Kylo is brooding at the helm of a First Order star destroyer when he feels the tickle in the back of his mind that presages the opening of their connection. What he sees next is utterly unexpected. He yanks off his mended helmet for a better look. But the instant reaction escapes his lips. "Oh no."

"You're too late! You've lost! I found him!" Rey crows triumphant and hostile.

"So I see," Kylo replies softly as his eyes sweep over her new look. The Resistance girl he met in the Takodana woods is unrecognizable. She now sports a black hooded cloak and a black belted tunic that are altogether too familiar. She's holding some sort of new weapon as well. Kylo knows whose handiwork this is, having had a Dark Side makeover himself once. Does she already have a new name too? He wonders just how deep this transformation has gone. At least her eyes aren't yellow . . . yet.

He takes a deep breath and plunges forward. "Rey, don't do this. Don't go this way—"

"You had your chance!"

"I don't want this for you—"

"Shut up! Just shut up!" she barks. "I see through your lies. I know who my parents are now. They weren't junk traders—"

"Rey, you are more than your parents." She needs to let go of her obsession with her parents. It's the only way she will become what she's meant to be. Kylo knows from experience, having been born into the first family of the Force. When you add in his Rebellion hero parents and the notoriety of being obsolete royalty, it was a trifecta of overbearing expectations. But he's past all that. The only legacy that matters is the one he creates for himself. "Stop looking for parents," he complains. "You don't need them. You need a teacher. I can help—"

She rejects him. Like she always does. "I don't want your help!"

"Maybe so. But you need it." Casting concerned eyes over her bloodshot eyes and pale, drawn face, he thinks Rey looks awful. The Dark Side definitely does not become her.

Then, more rejection. "Go away!"

Exasperated, Kylo spells it out for her. "I've been you! Don't you see? I've been you! He will make you into what he made me. He will make you into what he made my grandfather. Trust me, you don't want that role." The Apprentice is the worst job in the galaxy, and you don't get to quit. The only way out is to kill or be killed. And that turns out to be far harder with Palpatine than anyone understood.

"No, you're wrong. He's no Snoke."

How many times do they have to go over this? "He is Snoke." But here goes: they rehearse it again.

"Snoke is dead! We both saw him die."

"We saw a Force projection pretend to die. Like Luke saw a Force projection die on the Second Death Star. It was him all along! Pulling the strings and manipulating my family for his own aims." Because he who controls the Chosen One controls it all. It's a generational power play.

"Liar!"

"You didn't feel him die in the Force and neither did I. Think about it, Rey. You felt Luke Skywalker die on his rock clear across the galaxy, but you felt nothing when Snoke died like a chump on this throne right in front of you? It was a trick and we both fell for it."

"Liar! You just served the wrong master. A weak master."

She seems so committed. Kylo sighs inwardly because he remembers those days. And he feels like a fool for having been such a dedicated lackey to a puppet on a throne. First Luke tried to tell him, then his loser dad. But Kylo hadn't listened because he hadn't trusted either man's motives. Too late he sees they told him the truth. So Kylo tells that same truth to Rey now. "He's just using you for your power. When he gets what he wants, he'll crush you."

She raises an eyebrow. "You would do the same."

"No. I wouldn't." Does she really think he wants to hurt her? Kylo holds out his hand and tries yet again, "Join me, Rey—"

"Stop." She shoots him a look that would freeze ice on hot Jakku. Damn, this woman is dismissive. "I don't want to hear it again," she tells him with a curled lip.

Gritting his teeth, Kylo continues his pitch. "You need my help. I need your help. Together we can unite the First Order and the Resistance and crush the Sith in one swift stroke—"

"I'll never join you!" She chimes in right on cue. It's more vehement rejection.

It gets under his skin. Kylo snaps back, "Fine! But don't join him. Please don't join him." For her sake, for his sake, for the sake of the galaxy, she needs to stay far, far away from Sheev Palpatine or whatever his real name is.

"I won't be your pawn. Your reign is at an end, Supreme Leader Ren." Her voice drips with acid sarcasm. It's a special tone she reserves only for him, Kylo suspects. Then, Rey declares in ringing tones, "When you're gone, we will restore peace, freedom, justice, and security to the galaxy."

"No, you won't." He calls bullshit on that pipe dream. "He'll make you me. And he'll be the same guy he's always been for thousands of generations. He goes by different names and different creeds, but his only aim is himself. His kind of evil never dies and it doesn't give a damn about peace, freedom or justice."

She's unimpressed with this warning, like all the rest. Rey merely raises an eyebrow as she accuses, "You are so desperate to hold onto power that you will say anything and do anything."

