Four days had passed since his master had given him the order to let no one else but him train the girl Rey of Jakku, and nothing had been accomplished in that time. The girl stubbornly denied his teaching and refused to leave her room when she was informed that he would be her knew trainer. After two days of her being hold up in her room, Kylo then compromised by having her train with the guards under his supervision. Kylo could see her obvious hesitance to agree, but was eventually able to persuade her with the promise that he would not directly interfere, only give critiques.

Things seemed to be going well for the next three days. Kylo would watch from the side and correct Rey whenever she made a wrong move, and when she was knocked down he would tell her what she did wrong and show her what to do instead if she was in that situation again. She listened in contempt, not wanting to listen and sometime flat out ignoring his instructions; but when she did the same thing as she did before and it failed once or twice again she would switch to his method and find pleasing results. So by the third day she would do as he said right away though Kylo noted the anger in her face when she had to do so. It was clear that Rey preferred to do things her way and rely on herself rather than take advice from someone else, especially him.

Within those five days barely anything changed besides the fact that she listened to his tips more. Every time he offered to teach her new and more advanced techniques she would say the same thing, "I don't want to murder others."

Kylo tried to explain what exactly she'd be learning, that it would render them unconscious or numb so the opponent would not feel pain; but she continued to call him a killer. The hypocrisy was plain as day in her words, but he said nothing up to now, letting her live her fantasy to let her sleep better at night.

On the fifth day after their training session had ended and he headed to the baths to clean up and relax, he was summoned.

Kylo knew that wasn't good. He was hoping that Snoke would wait until after the match this weekend to call upon him, but it seems that wasn't the case. Hope. Kylo knew he shouldn't have believed in something as futile as that.

Kylo was escorted to Snoke's headroom by one of his master's personal guards, accompanied by two of his own guards; this could only mean one thing: he was going to get punished.

It had been nearly three months since he last time this had happened. Kylo had performed badly that day and received a sprained ankle from his opponent, Snoke was furious about being humiliated in front of his colleagues and made sure Kylo remembered not to fail again; he didn't.

Kylo had a good idea about what has made his master so crossed with him and he knew that nothing he could possibly say could stop what was due for him; but the innocent child within him could not help but hold onto hope despite him knowing there was nothing to hope for.

The walk there was painstakingly quiet, the guards before him serious and condemning, and the guards behind him nervous and confused. Only his master's private guards knew what happened to those who were punished by Snoke, and they were under orders not to disclose that information to anyone else. So on the rare occasion that Kylo was called for acting out of line, the guards knew nothing except the fact that their superior would come out bloodied and often times limping. The sight of the aftermath alone was enough for complete obedience with no questions asked. Only he, Phasma, and a former personal guard had been put under Snoke's torture. That's one reason why he has found himself closer to Phasma and more trusting of her than anyone else.

Kylo stood outside the door waiting as a guard announced his presence and he was allowed passage. Once he crept in he knelt down before Snoke, submitting before things got worse. He said nothing, and neither did Snoke. Out of nowhere he was suddenly grabbed by two guards from behind and pulled to his feet and forced over into the electric chair. He wanted to fight back, but knew that such an action would only worsen his punishment, so he did nothing to prevent them from pushing him down and strapping him down. One of the guards pulled out a syringe and stuck it into his neck directly into a vein. Kylo gritted his teeth as they pumped him with copper. Next they shoved a bottle of water down his throat and took of his boots, putting his legs and feet into a tub of water. A metal helmet was strapped onto his head, his shirt was opened and wires were connected to his chest, temples, and wrists.

Kylo tried to force down the fear that was swelling up inside him, but he failed as he felt his hands begin to sweat, his skin visibly becoming paler.

As the guards moved onto the machine, Snoke slithered over to him menacingly. Stopping before him he reached out a hand and caressed Kylo's face in a terrifying manner.

"Nearly two weeks… of that girl being here and you've already gone soft." His master spat in his face.

