agogelogs | Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three.

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Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three.

We do not merely destroy our enemies;

we change them.

WELCOME TO THE END OF TIME.

The Regency has its spies and its cloaks and daggers. You may have even brushed shoulders with one and not have known it. There is a place for such tactics. You are not in that place any longer.

On missions like these, the Regency prefers to keep its base close, in a intradimensional time pocket. You're apart from Gallipoli, no longer technically on Earth or in the 1910s. There are multiple segments to this complex base of Regency operations, but you can only really see two places...

THE BRIG

This is your holding cell, a constantly shifting room of indesctructable grey squares. It folds and bends to hold you and your seven companions as you await... something.

There are no guards in this place. There are no bars to look through, or sounds to listen for. You are simply in the box, left to your own devices.

Occasionally, holes will open in the ceiling, and packaged, processed rations will fall from them before immediately closing. This is the only way to measure time. There are always exactly eight bags, each with the name of one captive written on the side in their native language.

Holes will occasionally open in the walls, and they always bring with them a searingly bright light. Sleeping and sitting is difficult on the ever-shifting floors, and when you try, it always seems like a pinhole of light opens right on your eyes. Even leaning on the walls has mixed results.

DON'T GO TOWARDS THE LIGHT

The windows of light that open always stay very small, making it difficult to look through, and always pour radiantly bright, hot light. If you're feeling particularly self-punishing, you might be able to peek at an odd angle and see something of the world outside without being completely flashblinded. The world outside the Brig looks rather like the interior of a Dyson sphere. In the center, a great, bright, hot energy radiates out like a sun, and it reflects off the exterior globe the pocket dimension functions within, illuminating everything from every angle. The Brig floats around it in a slow orbit, as do many other similar looking box-rooms made of similar material, connected by constantly moving tubes and chutes. Some boxes have more chutes going toward them than others. No chutes connect to the Brig, unless someone is about to disappear into the floor...

Getting this view will be difficult, but not impossible; it will just take characters willing to blind themselves with an overabundance of light multiple times until they get the correct angle, allowing them to see outside for roughly a half second before the room shifts to redirect the light back into their eyes.

not so solitary confinement

Occasionally, the cube will split into smaller segments, throwing characters together with others at random in close confinement. This is unpredictable and fast, splitting you off from the whole for what feels like hours at a time, often with only one companion as the cube shifts and squirms around you.

technical malfunction

The power nullification is still in full effect. No magic or special abilities rule this place. Your only master are the walls, undulating with no discernible pattern, always moving.

The Regency has also attempted to break the BCE's translation capabilities, but due to the fact that COST-jailbroken BCEs work on a different system than Regency ones, this is an intermittent problem that occurs sporadically. (ie, have the translation capabilities blink in and out at your discretion.)

THE OTHER PLACE

And then, suddenly, the floor drops out from underneath you. The shifting walls make a hole perfectly your shape and size, and sucks you through. The hole closes neatly, immediately, and you slide along in a world of boxes pressing close to your skin as you are moved from one holding area to another.

When you emerge, you do so in total darkness. Power nullification is still in effect, but even if you can naturally see in the dark, it doesn't matter. All you can see is an endless blackness, and walking doesn't help. You can keep walking for however long; there is nothing to walk to. The floor is perfectly level, but you'll never reach a wall.

Finally, there's light in the distance. A spotlight from nowhere shines down on a person with the head of a jackal. Looking closer, you'll find it's some kind of highly technical mask. They are wearing armor that obscures their exact shape-- no skin shows, no hint of identity or personality, just the cold eyes of the mask. They turn to you, and speak in a voice clear and soothing, almost gentle.

"I am Kebechet. I have been looking forward to speaking with you."

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The Brig
He couldn’t recall how he’d arrived here, which was starting to become a worrying recurrence. Kylo had been in the dugout… or maybe he’d been walking back to it? Hux couldn’t have been too far ahead of him, anyways. He’d felt tired, but even he wouldn’t have just sat down in the middle of the trench for a nap. His best guess was that he’d been summoned by the Regency after all, and he’d been more successful in making contact that just receiving that scarb.

