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Finn looks to Rey, then back to the water. The crumbling Death Star deck sways beside the skimmer. Kef Sur laps gently around them, throwing up spray and salt into his face. At least it’s not roiling yet. Though if they don’t get a move-on, Kef Bir’s tempestuous seas will have the better of them. Not exactly the best place in the galaxy to be looking for kyber but this is the only lead they have. He studies the water, blinking through the mist. Rey frowns as Poe and Jannah exchange a look.
“I think so,” Rey says at last. She glances at him then back at the water. “Do you feel it?”
Finn takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. This is all still so new, so novel, but he’s starting to get the hang of it. He hopes. The Force swirls around him, shimmering across the eddying water like some living thing. Around him, he can sense his friends. Rey, bright and blinding in the Force. Jannah nearby as the feeling of blue. And Poe by his side, shimmering as a soft golden light. It’s comforting, in a way. But not what he’s looking for. He reaches past it. Down into the water to the bottom of the sea. The distance is hard to gauge but it’s less than he expected. Maybe one hundred meters. Shallow enough for the aquasuit. The sounds of the sea and the wind fade to a muffled sort of roar as he searches. And there beneath it, just barely, is a sinister hiss. A shard of anger buried in the mud.
He opens his eyes with a sigh. “Yeah, it’s there.”
Finn looks to Rey for confirmation but he doesn’t need it. Not really. He’s felt that same feeling before in Kylo Ren.
“So let me get this straight,” Poe says hesitantly. “You’re gonna put on a couple aquasuits and go digging around at the bottom of the sea for Lord Helmet’s lightsaber?”
Finn snorts but appreciates the levity. Even though he knows that is exactly the plan, Poe still somehow manages to look incredulous. For good reason. This might not be the safest idea they’ve ever had.
“Yep,” Finn nods, feeling a bit incredulous himself. “There’s hardly a place left in the galaxy with kyber crystals. But we know for sure there’s one right here.”
“But at the bottom of Kef Sur?” Jannah echoes. “Surely there must be something easier to find.”
Finn shakes his head, slipping into his aquasuit as Rey does the same, musing, “Ren’s saber is still easier to find than anything we know about. We’d heard about crystals and maybe even a saber on Batuu--at some antiquities place run by a Dok-Ondar--but after our mission, it all disappeared.”
“There was also a rumor about a Savi’s Workshop on Batuu as well,” Rey continues, “where people used to teach about the Jedi. But they’ve gone dark. Moved or in hiding, maybe. We couldn’t find any trace of them anyway.”
“Starkiller Base was built on the biggest store of kyber crystals in the galaxy and it’s gone.” Finn grunts as he pulls up the suit to his shoulders. “So this is the best shot I have at finding a crystal. As far as we’ve been able to find.”
Poe hands him the helmet, looking skeptical, but it’s true. There’s so little left of the Jedi, it’s a miracle they’ve found anything at all.
After the fall of the First Order, after months of reconstruction and resettlement, the galaxy finally seemed like it didn’t need the Resistance anymore. Or at least, not as much. And Finn came back to that feeling that pulled at him and grew stronger every time he turned his attention toward it. He’d thought about it for ages, unsure exactly what to do. Not quite afraid but close. But the longer he’d thought, the more it felt right. Rey had the old texts, some knowledge from Luke and Leia. She might still be learning the Jedi path so why not do it together?
Once he made the decision in his head, Finn set about making it happen. He and Poe still led what was left of the Resistance, but in any time he could scrape together, Finn trained. Rey passed everything she knew. They poured over the texts together. Learned the creed together. Investigated every lead they could. Some passages spoke of Jedi trials, building a lightsaber, demonstrating combat techniques. Poe--and Rey for that matter--argued Finn had already met the trials fighting the First Order. But there was something about the challenge he savored. Not that he’d told anyone, but he dreamed of the kyber crystal at the bottom of the sea. Singing to him night after night in a sad sonorous tone. This one was his, he could feel it. Finn wasn’t sure how he would fix it, but there was a certainty seated deep in his chest. He could fix it and in doing so would connect with the Force in a way he’d never imagined.
