bakerstreet | OH BABY, IT'S A LONG WAY DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE RIVER

This time Hux could actually see them, and as more than just the flickering heat-haze shimmer that he'd seen before. They were definitely more solid than they looked, he could tell that much, and definitely more dangerous.

He'd been about to warn Kylo of the same thing and instead just cursed, rather creatively. Knocking the troopers unconscious he could do, but only if they got close enough, and he wasn't sure they were going to be stupid enough to take that kind of chance.

But he also wasn't going to let the specter attempting to ambush Kylo get away with it, either, not about to let it get its hooks in. He snarled, moving forward quick and fluid, prepared to tear it away with his bare hands, even though touching it was enough to send a shock of cold almost all the way up to his shoulder, a sort of bone-deep ache.

It was anyone's guess how long the first wraith had been starving. These two had fed on the life force of the Stormtroopers they inhabited and it made them stronger, brighter and more intelligent. (Or perhaps, merely less desperate.)

The attack on Kylo was calculated. As he struggled to hold and tear through the first one, stumbling closer to the equipment in the lab, his back was exposed. The Stormtroopers aimed and fired where they could, but Hux was right - they were unwilling to damage the equipment in the lab. So the specter waited and then it struck.

Kylo gasped as he felt the chill against his spine, but then he heard Hux grunt beside him.

"If they get one of us, one of us is ending up in that tube!!" he screamed in a single breath, tightening his grip on the spirit and the Dark Side of the Force. He couldn't let them win. He couldn't let this one have his body. He couldn't let the other one get inside of Hux. He couldn't...

When he ripped the spirit apart, the tear in the Force was beyond satisfying.

Even as tired as he was, Hux had been calculating the size, shape, and placement of the room, and unless he was further off in his assessment than he thought, it was the empty suspension vat that was under the wellspring of power generated by the spire, and not the one that actually had Snoke -or what was left of Snoke- in it. But at the moment he had no way of communicating that to Kylo, maybe if they got a chance to breathe.

He didn't have the kind of control or skill needed to tear the thing apart, all he could do was keep it off of Kylo and keep it at arm's reach of himself, though for the time being it seemed more interested in his enforcer, which was likely the only thing that actually saved Hux at the moment.

"Kylo!" There was an edge of desperation just to that one word, because with the first of the wraiths dispatched, the one Hux had ahold of renewed its efforts to get away and Hux had to hold onto it with both hands. He knew that chill in his skin, seemingly all the way through to the bone, from touching it was going to linger and at the moment he could only hope that it would eventually ease.

As soon as the agonizing screams of the dying spirit rippled into the Force, Kylo spun on his heels. He gripped the specter with both hands and immediately started tearing into it.

"You're mine!!"

Again, an unspoken command, Seize them!, echoed in their minds. The possessed Stormtroopers, now realizing the pair's strategy, split up along the sides of the room. They would have the cover, and the danger of firing on their master would be drastically reduced.

Hux snarled again when he realized what was happening, and all he said was: "Cover me." He already knew that Kylo would be able to hold a blaster bolt, maybe two, but he could deflect them.

Above all else, Hux was an engineer, and while he hadn't designed any suspension tanks like this, he knew that it wouldn't take long to figure out how to dismantle the controls, as long as he had the chance to actually do so. But he also knew he was going to have to burn through the last shreds of his energy reserve to keep himself masked again, difficult to hold onto if that's the tactic Snoke used once he realized what was going on.

Hux didn't wait for a confirmation, knowing that Kylo would do as he asked, already scanning the nearest control panel for -there it was- a maintenance hatch. He pulled that away, just looking over the interior at first, to identify what he could before masking himself completely as he started re-wiring. the tanks were designed to drain the full one into the empty one when Snoke got his new host, but Hux's intention was to do so with that second tank still empty, something that would leave Snoke exposed.

Kylo wrestled with the wraith in his hands, wounding it as he stumbled behind Hux. As the troopers started firing, he thrust a hand out. The margin was far too narrow. The bolts stopped too close for comfort, but he was able to hold them as they passed. All the while, he kept fighting the specter in his grasp.

When Hux made a move for the maintenence panel, Kylo physically covered him, deflecting everything he could. The Stormtroopers only got lucky when he finally tore the wraith apart. One shot hit the control panel. Sparks shot out in all directions. Another hit Kylo in the arm. But if the trooper was expecting to knock the knight off his footing, he was sorely mistaken.

With the wraith gone, he ignited his saber again. Deflecting became much easier after that, and he shoved them all back against the wall with a Force push.

"How's it coming?" He shouted, readying himself for the next wave when they stood back up.

