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False Projection
Kylo frowned and cursed himself internally. How could he have let this happen? How could he have been so weak? How could he have let the Resistance capture him? He was far stronger than anyone, any alpha even though he was an omega, it was unthinkable that this could have occurred. He didn't know what to blame, since he couldn't blame the first choice that came to mind. The two children curled up in his arms couldn't have done anything, weren't at fault. He could justify that he had been captured because he had chosen to protect his children rather than fight back and put them in danger.
They had put him in a tightly locked and small cell. The air vent covers were sealed to the wall, and door was bolted. Although he could tear it down with the force, he could sense two guards outside the room. They were filled with agitation, and he didn't want them to start shooting at him.
He sighed and leaned against the wall. 'Hux better get here soon,' he thought bitterly. If the General didn't find them soon he worried that the Resistance might try something. One of the twins stirred, disturbed by his slight movement, and opened their eyes. The little boy looked up, yawning. He blinked, looking up at Kylo. "Mommy?"
Originally Kylo had hated the thought of the children calling him mom, but being an omega his parental instincts made him find everything they did cute. He disliked how his moods around them was either fawning over them or worrying about them, and in this case, being fiercely protective of them. He could never get mad at them.
He shifted his grip on the child. "What is it, Bree?"
"Where are we?" Blue eyes darted around curiously. The child tugged on the strings of his hat, a nervous tic he had. Kylo vaguely remembered having the same habit when he was a child. He forced himself to stop thinking about that and instead thought about an answer he could give his son.
"Well... We're in a cell. We're prisoners right now."
"Did we do somethin' wrong?"
"No, we were forced to be prisoners, we were captured by the Resistance."
Bree's eyes widened. "Daddy says the Resis...Resisan...Resisence...Resistance!" He struggled to pronounce the long word. "He says it's bad!"
"Your dad is right, it is bad. Which is why he'll be coming soon to take us back home." Bree smiled brightly. The noise finally woke up the second child, who grabbed at Kylo's shirt so Kylo could hold him better too. The boy squirmed until he was resting his head against Kylo's chest and then went back to sleep.
Kylo urged Bree to fall asleep too, telling him it would make time pass by faster so their wait for Hux would be shorter. It was easy enough for the toddler to fall asleep like his twin. Once Kylo was certain both of them were fast asleep, he let himself try and sense who else was on the ship. He could sense the scavenger girl, her presence was very strong, and the defect trooper. His mother was also on board, along with plenty of soldiers.
None of that really mattered, he wasn't going to let any of them touch his kids.
-
"What shall we do about Kylo Ren, General Organa? He's not in a heat like you said he would be."
She stared at the soldier who had come with the report on their newest prisoner. "What? He should be, his cycle-"
They interrupted with an explanation. "He was not the only prisoner. He has two young children with him, clearly his own. It will be impossible to go near him while he's protecting them." Ah, his aggressive heats would no longer plague him with kids that needed his attention. They would not have that weakness to exploit, but Leia quickly realized another weakness -a bigger one.
"We need to separate them. Use them as leverage. His desperation to get them back will cancel out his loyalties." She knew full well how far a mother would go to protect their children, and Ren's omega status would only increase that. It was a cruel tactic, and quite dangerous. There was the possibility that instead of trying to bargain, he'd just go on a rampage until he found his children. She was willing to take that chance.
"But General, he won't let us take them just like that."
"We'll put him to sleep, and take them. We'll need a high dosage and someone quick to grab the kids. We'll meet in my office." The soldier nodded and went off to follow through with her orders. She headed to the room and sat at her desk. The ship wasn't all that large, but she still got a personal room. It was around ten minutes before a guard came in with two surprisingly calm children in his arms. one looked half asleep. He placed them on top of her desk.
The one with a hat on looked around the room. "This is not the medbay. Can we go back to mommy?" The other one yawned, rubbing his eyes. Leia gave a questioning look to the guard.