Which led them back to Kef Bir.
At first, Finn thought he would go himself to retrieve the saber. Sneaking off on his own proved disastrous: Rey was already waiting for him, arms crossed, looking stern. When he explained his reasons, the location, she suggested Jannah and Poe be their guides. Jannah he understood. The ex-trooper had lived and mapped the place, she knew what she was doing. Poe though...less sure. Not that he didn’t want Poe along or that his friend was incapable in any way, but Rey could fly them, couldn’t she? Wouldn’t one of them need to stay behind to manage things? Finn had even--rather reluctantly--pointed that out and Rey insisted with a secretive smile.
“You’ll be happy to have him,” she’d said.
Finn quietly agreed. And, as it turns out, Rose and D’Acy were more than competent to fill in for the time being.
“Remember, we do this together,” Rey murmurs, adjusting the straps on his aquasuit. She pulls on her own helmet and her voice crackles over the comm, “Emotion yet peace. Whatever comes.”
“I’m not afraid,” Finn says, and he means it. It’s another certain feeling: if he cannot master his fear in the deep, he will not retrieve the crystal. Something lurks down there with it, ready to drive them away, he can feel it.
“Well don’t worry, I’ll be afraid for you.”
Finn glances at Poe. His brow is pinched, mouth set in an unhappy line. Finn tilts his head and sighs to himself in a soft sort of way. He reaches for Poe. Clasps his arm, and the pilot’s hand settles over his. Poe’s grip is steady but his eyes give him away; another something lurking there. A tightness between them that’s always present pulled taut in times of peril. Finn often wonders how far he could pull Poe toward him, if the pilot would snap away. His heart often begs him to try but that ...that is something Finn is afraid of. Instead, he squeezes Poe’s arm one more time, reassuring.
“We’ll be fine. You and Jannah have the retractors, you’re keeping us safe. Nothing to worry about.”
He gives Poe a gentle smile that doesn’t quite set the general’s nerves at ease. But Poe’s grip loosens and slides away. Enough for now.
Finn turns to the water. Steps to the edge of the skimmer. Black waves yawns beneath his feet, cresting gently still. Rey steps beside him and he turns back to Poe and Jannah.
“One hour,” he says, “and we’ll be back.”
“We’ll be here,” Jannah nods.
Poe glances at Rey but his gaze lingers on Finn as he says, “Call if you need us.”
Finn wants to reach back for Poe again, see if he can wipe some of that apprehension from the pilot’s face, but instead, he just nods in return. Then, he faces the water again. His helmet settles with a hiss. He takes a deep breath he doesn’t really need and plunges into the depths.
Bubbles explode around him then to his left as Rey hits the water. With a few taps on his vambrace, the aquasuit’s lights flicker on and the grav-belt activates, pulling him fast through the twilight waters to the darkness below. Soon, all that he can see is the small sphere of light cast off his shoulders. They touch down in a cloud of silt and, even through his boots, Finn can feel the squelch at the bottom. Here the waves no longer reach except in the most dire of weather. Devoid of visible life, an undisturbed wasteland stretches ahead. Half-rotted remains of common blub and striped canth reach through the mud alongside tracks of bottom-dwellers Company 77 may never have laid eyes on. Jannah hadn’t mentioned large ocean predators but to think there wouldn’t be any would be foolhardy. Finn glances over to Rey, her face illuminated sickly yellow in the aquasuit’s light.
“Are we close?” she asks, voice crackling in his ear. “I can’t hear it anymore.”