Hux didn't answer immediately, instead there was a crackle of electricity and a wisp of smoke along with the smell of burned electronics, even faintly burned hair, and the whole apparatus gave a hollow clunk before the transfer siphon gulped to life, slowly drawing the suspension fluid from the tank containing what was left of Snoke and pumping it into the currently empty tube.

He wriggled himself out of the control hatch, still keeping low so as not to draw more fire. He wasn't sure what good it would really do except to make it easier for them to get at the thing that had been Snoke, something that would leave him more vulnerable, especially if Hux managed to either get the troopers to shoot through the other vat, or get Kylo to simply lightsaber it open, spilling the bacta solution onto the floor and likely into the rest of the equipment.

The sheer feeling of panic that followed the sabotage was all the confirmation Kylo needed that the tide had turned in their favor. Snoke's whisper turned desperate. The Stormtroopers charged and the added momentum only sent them flying back against the wall harder and faster when Kylo flicked his wrist.

"Good work." he smiled.

Praise, however, was short-lived. In the back of their minds, they could hear Snoke's next command, Shed your skin and stop them!

Immediately, the five remaining troopers dropped like discarded rag dolls. Kylo knew he only had a moment before they were completely surrounded by the remainder of Snoke's army of vengeful wraiths.

"Hux, take this!" Kylo thrust his active saber into the other man's hands. It would do him little good against the spirits, but could be put to far better uses elsewhere. "Kill him! Destroy everything!! I'll hold them off as long as I can!"

While Hux knew it wasn't actually the case, he still felt as if the heat of the saber dispelled the chill up his arm from where he'd taken hold of the wraith. He wanted to tell Kylo to keep it, but he knew that it wouldn't do him any good against those specters and that alone had a spike of worry landing in the pit of his stomach.

But all the same he nodded once, not wasting time by yanking Kylo down for a kiss, though the urge to do so was there. Instead he just spun, lashing out at the tank that contained Snoke's still-living husk.

Hux only barely registered the fact that he was snarling, fully focused on his task, leaving the pump running, keeping it in his mind's eye as what not to destroy even as he hacked at power cables and couplings and finally the tank itself, already more than half-empty.

He could feel the thing's claws in his mind, where his mask had started to fail or Snoke had managed to peel it away at the corner, and he could taste blood, not sure whether his nose had started bleeding again or if he'd bitten his tongue in his fury, though moments later it didn't matter as the transparisteel of the tank finally gave way, the rest of the fluid -thick and viscous- spilled out, pulling Snoke along with its momentum, even despite the fact that he was still connected to a respirator among other things.

Connections that Hux was already slicing through, the saber snarling in his hands, apparently just as angry as the man himself.

Later, perhaps, there would be time enough for that kiss, just as there would be time enough for Kylo to playfully berate Hux for destroying the citadel the same way he used to take his rage out on the Finalizer. But at the moment, he could only hope the Emperor's anger would fuel his connection to the Dark Side and that the Force would protect him from whatever Snoke might still be capable of.

At the moment, he had his hands full.

Filled with the life force of their recent hosts, the wraiths seemed to glow in the lab's flashing lights. They came, all at once, and Kylo intercepted them. He seized the first one with both hands, tearing into it with all his strength. The others were right there, and he struggled to move. He had to evade and lure at the same time. He had to protect Hux. He had to give him every possible moment to kill Snoke.

The moment the tank shattered, Kylo took his chances.

He threw himself into the other tank, breaking through the glass. The chemicals burned as they showered him, but he pushed through the pain. It was enough to help him tear through the wraith in his grasp and the energy flooding through him would be more than enough to draw the others in.

Hux hadn't been wrong, the suspension fluid was mostly concentrated bacta, though he knew that wasn't all there was to it, and he didn't want to know what else was there when he was already standing ankle-deep in it, he just had to hope that it wasn't anything that would do Kylo more damage than the wraiths and the shattered transparisteel had already done.

Out of the liquid and removed from the elaborate life-support system, the thing that had been Snoke was already starting to shrivel, withered skin tightening over twisted bones, remembering the lesson learned from killing the possessed troopers, he didn't actually kill the thing, just watched and waited as it seemed to mummify, those claws in his mind growing weaker and finally falling away completely, though not without tearing at his defenses one last time, shredding through the remainder of his masking, leaving him almost as much of a beacon as Kylo was in that gathered energy.

Hux understood now, why it was the empty chamber that had been in the wellspring, still near enough that it would aid in keeping Snoke alive, but more than that: so that his chosen host would stay strong and end up stronger once he had been transferred to the new body. It was something that made Hux's skin crawl, and something he wasn't going to think about any further, instead he used the last of his rage -already starting to sputter out, like the stub of a candle- to round on the wraiths still surrounding Kylo.

That would be another thought saved for later - which one of them was truly destined to become the next Snoke. And which one the next wraith.

