⁽ᵃᵖ⁾ untouchable.

     WITH THOSE EVENT NOTES IN PLACE (you can find them here), i’m putting out another ad for security breach: part II!

     like this for a small starter! capping at two.

rogue has regained her super strength, flight, and power/memory absorption to its full extent--- this will also mean she has the ability to take multiple powers at once without sacrificing another. she will mostly be utilising her super strength and flight throughout this section of the event.

her general enemies will manifest as SENTINELS--- machines that are programmed to locate mutants and capture or kill them. though several types of sentinels have been introduced, the typical sentinel is three stories tall, is capable of flight, projects energy blasts, and can detect mutants.

          “ ---BYLETH, RIGHT? ” she addressed her company without reservation, eyes fixated upon the measured gathering of shades just beyond the corner, behind which they were hidden. those things were crowding at a weak spot at the end of the street, and she ventured a peek to get a read on their numbers--- maybe three or four, but there’s bound to be more if she ticked them off a little.

     if she could get her hands on just one, she might be able to do enough damage and pull a few innocents from the fire. the wires could wait, people were hurt, and looked like they could use some serious help scraping themselves off the sidewalk. steeling her resolve, rogue retreated back behind the wall, and turned to the other.

KYLO prepared for the worst. For rejection, for anger to take her place before she could even try to understand why he did what he did. That was how it always turned out. Nothing could ever excuse his murder of Han Solo, even if it was for severing his connection to him; to his father’s love. Yet that act had done nothing but broken him further, a nail in the coffin that would gradually close upon him, the gravity of his sin heavier than anything in the known galaxy. IT would have been his reckoning and if it came in the form of the mutant woman he gradually saw as a genuine companion… then so be it. He would take that punishment head on and finally accept the truth that he is nothing more than a monster begging to be put down.

BUT nothing came at him. She didn’t lash at him for his transgression nor did she attack him with words of spite and loathing at what he had done. Instead, she offered a hand. Something that genuinely caught him off guard. SHE offered to try and understand.

KYLO is rendered speechless, thrown off balance by her willingness to see into his mind. Yes, he understood why her glove was liberated from her hand. That was her power, he remembered. The fallen Jedi deliberated for a time, but slowly he too, began to remove the dark glove off of his hand, opening a vulnerable palm to the mutant.  “…Your funeral,” he warned. His mind is not the safest place. But better there than his heart.

     THERE IT WAS AGAIN, that storm in his eyes; it toiled and it thundered, it howled and it hailed--- he was in turmoil, and it didn't take much to figure that out anymore. maybe he wasn't expecting her to answer the way she did, maybe all he wanted was her contempt... maybe it was just easier that way. he had spent all this time cultivating the fear and hatred of others, but who had stirred that fire? who had struck that match and watched him burn? she wanted to know... but above all, she wanted to understand.

     to her surprise he conceded, and upon his proffered hand, she hesitated. finally tipping her head forward, rogue closed her eyes... and lowered her palm to rest atop his. she barely had the time to notice how rough his skin felt against her own, before the memories rushed through her head, like a patchwork of thoughts intertwining with her own quilted past.

     there was a fire, corpses burning---                                       betrayal--- hurt---                     no, i never... i didn't want this.

                                         BEN, NO...!      the walls crumbled around them both.               a hand outstretched, yet spurned---                                                                                              ... please.

                                         ... let the past die...

     a girl; she reviled him, looked on him like he were a monster...                                                                                   then as she would a friend.

                                          the crystal burst in his grasp, bleeding through his fingers---

                                      ... kill it, if you have to.

         ---i'm a murderer, remember?               you're just a child, in a mask.

        ... thank you.                he murmured in wracked tones, while he extinguished his saber                                                                                    and watched his father fall---

     ... ben.            a mother's fond whisper, an affection she'd never known.                                                Ben!                                                              a different voice, urgent.

                     i hate that name.                   i have no choice and never did.

                                                   BEN!

                                                                     a father pleading for his son.

                                                     he was splitting apart...!

     DESPITE HER RESERVATIONS about the circumstances what with being dragged into isola against her will and all, rogue will still be siding with the stars, and primarily assisting in rescue efforts across all the wards. she will help with severing the wires where and when she’s able but it’s otherwise not her main focus, with the safety of others being her top priority. 

     she currently retains her power/memory absorption at a limited capacity. she’ll be using it sparingly, but she will attempt to take the powers of those causing havoc to the wards. if this is something you’d like to discuss in better detail tho, my inbox and ims are open to plotting.

KYLO hesitated to even tell her that confession, for fear of rejection, an act that seemed to happen to him a lot in recent memory. But when she told him that she knew, deep down, that he had already killed people before, a twisted form of relief washed over him. He had grown so used to her company that he actually dreaded telling her the truth of his darkened nature. BUT that was not the worst of his past transgressions. Not by a long shot.