"I haven't gone soft." Kylo denied, but instantly regretted it when he was grabbed by the hair and had is skull slammed into the metal chair he was sitting on, leaving dizzy and his vision shaky.

"If that was the case then you wouldn't be in that chair." Snoke hissed with thick venom lacing his words. "I gave you orders, and you refused. Now I must remind you of your place." With that he stepped away and gave the signal for his guards to start the machine.

At first the electric current was set to setting one- 300 volts -and was immediately able to get a few shouts and grunts of discomfort out of him. Soon the setting was turned up to 350 volts and his reaction followed as well. Kylo attempted desperately to hold back his screams and instead bit down on his lip, digging so deep that he began to draw blood. However he was too distracted by the pain of the machine to notice that blood was dripping down his chin. Three, to four, to five the voltage kept on increasing by fifties until he was at 600 volts. At this point he could not hold back his howls of agony.

Burns began to surface on his body and sting his skin. The insides of his body felt as if they were being burned to a crisp on top of a grill shoveled full of coal covered in oil and set on blazing fire. Kylo jolted around in his seat, squirming relentlessly in pain.

The voltage was lowered to 100V and he was left there for a while, recovering from his past pain while still going through more at a smaller dose. After a while the voltage was turned up slowly again to 650V, but for a shorter amount of time. When the shock was turned down again for the third time, Snoke slipped his way back in front of him, his sadistic grin shadowing his expression.

"Three days until the next tournament." He uttered in a grueling voice. "If she does not come out victorious, I'll encourage the opponent to put her to death, no… I'll ***enforce it.

Even with the electricity coursing through him, Kylo could feel his blood pressure rise at his words, and an unfamiliar feeling, close to fear, started to fester in his gut.

Once Snoke left him once again to his torture the setting was turned up and endowed him with more excruciating trauma. This continued for hours until he was eventually left at 800V writhing in his suffering until, finally, his body had enough, and he passed out.

When he came to he was no longer hooked up to the machine and instead inside the ER, a medical droid tending to his surface wounds. His master was nowhere in sight, and that fact brought some slight peace to his troubled mind, as there was no one there to see him cry.

You're a coward. You fool. This is your entire fault.

Kylo despised himself for allowing him to be weakened without the will to do anything at all to try and help himself. But what could he possibly do? Could he simply just say no and walk away? No, he couldn't. Kylo had no choice in the matter, his free spirit had long since been crushed, and his master had full dominion over him.

Yet Kylo still loathed every essence of his entire being for becoming this way, for turning a scared child, hidden by a monster.

Kylo scratched up his arms, despite the fact that they were covered in blisters and burns. His skin broke and blood seeped out and damped his sleeves, but could not be deciphered from his black shirt. The medical droid besides him went haywire trying to stop him and fix the damage, but he merely shoved it away, needing to make up for his mistakes, needing to feel this pain, wanting to feel ***something.

He stopped finally when the blood had seeped through enough to make the cloth wet. Then he let the droid patch him up again. Finally, the last thing he did before he left to head back to his own room was take painkillers to numb his body. He overdosed slightly, but didn't mind, only taking two more than what was recommended. Kylo wanted nothing more than to shut of all of his senses, and sleep.

Stumbling sluggishly through the halls he could see that it was twilight, meaning he had been out for at least three hours.

He had missed dinner, but felt no appetite anyways. Kylo scarcely noticed his guards standing outside of the infirmary, following his as he walked out. They served as a reminder, that despite all of his privilege, he is still less than nothing. They are the embodiment of his enslavement, the human form of his chains. Even if Kylo could easily knock them out in an instant, there were more links that held his chain to the ball.

Yet, he had command over them, he held power. In a world were freedom does not exist, Kylo has been given reign over someone who was considered less than him. So he held onto that, ordered them around every day, demanded of them what was demanded from him. That is the only way he has retained any level of sanity in this place. He may be on the edge, but he was still footed on the ground.

And that was all that he had.

However…

The girl, Rey…

She just might be the one that knocks him over that edge.

