Bond (Kylo Ren x Rey)

Blast

It had begun.

Rey could see First Order AT-ATs in the distance stomping their way ever-closer to their meager Resistance base. Other legions of ground troops trotted over to their freshly-built bunkers to start their assault on the masses of Stormtroopers being deposited by airlifts behind the AT-ATs. As laser fire erupted on the First Order side from mechanical canons, the crew in the bunkers returned the favor, releasing deadly bolts of bright color. This was Rey's signal to start her team's mission.

From an alcove along the left side of the base, she motioned for the gaggle of soldiers to join her along a craggy jumble of sandstone. Unburdened by anything but her saber staff and a small pistol, Rey lead the way swiftly forward with her gun-laden crew in tow. By skirting the main field of battle, they were able to trek unnoticed towards their enemy combatants. The rocky surface they cautiously hid behind began to incline, putting them steadily higher and higher than the First Order troopers to their right. The walk became a climb as Rey and her team scaled the rocky outcrop to gain the high ground. In Jakku, the scavenger had scrambled up the sides of various starships much steeper than this to gain the most precious pieces of junk to trade. Her grip on the rocks was solid as she trusted her muscled legs to push her to the next safe ledge. However, her counterparts were less lucky.

The crewmembers, she assumed, came from different backgrounds, many planets. They tried their best to match Rey's nimble movements but were just not as practiced as the scavenger. As they made their way closer and higher, Rey interjected often to give a helping hand up or use the Force to lift the heavier of the male crewmembers to safety. She never left a soldier to struggle on their own, checking in with each of them to make sure they weren't injured from the jagged rocks or too tired to keep moving. Each time they gave a nod in assurance as they tried to contain their labored breathing.

Once they were safely tucked away high in the rocky landscape, Rey wiped her dirt-encrusted hands on her dark trousers and then reinforced their plan of attack.

"Alright everyone, remember: the goal is to pick off as many Stormtroopers as you can while avoiding any attention from those hulking pieces of AT-AT garbage. So, pick a platoon of troopers and start aiming sporadically among them so as to not alert their lieutenant. If we do our job right, they will believe that they are just being attacked by the Resistance in front of them, and we will remain undetected. Got it?"

Rey looked around to see curt nods and murmurs of affirmation. She unclipped her pistol from its belt and gave them a grim smile.

"Let's get in position and show the First Order who's boss."

Her crew began shuffling along the outcrop, finding sizable portions of sandstone to crouch behind in the rocky cliff face. Rey took her place at the rear of a boulder large enough to hide her body.

In a voice barely loud enough for her crew to hear, she shouted, "May the Force be with you."

With that, Rey knelt down, flipped a switch on her gun and steadied it on her knee. This was her chance to make a difference for the Resistance. She had to make each shot count. Gathering the Force around her, she detected the faint signatures of the troopers down below. Rey picked one randomly to hone in on. Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that this was for the Resistance and that even a fight for the light had casualties. Her finger danced over the trigger, scared to make such a permanent move in a life that wasn't hers. Then she pulled. Below her, Rey saw a trooper in glossy white armor collapse to the ground as his fellow soldiers moved unflinchingly forward. How had it been so easy to kill Snoke's guards? This was harder.

Around her, the Resistance members were picking off troopers one by one. The platoons on the ground were being weeded out with no lieutenant the wiser as to who had done the deed. Rey focused on the task at hand and joined her fellow crew in the assault.

They had been working for the better part of an hour to thin out the ranks of Stormtroopers when shots began to hit the rocky surface of their hideout. They had been discovered. She looked down to see three troopers being directed by an officer to aim in their general direction. Rey's protective instincts rose over all other emotions when a woman in their company was almost nearly caught in the troopers' fire. It had missed her leg by inches. The Jedi's anger boiled over as she amassed the Force around her like a harsh wind and sent all four of the First Order members soaring into the air and against a cluster of boulders. Their bodies made a crunch that Rey wished she hadn't heard as she turned her attention back to the bewildered platoon. Now the First Order had been alerted to a Force user not unlike their own Supreme Leader. Rey sensed their panic as they began shooting at the source of the "wind", peppering the Resistance's patch of boulders with laser fire. Her crew returned fire, but it was too late. An officer below must have alerted a lieutenant in an AT-AT, because all of a sudden, one of the mechanical beasts turned its cannons towards their small patch of safety.

"WATCH OU--", Rey's scream was interrupted by a deafening blast.

She was too late. The cannon had been fired. An entire chunk of the rock face had been carved out. Along with her crew. She could see at least six of her soldiers crushed among the rubble. Their limbs were pinned down by sandstone. The Jedi screamed in horror as she ignored all First Order fire to use her abilities to lift the rocks off of her fallen comrades. It was no use. The blast and subsequent fall of heavy boulders had killed at least half of her crew. A tear tracked its way down her cheek, becoming muddy from the sandstone dust scattered through the air.

This needed to end.

Shouting to her remaining crewmembers, Rey decided to lead the rest of her Resistance team down the rocky slope to reunite with the rest of their force. The cover of rocky crags and boulders had been blown, and the only good that Rey could do was take her survivors away from the carnage. Only to engage in more bloodshed on the ground, she thought as her heart fell into her stomach. As Rey ushered her crew down the steep slope, she paused once more to look at the mess the First Order had made of her newly-found friends.

Rage welled inside her. She could at least make the damned AT-AT pay for what it had done. Focusing all her power on the weapon, the metal of the cannons began to warp and twist. A sweat broke out on her forehead, dripping into her eyes, but Rey ignored it. With a snap, the cannons broke, their hollow metal crushed together. Unaware of the weapon's uselessness, the AT-AT still attempted to fire on the Resistance. However, the bolts, restricted by their now-sealed canons, exploded, rupturing the cruel metal beast from the inside. Rey turned back to head down the slope as the flaming AT-AT fell to the ground, crushing white-armored troopers under its weight.

The Jedi joined her fellow troops scrambling down the rocky hillside, using bursts of the Force to cushion any falls made in the hasty attempt to join their peers on the battlefield. They returned to the small alcove on the side of the base to regroup before the fight. The Resistance crew was ragged. Many had scraped and cut themselves on their descent back to solid ground, resulting in bloodstained clothing and torn jackets and trousers. They may have lost their fellow crewmembers and gotten a little roughed up on the way, but Rey detected tenacity and resolve in their faces as they turned to face her.

"We've lost crew. But the time to mourn is not now. No matter what happens, we will go into that battle fighting the good fight. Fighting for what is right. We are fighting for the children whose parents have been lost to war. To give them a better life than the one they were born into. The Resistance is there for those who have been abandoned and left to fend for themselves in a galaxy that is cruel and harsh. We are fighting for a place that people can flourish and love and experience peace for the first time in their lives. This is why we fight. This is what today is for."

"May the Force be with you," a woman piped up in the back. She had never spoken much, but lifted her chin in pride as she spoke the words.

Rey smiled, straightened up, and said in the strongest tone she could muster, "And also with you."

She turned to the battlefield, already strewn with bodies, smoke, and fire. Here in this place of destruction and chaos, the light would rise from the ashes.

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Hey guys! Here's a quicker update than the last chapter! Just a Battle Rey doing her Battle Thing. She is such a great leader, even when everything seems to be falling apart. I mean come on! She took down an entire AT-AT with basically her evil eye. I love her! Tune in for the next chapter where we get the battle from Ben's point of view!