Finn frowns. Odd. Why wouldn’t Rey be able to hear the crystal? Maybe it’s the water, he wonders. Dampening the tone? That doesn’t seem quite right. Something’s off, he just can’t place what it is. The crystal’s hiss vibrates in his head louder than it’s ever been. Almost disorienting in its agonized shrill scream. He shakes his head and takes a breath. Centers his focus in the Force. He searches through the gloom for that telltale song, a faint tune just under the auditory snow.
“Up ahead.” He releases with a sigh, eyes fixed on the hiss in front of him. “Follow me.”
The saber isn’t far, he’s sure of it. They cover the distance easily with the suits’ dorsal repulsor packs, kicking up silt in their wake. Finn squints, searching the mud ahead. The saber’s likely buried by now but it doesn’t hurt to look. It helps him keep one eye out in the water in case anything should be hungry, making him acutely aware of their lack of weaponry. Each meter across makes the hissing louder and louder. Then abruptly, something appears in the darkness, not at all what he was expecting.
A dome.
Finn pulls up short, Rey at his side.
“What is that ?” she breathes.
Finn shakes his head. “I have no idea.”
“What’s goin’ on down there?” Poe’s voice almost makes him jump, unexpected as it is.
“It’s a dome, I think. Something surrounding the saber.”
Finn stretches out in the Force toward the thing, feeling Rey do the same. Probes along the outer limit. What lies ahead is like nothing he’s ever seen before. A dome of pitch black, like a drop of ink or liquid smoke sits in the seabed. Swirling along the edges in the ocean current. It’s large, possibly four meters in diameter, and partially sunk in the silt. And it’s hissing. Like static in his ears. Almost as loud as the kyber he’s been hearing since they landed.
“The saber’s there,” he murmurs.
Rey snorts softly to herself. “Figures.”
“Don’t go in it!” Poe shouts and Finn winces. “I know exactly what you’re thinkin’ buddy but leave it. Come back topside, we’ll find something else.”
“We’re so close!” Finn shoots back. “I don’t think it will hurt us.”
That’s not exactly true--the dome almost shimmers with malice. But it’s right there! Just steps away. Excitement wars with apprehension in Finn’s chest. He’s not really afraid to go in but the dome is off-putting, to say the least. Rey seems much more wary despite her earlier warning. It’s so unlike her to be afraid of anything that it gives Finn pause.
“What is it?”
“It’s...I--” She stops, jaw clenching tight. “It’s just a remnant. Nothing more.”
She says it more to herself than to Finn but he knows immediately what she’s talking about. This is still a Sith’s saber they’re going after. Even though Finn intends to put the crystal right, the reminder of duplicitous Ren still scares her. And rightly so. Finn can’t even begin to imagine being tethered as Rey had been. Maybe that’s why she can’t hear the crystal anymore--the sound lost in the corruption of a dead dyad. He reaches across the water, takes her hand and smiles as confidently as he can.
“We’ll be alright,” he says, squeezing her hand.
She squeezes back. “Together then.”
“Finn, don’t! I got a bad feeling about this.” Poe actually sounds panicked and Finn swallows around it.
“We’ll be alright,” he repeats, sounding more sure than he probably should. “Trust me.”
The line crackles in his ear but whatever Poe meant to say, he seems to have thought better of it. Ok. Forward then. Finn takes a breath. Doesn’t activate his repulsor pack and neither does Rey. Hand-in-hand, they approach the dome. The closer they get the more it appears…nebulous. A bubble of darkness waiting to pop, shimmering at its surface. Finn pauses a step away, reaches out with his hand this time. Part of him braces and he holds his breath but his fingers pass through as if there were nothing there. Rey lets out a tense breath beside him and he grins.
“See? Told you.”
She doesn’t deign to reply, just grips his hand tighter as he steps inside. Inky darkness surrounds him as he takes his first step. Visibility reduces to half a meter maybe. His shoulder lights seem to reflect off the iridescent blackness back at him, almost blinding in their brightness. Gingerly, he steps all the way in but--
“Finn?”
