Hi everyone! Sorry for the two-week break, I was EXTREMELY busy so I wasn't able to update as soon as I liked. Anyway, I'm really grateful to all those who reviewed my story over the last couple of weeks. So here goes thanks to: BryceSyce, Moeez, Im Blu, THExPOTxHEAD, koipbuiop, DeathDrayanD, A happy reader, The Editor Writer of mistakes, TH3 EL3TR1C, AresTheUnderlander, Clytuis, HumanicHedgeHog, pyro159, Gyltig(good to hear from you again!), Reader, two guest readers and NoahTheOverlander (glad to hear from you again!). Please continue to review my story, and for those who didn't, I'd love to hear from you too!

Anyway, it was pretty much even for those who preferred darker Gregor and those who prefer more hopeful Gregor. All I can say is that I'll do my best to apply the right personality in the right situation, and to make that personality as organic and natural as possible in the context of the story.

This chapter contains disturbing material, so I wrote a VERY brief summary at the bottom of the chapter if you feel you can't take it. Most people should be able to handle this, though. It's definitely still in the T range and although not very pleasant, I do believe it's manageable.

This chapter is written from Calvin's perspective.


Chapter 21: Pain

Sweat clung to his forehead, his ragged breathing gradually becoming more audible as the seconds crawled by.

Darkness surrounded him, keeping him pinned down in a little corner, forcing him to whimper softly as every breath sounded like a musical note to his ears, with a symphony being formed in the depths of hell he had been a part of for eternity.

When he finally opened his eyes, he screamed, or at least he thought he did. There was nothing around him as he floated about in the void. Panic seized hold off his throat and strangled him, muffling every hasty breath that slipped out of his lips. He was in Tartarus, or hell, or the underworld. A place where his cries for help and pleas for mercy would not be heard. He had been condemned to eternal damnation.

Damnation for failing to protect Mr Carter.

The memories began to flood his mind, tauntingly inflicting the emotional agony of losing Mr Carter on him. Tears began to well in his blind eyes as flow out like the stream which carried Mr Carter's corpse to a place far away from him. His hands groped about wildly, coming into contact with numerous unidentifiable objects. It was no good.

Blind as a bat.

Years of mourning seemed to follow, as he resorted to tasting his own tears to sustain himself. His already unhinged mind began to stray further and further into the dark, unexplored reserves of his mind. Soft whispers in the howling night. Rough, coarse soil scraping his skin, making him bleed not just tears, but hope as well. A tight space, trapped together with a man he still loved.

But no words. She lived next door, keeping to herself. He had been further from her embrace than he was with the one he lived with. No warmth, just a familiar cold emptiness as he fell further into the void, far from British accents and brittle happiness.

Then, light from heaven. The illumination of darkness, as his dull senses finally came into focus under the glaring radiance which fell from God's eyes. But when the dust settled… All he saw was the devil.

Snake grinned at him.

"How've you been?" he asked.

Calvin tried to speak but the words got caught in his throat, as the dryness and coarseness of it began to constrict him, leaving him choking and breathless. Finally, he managed to cough out, "Where… am… I?"

The words felt so uneven, like his mouth was the next barrier which distorted his speech. He tried to move his jaw, and then remembered- Snake had broken it. It seemed to sag, a visual symbol of how Calvin's sense of hope had sagged tremendously over the hours that seemed to run so inconsistently, racing by and slowing down to drag out the pain.

"We're in hell," Snake replied. "But you seem to know this place by a different name. You call it the Underland."

They were in the Underland? Calvin's eyes immediately darted across the room, looking for any signs that Snake was lying. Lab equipment, a couple of rifles, some chemicals in the background… Seemed like the Overland to him.

Snake quickly went on, "We've built headquarters down here, next to the foxes' kingdom. We need only weeks to organise ourselves, and then we can liberate this place of… them."

The disdain in his voice felt so genuine, like he was engaged in a crusade against evil itself. Calvin tried to speak, but the pain was so agonising he remained silent.

"We'll repair your jaw for you," Snake said calmly, looking down at Calvin pitifully. "You shouldn't have to endure such pain. In exchange, we want information on Regalia. Weaknesses, key figures, anything which you think might help us."

Calvin couldn't speak, but he could still relay a message across to Snake. Although his arm felt limp and sore, he lifted it arm and gave Snake the finger, before it collapsed back down to his side again.

Snake actually responded with a half-smile, before saying, "I figured you wouldn't want to say anything. But unlike you, I do have some manners. We're gonna discuss this like gentlemen, shall we?"

Calvin tried to reply, but neither his muscles nor his mouth had any strength left to offer any kind of response. Snake's half-smile widened to a grin, and he said, "Calvin, the Overland cannot sustain our growing population. We only have a finite amount of resources and space. We cannot survive if we go on like this."

