poeticforce | scene with ~confrontfear.

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scene with ~confrontfear.

There was a danger in celebrating too soon. But was it really too soon when it felt like they had grabbed their lives back from the jaws of defeat? The unnatural lightning attack had been sudden and devastating, and could have easily wiped out their motley fleet of rebels if it had lasted much longer. But it'd ended as suddenly as it started and they managed to recover, to get back into the fight and finish off the Final Order fleet that was as good as grounded.

It wasn't until they all began to regroup back at the base that they were able to take stock of who might not make it back. The lightning storm had been hell on most of the electronics and blew out the comms on several of their ships, so it was just assumed that if they couldn't get a hold of someone that was why.

But as people were celebrating still being alive, and trying to find their friends among the gathering masses, there was one particular X-Wing that seemed to be missing.

Hours passed and as night fell on Ajan Kloss there remained one very notable and concerning absence. No one could raise General Dameron on the radio nor could the X-Wing he had been flying be located, its last signal from during the battle. Surely he wasn't one of the casualties... was he?

***

The Resistance did score a victory at the Battle of Exegol, however, not all its inhabitants perished in the ship battle or the magical shock wave when the former Emperor was killed for good. A few Sith, having been elsewhere in the citadel, emerged as the chaos quieted. They were met with dismay when they found there was nothing in the amphitheater to be salvaged, no trace of their dark lord that could possibly be revived yet again.

Outside of the citadel the ground and ocean had become a graveyard of ships and their occupants. Yet there were still some traces of life among the wreckage. Nothing that could restore what all had been destroyed, of course not, but they had toiled in the darkness, in secret, for years. Revenge came in many forms, and they were patient.

A weakened signature in the Force led them to a Resistance pilot that had managed to escape his wrecked ship and swim to solid ground only to pass out not far from the water. His body was dragged back to the citadel. Down below, where they had painstakingly worked for years to recreate the Emperor through testing and experiments. A ripe mind filled with knowledge of their enemy would be a terrible thing to let go to waste.

***

It started not a month later. The Resistance had moved on from Ajan Kloss, needing a base of operations more suited to the task of centralizing and organizing their fresh support, as well as the difficult task of dealing with what should come next. A skeleton crew remained at the Ajan Kloss base, with intentions of the base serving as an outpost for the time being.

When no one could be raised on the comms after several hours, a few went to investigate, just in case it wasn't something related to the weather or faulty tech. What they discovered was a slaughter. All that had been stationed there were dead, most killed execution-style. Some looked as if they hadn't even gotten a shot off. It was all too clean and efficient to be the work of lingering First Order troopers.

The holovids from the security system revealed it to have been the work of a single person — masked and darkly dressed, who moved through the base calmly and almost as if they had familiarity with the location. Perhaps most troubling was not simply the kills, but that they had disabled the security systems, not destroyed them to prevent them from working. The system hadn't been hacked, but breached by using the proper access codes.

Within a few days' time there was an attack at another Resistance location, this time at the home of a small rebel cell that was working to destabilize a First Order occupied world. The security camera had been taken offline prior to the attack but the kills were done in the same manner.

Did they have a traitor within their midst? Had the scattered remnants of the First Order hired a mercenary in a last-ditch effort to wound the Resistance as much as they could before they were stopped? Or was something worse, something more horrible, at play?

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Rey had never given up hope for her missing friend, despite all the odds. She knew it was illogical. Everyone had mourned his loss and begun to move on; even Finn, who had held out hope the longest and been the most devastated when he began to accept the inevitable. It was just too much for Rey to accept one loss after another and call it a victory.

Instead of coming to terms with it all, she pushed herself to her limits and beyond day after day, week after week. Never properly resting; always finding a new mission to take her away from the memories that assailed her. Never coming back to Ajan Kloss. She couldn't.