Rey’s voice jars him, distant and faint. “Rey?” He turns back; her hand is gone, his own suddenly, disturbingly empty. She is gone. “Rey!”
Panic tightens his throat but he hears her say, “Finn, are you in there? Where did you go?”
She can’t be far. Shit, how did he lose her? He calls for her again, slogging back through the water, through the dark. This is just the way he came, isn’t it? He’d turned straight around! Where’s the edge of the dome? Where’s Rey? Fear claws at him where it hadn’t moments before, tight and cloying. Suffocating as the dark. But what had she said? What did Rey say? The tenets, old teachings. Emotion yet peace, right? Finn takes a deep breath and focuses. Feels out the vestiges of fear and releases it as best he can as he searches for her. Rey’s voice is so faint, her light in the Force a distant shimmer.
But she’s there. And above her, a fortifying golden glow.
Poe.
Finn clings tight to those lights and speaks calmly in the comm, voice heavy with the Force. It has to be to reach through whatever this is, he’s sure of that.
“Rey, I’m ok. I’m gonna go through and find the crystal. I’ll find a way to get rid of this. Poe, if you can hear me, I’ll be back. Yes, you were right and you can rub it in my face later. Just wait for me.”
With that, he pivots again, facing back into the darkness beyond. There’s something on the other side, he just has to push through.
So he does.
Finn steels his nerve and activates his repulsor pack, zipping through the gloom to some sort of center. As he moves inward, the dark seems to lessen, looking more like twilight. The cloud takes a reddish tinge after some indeterminable distance. Then redder still. Deeper and deeper until the black of the dome is overtaken by red and finally, the shroud breaks into a blinding white light.
The dome’s iridescent cloud gives way to an opening. A funnel, almost. Reminiscent of a burrowing arachnid web. Silvery white struts line the edges of the funnel down, viscous and pearlescent. Around the small circumference within the center strike angry jagged corals, jutting up from putrid white mud in a desiccated border. And down at the bottom of the funnel lies a stone, Kylo Ren’s trademark lightsaber sitting as a single point of darkness in the web. Malice hangs heavy in the water. It is almost like a weight itself, pushing down on Finn’s shoulders. Nothing has ever felt so much like bait and a trap. Fear creeps toward him but he gathers it up and breathes it away. Peace. Must have peace. When he feels more in control, he cuts his repulsor pack and sinks. Down, down, down to the bottom of the web.
Finn lands with a gentle bounce but nothing new appears. He glances around the small space. It can’t be that easy, can it? The space is only two meters wide; it would’ve been impossible to miss something. He glances down at the stone and the lightsaber atop it. Maybe he can just take it and go. The certainty returns to him--this can be his if he is strong enough to fix it. The saber spits at him as he reaches for it, remnants of red energy seep from the crossguard and flicker like an underwater flame. The hissing is almost deafening but now he can hear the mournful song he’d heard in his dreams. Red lights Finn’s dark eyes, drawing him in like a siren song. His fingers circle around the hilt.
Silence.
The instant the hilt meets his palm, all sound disappears from his head. No hissing. No song. Energy zips from the saber up his arm, vibrating in his muscles like an electric shock. He frowns. Blinks. And in the space of a blink, a creature appears.
“What the hell ?”
Finn stumbles back and nearly falls against the funnel walls. On the other side of the stone, standing tall and silent and terrifying , is Kylo Ren.
Or rather, some figment of him. Finn steadies himself and stares. It...looks like Kylo Ren, only if someone had drained all the color from him. Made him unnervingly...longer. The Sith’s trademark black clothes are sapped to white. The creature stoops above the stone, face narrower and more elongate than it ever had been in life. Its face, hair, hell even its lips are the same pallid white as the funnel. As the fetid mud under their feet. A colorless wraith, save for its eyes. Black eyes--pupil, sclera, iris, all--pierce Finn to his core. His breath freezes in his chest but the wraith doesn’t move. Distantly, Finn’s thankful Rey isn’t here to see it.