He assumed as much, at least, until he found himself here with other prisoners. Prisoners he doubted were interested in the Regency in the same way he was, too. His first reaction was anger, naturally, at being thrown in a cell with his supposed allies, and the people he wouldn’t bat an eye at to betray. Not if it got him out of here, or back home, or -- anything better than this, really.

Kylo stuffed his anger down, only to have it flare up again when the cell began its routine shifting. Being comfortable wasn’t entirely necessary for meditation, except when the floor became the wall, or something equally infuriating. After the third time he’d been knocked over, Ren stood, slamming both fists on the wall. “This is impossible!

Blinded by the Light
Kylo Ren was nothing if not persistent, even if that persistence was in pursuit of something harmful or dangerous. The random flashes of light were annoying, distracting -- and possibly something of greater importance than preventing them from resting. He couldn’t track a pattern, not like the rations, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. Figuring out the source of light was a good start.

Self inflicted pain was nothing new to him, so the most he did was wince the first time he looked directly into the light. He still flinched each time after that, screwing his eyes shut to let them recover between each attempt. So far, it was just nothing but pure light. Some part of him actually found this humorous, when he thought about it. Kylo Ren, staring directly into the Light, as if it ever had any answers for him. There was a joke in there somewhere.

He wasn’t in the mood for humor, unsurprisingly. After the spots started to fade from his last attempt, a new window of light opened, and Kylo lunged for it. The angle was a lucky one -- it still blinded him, but this time… he was certain he’d seen something. That, or he was starting to do real damage to his eyes.

Rubbing his closed eyes, still seeing light, he said: “There is something out there. It’s not just a light.”

Mordred had raged, too, but mostly when they'd first arrived. Now, she just sits on the floor, periodically scowling and rubbing her face in annoyance. Displaced from the movement of the cell, anger clouds her expression — replaced by a glare when Kylo starts to yell.

"Shut up! You're too loud." Her tone is demanding, her voice (ironically) almost as loud as his. "Yelling at us isn't going to help."

Again, hypocritical: she yells plenty whenever anyone touches her, lands on her, eyes her food, or looks at her the wrong way. But Kylo's annoying her, personally, and that's what matters here.

Kylo didn't turn around, instead flattening his palms against the wall. He didn't apply much pressure, aware that it would likely fall away and drop him on him face. There was no support in this place, either from the architecture or the people, but at least it would keep him from hitting it. For now.

"I'm not talking to you," he snapped. He wasn't even talking to anyone, nor had he been inviting commentary on his actions.

Dropping his hands, he started to walk to short length of the wall, flexing his fingers and rolling his wrists. He'd have to sleep eventually, but staying active might at least help him anticipate when the room was going to change.

"Oh yeah? Well, I can still hear you!"

And in her eyes, that's enough. Mordred gets to her feet, half for a better position to yell from, half because she's agitated. She has to stop herself from lashing out physically in frustration.

"It's so boring here. And idiots like you only make it worse." Now she's being far more of an annoyance than Kylo ever was. But once she starts, it's hard to stop.

Once she stood up, Kylo whipped around, shoulders rounded and fists clenched. If this prison was designed to make them crazy and tear into each other, it was working extraordinarily well. It would be more of an impressive feat if the group of them had actually been close, rather than almost relative strangers. Too many clashing personalities made this too easy.

"Just give it five minutes," he said. "Maybe the floor will open up and take you away from here. Permanently."

Maybe it would take him away, and that would be fine, too. Getting rolled around between compartments and prisoners kept it from being boring, as far as he was concerned.

"Good! Because that's better than dealing with a loudmouth fool!"

She doesn't mean it. Even a whole chamber full of Kylos (please no) would be better than complete isolation, left to her own thoughts and devices. But it's easier to argue with him, easier to rise to the bait in the absence of anything else.

"Come at me if you want to fight." Bold words from a 5'1 twig. "You're being a pain in the ass right now."

He was being a pain in the ass? She was the one instigating any potential aggression, and he knew he was above it. This prison would be temporary, and there was really no sense in lashing out like this. He could beat on the walls all day long, but really fighting with the others?

It was starting to sound better by the second, actually. If she wasn't bored, maybe she'd shut up, and he could go back to seething and brooding in peace.

"Listen to yourself!" he barked, advancing on her but not raising his hands or threatening her -- at least not outside of intimidation. "You call me a loudmouth fool and you've been yelling far longer than I have!"