When word of the attack reached her, her mind raced with the possibilities. A Sith assassin. A Darksider for certain. Someone had escaped Exegol; someone had lain in hiding for a power vacuum and was stepping in to fill the gap that remained. In one wild moment she wondered if somehow Ben Solo had survived and somehow went back to being Kylo, though an assurance from the Force told her that wasn't it. He was there, too; keeping a distance but never truly disappearing from her ability to sense him. It was as comforting as anything truly got these days, but he didn't offer any answers. She was on her own. She had to be.

As she lands on the moon that had been their temporary home, she approaches the base with caution, senses all alert. There's something familiar here, something she can't pinpoint. Something that shouldn't be. The dead had already been lain to rest, but Rey could feel the echoes of their deaths in everything she touched here. They'd been taken unaware; barely any struggle or fear. It was a comfort of sorts. She stepped over to the console at which she'd replayed one of the holovids for the fifth or sixth time, pausing it on the frame which showed the clearest image of the assassin, though his face was obscured. There was something familiar. She just couldn't quite reconcile that familiarity with what she saw and knew.

After another few long minutes of staring at the frozen image, she decided to take a walk to clear her head. Maybe it would help. Besides, the assassin was certainly long gone. Right?

Gone, but returned. They had called him back. A terse holocall and cryptic message to 'Deal with unfinished business'.

There was one threat, one target, that stood separate from the rest. Someone that held the potential to derail the overall mission of sowing fear and dread among the enemy as they were picked off. Exterminated. A target that was to be destroyed as well, but not yet, not unless there were no other option. They wanted her to suffer. To feel pain and know the wrath of those whose hard work, livelihood, she had laid waste to with little care.

He moved quietly, though not quite silently, through the trees as he approached the vacant base. Vacant but not empty. Death lingered, touching his senses in a way he'd never picked up on before if he focused on it. But that didn't matter, little more than the whisper of an evening breeze. What did matter was the thread of life that trailed through the shadows his work had left behind.

Looping around the edge of the base, he found a decent vantage point to watch where the target was most likely to emerge. The order was to engage but not kill, which left him wanting to observe first to secure the best opportunity for action. Pushing back the hood of his jacket to better see, hair slicked back in a look that was almost severe and did nothing to hide a still-healing scar near the hairline, he brought the rifle to his shoulder to watch the exit through the sight, slowing his breathing as he focused. Waiting.

She could feel the hair raise on the back of her neck as a cold shudder ran down her spine. Something was wrong here beyond the deaths that had left their mark in the Force. Something was familiar, but wrong. Beyond simple danger, her senses told her, though that didn't make sense. Of course whomever had done this could still be here, but if they were a strong Force user she'd know it... wouldn't she?

It wasn't the same sort of familiarity, anyway. Maybe she was imagining it as she willed her heart to slow and her breathing to calm as she took one step and then another, reaching out with her senses and letting the Force guide her steps and reveal what it may.

Something above her caught her attention; a flicker of motion, a trick of the light? And there was the unsettling sensation again as she squinted against the fading sunlight to try to reveal what she thought she'd seen.

"Hello? I know you're there; show yourself and no one has to get hurt."

She's got her lightsaber drawn and ready to ignite in an instant if needed, but something has stilled her hand for now. She won't attack first until she knows what she's up against. Another step forward and she can almost see a shape resolving amongst the trees on a short cliff ahead. Something tells her to wait; just wait. Nothing's decided that can't be taken back yet.

He was relatively motionless as he waited, just the subtle rise and fall of his chest, almost seeming as if it would be effortless to wait there for hours if need be. Years of training on one side honed in to something sharper by the other, something meant to use his well-practiced skills to the deadly potential they had always been capable of. Even his thoughts were focused, quiet. All that mattered was the task at hand.

When the target at last came in to view there was the slightest furrow of his brow, more a twitch than anything else, and he held the rifle steady as he followed her movement. His finger twitched near the trigger and he reminded himself of the intent. Not a kill, not this time.

It wouldn't be that easy, after all. He knew it even if he couldn't place how or why. Whys didn't matter. Those were just details that bogged missions down. The why wasn't important, only the orders.

