The skeleton of the AT-AT loomed in the distance like a fallen giant, its metal bones bleached white by years under Jakku's sun. Rey crept toward it, small and careful, heart pounding. To anyone else, it was just scrap, a relic to be avoided. To her, it was possibility.
By the time she climbed inside, the air was cool, shadowed. Rey surveyed the cavern of metal and wires. Her mind raced—pulleys, condensers, cooling units, improvised workbenches. She had a lifetime of experience packed into six years, and it all shouted at her: Build. Survive. Adapt.
The System pinged softly:
[REWARD UNLOCKED: Hidden Workshop Established]
[Fandom Ability Granted: Doctor Who — Temporal Intuition (Mid-Rank)
Integrated into host physiology: Rey can sense when events deviate from intended timeline.]
Rey felt it immediately, like a faint pulse beneath her skin. A small shift in a falling panel, the wrong alignment of a wire, even a scavenger approaching from an unusual direction—her body noticed before her mind did. It was subtle, but powerful.
She got to work. Tiny hands wiring crude cooling units from scavenged power cells, rigging water condensers from pipes and panels. By nightfall, she had a small, hidden haven: cool air, water, and a safe place to tinker.
---
Unkar Plutt, ever suspicious, prowled nearby.
"Hey! Little scavver… you're too efficient for your own good!"
Rey ducked behind a panel, adjusting her makeshift gauntlet. The Widow's Bite, scaled down for her small hands, glinted faintly. One zap would stop him in his tracks if he pressed too hard.
Balance pinged:
[Item Purchase 5 — MCU:
Widow's Bite (Stun Gauntlet, Child Scale) — 15,000 SC
Balance: 115,000 SC]
---
From across the galaxy, Ben felt it—flashes of fear, determination, resourcefulness. The Dyad pulsed faintly again. He didn't understand why his chest tightened at the thought of a tiny girl fighting for survival on a desert world—but he felt her. Every calculation, every tiny adjustment of a wire, every quick breath of fear reached him like ripples through water.
---
Rey paused at one point, feeling her Temporal Intuition flare. Something was off—a crate was shifted slightly from yesterday, a predator scavenger approaching a different route. Her body tensed before her mind fully registered the threat.
She whispered into the desert wind, a faint smile curling her lips:
"All right, little AT-AT, let's survive another day."
The desert wind rattled the skeleton of the fallen giant, but inside, Rey's tiny workshop hummed with life. She had food, water, power, a secret ability wired into her very being, and a Dyad connection she didn't yet fully understand. Somewhere far away, Ben's heart—confused, tethered—beat a little steadier for it.