UPDATE: 30/5/14

If you're reading this after the above date (which you are) then congratulations, you found the new and improved second edition of this story!

…

Yeah, I was reading through it the other day as I was working on another Virals piece and found some typos, sentences I didn't like, and other things I wanted to fix in general. The changes are actually incredibly minor, so minor you probably won't even notice them, but once I find a mistake or a typo, I can't leave it alone…

Enjoy!

oOoOoOoOo

Chance wouldn't call himself 'one of the good guys'.

He is intelligent. He is athletic. He is good-looking. Most of all, he is popular; isn't that what all teenagers should aspire to be? Popular is good. Status gets you places where the regular people could never dream of going. Popular gets you the best opportunities, the hottest girls, and best of all, it makes you a winner. Chance likes winning. More specifically, he likes it when everybody's attention is focused on him. Maybe not solely on him - he doesn't mind sharing the fame around, doesn't mind working as a team. Teamwork is, after all, essential for lacrosse, and even if they don't win all the time like Chance wants to, they're still Bolton Academy's celebrities.

But Bolton Academy is full of trust-fund babies with rich parents and even richer egos, and Chance is one of them.

Stuck-up. Snobby. Snooty. The Morris Island children think Chance can't hear them whispering jerk, what a prick, dickhead when he dares to make even the barest of conversations with them, but by God, he can. It's not all of them, really, it's just the one - the big one, who glares daggers at Chance when he hasn't done anything to offend him. Ben Blue. He probably thinks that Chance is too self-absorbed to learn his name, but Chance made it his job a long time ago to know everything that's going on at Bolton. Or rather, Hollis Claybourne made it Chance's job. His father had been the one to introduce him to Hannah - his father may have strange, old-fashioned tastes, but damn he knows how to pick his son a girlfriend.

Jason once humbly suggested to Chance that he might be a little too dependent on his father. Chance had humbly suggested that Jason should shut the hell up before he bludgeoned him into a concussion with his lacrosse stick.

Chance watches his classmates with a detached interest; he's not particularly enthralled by the idea of constantly spying on his acquaintances and reporting any 'funny business' to his father and/or Hannah, but he's sure his father has a reason. Maybe he just likes being on top of things, knowing things other's don't. Maybe his father is some kind of control freak who needs to know everything about a situation to even consider getting involved. I probably inherited it from him, Chance thinks to himself with a small chuckle.

He keeps spying, though he doesn't know why. He talks to Tory, Hi and Shelton separately, but tries to stay away from Ben, who glares at Chance like he would throw him off a cliff at any given moment. He makes light conversation with the other three, and earns possibly a little bit of respect from them. Not friendship - Bolton's vicious hierarchy wouldn't allow that. No, never friendship, but maybe a little mutual respect.

Just a little.

oOoOoOoOo

So that's why he wanted me to spy, Chance thinks to himself as he spoons the toilet seat in front of him, trying to keep himself from throwing up even more bile. His body shakes violently as he fails, and his stomach clenches once more. To cover up a murder. A murder he himself committed.

And he, Chance Claybourne, had been given the task of hiding the body. A skeleton. The remains of Katherine Heaton. She was only a teenager when his father had murdered her - "been forced to eliminate her", was how his father had phrased it. An "accident".

Chance didn't believe him for a second.

He'd kept up his mask of shock, surprise, slight horror, but never once questioned his father's orders. Hollis Claybourne was never wrong. Hollis Claybourne was a good man. Hollis Claybourne was the man who had taken it upon himself to raise Chance after Chance himself had indirectly killed his own mother during his birth. It was Chance's own fault that his mother was dead, and he should be grateful for the chance to live as Claybourne.

He is intelligent. He is athletic. He is good-looking.

This kind of thing only happens in the movies. Not to real people. Not to Chance.

It shouldn't happen to anyone.

Hollis had told him the whole story; Katherine and her stubborn refusal to let sleeping dogs lie on the island. How she was determined to slander the Claybourne name. How she was going to ruin their empire out of spite. A delusional little girl who believed in a false truth. Chance wouldn't be surprised if his father had exaggerated a little to get Chance to agree, but the truth is, Chance wouldn't have needed much convincing.

Chance knows what happens when people disobey Hollis Claybourne's orders, and it is not pretty.

He vomits again at the thought of what will happen to him if he doesn't help his father.