Her voice called out with confidence and the sound caused something close to hesitation as there was the slightest shift of his breathing. When he did finally move it was to adjust the aim of the rifle, the crosshair hovering over her chest for a breath, two, and then he moved the barrel just enough to fire a shot at the tree a pace ahead of her. The warning shot (of sorts) would no doubt give away his position but she was already looking his way; if he wanted to attempt to stay hidden he would have needed to move regardless.

She moves before she understands what she's responding to, the shot ringing out at the same time she throws herself down to the ground, making a smaller target, and rolling toward what cover she can find. She crouched behind a tree, senses alert, lightsaber ignited the instant she's upright enough to do so. She listened, trying to still her mind and her breathing, and reached out with the Force to see if she could touch the mind or at least the Force signature of the person who hunted her.

A sudden wave of familiarity made her gasp and forget herself for a moment, forget that she's supposed to be silent.

"... Poe?"

It's almost a whisper, unbidden, unintentional. It can't be. She had to be wrong.

Heart pounding in her chest in spite of her attempts to will it to stillness, she called out again.

"I'm going to stand up. Don't shoot; I just want to talk."

That familiar sense is still there, but there's something off. Her mind was playing tricks on her, perhaps, but she's not certain enough to rush in with nothing but her will and her lightsaber and fight the familiar stranger without trying peace first.

For only a moment he watched her movement through the scope — quick, as he'd been told she would be — and then he was lowering the rifle so he too could move. Not deeper into the treeline or away, back toward the clearing where his ship was, but not exactly closer either. Changing his position, seeking a different vantage point and an attempt to remain a bit ahead of her, just in case.

The brush of something in the Force caused a hitch in his step and for him to tense, both outwardly and mentally. An unwanted contact even if he couldn't firmly place why. (Because nothing good ever came of it. Only pain, and suffering.) Shaking his head, he continued on a few paces, picking out a thicker tree for cover and lightly leaning against the side of it as he once more raised the rifle to his shoulder. He couldn't immediately see her in the scope and lifted his gaze over it, scouring where she was most likely to be.

Her words made a part of him want to laugh darkly. Talk? There was nothing to talk about. Her friends, and herself, were living on borrowed time. But her voice pulled at him too, at something buried that made rise the urge to respond though he had no good reason to.

"I don't care what you want." he called out in return mostly on impulse; engaging the target like this was definitely not part of his orders. His voice wasn't quite the same as she might remember; colder, harsher around the edges. The Sith had done their best to rip out the warmth and hope Poe had often resonated with, leaving something sharper and more detached in their wake.

It's him, though; she's sure of it even as everything of her rational mind tells her to wait. To be reasonable. To remember what blind hope had cost her.

"You're not here to kill me."

She's certain of that, as well. Even if her hope is delusional, the product of a mind gone mad with the strain of too much loss in too short a time, she knows the order must've been to bring her in alive. That gave her some breathing room. She couldn't let herself be knocked unconscious or cuffed with Force-dampening binders, but she could cooperate until she understood what was happening.

She took a breath, placing every ounce of her trust in the Force to tell her if this was a mistake --

And stepped out into an opening between the trees, deliberately vulnerable, but solid and unflinching and as perfectly still as she can be, but ready to bolt if the gamble fails.

"I'll come with you."

She was unfortunately right about that. A complication that the blatant reminder of made him frown slightly as he stared at the trees, subconsciously trying to sense her location. He wasn't to kill her unless it was the only way to keep himself alive. The loose plan had been to toy with the target, to let it sink in that she and her friends were being hunted, before ideally leaving her incapacitated but alive while he headed off to the next Resistance hideaway on his list. Worst-case would be simply having to outrun her both to ship and to space, far from ideal however he was a stellar pilot, if anyone could outmaneuver a Jedi in such a way it was him.

But this, this changed things. Shifted the options around. A target was more dangerous if they didn't think they would be killed, or at least not yet. To try and get her to believe so might require extreme measures, which he didn't have the time for or the means.