"You started it!"

The pettiest possible comeback, and yet she says it with full sincerity, like it's actually going to win her the argument. She glares at him, angry — and then, all at once, her expression changes into something... grouchy. Tired. Even if the urge to fight is still there, she knows it's pointless.

"Don't think you can scold me. I'm a knight, not a child." Honestly, she's complaining because he's right. She has been yelling longer. "Ugh, whatever. Just pipe down, and I won't have to kill you."

The sudden shift in her body language threw him off, confusion twitching across his face. His own stance was no less aggressive, still ready to lash out.

"You don't act like any knight I know," he said. This was the opposite of piping down, and honestly, he'd like to see her try and injure him. He wasn't so stupid as to think she couldn't fight, just by looking at her. Rey was proof enough that you didn't have to look like a hardened warrior to defeat the master of the Knights of Ren. "Nor would I tolerate that kind of behavior from my own knights."

Which was funny, considering his track record of childish outbursts. He didn't always practice what he preached.

She snorts. "Tough luck. You're not my king, so you don't get to give me orders."

Not that she took them from him, either, in the end. But Kylo could control all the other knights in the universe, for all she cares, and she still wouldn't listen to him. It only makes her want to to the opposite.

"Besides, I'm the strongest. It's natural that I'd act different." Arrogant, cocky... the list goes on. A liar, too. She's nowhere near the strongest, though she's seemingly convinced herself of that fact. "You're the weird one."

What did it matter, anyways? He was Supreme Leader and his own general wouldn't listen to him here. He'd deal with Hux's insubordination in due time, but for now he had to deal with this added irritation.

"The strongest." He didn't sound convinced. Kylo took a step forward, not towards her but circling her, shoulders still tensed for an altercation. "According to who?"

He wasn't even going to dispute the claim that he was weird.

"According to me." It's... not an impressive statement, but she says it with resolve, as if her word is law. "My king was the strongest, and I'm the only one to surpass him. So that makes me the best."

She might actually have a point, if she wasn't full of shit. The king might have died by her sword, but it came at the cost of her own life, the death of thousands on both sides. It certainly wasn't a clear victory, or much of a victory at all.

"Wouldn't that make you the king?" What was the point of killing her king if she just remained a knight? Even if he'd known it ended in death, he still would have asked the question. If he'd died fighting Snoke's guards, he would have considered himself Supreme Leader, even for those scant few minutes.

He kept walking, no longer circling her but heading back to the wall he'd slammed his fists into. Kylo still wanted to hit it -- eventually something had to give.

"Yeah," she agrees. "It does."

It doesn't. But she calls herself a king often enough, so why not lay claim to it? She'd died before him, King Arthur lingering on earth longer than she did... but she'd already surpassed him, in her eyes.

"So don't tell me what to do. Got it?" Back to this again. "I'm gonna figure out a way to hurt these guys. Play nice, and I'll get you out, too."

He didn't recall ever telling her what to do, aside from suggesting she listen to herself if she was going to be judging him. Without rest or darkness and constantly shifting walls, he supposed someone was going to go crazy in here before everyone else. Unless she was just like this all the time.

"I don't need your help." Play nice. He'd heard that one before, when everyone had been so scared of Ben Solo and his Force powers and his anger. Face contorting, Kylo slammed one fist into the wall again, relishing the vibration of the impact down his arm.

She's just like this all the time, sorry. The room doesn't help; she needs even less provocation here than usual, but not by much. Kylo might have found his pettiness match. When he hits the wall again, Mordred just snorts.

"Then stay here. Seriously, what a waste of time..."

After a moment, though, she moves beside him, trying to nudge him out of the way. Not forcefully, given the difference in their size, but it's clearly her intention to take his spot somewhat.

"Let me try." Try what she doesn't specify... until she slams her own fist into the wall, hard enough to break any normal structure. She shakes it out, glaring at the white boxes in front of her. "Shit! That really did hurt!" Apparently, she wasn't expecting it.

Kylo ignored her, assuming they'd both become bored with one another and he could go back to punching or yelling at the walls uninterrupted. He was proven wrong when Mordred was suddenly back in his space, trying to get him to move. Kylo didn't budge, just staring down at her. There was absolutely nothing special about where he was standing, so maybe this was just another weird power struggle attempt.

