scanned the row of bodies—cold, naked, and slick with bacta residue, their lips tinged purple. Some still breathed, their chests rising faintly. Others, without ventilators, were already lifeless.

Revanth shut her eyes behind the visor as she probed for a signature she’d never encountered. She hit too many dead hollows for comfort and focused on the living.

One writhed like a strangled snake to her stimulation, cold as ice and jagged like stone, it pierced through her like a fist of freezing shards. Her body temperature dropped with it.

“Wake up,” she called, a soundless voice vibrating within her, reaching out to that icy force. “Wake up.”

Nothing happened. In the row of carcasses, everything remained still. Revanth leaned forward, leather gloves tightening against her knuckles as she waited.

“General-” One of the dangling stormtroopers started-

“Shut up.”

Then, with a strangled gasp, his body lurched violently, jerking upright as if the very air around him had torn him from the coma-

FN-2199 was awake. 

They had to drag his weak body back through the bay doors and into one of the private infirmary rooms. She watched as the medic droids surged onto him, sticking IV lines into his arms, flashing lights in his eyes, and tracking his pulse with a cardiograph. It brought a keen sense of déjà vu as Revanth watched from the distant shadows. Hadn’t she just escaped this same examination not even two cycles ago?

Captain Phasma entered the observatory with little warning and fell into place alongside Revanth, towering over her.

“General Revanth,” she said, her tone was level, clipped.

“Captain.” She responded. Phasma tilted her head toward the bed and the ensuing commotion.

“You’ve only just returned to the Finalizer and already created a commotion that will have the troops talking. How ever do you do it?” It was said without guile, or sharpness, more like a cool, humorous observation.

Revanth’s fingers twitched. “I promise you the rumours won’t get far.” She turned slightly. “Tell Hux that FN-2199’s file has been transferred. He’s no longer his concern.” A beat and she added, “Or yours.”

Phasma stiffened. “Understood.”

She turned without another word, cutting off further testing from the droids with a single, commanding gesture. One hand, encased in chrome, came to rest on the meat of FN-2199’s shoulder. She said something to him, voice too low for Revanth to hear, but whatever it was made his forehead crease. His blue eyes flicked to Revanth, a searching expression cracking into something stunned.

“Leave us,” Revanth told the room.

The droids, lingering before, scuttled off to their other responsibilities. Phasma stepped back and passed Revanth without a glance, her shoulder knocking into hers as she left.

It was just them now, and the silence pressed.

FN-2199 inched up into a sitting position, still sluggish from his stasis. His voice was horse from disuse. “It was you, wasn’t it?” He said from the bed, “You pulled me back.”

He swallowed, glancing down at his chest, at the place where the wound should have ended him. The bacta had done its work, but the shot’s burn still lingered like a purple stain. “Why?”

Why had a general dragged herself to the trash chutes of a warship to rouse one unnoticeable, brain-dead soldier?

Revanth didn’t answer immediately. She stepped into the light, circling the sickbed, gaze sharp. Reaching out, she tilted his chin, inspecting him. He had blue eyes, sharp and sunken, the dark hollows beneath them. His russet brows knit together in quiet strain.

She released him, straightening.

“I don’t like letting potential go to waste.”

The words landed heavy.

Because she had seen it. The way FN-2187 had wielded that sabre—sloppy, raw, but intuitive. And FN-2199 had beaten him, overpowered him, outmatched him, and would have won had there not been the unfortunate interference on Han Solo’s part.

Lightsabers didn’t let themselves be used by just anyone, even clumsily. They responded to something.

Revanth’s voice was softer, but no less deliberate, “Nines, is it?”

His brows furrowed. He had to wipe a calloused pale down his face to reset himself. “That’s what my squad calls me.”

“Is that what Finn called you?”

His jaw ticked. Hard. “That’s not his name.”

She exhaled through her nose, something like agreement. “No, I suppose not. There are other names for him now. Rebel. Murderer. He left you for dead. Your squad—your brothers. He betrayed all of you.”