When she stood up, as she had said she would, Poe immediately returned his gaze to the scope. The crosshair leveled over her chest, her heart, and it hovered there a moment before lifting to her face as she spoke. His gaze narrowed and a finger lightly rested on the trigger. She appeared calm but he didn't need the Force to know it was at least partially projection. No one was perfectly calm when they knew they were being hunted or someone likely had a weapon trained on them.

However on the next exhale he took his finger off the trigger and adjusted his grip on the rifle, still watching her. "I don't believe you." Well, he might have, actually, but saying so was a poor tactic. Which was also why he didn't yet make a move to show himself, though he didn't abandon his current spot. "Toss aside your weapons. And don't try anything funny, Jedi."

She still couldn't see him clearly from this distance. Couldn't meet his eyes. Couldn't have her suspicions confirmed or dismissed as the delusions of a mind that has felt too much grief in too short a time. There's no reason at all for her to do as he says, and every reason to get out of there or at least face him with everything the Force allowed her, weapons and all.

But he's not here to kill her, else he would have never revealed himself or allowed her this much time to speak. And she still has the advantage of being able to recover her weapons easily enough if he tries anything she doesn't want to allow. Cautiously, she sets her lightsaber down and then follows suit with her blaster, confident that she can grab one or the other via the Force if this goes a way she doesn't like. Centering herself with a deep breath and trying to keep the tremble out of her voice, she calls back again, showing her empty hands.

"Rey. My name's Rey; don't you remember?"

Poe watched her movements closely, ready to shoot with intent or to fall back from his position if she suddenly tried to move against him. Even so, it wasn't entirely surprising that she put her weapons down - both of them, in fact, which in a way made him consider her a more trustworthy foe for not trying to act like the lightsaber was the only weapon she carried. He had been told the Jedi might be foolish. That such people were prone to try to resolve situations without resorting to violence, prone to put their trust in others having some inherent good in them, and that those flaws could be manipulated. The Sith had cautioned him not to underestimate their enemies of course, but their own biases and deep-seeded judgment of anything Jedi had been obvious.

Satisfied with her behavior, although noting that both weapons weren't exactly out of her reach, he finally stepped out of his hiding place, emerging from the treeline with his rifle lowered a bit but very much still at the ready. His attention remained primarily focused on her as Poe moved to drop down from his perch, opting for the quicker and more direct route as the target was too dangerous not to. The movement wasn't as graceful and effortless as Rey, or Ben, but he had clearly been given at least some minor guidance on using the Force to his benefit. While the Sith wanted their new assassin to be plenty able to complete their tasks, they didn't want to share too much knowledge, lest cracks form in what they had created of him.

He approached careful but without hesitation, keeping the rifle aimed at her and a hand near the trigger. "I know your name, Jedi." Yet he didn't use it, for one reason or another. Coming to a stop well out of her reach - and out of the reach of a saber blade - his dark eyes sized her up. "You made some powerful enemies."

It's him. Now that they're face to face, now that she can look into his eyes and be certain it feels like all the air has been sucked from her lungs, and she has to fight a sudden weakness in her arms and legs that feels like relief and horror all at once.

It takes her a long moment to find her voice, but when she does it's full of remorse as well as a buried fury at the Sith for taking one more person from her in the cruelest way.

"So did you, it seems. I'm sorry they did this, Poe."

Another breath; her eyes search his for some hint of recognition. Some subtle shift to indicate she's getting through at all. She isn't going to go for her weapon unless she has no other choice; in a pinch she can probably redirect his with the Force, or at least put some more distance between them again. She won't hurt him more than she absolutely has to in order to get him back where he belongs in one piece; she's vowed that to herself already.

