Chapter Text
Outside the StarKiller base
The frigid wind bit at Rey's face as she stared down at her fallen adversary. Luke Skywalker's lightsaber still hummed in her hand, casting a blue glow on the snow and on Kylo Ren's pained, bleeding face. Kylo's own fractured weapon lay useless and broken in the snowbank behind her. He was at her mercy. His blood stained the ground, the maroon stain growing by the moment, and even now, he looked up at her as a wounded animal might, with resignation and anger at its defeat.
Reflexively, Rey gave the lightsaber another threatening twirl. She could end him. He deserved no less. Her memories of her past were dim, and her interpretation of them even murkier, but this man did not deserve to live. He murdered Han Solo. He slaughtered at will on every planet he touched, and for what? A mission to find a man who might very well be myth, and who was certainly no threat to the First Order. It was a foolish, fruitless endeavor, the sign of an obsessed and addled mind incapable of seeing the present. And for this, she pitied him.
Whether Kylo Ren, his wounded arm pressed desperately against an even more wounded side, noticed the change in her demeanor, she would never know. While she spent only seconds in her jaded perusal of him, his gloved hand clenched with whatever dark force he could muster. His enemy was not attuned to it; she was too new, too baffled by her abilities to see his workings on the periphery. The ground rippled under her feet, but this was due to the planet's last shuttering breath before its inevitable demise. Rey adjusted her stance, the lightsaber blade still poised dangerously above him. He knew then that she might really kill him.
Kylo extended his arm, unleashing the force with a hoarse cry. Caught off guard, Rey flew back into a tree and collapsed. Too weak to enjoy his brief victory, Kylo leaned back into the icy snow, his vision blacking out. He released the pressure on his side wound, letting it bleed freely. His death was inevitable now, but at least it was not by a novice's hand.
He was unconscious by the time the First Order ship arrived. Stormtroopers ran down the platform and grabbed him roughly, dragging him without ceremony into the ship. Moments later, their intimidating, chrome-plated superior descended, taking one last glance at the battleground. Her readings were correct. Not five meters from where Kylo Ren had fallen, the First Order prisoner—the Jakku scavenger—lay helpless in the snow. Captain Phasma pointed at the supine Rey and ordered her retrieval as well. The ground heaved aggressively under the stormtroopers' boots, but just as the trees and snow sank and disappeared into a dark abyss, the young woman was dropped on the platform and the ship sped off into the night. The planet and First Order StarKiller weapon heaved and collapsed into itself, like a dying star, before exploding.
Captain Phasma observed Kylo Ren and the girl in her cold, perfunctory manner, ignoring the shaking under her feet from the explosion. Kylo Ren's injuries were serious, but treatable. While tempted to let the mercurial warrior die, she knew the Supreme Leader favored the him, and thus, she had to uphold the Supreme Leader's will.
“Take Kylo Ren to the infirmary,” she ordered, and she was quickly obeyed. Next, she knelt and looked at the unconscious Rey, still gripping the lightsaber. The back of the girl's head was bloody, but the captain disregarded this injury as minor. More concerning, however, was the limp, wrenched position of the girl's lithe frame.
“This one's back is broken,” the captain noted, her frown evident in her voice, “have her treated but not at the expense of Kylo Ren.” She pried the lightsaber out of Rey's clenched hand.
Standing to her impressive height, she waved over the two remaining stormtroopers. They dragged the prisoner to the infirmary with little regard to her condition, and just for a moment, the First Order captain was thankful the girl was blissfully unaware. She took the lightsaber and walked down the hall to the bridge.