Back at school, he can keep up a brave face. His charisma and "swag" as Jason likes to call it, remain intact. He keeps a cool head and gains information, while retaining Katherine Heaton's skeletal remains. The Morris Islanders were too close to the truth, he says to himself, justifying his own horrific actions. Just like your father, he thinks. An addict is an addict is an addict, a Claybourne is a Claybourne is a Claybourne.

He can even converse with Tory, even flirt with her a little, for a little while. Only ever a little while, though, before he must smile goodbye, walk calmly to the men's room, check nobody is in there listening, and stagger to his knees and vomit once more, sobs wracking his body. His mask breaks when he's alone; not even Hannah knows about the double life he's now forced to lead. And Hannah knows everything about him; his favourite foods, literature, his tiny little tics he doesn't even know he's doing. The thing his eyebrows apparently do when he is lying - much to Chance's chagrin, Hannah refuses to tell him exactly what it is he does with them because "then you'll stop doing it".

Honestly, if Hannah wants Chance to do something, Chance damn well does it. And he does it good.

It's the same deal with his father. Hollis Claybourne asks his son to do something for him, and Chance carries his duties out nigh-perfectly. Despite how Chance destroyed his father's happiness by simply being born, he tries to be a good son.

Maybe Hollis is just punishing him for his wife's death. It's entirely plausible, in Chance's mind.

When Chance catches Tory in his father's study, he has to use every scrap of self-control he has to not break down and confess everything right in front of her.

She knows. Father will be displeased. Who knows what will happen?

Once again, Chance puts on his mask of fake bravado and arrogance, and spins his artful deception, just like he's been doing to Tory all along. He uses his father's own excuse to justify murder; that he would not let the Claybourne name be slandered and dragged through the mud. That he would not let the Claybournes lose their fortune. That he would not let the Claybournes become worthless. That last part is unspoken, but is clearly implied. Tory buys his lies hook, line and sinker, but when she begins accusing him of things he would never dare dream of doing, his stomach drops out from underneath him.

This has gone too far.

oOoOoOoOo

She is an angel bathed in flashing lights of red and blue, graceful even in defeat. Though she screams, and cries, and kicks, she is elegant, like a swan in the throes of death. She has never looked more beautiful than in this moment.

But who is she?

She is Hannah Wythe, his girlfriend. His beautiful, kind, perfect girlfriend who would never harm another living being, not even a fly, who was so selfless and accepting, who deserves someone a million times better than the disgusting piece of trash Chance let himself become.

Someone is talking to him, rubbing his arm. He can't bring himself to move, or to listen in more detail. The world seems fake and unreal, fuzzy and blurry, and if Chance reaches out his hand - not that he can move - he is sure that everything would crumble as soon as it was touched, or maybe his hand would simply pass through, like he is barely there.

He sure feels like nothing more than an illusion right now.

The person who is speaking to him shifts slightly, putting themselves in his direct line of vision. Tory. He likes Tory, with her red hair and green eyes. She stands out, but she's not afraid to. In fact, she's proud. He remembers back when she was a freshmen, barely out of her tweens, when she was bullied so badly that he would often catch her with tears brimming in her eyes, hiding them behind the metal door of her locker. Of course, he didn't really speak to her much then; in fact, he doesn't recall having any sort of interaction with her before his father had told him to 'go make nice with the boat children'. Even his father calls them boat children.

Of course, his father is also going to jail - probably for the rest of his life - so it doesn't really matter if he calls Tory a brown-nosing turd burglar, much less calls her a boat child, he's still going to be a criminal and he still won't love Chance.

Tory is speaking to him, but all her words come out as faint buzzing to him. He can't even turn his head; he just stares into space, only faintly aware of her presence beside him. He only notices she has given up trying to get through to him when he suddenly jolts back into reality, and realises he's restrained to a hospital bed, leather cuffs around his wrists and ankles.

Good, the twisted part of his mind thinks. She's much too good to even breathe the same air as you.

oOoOoOoOo

He doesn't speak to anyone. Not to the doctors. Not to the patients. Not to the therapist he's legally required to speak to once a day. He hears what they all say, of course - he's not completely catatonic. His face is blank, yes, but that's only because he simply can't afford to register any emotions. Not until his brain has quieted down, sorted out the chaos that is the jumble of memories from that night. He doesn't know when that will be. Hopefully not soon - he quite enjoys his new, carefree life at the sanitarium.

Okay, he's lying. He hates it. He's a prisoner, and he knows it. They all know it. And yet somewhere at the back of his mind, in the very depths of his heart and soul, he knows he's still unwell. At least there's some sanity to be salvaged, he thinks, if it's really there at all.