He stiffened in a way he told himself was subtle but in actuality probably wasn't as unnoticeable as he would have liked it to be. Although the way he lifted the rifle slightly might have distracted from it. The way she spoke to him was too casual; he didn't like it. Like she knew him. It rubbed him the wrong way in a manner he couldn't place, but also couldn't begin to try and sort out, not here in this moment. He couldn't allow himself to become distracted. That was no doubt what she wanted, a tactic to let her try and get the upper hand.

"You're lucky they want you alive." he remarked coldly. Deflection when uncomfortable may have been a true habit but the manner in which he did so was different. Being threatening hadn't been in his nature before and whether or not the new trait settled in well the Sith hadn't spent much time on since this sort of engagement wasn't part of their grand scheme. Killing didn't require conversation. Perhaps impulsivity was too well-ingrained in his psyche for them to have overridden in such relatively short timing.

Because he was certainly making this up as he went, given the goal had been to intimidate and terrorize her a bit if possible before leaving to kill more of her acquaintances. Not to allow conversation or get within striking distance.

Poe shifted a pace closer, keeping the rifle trained on her chest. "Or maybe not so lucky. Your friends died quickly. I doubt they'll give you that mercy." No, they weren't merciful at all. But pain was a useful teacher and tool of the dark — or so he'd been told, or overheard, at some point during hours and days that had blurred together. It wasn't important. All that was important was dealing with the Jedi.

She kept her breathing steady and her gaze even.

He won't shoot you. He's said as much. Just keep him talking.

"Is it mercy, Poe? What they did to you?"

Tears shimmer at the corners of her eyes, but she made no move to wipe them away or even blink more than she absolutely had to. She searched his eyes for that glimmer of recognition. She'd confused him for a moment; she's sure of that much. It wasn't enough. She still wouldn't take the chance at disarming him at this range, not least because when it came down to it she'd hurt him before letting him kill her and she didn't want to hurt him.

"We all thought you were dead. We mourned you, Finn and I. Do you remember Finn?"

He must. He had to. It was unthinkable that he could forget the one other person he'd been closest to in the Resistance.

"Stop that." he snapped, his grip tightening on the rifle as his eyes narrowed at her. The defensiveness was a reflexive reaction, though if asked he couldn't say why he was reacting that way. Or why her seeming to have familiarity with him, or at least who he was, was grating on his nerves. She was a name and a face in a file to him. Just another target, albeit an extremely dangerous one. There was no reason for her to know him or to talk to him like that; he certainly didn't know her.

Or did he?

There was a warning on the tip of his tongue, wanting her to stop talking like that, to stop saying his name like she had said it a hundred times before. But she kept talking and any remark he would have made died in his throat as his confusion intensified, clear enough in his presence if one knew what they were looking for.

That name... he knew that name, didn't he? Another name from a file but no, there was something more to it. Something more to her. "Don't you remember?"

His brow furrowed, as much from trying to think as from the pain that throbbed at his temples when he tried to. Details weren't important, the past wasn't important; the mission was important. This Jedi was just... just trying to confuse him. Some sort of mind trick? Yes, it had to be.

Poe tensed and did his best to brush off the confusion and wondering. "Stop acting like you know me, Jedi." he hissed, and stepped in closer as he tried to hit her with the butt of the rifle, intending to knock her out or at least quiet her for a few minutes.

She hasn't tried to mentally influence him yet, though it's next up on her list of things to try once he's not pointing a gun at her. Or it was, until he tries to attack. The Force gives her enough warning to dodge the blow and roll away from him as she instinctively pushes with the Force to try to throw him off balance as well. If he's going to use violence she doesn't have a choice.

Remember.

She focuses all her will on that command even as she scrambles to regain her feet and put some cover between them again.

"Poe, please. Try to remember. You don't want to hurt me."

She didn't want to hurt him, but her hand is already reaching out for the abandoned lightsaber as she says it.

Poe cursed, as much from her moving as from the shove he felt as surely as if it had been done by her own hand. He stumbled back but managed to stay on his feet, letting go of the rifle with one hand in a reflexive motion to try and catch his balance, subconsciously using the Force to do just that. It took him a moment to steady himself, though he wasn't able to make any sort of progress past that. Not when he suddenly felt a different sort of push, although one that could potentially throw him off balance just as much.