Nines didn’t move, but something in him solidified—silent, unyielding.

"The worst of it," she said, her tone shifting into something almost amused, almost pitying, "is that he seems to think he’s a Jedi now."

She let the silence stretch. Let the words sink in, settle like a weight in the air. Finally, she spoke again—quiet, almost thoughtful. “Tell me, soldier- did you know? Did you feel it?”

His eyes met an unreadable visor and trailed the black, glinting tracks that ran from the rims of the mask, a skewed imitation of tears as permanent as scars.

“No.” His voice was hard, “I didn’t realize he was Force-sensitive. I’d have killed him a long time ago if I had known.”

She could sense the frustration, the anger as if he hated even admitting his blindness. Revanth studied him for a long moment, then tilted her head, gaze piercing. “That’s a dangerous thing to say. Haven’t you realized you are like him?”

He stilled. Not a flinch. Not a gasp. Just silence. White-knuckled, airless silence.

Revanth smiled, and the infirmary lights flooded red with sabre glow.

Nines jerked back into his bed. “What are you doing?” He snapped.

She leaned in, saber just centimeters from his neck. Heat shimmered against his skin, distorting its edges. Her voice scraped through the vents of her mask, crackling, cold, absolute. “Move it.”

His gaze jumped—from mask to sabre to hands—always back to the blade. He made to lift his hands-

She snarled. The sabre edged closer. The heat panted against the taut, waiting tendons in his neck. A hair from cutting deep. “Not like that. Move it.”

"I don’t know what you want," he ground out in a measured bite, struggling to keep his voice level from the panic and frustration of being trapped.

"You do." Her voice curled like smoke. "You felt it at Takodana."

Takodana.

The battle. The chaos. The moment FN-2187’s betrayal became a living reality instead of an awful nightmare. He could still feel the way his baton cracked against the saber’s energy like a storm breaking. The way he had been winning. The way it didn’t matter, and then thrown aside. Like garbage. The way he should have died.

"Show me," Revanth said.

He broke from her stare, tried to shift away, find a sliver of space, but the sabre followed him. His mouth worked soundlessly, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Move.” His voice warbled in a tone that wasn’t Nines’, not exactly, but nothing more. “Move.”

She stayed. And her patience grew thin. It was right there, that potential, she could see it- she wasn’t wrong, couldn’t be again. On the edge of her blade, she offered the galaxy- the chance to be something more. Ben Solo could not see that, and would not accept it, but Nines would.

She dropped the blade into his collarbone, searing and cauterizing it all at once. Nines screamed. She grabbed at his face with one gloved hand, pressed her thumb onto the papery skin of his eyelid and pushed it open. His iris rolled to the back of his head. He convulsed in her grip, the hinges and metal of the bed rattled and groaned with the tremors.

“Look at me!” She seethed. “Look!”

“Get away from me!" He cried in that heavy, force-tinged voice that pounded in her skull. “Get. Off!”

Revanth reeled back. The saber flicked off. Sweat dripped from Nines’ pale forehead. His breath came in sharp, ragged gasps, like he’d run a marathon. The pillow beside his head smoldered, a hot-edged hole melting through the bedframe, dipping into the wall. He didn't scramble away. He wasn’t shaking. He was staring.

"That," she said, her voice sharp with something between exhilaration and hunger, "was you."

His eyes flicked to his hands, then back to the melted bedframe. He flexed his fingers, curling them as if he expecting to feel something.

"So that’s what that feels like." His voice was hoarse, but steady. Certain.

Revanth stepped closer. “And that was instinct. Imagine what you could do if you were trained." She saw the thought settle into place, not as hesitation, but as recognition. A rare jolt of excitement ran through her. He understands.

She extended her hand. "Let me show you, and together, we’ll make them pay."

He didn’t hesitate. His fingers closed around hers, firm and deliberate—a choice, not a concession.

Revanth’s smile sharpened. "I knew you would."