“This place has had an effect on me,” he started, still keeping his gaze away from her, fingers idly gripping his helmet. “All I ever cared about was power– becoming something I thought I was destined for because of my bloodline. At least, I thought that was all there is to it.” BUT his decisions to become Kylo Ren weren’t his own. Influenced perhaps, yes, but ultimately he was just another tool for the galaxy’s most hateful being, pushed to becoming a vessel of the dark side. Even with all that power and resentment for his parents and his uncle… somewhere deep down, Ben Solo still struggled to stay afloat. “…I’ve killed so many.” Kylo’s voice started to crack. His chest felt heavy with remorse for the first time in what seemed like ages. The cloud of the dark side no longer hung over him to hide the guilt he’d been feeling for so long. He dropped his helmet, a metallic thud accompanying it. Slowly, he reached for his lightsaber, his lip quivering at the nightmare he’d inflicted upon himself. “I killed my own father so I could become… this. I thought I could cut off what love was left for me for strength and yet… my dead master was right. Split me down to the bone, weaker than I ever could imagine myself being. His memory has haunted me since.”

     WHAT CHANGED HIS MIND? what broke the proverbial dam? why now did these truths come flowing freely like a tide crashing ashore in a storm? “ this place ”, he’d said--- it’d messed with him, changed something in him, brought to light everything he sought to keep buried beneath that layer of rage and resentment she’d come to know so well. it was all just a mask, like that helmet he hid behind to escape the ghosts. they’d seen him now; he was exposed, like a nerve, and they gathered at his open wounds like an infection.

                                  i killed my own father.

     her heart lurched against her chest, his words ringing in her head. why, she wanted to ask, but he was quick to answer before she had the chance to say a thing. this is what he carried with him every day, why every glimpse of emotion seemed harrowed by a nameless something. 

                                                                          ---now she knew why.

     stunned into silence, her eyes never left him, taken aback by his confessions. her lips parted, like she wanted to say something--- but there was nothing. what do you say to that? she wanted to tell him it’ll be alright, that she can try to understand... but she couldn’t. 

                                                                ... but maybe there was a way she could.

     rogue lowered her gaze as she turned to him then, peeling her glove from a hand. moving to stand before him, she then raised that hand toward his cheek... but she didn’t touch him, only hovering her fingertips shy his skin as she met his eyes somberly, brow low.

GLOVED fingers ran across the cracked dome of his helmet, tracing the burning scarlet cracks where it was forged back together. Kylo looked at it with heavy contemplation, wondering just what he meant to do with this after Palpatine promised him power? Become a symbol of fear for the galaxy, like his grandfather did before him? Kylo Ren would have liked that. LET the past die. Kill it if you have to. That was once his mantra. But was it truly, or were they words put into his head like a hypnotizing spell after Snoke and Palpatine corrupted the impressionable young boy and fledgling Jedi, Ben Solo? No, he thought to himself. His actions and misdeeds; all of those murders and atrocities were on his hands.

“A lot would be an understatement,” he answers, prying his eyes off of his helmet and out into the distance. “Once I thought I knew what I needed to do, that my path had already been laid out. Now it’s just… a burden. A crossroads I suddenly find myself in. I’ve killed people, you know that, right?”

     THE THINGS HE'D LONG BURIED and left behind were bubbling to the surface, drawing new breath, and she had just fed that budding fire. he couldn’t stem the tide of memories now flowing free, like the life from an open wound, weeping every terrible thing he’s ever done--- she could see it in his eyes, as they told wordless stories before he had even opened his mouth. when he did however, she listened with a growing concern reflecting in her gaze, in a knotted brow, before he finally confirmed what she knew all along... that didn’t make it any easier to hear.

     rogue looked away then, holding herself. when did it get so cold? how do you answer to something like that? she’d never had this kind of trouble before. she'd known her fair share of killers--- heck, wade had plenty of blood on his hands, but she welcomed him into her heart all the same. this was... different somehow. she wasn’t about to discount the lives lost at his hands, but it was an elephant in the room they needed to address.

                                                                                    and it was about time.

          “ ... ah know. ” and he was wrong, but on the off chance he knows that, she continued, albeit sternly, “ ... whatever you've done... that ain’t mine t’forgive, nor is it mine t’justify. if it’s vindication yer wantin’, that ain’t what i'm offerin’. ”

     but---

ONCE upon a time, he may have tried to hide himself from her presence. Turn hostile, even. But that part of him had slowly ebbed away and though still plainly with the dark side, without his dead master’s influence and the voices in his head that whispered promises of power silent, Kylo’s long buried subconscious– his former identity as Ben Solo, slowly but surely made himself known. It helped that this woman saw right through him even without the Force. LEIA would have liked her.

“That’s up to you,” he said simply. No sarcastic retort, no snark. Just the truth as he held in his hands his reforged helmet, his eyes downcast as he peered into the void of his helmet’s eye-slit. Though, he had actively stopped trying to keep her away at this point anyway.  “…I’d forgotten what it was like to have a normal conversation with someone.” 

     HE’S DEFINITELY DIALED BACK ON THE ATTITUDE SOME--- not like she couldn’t handle a little sass and a temper tantrum every now and again. but this wasn’t like all those other times, where he tried so desperately to veil whatever lurked beneath the anger and bid for control, whatever was hiding in those shadows haunting him everywhere he went. he’d finally granted her a peek beyond the curtain, allowed himself some kind of reprieve. for the first time in a long time, he was truly vulnerable. 

     and maybe, just maybe, if she reached out her hand in offer... he’d take it this time.

          “ ... coulda fooled me. ” rogue quipped gently, before following his eyes to his helmet.

     there was nothing there; nothing reflecting in that oblivion with which he masked himself--- only he wasn’t hiding behind it anymore. so why now...?

      ✶ ❝ Yes and unfortunately, I am not too surprised. ❞