His free hand went to his head as he winced, the command seeming to echo in his skull. Visions flashed before his mind's eye, snippets of memories, but too quickly to latch on to anything. Flashes of color and sound and emotion.

Her voice seemed to echo, but was it really, or was he just hearing it from a different time and place? Did he really know her?

It hurt, though, the forceful tug on things the Sith had sought to bury and destroy. Not everything that could be remembered was welcome. A part of him strongly didn't want to remember anything that wasn't absolutely essential, trying to shield himself from the pain of what he had gone through.

He groaned, as much in pain as frustration, shaking his head hard as if that would settle all that felt off into place. As his attention focused back on her he saw her trying to reach for her lightsaber and he quickly aimed, taking a shot not at her but at the lightsaber to knock it further away from her.

"I'll hurt you if I have to." he hissed out, still rubbing his temple even as he strode toward her. But would he? Poe didn't feel as certain about it as he might have a minute ago. He was certain that he wanted her to stop whatever it was she was doing, and if she was going to fight dirty then he would have to as well.

"No. You won't."

Through the Force, she feels the shock of the saber being knocked back by the rifle pulse before she can lay her fingers on it, but she doesn't have time to wonder if the crystal's been damaged.

He's forcing her hand. She's less willing to hurt him than he is to hurt her, but that doesn't extend to the rifle he keeps threatening her with. She reaches out once more, this time not for her own weapon, but his; she yanks hard on the Force, with as much focused will as she'd once used on an entire ship. It's overkill, but she doesn't care if she catches the thing -- it can go flying across the forest for all she cares. She just wants it out of the equation before any irrevocable damage is done.

He was really starting to get tired of this Jedi constantly countering his words, acting like she knew him, like she knew what he would or wouldn't do. A part of him, the new part, almost could understand why the Sith had said she was so dangerous and why they seemed so determined to want her to suffer. Poe grit his teeth and might have had a snappy remark to fire back if his rifle wasn't suddenly being ripped away from his hands.

The action makes him stumble forward slightly since he wasn't expecting it, a hand reflexively reaching after the rifle as if he might be able to snatch it back though he only reaches normally. He loses sight of exactly where it ends up landing. That was fine, he could retrieve it after he's done dealing with her, assuming he had the time for it, as it was more important to keep as much of his attention as he could focused on her. His gaze did flicker the direction her lightsaber had gone, but then focused squarely on her.

Hand-to-hand combat seemed like a terrible idea with a Jedi. It was something he was trained in however, and that he felt confident in if it came to that. But for now that would sit as a last option, if a swift escape from the situation didn't seem possible and things shifted pointedly into the life-or-death category. His orders weren't to harm her, certainly not to kill her (somehow he knew the Sith would be upset if he unintentionally robbed them of that), but the whole situation had gone sideways rather quickly and now... well...

"For someone who agreed to be taken prisoner, you're not being very cooperative, Jedi." he stated with mild aggravation as he straightened, holding his ground but not making to approach her — or the direction of their weapons — at least not for the moment.

"I didn't say I'd be taken prisoner. I said I'd come with you. Just you."

She needed to get them both away from here before the First Order decided to send in reinforcements. They had to know this was a gamble. She can't understand why they'd even risk using him if they were't going in for any kind of subterfuge. Just to twist the knife a bit more, she supposes. To gloat about having turned two of the Resistance's strongest assets against one another, and claiming them both in the end.

She can't let it happen. Better that they both die here in this forest than corrupt what they'd both stood for.

It doesn't need to come to that yet, but they do need to get away.

"I'll let you fly my ship. There's another asset in it for you if we can't come to an agreement."

BB-8's waiting for her. It's a risk, to be sure, but if the droid doesn't spark some recognition, he can at least send a covert message.

"For what, a joy ride?" His sass had a sharper edge than before, though at least it's still there.