Calvin nodded his head. To be fair, that was a reasonable evaluation of the situation on earth then.

"Mankind's existence has always revolved around this idea of evolution," Snake continued, "We become better and improve. Only the fittest will survive, after all, so we cannot let our guard down."

Calvin didn't nod this time. He didn't like where this was going. He didn't want to know where this was going.

"All the species in the Underland are incredible," Snake said. "Somehow they have found a way to adapt to their surroundings and not just survive, but thrive as well. We need to use them as research, and harness their abilities to build our own world here. And in order to do that successfully, we need to eliminate competition."

Calvin shook his head.

"You disapprove," Snake smirked. "No surprises. Richard really brainwashed you into fighting for them out of some misplaced sense of… compassion. But we can fight all that indoctrination, Calvin. You need to see it for what it is- these creatures have run their course. They found a loophole in nature to avoid the effects of evolution. And we will do the same by exterminating them, because their time is UP."

Snake's gaze shifted away from Calvin and he looked up at the dazzling light which fell on the both of them. "Someday, if God finds me guilty, I will go to hell for my sins. I'm probably heading there anyway because of what I've done before. This is my last chance for redemption, Calvin. That may mean I pay the price, but at least I go to hell knowing I did my best."

Calvin, having heard enough, steadied his nerves, prepared for the pain, and mumbled out,

"It… doesn't… have to be… this way."

His swollen jaw throbbed, causing Calvin to scream quietly to himself. Snake seemed to pick up on his discomfort, and said, "My offer still stands. You might have disrespected me and hurt me, but I'm still willing to forgive you. Just give me the info and I'll have your jaw fixed."

He then added, "We can save our planet, you and I. You don't even have to participate in the whole operation. I just need intel so I can create a solid plan, and that will be it. You're free to go and do whatever you want to do."

When Calvin didn't respond, Snake shook his head. "You don't understand, Calvin. I'm damned, ok? I'm damned to hell. I'm trying to do what is necessary to redeem myself. This is my last chance. If this doesn't succeed, I'll probably end up dying. You have to give me this chance, Calvin. You have to."

For all the sympathy he harboured towards Snake and his cause, Calvin knew he couldn't say yes. He'd be complicit in the mass genocide of innocent creatures who just yearned for peace. Or did they?

Snake seemed to read his mind. "They're barbarians, Calvin. They fight amongst themselves and slaughter each other. They're destined for extinction anyway. We're just here to accelerate the process."

That… that seemed to make sense. The Underland was in many ways a parallel to conflict in the Overland. There was an unquenchable thirst for death and destruction down here, and it would result in the whole place swallowing itself whole. No matter how many times Calvin and Gregor tried to steer them off the road to perdition, they found themselves shrugging off the Overlanders and continuing down this path of endless fighting and wanton destruction.

But Calvin remembered the people there. Lapblood, Luxa, Hazard, Howard, Nerissa, Apollo, Ripred, Hecate, Gregor… All of them fighting to maintain peace in the Underland. They had given their lives to ensuring that the innocent wouldn't be taken. They had sacrificed so much for the greater good.

And Calvin could not betray that, not now, not ever.

"No," he replied bluntly.

Snake's sneer was akin to the mocking snarl that Flavius made when he was nothing more than annoyed. "So be it," the mercenary said. "I wanted to do this the nice way. I don't want to tear your world apart. But you leave me with little choice."

Snake got up from his seat and reared up to his full height- a six-foot mountain of defined and toned muscle. His beard was a grey, grizzly mess, making him seem old and world-weary.

"I had two children… Two sons," Snake began. "They were… they were the pride of my life. Even though I didn't spend nearly enough time with them, I felt so satisfied as a dad to see them growing up to be strong boys. They were set to become strong men like me."

"What happened?" Calvin croaked, even though he dreaded the answer.

"I let my ego get the better of me," Snake said sadly. "As a mercenary, I attracted too much attention. I was too successful. So they hunted my family down and kidnapped my two boys. They held my children hostage in exchange for me. I thought I could take them on and save my children at the same time. I thought I was skilled enough to save everybody."

A solitary tear rolled down Snake's cheek as his face became a living embodiment of agony. "But I was wrong. The attempt failed, of course. And even though I killed all of those bastards, I lost the only people I had ever loved."

Snake looked down for a second and murmured bitterly, "At the end of the fight I found their bodies with their throats slit. At that moment, I thought I had lost everything forever."

Calvin's heart broke with sorrow when he saw the sheer torment on Snake's face. No father should ever have to bury his child, even a father as twisted or as warped as Snake.