And, yeah, he won't deny that is a part of the motivation. He's grown to like this Supreme Leader gig. But there is more at stake than just his resume, and Rey seems deliberately blind to it. It's curious because she's such a savvy girl usually.

"You think I'm bad?" he goads. "Well, you haven't seen bad yet. He won't show you his true self until it's too late and you are in too deep to ever walk away. And then one day, you will realize that you have become the very thing you swore to destroy." Kylo throws up his hands. "You're better than this, Rey," he complains as he stakes the moral high ground. Where is all that determined altruism that used to typify this girl?

"You're one to talk."

"Yes. Precisely. I speak from experience. I'm not proud," he grumbles. There's no sinner like a reformed sinner. And, well, he's not exactly reformed so much as evolved. He's moving on from his past without making excuses for it. She can do the same. "Rey, I'll help you. I can teach you."

"He's teaching me."

"Only the Dark Side. I can teach you all of it. The Light, the Dark. Together, we can forge a new path—"

"No! This is where I belong. You saw it yourself on the Starkiller Base. And Luke saw it too. He refused to teach me because he said I went straight to the Dark. Kylo, he was right. The Dark Side is where I belong." And just look at her face. Rey truly believes what she says. Kylo can feel her sincerity through the bond. It tells him that his old Master has worked his mind games on Rey very effectively.

"Rey—"

"That cave on the island—remember the cave that was strong with the Dark Side?"

"Yes."

"I went there looking for answers. I didn't realize at the time, but it did give me answers. Because in the Dark Side, I saw myself. Over and over again, the answer was me . . . me on the Dark Side." She's growing excited now. "Kylo, I know who my parents are—"

"I didn't lie to you—"

"Those people on Jakku who sold me weren't my parents. They were no relation at all. I was stolen from my family."

Kylo makes a face. He instinctively knows where she's going next. Because it's the obvious ploy to lure a girl needy for acceptance who is desperate for anyone to teach her the Force.

"He is my family."

Yep. It's just as he feared. "No!" Kylo loses his temper again. "Stop looking for your future in the past! Stop looking for fathers in every man you meet!" This girl is so fucked up from her abandonment. And Palpatine knows it. He took a page out of his Vader playbook with Rey, apparently. "That's how he hooked in my grandfather. He played the father figure to earn his trust and then ultimately used it to control him. He's doing that to you now too!"

"It's not control," she protests. Then, sounding like a pathetic idiot, she claims, "It's love. He's my family. And he's all that I have."

Kylo cringes. Because this has gone way beyond promising secret training, a cool lightsaber, and a front row seat for galactic politics in the usual power pitch of the Sith. This is something far more insidious and hurtful. Palpatine is promising her love. And this foolish, desperate girl is willing to sacrifice all her principles to get it. Kylo would do anything now for a do-over in the Supremacy throne room. He had offered Rey power when he should have offered her himself. He should have shut up and kissed her to seal the deal.

And now, a thought occurs to Kylo: what if Palpatine really is her relation?

He pushes that thought out of his mind and doubles down on his fearmongering. "Rey, listen to me. He's going to plunge the galaxy into a three-way civil war. And he'll win unless you help me. Without your support, the Resistance will never ally with the First Order." Even with her help it's going to be a tough sell. Destroying their fleet and no quarter at Crait haven't exactly positioned him well.

Rey scoffs. "You're gonna give them your 'Join me' pitch now too? Because that's not a winner, Kylo. Not after Hosnia."

"If he wins, there will be more Hosnias. Is that really what you want?"

"If it takes a war to get to peace and security, so be it," she pronounces with expediency that makes Kylo blink.

Kylo falls silent a long moment before he next speaks. He's resigned and he fears she is as well. "Are you sure you want this?"

"Yes."

"Because it means I have to kill you."

That makes her smirk. It's an ugly expression he's not used to seeing from Rey. "You didn't put a mark on me when we fought on Starkiller Base," she reminds him.

"I wasn't trying to kill you. And I was fighting wounded."

"You were also fighting a girl who had never held a lightsaber. I've been training."

Kylo shakes his head with regret. "I don't want to kill you. But I will do what I must." Fuck, he hopes it doesn't come to that.

Rey is unconcerned. She postures like she's staring down a rival scavenger on her old desert stomping grounds. She flicks her wrist to open and ignite a double-bladed red lightsaber. "Bring it on, Kylo," she flashes a tight smile.

He doesn't react. He doesn't want to fight this girl. How the Hell did things get so complicated between them? Kylo looks away and sighs. "You used to call me Ben," he laments. Back when they used to talk to one another, not at one another.

He eyes her in silence a moment. Then, the connection ends.