"I told the kid I was taking them to the medbay so he wouldn't freak out."
"How is Ren?" The twins were both alert at the mention of their parent.
"Out like a light. He should be up in a few minutes, though."
"Thank you. Go and fetch Rey." Leia decided she'd talk and try to get the kids to trust her a bit, and then have Rey briefly scan their memories for anything they could have seen or overheard around Kylo.
The twins were staring at her with bright somewhat cold blue eyes. She met their gazes and softly smiled. So these were her grandchildren. They were rather cute, she had to admit. The one without a hat was a splitting image of Kylo, with unruly black curls, minus the eyes. The other she couldn't see the hair color of had a heavy splash of orangish freckles over his nose and cheeks, and scattered throughout. He looked less like Kylo.
"Who are you?" The freckled one piped up.
"I'm your grandmother."
The two of them exchanged a look, frowning. "Daddy says our grandma is bad." She wondered who their father was. What alpha could Kylo had accepted enough to bear and raise children for? To stay around?
"Perhaps he meant your other grandmother."
"We only have one grandma, the other two are dead. We don't have any grandpas either."
"What's your names, sweethearts?" They exchanged another look, growing more nervous.
"Mommy and Daddy said not to tell our names to strangers... 'specially bad people." The black haired one nodded in agreement.
"Well I'm family, so you can tell me your names."
They both frowned again. That was good reasoning, but their parents had said not to. "Um..." The freckled one seemed to be doing all the talking, perhaps he was the older twin? "I'm Bree..." That obviously wasn't his full name. "And that's Kiro..." Bree was holding onto the strings of his hat. Ben had done that too as a child, Leia remembered, he'd done it when he was scared or nervous.
"Those are cute names. How are you two feeling?"
"Want Mommy..." Trying to earn their trust was not working, the two of them were growing more frightened by the second. There was a knock on the door and Leia unlocked it so Rey could enter. The girl stepped in, eyes flickering to the toddlers. She approached, and the two of them moved closer to each other. Leia doubted they had ever been around an omega that wasn't Kylo before. The First Order was mostly alphas and betas. Finn had said that there were no omega stormtroopers and he'd never heard of an omega officer.
"Hello, Rey. These are Kylo Ren's children, Bree and Kiro."
Rey had never been around children before, and didn't seem to know how to act. "Hey there." She gave them a small wave. Neither of them responded. "How are you guys?"
"Rey, you can do as we discussed." Leia gestured to the boys. Now to search their memories. "You can try Kiro first." The boy jumped a bit at the mention of his name. Rey lifted him off of the table away from his twin and set him down on the floor. Bree pushed himself off too, managing to land without getting hurt.
Kiro stared up at Rey with wide blue eyes. There was a shimmer in them, possibly of laughter, although there was nothing to laugh about. Rey suddenly sensed fear rolling off of him, the boy projecting his feelings through the force. They were quite strong.
Leia recognized it, "Hurry Rey, children with force sensitive parents project when they're in danger, Kylo Ren will be sensing this as soon as he wakes up." Any minute now, the man would awaken. Rey nodded and took a deep breath. She reached out for the child's mind, slipping in gently. The boy tensed. She made sure she was doing it correctly, that she was in alright, and then began to root through memories and thoughts, grabbing one to pull forward, out of a natural barrier.
The force projections suddenly increased, and the boy grabbed his head, doubling over. She pulled back as Kiro began to scream, squeezing his eyes shut. Rey instantly feared she had tugged too hard, and tried to go back in to fix it. His screaming only increased, high pitched wails. He was shaking he was screaming so loudly, more noise than she could have thought from such a small body. It hurt her ears, and panic set in.
"Rey! What did you do?" Leia demanded.
"I- I don't know!! I must have pulled too hard!" She spoke loud to be heard.
"A child's mind is fragile, easy to break-"
"I tried to be gentle!" Rey shouted back, not knowing what to do.