“What are you?” he whispers.
He doesn’t expect an answer and he doesn’t get one either. Instead, the wraith jerks into motion. Head twitching side to side. Form seeming to flicker in and out of existence. It moves one arm and extends a long, long finger to point at the stone below in a clear indication:
Put the saber back .
Finn glances at the lightsaber in his hands and as he does, the kyber’s tune begins faintly again. There are no words, only an answering feeling: Do not . Please. The strangest feeling overcomes him. Fear, but not his own. It originates in his hand, tugging and pulling, almost pleading with him to leave as a frightened child might. The crystal. Whatever purity remains in it is desperate to escape the creature keeping it captive. Again, Rey’s words come back to him. Peace. Finn breathes in the kyber’s fear and, with one slow breath, dissolves it from himself. He glances back up at the wraith. Its bloodless lips part in a snarl, hissing through sharp, black, broken teeth. It twitches. Points again to the stone. Finn’s gaze hardens. He tightens his grip. The wraith jerks and steps toward him and the kyber screams.
Now or never.
As fast as he can, Finn hits his vambrace for the retractor. Nothing. No pull. Blast, the dome! Interference. He fumbles at his wrist for the repulsor pack instead and the wraith lunges at him, but the pack yanks him up and out of the creature’s clutches.
Almost.
The wraith’s clawed hand closes around Finn’s ankle and he yelps. The repulsor pack jolts, nearly swerves into the side of the funnel, whines under a tearing, agonizing weight. Finn’s muscles scream. Leg aches. He kicks but can’t get free. Bubbles erupt from the walls and a shattering explosion shakes the water around him. Up, up, just a little further. The top of the funnel is nearly in reach but the walls--the walls start caving around him. Sticky debris glances by him. Accumulates on his outstretched arm and the wraith clinging to him. Still he reaches. Cradles the saber in the crook of his arm and reaches as far into the Force as he can to pull himself that much faster. Anything will do. It has to be enough.
Come on come on come on come on .
Another explosion rips through the water. The aperture sinks around him. It’s close--stars it’s close --but by a breath and a prayer, Finn rockets through the opening just before it collapses. The blackened top of the dome speeds toward him. The wraith shrieks as he passes through the iridescent red and black and for a few seconds it feels as though his leg will separate from the rest of him. Then the surface breaks in a spiral of swirling black and the rest of the dome collapses. The wraith evaporates. Finn pants under the release of weight, searching frantically around him for the creature, but the only thing he sees in the darkness below is Rey waving furiously at him.
The creature is gone.
For now.
Slowly, to catch his breath and order his thoughts, Finn kills the repulsor pack and sinks back down to the sea floor. The saber cradled in his arm sings to him now, low and mournful. But just under its tune is the faintest hiss. A revelation dawns on him. Whatever the wraith was, it’s not gone yet. Finn grimaces to himself as he touches down but he’ll have to deal with it later. Find someplace remote and safe to dismantle the saber and cleanse the crystal. Rey barrels toward him, her voice erupting in the comm alongside Poe and Jannah all at once.
“Finn!” -- “Buddy, where did you go?!” -- “Someone down there say something, we lost Finn on the scanner.”
He waves back to Rey, half to get her to slow down and half to clear the questions from the water. “I’m alright,” he calls, “it’s ok.”
“You were gone for ages!” Rey shouts as she drifts up next to him.
“We couldn’t get the retractor to activate,” Jannah says.
Poe grits out just after, “You get your ass topside, Finn, I’m gonna shake you ‘til you can’t walk straight.”
