Kylo was restrained horizontally upon a rack, his legs and arms bound. How ironic that he was somewhere he'd put so many in the past. He reflected on the fact that his current situation was fate, that for everything he'd ever done in service of the dark side, this was fair payment. His back was a fiery rage where Icesho Ren had slashed up the length of his spine. The wound had been tended to with stitches by medical droids, but he was a prisoner about to be tortured, so there had been no anaesthetic. His jaw and cheek ached, and his eye was swollen from Covex Ren hitting him; he could barely open it, and his mouth still tasted of blood. He only wore undergarments, and the table was cold against his skin. His skin felt damp from a cold, feverish sweat, and even the parts of his body not directly in contact with the table felt cold due to the blood he'd lost, he assumed. Hux stood with his back to him, quietly discussing what would happen next with the chrome-suited stormtrooper. She wasn't a stormtrooper. Whatever she was, she wasn't a stormtrooper. He strained to hear their conversation but couldn't hear anything; he tried to reach out to the Force. He closed his eyes, willing it to come to him, but all he could feel was a sludgy mud-like feeling in his mind; his body felt numb. He was cut off. What had that been? It had been a few hours, and he was still utterly disconnected. He could see multiple vials on the table next to Hux. Whatever it was that he and Rey had been injected with, there was more of it. That meant several things:- One- The effects were technically temporary and would wear off eventually, which was good. Two- Hux had an ample supply, meaning he could keep himself and Rey in this state at his mercy for some time. That was bad. Without the Force, Kylo and Rey were normal; good fighters, yes, but no better than anyone else.
Hux was finally done with his conversation with the woman; he turned and walked towards Kylo. He looked Kylo up and down, his expression gloating, a sense of pleasure tinting the corners of his mouth.
"You've no idea how long I've waited for this moment."
Kylo could guess it was from the moment he'd been introduced as Snoke's apprentice and confidant trusted to Snoke's plans and schemes- above Hux. Kylo looked at him with his eyes only; his head was strapped down, and he couldn't move it freely.
"Where's R...the girl?"
Hux waved a hand, dismissing Ren's need to know where she was. Every time that scavenger had been involved with Ren, his judgement had wavered, and now he knew why. Kylo was in league with her and with the resistance.
"She's in a holding cell until she regains consciousness. Her time will come. I have questions for her".
Kylo's hands clenched into balls on the table, and his body tensed as he attempted fruitlessly to free himself from the restraints. Teeth clenched, a growl escaped his mouth as he fought against the bindings, but it was futile, and as he gave up his attempt, his body banged against the table. He tried and failed to reach out to the Force again. Hux smiled cruelly down at him.
"I wouldn't worry about the girl right now, Ren." He raised his left hand, and the chrome-dressed woman approached the table. "Chromia here is very skilled; she'll truly make this hurt, and with your ...abilities ... blocked, it will last until I say otherwise".
"You got what you wanted, Hux. The First Order is at your command. You are the Supreme Leader now. I can't give you anything; I don't know anything".
"Who said I wanted anything?"
Kylo had not expected that. His mouth thinned to a line; his breath shuddered from his chest. Then, as much as he could, keeping what element of pride he could muster, he raised his chin slightly (with the straps on his head, it wasn't much) and stared calmly back at Hux in a statement of acceptance of whatever was to come. Hux gave an amused smirk, and one corner of his mouth twitched slightly. The woman stepped forward.
"How familiar are you with the Embrace of Pain?" she asked.
-X-
It was quite possibly the first time Kylo had ever screamed, honestly screamed, but it was not the last. Never had he endured such excruciating torment; electric currents of searing power shot through his body at short intervals, each jolt more painfully powerful than the last. He was used to pain under Snoke, who had regularly used his Force lightning against him in punishment. Snoke's treatment seemed timid in comparison to this: embrace of pain indeed. He'd long given up squirming against the restraints to free himself. It was all he could do to stay conscious, but his body wracked reflexively despite himself. Kylo soon learned that this agony was but one of the many the Embrace of Pain could administer, and although the other methods were different, they were no less agonising.
-X-
Rey woke with a start. Her head was pounding; her side hurt as she breathed, and she couldn't sense.... anything. Her insides felt empty. She tried to reach out with her feelings, but her mind felt clogged, thick and heavy. She sat up on the metal bench she was lying on, a hand immediately reaching for her head. A large bump met her fingertips, and her gentle touch was enough to make the bump ache.
"Ah."
She turned her legs around slowly to place her feet on the floor and took in her surroundings — a small metal room. A holding cell dimly lit with no windows and no furniture other than the bench she sat on, and next to the bench was a tray with a beaker of water on it. She bent and picked it up gratefully, taking several big gulps, then held her side as pain vibrated through her as she swallowed. She looked down at herself then, her saber was missing, but her clothes and boots remained untouched; they were damp to the feel, and she was cold.