It was a ridiculous thought to him, and one that was starting to make him wonder if she was just trying to distract or delay him. He wasn't confident in that line of thinking though. When he had come across her she had seemed more likely to be getting a sense for what had happened here, not specifically looking for the perpetrator.

Unless of course she had backup somewhere near enough to contact using her abilities rather than traditional means. An idea he wondered slightly more about when she mentioned there being someone else, presumably on her ship.

"Stay out of my head, Jedi. Let's start there." he replied gruffly, narrowing his eyes at her. Not that he could see what kind of 'agreement' they could possibly come to, given his orders were to attack another Resistance location after he was finished dealing with her. The Sith also didn't value any of the others as much as they did her, as far as he was aware, so he didn't immediately see how another of the surviving Resistance would prove valuable. "Just what kind of agreement are you proposing?"

His snark has her rolling her eyes in an entirely familiar fashion, and for a moment a flicker of something like relief crosses her features. Her friend is alive. His memory has been tampered with, but he's here, standing in front of her, and if it comes down to it she knows she can knock him out and get away. But the goal is to get away with him, and that's a whole heck of a lot easier if she doesn't have to drag him back to the Falcon.

"You can take my ship wherever you want once you've heard what I have to say, even if that means back to the First Order. I've got an astromech back there with a lot of intel on it, too. It's more valuable to you than I am. Come have a look; I'll stay out of your head."

At least until we get there.

She doesn't like the idea of rooting around in Poe's head, but it's going to be necessary, she's sure, to undo whatever was done to him. She's just hoping that a look at some familiar surroundings and one familiar droid will rattle something loose for long enough to give him pause.

One eyebrow lifts as Poe gives her a slightly incredulous look at her suggestion. He doesn't care about whatever kind of ship she's flying or what astromech she has with her. None of that is important to the Sith so by extension it's not important to him.

... But it might be easier to get the upper hand on her if there was someone else, even a droid, distracting her. Potentially fighting in closer proximity wasn't necessarily a great risk, however knowing that she's without her lightsaber makes it marginally less risky. Jedi leaned on their tools; surely the odds were decent that she might not have as much experience fighting hand-to-hand.

What precisely he would do if when he got the advantage of her he's not sure; leave her to wake up alone, wondering which of her friends were in danger, he supposes. If he could reasonably secure her he might try to take her back to Exegol but he's not leaping ahead to that just yet. One thing at a time.

"Fine."

Poe straightens, not crossing his arms though that sort of energy is definitely present. His hands itch for the rifle, and he briefly considers reaching for his pistol but refrains. Better to leave it be and not encourage her to try and toss that who knows where as well.

"Lead the way. And you can start with whatever it is you're so determined to say while we walk."

It pains her to leave her lightsaber behind, but she can come back for it once she's got Poe taken care of. She scratches her left wrist idly, surreptitiously activating the tracking beacon she'd brought with her just in case. It would be a few hours before anyone could reach her here, but it was well enough hidden under her armwraps that unless he had reason to try to bind her wrists, it ought to go unnoticed. If worse came to worst, Finn would follow. He'd be able to get through where she'd failed, if she failed.

She's not intending to fail.

"Do you know about the remaining Sith holocrons? As it turns out, there's more than just the Wayfinder -- which I have, by the way. They're difficult to create, and almost as difficult to find unless you have a particular affinity for objects with Force signatures."

None of it is untrue; he's free to search her thoughts to confirm as much.

"I've found the location of another. It would be priceless to any Sith devotee left alive, especially with Palpatine gone. And I know how to open them. Imagine the bargaining power you'd have if you brought one back along with me."

It's a gamble -- she's not sure how hungry this version of Poe is to impress his superiors. If there's anything of that showoff nature left behind. She thinks there must be. He would've wanted to go above and beyond, to bring back the impossible. The last Jedi and a lost artifact?

"You could have whatever you wanted. Your freedom, if you chose. Or a promotion."

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scene with ~confrontfear.

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