Bree crawled to his twin's side as the women yelled, and held onto Kiro, projecting too, another wave of fear pulsing in the air intently. When Leia felt it, strongly with her own maternal instinct setting in, she knew that there was no way Kylo hadn't sensed this.
-
Kylo had sensed Kiro's initial projection as he just began to come back to consciousness. He struggled to get up, to will the drugs away. When the projection doubled, he shot straight up. The sound of screaming hit his ears, undoubtedly Kiro's, faint but audible through the thin ship walls, and his heart dropped.
They were doing something to his son, hurting him.
He got off the bed, unclipping his lightsaber from his side. The idiotic soldiers hadn't even taken it away, too afraid to go near him for any longer than needed. He was furious already that they had taken the twins away. He was going to kill them all for hurting them. Make them suffer.
The guards outside his cell didn't have any time to react as the door was violently torn down with the force, they were just as quickly cut down by his lightsaber's red blade. He took a moment to sense exactly where the twins were and then took off running, cutting down anyone he passed. Their strangled cries as his saber sliced through their chests only further fueled his rage.
When Bree's projection was added to Kiro's, pure fear, Kylo panicked. Something was horribly wrong, they were in danger, he needed to save them. Instinct took over, he slashed at everything he passed, not hearing anything but his son screaming, deaf to everything else, until he skidded to a halt in front of the room they were in. He ripped the door down with the force and stepped in.
The first thing Leia noticed about Kylo was how terrified he looked. He was pale, eyes wide with panic. He hadn't even pulled up his hood, and he had a white knuckled grip on his unstable lightsaber. He shoved Rey with the force so hard she left a dent in the wall, and quickly dropped down in front of the twins. He scooped up Kiro, who immediately ceased screaming. The projections suddenly stopped.
"Are you hurt? What did they do to you? Kiro?" He searched over the little boy for any injuries. Bree clung to him, tugging at his shirt.
"Mommy!" Kylo looked down at him. "Kiro's OK."
"What?"
"Not hurt."
"But-" Kiro murmured, cutting him off. A grin grew on the toddler's face. "I felt-"
"Fakin' it!" Kiro interrupted. "Daddy told us to if somebody tried to go in our head! It worked!" Kylo felt like kicking Hux for teaching them how to project fake emotions so well. But at the same time it was a really good trick, it had definitely grabbed his attention. He sighed in relief and hugged the both of them.
-
The whole ship suddenly shook and alarms began blaring. Leia's comm blared and she clicked it. "General! We're being pulled onto a First Order ship, all our weapons have shut down!" There was static and then more panicked speaking, "They're contacting us!"
"Send the transmission to my office."
A hologram appeared over her desk as soon as the transmission came through, and Leia recognized General Hux and Captain Phasma right away. The General stood straight, his hands clasped behind his back. Phasma was checking over her gun, inserting a new power cell into it.
"General Organa you have a few things that belong to me." Hux's expression was neutral but his voice was clearly angry. "Surrender and return Kylo Ren and the children. Then we'll let you go."
"Sir, wouldn't it be easier to take them all prisoner while we have them on board?" Phasma interrupted. "We have the supplies to restrain the Jedi and the General, we can slaughter everyone else."
Hux thought about that for a moment. "The rescue of Ren is our top priority, Captain, once we have them back we'll improvise."
"Yes, General." She saluted and walked off. "I'll return with Ren shortly."
-
"What the hell was that?" Kylo demanded as soon as he made it to the bridge. He stopped in front of Hux, trying to tower over the redhead with the few inches of height he had on him. His attempt of being intimidating was negated with tiny twins happily reaching out at their father.
"Hello, children." Hux greeted their sons. "Are you two alright?" They both nodded eagerly.
"Hux! I don't need you to rescue me. Don't act like you're better than me-"
Hux waved his hand dismissively. "I was just trying to show off in front of Organa."
"Oh."
"Need I remind you that I've had to rescue you before? Starkiller?"
"Don't push it."