( Rey's voice crowds his head the same way that her fingers crowd together when he bends his arm at the anticipated perception of her touch, so that when the bump of her palm meets the resistance of the ribbed armor lacing him from wrist to shoulder, he's not surprised by it or the reticulated presence of her voice in his head. It should disturb him, or at least disrupt him in some way, inspire some amount of vertigo at the inverted and upside-down backwardness of what is transpiring, unfold in real time rather than in just his own imagination, those little snippets of possible realities they had shared on Yaga Minor. Maybe as a result of their prolonged interaction and the strengthening of their connection as a result over the last few days, it doesn't.
Ji feels like the outsider, where before she was the oldest face that he knew, bridging both parts of his life in a way that not even Snoke could duplicate. A tangible, tactile thing in comparison to the untouchable, pervasive reality that represented his master. Even seeing him in person, watching him move and do something so ordinary as breathe, Snoke somehow still never seemed quite corporeal, just a shade, a husk, the ghost of something great and terrible made even more so in his own perpetual twilight.
Ji is a million miles away from reality now, the same way that Snoke had seemed even when he was the only real thing that Kylo could count on. Rey is the more grounding presence here, the new bridge built between the two rises that hedge the dark valley between worlds, even as she turns and tears off toward the mine shaft and he says nothing in response to a warning he could easy consider irrelevant. And for as far away as she is, Ji is the one who rips the hissing screen of smoke from her belt and leaps from the broken window of the equally broken building, sliding into a roll and coming up aces, a bright green blade flaring to life as she holsters the blaster she's been carrying.
It's an old saber, but she knows how to use it just as well as he knows how to use his, even if she doesn't have the benefit of being able to throw Force-based attacks behind her strikes. Her style is a blend of various forms, slipping in and out of one and into the other with a reliance that belies her inexperience with the Force but which works surprisingly well for someone so mired and talented in combat. She wastes no time in tearing after him, lashing out with a speed and strength that has more than once put him on his back. Kylo has seen her fight off more than one opponent this way without losing the spring in her step - if a heavy trod could be called that - and while he knows that he's better, he also knows that she won't pull punches. She'll try to cut him down, for her own purposes and to get to Rey.
The benefit to engaging her in combat means that wherever and whoever the sniper is, they're less likely to intervene on the off-chance that Ji is struck. Swinging his own blade in a wide arc of bright red designed to catch Ji's shorter green blade down low, Kylo considers his ability to use that possibility to his advantage, wondering how he might throw her into the line of fire if he can't make it to Rey in the mine shaft. Not knowing where, precisely, the other Knight is, their best option is to take them down one at a time, so he shoves Ji back with a heavy swing and takes off after Rey with a long, heavy stride, nearly catching up with her in the process. He's there quick enough to watch her skid to the side and go down in a cloud of dust that, for one crucial moment, makes his heart hammer hard against his breastbone, breath in his lungs, unsure of where the blaster bolt impacted and whether or not she's taken a hit.
It's just long enough to send another careening his way, driving him back at the last moment in a dodge that has him stumbling backwards toward a bright green beam, away from the black scorch where the blaster round kicks up dirt and dust and - Kylo knows - another waits to take its place. )
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Ji feels like the outsider, where before she was the oldest face that he knew, bridging both parts of his life in a way that not even Snoke could duplicate. A tangible, tactile thing in comparison to the untouchable, pervasive reality that represented his master. Even seeing him in person, watching him move and do something so ordinary as breathe, Snoke somehow still never seemed quite corporeal, just a shade, a husk, the ghost of something great and terrible made even more so in his own perpetual twilight.
Ji is a million miles away from reality now, the same way that Snoke had seemed even when he was the only real thing that Kylo could count on. Rey is the more grounding presence here, the new bridge built between the two rises that hedge the dark valley between worlds, even as she turns and tears off toward the mine shaft and he says nothing in response to a warning he could easy consider irrelevant. And for as far away as she is, Ji is the one who rips the hissing screen of smoke from her belt and leaps from the broken window of the equally broken building, sliding into a roll and coming up aces, a bright green blade flaring to life as she holsters the blaster she's been carrying.
It's an old saber, but she knows how to use it just as well as he knows how to use his, even if she doesn't have the benefit of being able to throw Force-based attacks behind her strikes. Her style is a blend of various forms, slipping in and out of one and into the other with a reliance that belies her inexperience with the Force but which works surprisingly well for someone so mired and talented in combat. She wastes no time in tearing after him, lashing out with a speed and strength that has more than once put him on his back. Kylo has seen her fight off more than one opponent this way without losing the spring in her step - if a heavy trod could be called that - and while he knows that he's better, he also knows that she won't pull punches. She'll try to cut him down, for her own purposes and to get to Rey.
The benefit to engaging her in combat means that wherever and whoever the sniper is, they're less likely to intervene on the off-chance that Ji is struck. Swinging his own blade in a wide arc of bright red designed to catch Ji's shorter green blade down low, Kylo considers his ability to use that possibility to his advantage, wondering how he might throw her into the line of fire if he can't make it to Rey in the mine shaft. Not knowing where, precisely, the other Knight is, their best option is to take them down one at a time, so he shoves Ji back with a heavy swing and takes off after Rey with a long, heavy stride, nearly catching up with her in the process. He's there quick enough to watch her skid to the side and go down in a cloud of dust that, for one crucial moment, makes his heart hammer hard against his breastbone, breath in his lungs, unsure of where the blaster bolt impacted and whether or not she's taken a hit.
It's just long enough to send another careening his way, driving him back at the last moment in a dodge that has him stumbling backwards toward a bright green beam, away from the black scorch where the blaster round kicks up dirt and dust and - Kylo knows - another waits to take its place. )