" Are you mad, y/n?" Poe exclaimed, grabbing me by the shoulders. " We all agreed that what Rey is doing is dangerous, and you want to do the exact same?! I don't understand you Jedi."
I shrugged and looked out towards the Death Star remains, which Rey was getting closer to. " Believe me, Poe: I would rather go when the waves aren't that big and wild, but I won't let Rey go by herself. It'll be more dangerous alone for her, wouldn't you agree?"
He grumbled. " I hate that you make a fair point."
" For the first time, me too." I forced a side smile. " Jannah. Do you have any extra sea skiffs?" I turned to face the storm trooper.
She furrowed her eyebrows slightly in doubt and hesitated her answer. " Please, Jannah. I promise I'll bring it back intact. I'm pretty good at maneuvering." I insisted with pleading puppy eyes. " Rey's the last hope, I cannot let her go alone. I'd rather have your authorization to use a sea skiff rather than to do what Rey did."
Jannah sighed after some time of thinking. " Alright fine. But we're going with you." She crossed her arms over her chest.
" We're what?" Poe visibly gulped. " I think I'm not going to go... Y- you guys go ahead, though. Someone's got to stay and fix the Falcon, am I right?"
We all looked at him with an unsurprised look as he smirked nervously. " Okay, you coward. Get the flying junk working as fast as possible. Hopefully we wont take too long on the Death Star trying to find Rey." I shrugged, not having the time to reply with a snarky comment.
" Be careful, alright?" He said.
" Don't worry, Dameron. I'll make sure your boyfriend comes back without a single scratch on him." I smirked, staring at Finn before following Jannah to the path that led to the bottom of the cliff.
" Are you sure you know how to use a sea skiff?" Jannah questioned as we reached the shore where the waves were crashing dangerously. " With a tide like this, it will be dangerous."
" I haven't got a clue. I've never used one." I took in a deep breath. " But let's do it. The force will guide my every move, I trust it."
Jannah nodded and helped me up a grey colored sea skiff. " I'd love to say it's easy, but with waves this high, it wont be." She sighed. " This is what you'll use to maneuver it towards the Death Star." Jannah pointed at different parts of the sea skiff to help me. " If you get there first, you'll see there's a large portion of the debris that makes a makeshift dock, just secure the sea skiff and everything should be just fine."
" Thank you, Jannah. I'll keep that in mind." I nodded.
I secured myself properly inside of it and turned on the temporary land engine, making it soar towards the roaring waves. " Alright, y/n. Calm down." I sighed through gritted teeth. " It's just like flying... on water. Like escaping a hoard of TIE fighters. I've done that before. Sailing mustn't be that hard."
The sea skiff's speed made it rise above a huge wave, and I had to admit I thought I would topple over and be crushed by the water, thankfully it didn't. I wanted to look back to make sure Finn and Jannah had made it successfully like I had, but I couldn't, as waves kept coming one after the other.
" Now I understand why Jannah wanted to wait until tomorrow." I huffed as the sea skiff drifted through the tides in direction to the Death Star. " At least the waves are getting less strong as I go further away from shore."
The ruins of the superweapon were nearing, and I maneuvered the sea skiff slowly towards it, looking for what Jannah had indicated. Okay... What here looks like a makeshift dock? I pondered.
Slowing the sea skiff down, I spotted the yellow one Rey had used to arrive here, and approached it carefully with my own. " So this is the dock Jannah told me about?" I grimaced. The debris certainly did not look like one.
" Thank gosh Rey's sea skiff is here, or I would've never figured out where it was." I chuckled and secured the sea skiff so it wouldn't float away.
When I had stepped onto firmer ground, I turned around in hopes to find Jannah and Finn's sea skiff, but the ginormous waves didn't allow me to see past them. I wanted to wait for them, but I knew I had no time for that. I needed to find Rey as soon as possible.
Without looking back a second time, I entered the ruins of the super weapon, which made me shiver. There was a dark aura surrounding the whole place, which made me instinctively wrap my hand around the Darksaber's hilt.
The Death Star reeked of darkness. The dark side of the force was present everywhere. Even after all these years, the dark feeling is still present... Gosh. The evil that was here must've been incredibly powerful... I gulped, climbing over a slippery wall thanks to loose cables and wires all over it.
There was something oddly familiar about the whole place as well, but I couldn't place what it was. " Where are you, Rey?" I pondered out loud.
I stumbled across a large hole on the massive walls of the super weapon, which opened up to a watery trench outside the Death Star, a fallen piece of it. For an odd reason, I was drawn to it, and my instinct had rarely wronged me before, so I went towards it.
The waves crashed on either side of the trench, splashing huge amounts of water everywhere. It was difficult to see past a couple yards, but the familiar feeling grew stronger with each step. It was a weird feeling, like someone in distress, but it seemed two different auras were somehow involved.
My field of vision was obviously obstructed by the amount of water and mist in the air, but I could make out the faint glow of blue and red, which I immediately recognized as lightsabers. And that's when it hit me.
Kylo's on the Death Star. He was in front of me, only a couple meters away on the trench, mercilessly battling against Rey. How did I not feel his presence before?! I panicked. My mind was rushing in all different directions, and my limbs seemed frozen in place.
I watched in horror as the both of them battled dangerously close to the edge of the trench. Kylo seemed to dominate the duel, to the point where Rey fell to her knees in defeat. I wanted to yell to him to stop, but I couldn't. My body was not responding to my mind's commands.
Suddenly, Kylo dropped his ignited lightsaber, and everything after that seemed to transpire in slow motion. Rey grabbing his lightsaber's handle and stabbing Kylo with his own weapon, him falling to the ground, leaning on the trench, and the sharp pain that had pierced my mind.
Air wasn't coming into my lungs, I felt asphyxiated as I took notice of what had happened. My vision became blurry, but I could make out Rey's figure as she kneeled next to Kylo and extended her wand towards his wound, appearing to be healing it like she had done with my head injury on Ajan Kloss.
She then ran towards his TIE fighter, which had been secured to the end of the trench, and Rey took flight on it. I regained my balance and jumped over the whole between both parts of the trenches, running over to my fallen lover and kneeling next to him.
His eyes widened as he saw me, as if he hadn't noticed my presence, just as I hadn't noticed his. " Y/n?.." He mumbled weakly, cupping my cheek with his gloved hand. He seemed drained from all energy he had, even if I knew Rey had force healed him.
I stared into his warm brown eyes, not believing we'd encountered again under such circumstances. I smiled at him warmly as a stream of tears fell down my eyes and threw my arms around his neck, holding him tightly as I cried onto his shoulder.
" Ben."
---
Good day, my dear readers!!!
For this chapter, I just wanted to clarify that the reason you couldn't feel Kylo's presence was because: The Death Star's already gloomy aura sort of overpowered Kylo's, if that makes sense? And also because since the dyad was dueling, their presences... merged, in some sort? Like they're two halves of a whole, which makes one presence... Yes?.. No? Makes sense?
Honestly, I don't know what happened to this chapter. It was supposed to be very good, how I envisioned it, but it ended up being absolute shit. So I apologize for publishing such a bad quality chapter, but I had to delete and rewrite it like five times, and this was the best outcome...
It might be because I am lacking a huge amount of sleep, but hopefully my writing gets better for the final chapters of this book. But lets look at the bright side: Kylo's back!!!!!!!!!! Wait no, let me rephrase that: BEN IS BACK.
I can't wait to publish more!!! Even if The Force in Redemption is sadly coming to an end soon :(
- Camille