With one of the five destroyed, Kylo positioned himself in the center of that wellspring and held his ground. Unfortunately, he'd shattered too much of the tubing for it to cover him, but that might have been for the best. A false sense of security would only end in death.

Immediately, he felt a powerful surge of Force energy. There was nothing below them but stone. This was the focal point of the entire citadel. The vicious specters went wild, just as that one had with Hux - desperate to make this their next meal.

And Kylo let them come. He drew that energy into himself and channeled it into the strongest attack he'd ever made. He held nothing back. A mighty scream echoed in the chamber as all four wraith were torn to shreds in a single strike! The explosion of Force energy was more than enough to shatter the remainder of the tube, short out the rest of the lab equipment and even shake the ground.

That wave of power was enough to stagger Hux where he stood, though he regained his balance after a moment, as he always did, though not as easily, as he already felt on the verge of collapse and he knew it wouldn't be much longer at all until his energy was completely spent.

With the equipment shorted out, the saber still buzzing in his hand was the only light, and it took Hux a moment to orient himself in that, to make sure that the shadows he and Kylo were casting were just shadows and nothing more.

"Kylo?" His voice sounded strange to his own ears after all the noise, after Snoke's tearing at the inside of his skull even as weakly as he had been. He still tasted blood in his mouth and bile in his throat and was swaying where he stood, even after the initial outward wave of power had passed.

He stood there for a moment, stunned, almost twitching from the sheer amount of power still coursing through his veins. His senses were all on overload. When Hux called his name, he jerked, and then his gaze softened.

When he reached out with the Force, he couldn't sense anything down there except the two of them. But he asked, nonetheless.

"Did we.." He whispered hesitantly. "Did we just.. Is it over?"

He could only nod, not trusting his voice again just yet, especially knowing that his own abilities were completely burned out at the moment, he could see Kylo there, but couldn't sense him, nor could he sense anything from the husk that had been Snoke, even though he could clearly still see it as well, desiccated and sunken in on itself, but he couldn't feel anything from it, either.

As lights in the stairwell began to sputter on -as if emergency power had finally kicked into effect- Hux thumbed off the lightsaber in his hand, offering it back over to Kylo.

Hux's expression kept flickering as well, not quite micro-expressions, but not even full expressions, either, as if he didn't have the energy even to properly emote. What he finally managed to say, voice still just as shaky as it had been was: "I need to sit down."

He jerked again as the lights blinked on. Fortunately, seeing Hux's outstretched hand seemed to pull him back to the present. He stumbled out of what remained of the tube and took back his weapon. He'd hidden his own exhaustion well, but the shaking of his hand gave it away.

"Not here..." He kept a wary eye on the husk of his former master, but eventually turned back to Hux. "We need to go back. Make sure Phasma is safe."

An unsteady hand found Hux's back. He didn't dare ask aloud if Hux thought he could make it back up all those flights of stairs, but the thought - and the support - was there.

He swayed again, but just gave a little nod. He could make it back up the stairs, he would have to, despite the fact that his ears were ringing and he had a headache that he could feel halfway down his spine and knew that his nose was bleeding again, or maybe still, he wasn't sure if it had ever actually stopped and the fact that he was fairly certain he would have vomited already if he'd had anything to actually bring up.

He was tempted to give an order to wall off the chamber itself and the top of the stairs as well, but he didn't want to close it off just yet, not now that he knew how the citadel was constructed, what point and purpose it all had. They could cleanse the chamber of all traces of Snoke, even if it took a barricade and a firebomb, it could be done, and then it could be used to their own advantage.

He was looking decidedly sallow, somewhere well past pale, by the time they'd made it up the stairs and across the rubble-strewn room that had been the prison block, likely only still moving due to momentum alone.

Snoke was finally dead.

By the time they left the laboratory, the surge of Force energy Kylo received was rapidly slipping away. Adrenaline gave way to exhaustion. As he climbed the stairs, his steps grew increasingly heavy and he couldn't stop shivering. His body finally noticed the chill that sunk deep into his bones. When they reached the prison block, they were leaning on each other just to keep moving.

Still, Kylo paused. His shoulders slumped in relief when he counted seven open doors amidst the destruction. He could be reasonably certain that all the wraith had been accounted for.

"We got them all..." he whispered, teeth chattering. An exhausted laugh escaped from chapped lips.

They didn't have far to go now.

Another nod, finding that he still didn't trust his voice, not completely, though his comm crackled to life again as soon as they'd crossed the threshold into the throne room once more, Phasma checking in.

He swallowed thickly, realizing that the edges of his vision were already starting to swim and to narrow, taking a moment to center himself, just letting his eyes close as he answered her hail, letting her know that they'd made it back to the throne room and both needed medical attention as soon as possible.