Finn chuckles but keeps his snarkier thoughts to himself. Everyone sounds rattled enough and they’ll be even more so when he actually relates what happened. The time difference seems strange too, but compared to everything else he just witnessed, Finn figures it’s a fair trade. Whatever caused the dome and the wraith to appear was steeped in the Dark Side. Perhaps it altered more than just the immediate surroundings…
He pushes it from his mind for now and activates the retractor. The magnet at the bottom of the skimmer pulls him at a decent clip through the water, Rey following close behind. When they finally breach the water, the waves are starting to roll in earnest. The little skimmer bucks under Finn’s feet as he clambers aboard and all eyes are on him as he strips off the aquasuit helmet.
“Did you get it?” Poe asks, arms crossed.
Finn takes a breath of fresh, salted air--a welcome reprieve from the suits recycler--and holds the lightsaber out for all to see.
A collective silence falls over the skimmer as his friends stare at the thing. Jannah frowns, facing pulling as though she’s tasted something bad. Rey stares at it as white as a sheet which isn’t quite what Finn expected. Though to be fair he wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. Ren was a well-guarded secret that she only acknowledged in her quietest moments. She only looks for a second, just long enough to assure herself it’s real, before she turns away and peels off her suit. Poe though, Poe isn’t looking at the saber at all. He’s watching Finn with steadfast eyes and half a look of relief. The other half looks like a familiar spark of anger and Finn has no doubt he’ll have to account for a decision that could maybe possibly be seen as rash.
“Good,” Poe bites out. “Glad it was there.”
Finn winces. Yeah, he’s definitely going to have to sort that out.
“From what I can feel, the crystal is still intact. I can fix it. I just need a safe place to do it.”
Everyone frowns at that.
“Why would you need a safe place?” Jannah asks. She glances down at the saber then back at him. “What’s wrong with it?”
Finn parses his words carefully, considering. “There’s something attached to it. A wraith.” He glances at Rey. “A remnant. It should be fine but I need to make sure if something goes wrong we don’t lose half the Resistance with it.”
The waves push dangerously close to too high and Jannah takes the helm, weaving and tacking them safely to shore. Finn tucks the saber into his pack. As he strips out of the aquasuit, Poe’s hand settles on his shoulder to keep him somewhat steady and a pleasant heat floods at the point of contact. He’s just about to apologize for running into the dome which, in retrospect, may not have been the smartest move when the pilot pops up with,
“I know a place we can go.”
“We?”
Poe rolls his eyes but his fond-ish smile breaks the tension of it. “Yeah, we. Goin’ off into danger by your lonesome? I don’t think so, pal.”
Despite his own protestations on the matter, Finn grins. “Yeah? Where to?”
“Yavin 4.”
Finn blinks as Jannah pulls them to dock. Isn’t that Poe’s home planet? “Why would we wanna go there?”
“It’s out of the way. Sparsely populated,” Poe says as they gather their things and make for the ship. “And I think there are some places that might help you. There are some temples out there, old temples. Legend has it ancient Jedi and Sith fought there, that the Jedi used the temples to trap Darksiders and keep them locked away. If you’re lookin’ for a place to work, I can’t think of a better spot.”
Poe pauses, looking almost a bit wistful. Then he ducks his head and leans into Finn’s space, adding almost shyly, “And you could meet my dad. Haven’t been home for a while myself, he’d be happy to see us and we’d have a safe place to stay.”
Rey, having eavesdropped along the way, pops up behind them, her voice startling Finn and Poe apart. “There might be something in Luke’s old books about cleansing.” She tilts her head at Jannah then at the Falcon . “We’ll drop you on Yavin before we go back to Ajan Kloss. I’ll see what I can find in the books and meet you there later. That’ll give you time to start and time for Jannah to get back to her mission.”
Finn raises an eyebrow at Rey and that familiar secretive smile. But honestly, it “Sounds like a plan.”
The Falcon shudders into orbit and Finn finds himself staring at his pack. At the soft hissing song inside. He’s still confident this is right. It feels right, as though the Force were steering him forward. And maybe it is. He just hopes nothing goes wrong.