Before her, Kylo was content with living as he was; in fact, he had grown used to it. He no longer saw himself as a slave as he once did all those years ago, but rather at a right hand man to Snoke, his confidant and second in command. Even when he was occasionally punished, it was never as bad as what he had just gone through, not for some years. So when it would happen, he simply saw it as a reasonable excessive smack on the hands to put him back in his place.

But when he was taken to the Jakku underground fighting ring and saw a slave cleaning up the training room where he had been sent to sharpen his skills, he found himself taken by the mystique of her. Countless times he has gone up against fighters who doubled as servants, but never before had that slave fighter been as notorious as her. Prior to arriving he had heard that the champion of Jakku, who had never lost a fight since she was eleven. She was known as The Scavenger to other ring fighters due to her inventive use of the things around her to come out on top, though it seemed like even she was unaware of this title. But another reason she was known was that no one who had ever faced her had ever lived to tell the tale, so no one knew what she looked like or what to expect; another note was that her master refused to take her to other rings and instead had other fighters come to her.

When he had arrived Kylo looked around for this girl, eager to size up his opponent, but the only home fighters he could find were two males; until he saw he cleaning the floors. Immediately he knew that it was her. She may have appeared small and scrawny, but Kylo could see the tone muscles of one who has experienced strenuous combat, and the eyes of slave. Kylo asked her if he would fight her, silently hoping that it wouldn't be so, but she neither confirmed it nor denied it. Kylo then began to dread when he would have to face her, something inside him begged him not to fight her, because, for whatever reason, he did not want to be her killer.

He had met her several times after that, but on the day of their match, when they were both practicing with the same punching bag, their eyes connected, he felt a shock go through him. He saw his past self in her, and he was brought back to the time when he had felt small, furious… and hopeful. It was almost as if he was looking at the ghost of his childhood. There was something about her that made him want to protect her, to save him from the grief that he has gone through.

For the past fourteen years, since he was sixteen, he has lived this forsaken life. The fire in him had died long ago. But this girl had been like this for almost just as long, even if she became a fighter later, she had been a slave all her life, yet somehow managed to hold onto a hope that wasn't there. Even so, he could see that she was slipping, fight after fight she was slowly breaking. A trail of blood followed her wherever she went, her hands were stained like his, and she was deluded with false justice, like him. The only difference was that she would not accept her loss of mind, something was keeping her sane, but she was losing that something. While his edge was made of stone, hers was that of sand, shifty and unsound. If she doesn't come to terms with what she's become, or find something else to hold onto, then he knows that it will destroy her, as it did him.

So, after he had triumphed in their fight, he did the one thing he could think of to save her from that destruction; take her under his wing and train her to become stronger.

Kylo knew that she would resent him for it, especially after he killed her ring mate, but he had to get her out of there. There was just one problem: Snoke.

Kylo may have seen the physical and mental abuse she went through under Unklar Plutt, but that was nothing compared to what Snoke was capable of. His master was as conniving as a snake, deceitful and venomous. If she was subjected to his abuse then he knew that she would be gone completely. That's why, just before he asked his master to take her in, Kylo had decided to be her shield. He would allow her to take her time to adjust and reestablish herself while she was here, and in turn, he would take on the fault for any of her mistakes, and face the beating so she wouldn't have to.

However, she was progressing slowly, and Snoke was becoming more and more irksome. Now the next match was in two days and he has made little ground with her. Snoke threatened him with her life on the line, knowing that he was becoming soft for her. If Kylo knew Snoke like he thought he did, then Rey was now yet another tool for his master to take advantage of him, which did not bode well for the future.

Despite all that, Kylo could no longer allow Rey to adjust, he needed her to obey his orders and train under him if she is to survive here. She may hate him, but that doesn't matter for now. She simply needs to learn.

.

.

.

Sorta short, but that's because it's all pretty much dialogue. Sorry if the electric shock part made any of you uncomfortable, I did say there would be violence and gore.

Am I coming across clear with the characters? I feel like I'm vague in explaining what their going through. Anyways, thanks for reading! See y'all next time!

Favorite, Follow, Review~