He doubted that there was much that could be done aside from treating them for exhaustion and shock, but that would have to be enough.

Phasma, in turn, relayed the fact that the Finalizer was in orbit -which meant access to full medical facilities- and that she was sending a team to their location which meant that they should stay put. There was something in her tone that brooked no argument, and even if Hux had been in a state to argue, he only rarely challenged Phasma's statements, it was part of the reason she had the position she had, she was good at it.

When the troopers arrived, Kylo insisted Hux be seen to first.

"Get a stim pack." He ordered. "Water and something to eat as well. He needs rest.."

Kylo might have been exhausted, his body reeling from prolonged contact with those otherworldly specters, but he'd honestly trained for worse. Reaching the point of complete physical collapse was par for the course for a Knight of Ren. Hux, on the other hand, was forced to stretch his mind and body beyond their limits.

The squad leader's response, while uncapping a water packet for the General and handing it off, was: "Our orders are to see to triage here and get both of you to the transport to the Finalizer for a full medical screen."

Aside from the water packets they had hand-warmers and stim-packs as well, along with Hux's greatcoat, as Phasma had known he wouldn't want to be seen on the Star Destroyer without it. It took Hux a moment to register that the stim was being offered along with the water, and he nodded, "Yes, enough of a dose to keep me from collapsing before we arrive, but not more than that." Having already been through three or four adrenaline cycles since arriving those few hours earlier -hours that seemed like days- he knew that he didn't want to overtax himself with more stimulants.

It was hard to believe that everything they'd been through had happened in less than a day. It felt like a long, drawn-out war, though that was likely just from the sheer amount of Force energy he had to plough through. But it was worth it. Kylo could feel the void in the Force where he'd once been. Snoke was really, truly gone and the galaxy was theirs!

He had yet to feel, however, that to the troopers, he was just as pale, shaky and ready to drop as Emperor Hux.

"All right." To everyone's surprise, Kylo Ren didn't fight them on it. He took the offered water pouch and drained it in large gulps. While a trooper saw to injecting Hux, Kylo just snatched the pack and dosed himself with obvious familiarity, jamming it into the lateral thigh. "But when you're finished, what he needs is rest."

That too, was spoken in an all-too-familiar way.

Hux just nodded at the statement, there was no point in arguing it, after all. Kylo was right, he did need the rest, and it was only once he'd been given a hand-warmer that he realized how cold his fingers actually were. Some combination of already-poor circulation, combined with the peaks and valleys of adrenaline and who knew how much actual blood loss, he knew it couldn't be that much, but given as how his nose was still bleeding sluggishly on one side, he couldn't be sure.

He did, however, straighten a moment later, swinging his greatcoat over his shoulders and giving the troopers a nod, falling easily into step at the center of the squad, trusting that Kylo would do the same, letting their escort actually be an escort, both to the shuttle and then from the hangar bay through the Finalizer to the medical wing.

By the time they arrived, Hux felt the borrowed energy from the stims starting to wane. Slowly enough that he'd still be able to answer questions, but definitely a noticeable flagging of energy.

Kylo nodded at Phasma as they passed. He was confident now that the Citadel was safe. She had her orders and would continue overseeing preparations for their next engagements undisturbed by the likes of Snoke. There would be time for his own preparations later. What mattered now was allowing the new Emperor to recuperate from the battle against the Supreme Leader.

Again, when the medics surrounded the both of them, he insisted, "See to the Emperor first."

The medics were used to Kylo Ren brushing off his own injuries with the aid of a nearby stim pack. There were reasons why he'd disappear into his quarters for days after harsh missions. In this case, it was obvious that the large dose of stimulants rushing through his system had yet to dissipate. He'd already taken care of that part. The fact that he was still standing there when they turned to Hux was what struck them as odd.

The Supreme Leader would not have allowed such weakness. But Snoke was gone, and Hux protected him down there as much as the other way around.

Once he was certain of Hux's safety, Kylo would actually let them check him over too. For his emperor's sake.

Hux was thankful that Kylo had stayed. He'd never enjoyed even routine trips to medical himself, merely endured them because he had to. It wasn't a fear, exactly, but some kind of deep distaste -likely over the fact that he was weak enough to need medical attention, even routine- that bordered on some kind of anxiety.

Of course, being who he was, no one had ever fully realized as much, because of his own self-control.

Of course, it was hard to keep that borderline anxiety down when the phrase 'traumatic brain injury' was used. Apparently Snoke's last desperate clawing had been literal, and it was a good thing he'd already been weak at that point, because while it was definitely damage, it was something that could be repaired, it would just take time.

It was deemed safest to just put Hux under and get to work immediately instead of waiting any longer and risking further damage.

OH BABY, IT'S A LONG WAY DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE RIVER

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