While he may not speak, he does paint. He visits the gallery and paints every day; he's always been skilled at art. All his paintings are the same, a mere glimpse into his fractured mind.

His paintings always include four people. There's a dark-skinned, oriental-looking boy; a bulkier, more toned boy; another boy, chubby and wearing a horrendous shirt; and a girl, with unruly red hair and a slim build. All four of them could be considered attractive if it weren't for the bloodshot, electric-yellow eyes, and fangs dripping a mixture of saliva and blood onto the otherwise pure canvas below. Behind the four of them, a wolf snarls, feral and thirsty for blood. Chance's blood. Once, he looked too closely at his own painting and was catapulted straight into a flashback. He doesn't remember what happened after that, only that he awoke just as he had before - wrists and ankles restrained, pumped full of sedatives to keep him calm.

As if he could ever be calm again.

oOoOoOoOo

Eventually Chance recovers enough that the staff ask him if he wants to allow visitors. Chance almost laughs at the suggestion - who is left that would want to see him? - but says yes anyway. Maybe someone from Bolton will visit him. He hopes Jason will. Jason's the closest thing he's had to a true friend in what is quite possibly forever. Or maybe Tory will come visit. Yes, he'd like it if she would visit. Maybe she would tell Chance that it was all a lie that night; that Hannah really loved him and hadn't betrayed him, that his father wasn't a raging psychopath, and most of all that Tory's eyes didn't light up like goddamn Christmas lights.

oOoOoOoOo

He is certain, now. Hannah was and still is a lying b-i-t-c-h and Hollis Claybourne has never loved and will never love his son and Tory's eyes really do light up like goddamn Christmas lights. So do Ben's. And Shelton's. And Hi's. All four of them, just as he suspected. Heck, even the dog's eyes turn yellow, and he's...well, he's a dog. Nothing to be terrified of, and yet he is.

He isn't crazy, and yet he is.

I need help.

I need to run away.

And so he does. He runs away from the four of them on the beach, from his terrifying paintings of the beasts he has nightmares about, from his painful memories of that night where Hannah's bullet of betrayal pierced him, from his mind altogether. He passes out, hoping that those two - Sally and Chris? - will hunt him down and shoot him in the head, just so he won't have to deal with the anguish of being right anymore.

Sally, he thinks, is a nice name.

It's his mother's name.

Was.

oOoOoOoOo

He meets Tory again completely by accident; he's trying to get back home, she's….well, he doesn't have a clue what she's doing. He never does anymore. She gives him a tentative smile, but he can tell she doesn't want to talk to them. Fine, then. He'll make this quick.

"Is it real, Tory?" Am I crazy? is what he really means.

"My eyes don't glow, Chance. They're as green as always." He can hear the obvious subtext. Yeah, you're whacked. "I think you're unwell. Stressed out. Your mind is playing tricks on you." Yep, stone-crazy.

"Tricks." There's no hope left for me, is there?

"It's all in your head." Get away from me. I never want to see your face again.

He complies, and checks himself back into Marsh Point. Tory Brennan, after all, has saved his life before, and for that, he is grateful.

oOoOoOoOo

But sometimes, he wants to bludgeon Tory into a concussion with his lacrosse bat. Not that he plays lacrosse anymore - Jason has replaced him as team captain - but he somehow kept all his equipment from before this whole mess started. The glory days. Now, Chance simply feels forgotten, swept up in the tide of school work and scandal.

"I know what you're going through," he says to Madison Dunkle. She looks up at him with big, haunted eyes, and it's almost like seeing his own face reflected back at him.

"How can you possibly know what I'm going through." Her voice is flat. There's no questioning tone in her words anywhere to be seen. Even after all this, she tries to remain strong.

"I've seen them too," he says simply, willing her to understand.

Her eyes widen. "Tory…her eyes?" she says in a half-whisper, stepping closer. Chance merely nods.

"We're not crazy," he says, pulling her into a close hug. He's not really one for physical contact, but damn, Madison needs comfort that only he can give her right now. He doesn't want to see anyone follow in his footsteps, for they could prove to be fatal. He isn't surprised when Madison begins to sob, shoulders hitching, and he wonders if he would be any less screwed up if he had a shoulder to cry on.