What had happened? She tried to think. I went to Fondor; Ben was there. We took his ship. He kissed me. The First Order. The fight- fire and blasters and Knights. Then, it had all gone horribly wrong when she'd felt that sharp prick in her arm. There had been a wild, red-haired, chrome stormtrooper on the floor behind her, holding something in Rey's arm. The woman had turned away from Rey and stabbed something into Ben's leg. Rey remembered feeling like she was losing something, losing herself. She remembered defending herself, terrified by the change she could feel in her senses, and then there was nothing. She must have been knocked out. Where was Ben? As if in answer, she heard an agonised, muffled howl from somewhere near her cell, and she froze. The door to her cell suddenly raised, and General Hux entered, flanked on either side by a stormtrooper.
"Good you're awake," the stormtroopers on either side of him strode towards her, one holding a pair of restraint cuffs. The other abrasively took her arm and yanked her forward.
"All right, all right," she retorted as her feet stumbled. She looked at the stormtrooper holding the binders and raised her hands to them. The binders were attached around Rey's wrists, and then the stormtrooper stood to her other side and took hold of her arm.
She cocked her head sarcastically at Hux. His only response was a mild tic of his mouth that was almost a sneer; then he turned out of her cell, and she was dragged after him by the two stormtroopers. As she walked, her head pounded, and her muscles ached. She tried to pay attention to her surroundings for a possible way to escape. They turned left, then left again, then stopped abruptly. Hux was standing in front of a large black wall with a console in front of him. He pressed something on the console display, and the wall started to lift upwards- a screen. As the screen rose, another agonised growl could be heard, more clearly this time she realised. She could feel the panic rising in her throat and chest, and her body tensed.
The screen rose some more, and the window showed a dimly lit room on the other side. Rey caught a glimpse of something silver and shining, no chrome. That woman was in there, the one who'd injected her and Ben. Then she saw part of a restraint table. As the screen rose slowly, the scene unfolded before her horror-stricken eyes. Her face fell in shock at what she now saw. Ben was strapped to a restraint table at a forty-five-degree angle, which held him upside down; his hair falling from his head, and his body wrenched and wracked against the meal table and the restraints that kept him in place. Torturing him was.. was... she had no idea what it was some sort of machine? It pulsed as though it were living, and she could see electric blue light from it. A haze surrounded Ben and the device as steam rose from Ben's bare chest. Those little purple veins she'd seen back on the shuttle were vibrant, as though the fire was running through him under his skin. From the pulsing device, needles were inserted into his arms and legs, and from them, the electric blue light seemed more intensive. There were red and yellow seeping sores all over him. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, every muscle tensed against the restraints, and he was roaring in agony! Rey tried to step forward, but the stormtroopers held her in place. She tried to calm her thoughts, but her eyes welled with tears, and she whimpered.
"Ben."
Hux turned around at the sound of her whimper to face her, a look of gleeful malice shaping his expression. An imbalanced sneer touched one side of his face. Hux had been correct; he could see it in her eyes.
"So you have compassion for him too. Well, perhaps you'll give me what I want without any further unpleasantness."
His arm gestured towards the window and the scene of torture on the other side. He sounded as though they were talking about a misunderstanding or a bet that had gone wrong, not the violent abuse of an individual, an individual who knew nothing! Callous monster. It wasn't that long ago she'd thought this about Ben. Now she was face to face with Hux, she understood the true meaning. He reminded her so much of Snoke, Snoke's true apprentice. She was weak without the Force, and there was no way she could defend herself from him. She had valuable information about the Resistance, the New Republic, and she couldn't give it to him. She would not give it to him. Hux watched her expression change, her stance. Defiance. He squinted slightly in annoyance, but he had expected as much.
"As you wish."
He turned from her back to the window and nodded at the woman in chrome. She went to the device and pressed something that Rey couldn't see. The machine removed the needles from Ben's flesh, leaving deep puncture wounds that bled freely. Different thicker needles retracted from the device; something dripped onto Ben's skin from these needles. She could hear fizzing as the liquid continued dropping, making contact, and vapour rose- the liquid was acid! The skin underneath the drops changed from yellow to red as the acid deepened, and the wounds and blood began to run from each area, bubbling. Ben's body shook violently under the restraints, eyes flying open as he growled in torturous agony through clenched teeth.
Rey closed her eyes to the scene, but Ben's cries of pain could not be blocked out, and she shuddered. She kept them closed, trying to still her nerves; she could not give Hux an inch. When she reopened them, she stared at the scene ahead with her head held high, not deeming to look at Hux; Rey feared if she did, she might plead with him. Rey allowed tears to roll freely down her face as Ben burned before her.
"Take her away," Hux demanded without turning back around.
Rey was brusquely pulled away by her guards back to her cell. Rey knew Ben couldn't hear her, but despite herself, in her mind, she repeated a single phrase: hold on, Ben, hold on.