He did finally take a step to the left, though, once she insisted on trying -- he didn't care. She could do what she wanted, and that, apparently, was punching the wall, too.

"What did you think was going to happen?" For the walls to open? Well, that was a real possibility, but they weren't going to open anywhere good.

"Nothing!" It's the truth. "I thought it might feel good, but this stupid wall's too strong."

Or she's too weak — at least while trapped in here. None of them can just force their way out. That thought will be what pushes her to work with Dany, later, but right now, she's still getting in petty arguments like this one.

She looks over at Kylo.

"Are you gonna hit it again?" Her tone is almost conversational, instead of the irritated yelling of before. Talk about a moodswing... or maybe hitting the wall got some of her anger out, if nothing else.

Kylo could appreciate the honesty, and he couldn't argue with her about hoping it might feel good, too. Sometimes hitting things resulted in injury, other times, stress relief. This prison wasn't offering much of the latter.

He stared back her, considering, then said: "If I want to."

Which was to say, yes, probably, when he inevitably lost his temper again.

There's something oddly satisfying about watching him struggle with being trapped. The way he slams his hands against the walls is childish, that same temper she remembers too well from the way he reacted to everything not going his way, and she does intend to keep quiet, but when he starts to shout-

"You should just be glad you aren't strapped to a metal chair," she says, voice chill. "Or that you haven't decided to trust someone only to have them put you in chains the moment you go to help them."

Her, bitter? Nah...

Kylo was still waiting to see if this kidnapping was a blessing a disguise, or if he and Hux really been led along or duped by the Regency. He wasn't going to rule it out, but he did know it wasn't a blessing to be trapped here with Rey. They were exhausting one another every time they came in contact, and the only silver lining here was the complete nullification of their powers. He hated it, but he did not miss their bond.

He twisted around to look at her, not turning all the way, but just looking over his shoulder. "You knew what was going to happen the moment you set foot on the Supremacy. Even I couldn't let you parade around without restraints."

Kylo turned back to the wall, shoulders curling in before he forced himself to straighten again. Let her vent, or complain, or try to guilt him; he'd weather it, like he did everything else.

Well, so much for chill. That sets a fire off in her and she's on her feet in an instant, glaring daggers at him.

"You can't really think that," she spits back at him. "I thought we understood each other! I thought-"

What? That she'd just sneak in and they'd find somewhere private to talk? She should have listened to Luke, should have asked Kylo to meet her somewhere they'd be on even ground, and acknowledging her miscalculation just sets her more on edge than she already is.

"You thought I was going to come back with you," he snarled, whirling around completely to face her when she jumped up. "I thought you'd come to your senses and came to join me!"

How easily Snoke had played them both with this bond, manipulating their longing for understanding and acceptance. Every time he thought he'd be strong enough to earn Snoke's praise again, he was made a fool of or struck down. Kylo could kill him a thousand more times and it would still never feel satisfying enough.

"Snoke didn't lie: there was nothing I could think or feel or plan that he didn't know. It was my task to bring you to him." And he'd already failed enough at everything else. Kylo suspected Snoke had to have had some inkling he thought having Rey next to him would even the odds, but he'd never know now.

When he turns around she feels an odd flash of satisfaction at being able to make him face her, not liking how he'd had his back to her for some reason. She was worth more than talking to his back, and now that he's facing her she steps towards him.

"That's not true," she says at once. "He didn't know you were going to do what you did."

Kill him. Save her. Fight beside her once he was out of the picture. It had felt right, the two of them on the same side for once, and she can't believe he didn't feel the same way. She doesn't need their bond to know he did.

Of course he felt it -- not even fighting with his knights had brought him that kind of unity, that level of understanding. His power had always so far surpassed everyone else's, it always fell to him to lead, and others to follow. Having a true equal at his side had been exhilarating.

Both of them had been fighting under the assumption the other was choosing their side. Everything fell apart when the truth of it wouldn't be swayed.

"Another second and he would have." He had little doubt about that -- he knew killing Snoke had always been in his future, but there would never have been another chance like that. Nor could he have done it alone. "It doesn't matter. It's done. Be glad I spared you the indignity of an armed escort, and could bring you there myself."

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Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three.

Kylo Ren | Star Wars

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