The moment when he wants to kill Tory only comes up later, though. He's sitting having lunch with Madison, who still looks like complete crap, but a little better. She's gained weight, although in a healthy way. Ashley and Courtney have temporarily abandoned her after her embarrassing verbal smackdown delivered by a certain Miss Brennan. She's not tough-as-nails Madison Dunkle anymore, but maybe it's a good thing. Maybe Chance can encourage her to be her own person, rather than a stereotypical, shallow teenager who's too scared to be different, to be an outcast.

Madison's scream is one of pure terror; sudden, uncontrolled, and piercing. Her hands fly up to her head as she begins to pick at her skull, fingernails digging into her scalp. Chance moves immediately, catching her in his arms as she falls to the ground. He tries to restrain her, keep her from swatting at her head like she's covered with insects, but Madison's terror is too great. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something drop to the ground, but he's too busy trying to keep Madison from hurting herself. And then it's over as quickly as it began; Madison forces herself out of his arms and hurtles toward the classrooms, even pushing a few other students over. Chance's eyes wander over to the spot where his eyes picked up motion, before noticing a shape lying motionless on the ground. Tory Brennan, with the rest of the Morris Islanders crowding around her. They pick her up and drag her over behind a building, and Chance wonders if they caught him staring.

He realises what has happened almost hesitantly, as if he doesn't really want to believe it. But Chance must face the facts.

Tory Brennan is to blame.

He probably wouldn't mind if freaky Tory and her freaky friends all had weird superpowers, as long as they used them for constructive purposes. Instead, they're using them to terrify and traumatize teenagers just like them. Perhaps not entirely innocent teenagers, but it's still wrong, Chance thinks. Who are they to mess with people's minds?

Tory had lied to him before. They'd all lied to him.

This time, he would find the truth.

oOoOoOoOo

Finding the truth is harder than Chance thought it would be.

Tory's gang hide their tracks well, much too well for a bunch of teenagers. Maybe he should hire them as Candela Pharmaceutical's security personnel, once all this superpower business blows over. Maybe he should recommend them to the head of the CIA, or the FBI. They'd probably wet themselves in excitement over recruiting bloody werewolf children into their forces.

But no, he could never do that. The media attention would shatter them, along with their respect for Chance - which Chance himself suspects had been shattered long ago anyway, through slight fault of his own. I'll keep this a secret, he swears to himself. There's only one way to go about finding the entire truth. Recreate Karsten's experiments. Record the results. Karsten and his crazy mad scientist experiments are the key to this entire mystery.

oOoOoOoOo

As it turns out, Chance finds the truth at exactly 3:48 am, when he finds himself projectile vomiting into his own kitchen sink.

Ew, is all he can think. He's too exhausted to think of anything else.

Once he's finished, he lifts his head and gazes at his reflection in the cold silver metal. He examines himself as well as he can - kitchen sink doesn't really make for a good mirror - and finds himself to look….terrible. His cheek is twitching, he's unshaven, his lip appears to be bleeding - how did that even happen? - and the bags under his eyes are heavy and dark.

It's in that moment of self-inspection that he notices. Pauses. Blinks, rubs at his eyes, opens them. Inhale, exhale.

My eyes…

With a sudden clench of his stomach, he races into the bathroom. He stares desperately into the mirror, hoping to God what he sees is just some sick hallucination, that he never really left Marsh Point, that this is all just a bad dream and he'll wake up in a few seconds…

He waits. His eyes still glow red, bloodthirsty and primal.

The kind of primal he's seen before, and conditioned to believe it was all a sick product of his own mind.

His paintings. The beast.

Chance Claybourne.

He is the monster that he still has nightmares about to this day, the one he can't rid from his mind, the one he's been trying to hunt down for weeks, months.

Suddenly, Chance isn't so sure that he wants to find the truth anymore.

oOoOoOoOo

He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

oOoOoOoOo

Sometimes, I think Chance (and sometimes Madison, but I will not argue she is not a terribly good person) gets a lot of unnecessary hate towards his character, and I think this is because a lot of people see one side of him. I wanted to bring out the less-obvious side of Chance, the one that we rarely get to see in the original novels - the one plagued by self-doubt and anxiety. I also wanted to show Tory as (admittedly, my own interpretation) a little more childish than she comes across in the books; sometimes I feel like because she's the narrator, we see a lot more from her point of view, and how her actions affect her and not necessarily other people. (Not bashing Tory, she's my third favourite character in this series. 3)

Anyway. I hope you enjoyed this (barely) revised version of He Who Fights Monsters! Reviews are love. Thank you for reading!