"But," Snake added, still looking down, "I found out that I had a child from another relationship I had. God was giving me another chance to redeem myself as a parent. Unfortunately, I didn't realise this child was mine until it was too late. I wasn't even sure about it until today."

"Who… is… the child?" Calvin asked, but deep down an indescribable emotion was stirring, prompting him in the direction of dark answers.

"I had an affair with a beautiful woman," Snake replied. "She was married to a rich bastard at the time, but somehow she fell for me, and I fell for her. I left her only because of the nature of my job… I never wanted any harm to come to her. She didn't tell me that together we had fathered a son, a son who would one day grow up to be greater than his father."

"Where… is this… heading?" Calvin asked fearfully, immediately regretting the question. He didn't want to follow Snake deeper and deeper.

"For years I lived without knowing of the child," Snake answered. "But one day, the woman died. A part of me died along with her, Calvin. I mourned and grieved for her for countless days and nights."

Snake cleared his throat and continued, "That was when I found out she bore a son, a son of my blood. From then on I watched him grow, keeping a close eye on him and looking out or any dangers which posed a threat to his life. And somehow, somehow, the stars aligned themselves perfectly and fate would entwine the both of us together. Do you know now who that boy is?"

"No," Calvin choked, shaking his head desperately. The pain in his jaw completely disappeared, numb from the frosty dagger embedded in his heart.

"The woman whom I loved was called Cecilia Oberton," Snake said, staring right into Calvin's eyes. "You are my son."

The blade of despair pierced his heart, causing him to gasp from the excruciating pain. His world began to shake and crumble about him as his reality and hallucinations began to blur into a single entity. He writhed about helplessly in his seat, trying hard to forget Snake's words and banish the pain. But the words were branded into his chest, leaving a scar which would last an eternity.

His mind raced back to a time, a time when pain was still fresh and raw to him. Rain pelted down like bullets from heaven. Lightning streaked across the sky. Thunder rumbled angrily. Black coats surrounded him, fooling him into believing they were just walls of imagination. Perhaps one day he would wake up in his warm bed with his mother sitting next to him, soothing words slipping into his ear as the sun beamed at him.

Never again.

His eyes shifted towards the black soil beneath his feet, made duller and more bitter by the grey skies which scowled at them. Voices in the distance, too far away to be heard. A hand grasping his.

He looked up at Richard Oberton, not sure what to call him anymore. The man who had given him everything , who had taught him everything, who had inspired him to fight through pain and sorrow to come out stronger, was not the man Calvin had thought he was. His entire life was built on a lie and it was a lie.

A lie of love.

His mother had lied to Richard Oberton, and he was the product of that lie. Richard had gone on to treat Calvin like his son, even though Calvin was… Calvin was…

A bastard.

All the love Richard had showered on him was undeserved, because they didn't even share the same blood. His father wasn't even his father anymore. Calvin didn't even know how or what to identify himself as- son of Richard, or son of Snake?

Tears streamed down his face as his mother's coffin was lowered into her final resting place, while his father's grave expression quickly broke down into a torrent of tears as well. But Calvin knew she wouldn't rest in peace- she had betrayed her husband and left him with a son of a bitch to take care of.

The dark vision dissipated as a fog, leaving Calvin staring at the mercenary once more. The despair was quickly overridden with disbelief, and Calvin spat back, "You're a goddamn liar."

"Why do you think I spared you during the Battle of Regalia?" Snake asked. "At that time I wasn't very sure, but just in case you were my son I left you alive. I captured you and brought you down here to take a blood sample to check your DNA. You're my son, Calvin. The evidence points to it. You cannot deny your father."

"You were never my father," Calvin hissed. "My father was the one who took care of me and raised me. You weren't even there for me, so as far as I see it, you're no dad of mine, even if we have the same blood."

"Well," Snake replied with an icy grin, "you know what they say- spare the rod, spoil the kid. If you won't be my son, I will teach you to be my son."

"Give it your best shot," Calvin retorted.

Snake sauntered over to another desk and picked up a syringe, which contained a murky green liquid which seemed to swirl menacingly. Snake gazed at it with what seemed to be the polarising emotions of admiration and disgust. "It's a special type of poison taken from the Underland. Flavius claims that it's called the Murk back in Regalia. Have you heard of it?" he asked.

"I resisted it," Calvin responded, recalling that moment in the jungle. Engulfed by the poisonous fumes, his hallucinations had run rampant and ravaged his consciousness, but he had anchored himself to reality by using his father's memory. It had become one of the big turning points in his life- when he realised that what he could be and what he could do was entirely up to him. But that watershed moment had lost its power in light of Snake's revelation.

Remembering his father became the bitter taste it was never meant to be. If Snake really was his father, then the one person he had used to anchor himself to reality was merely a phantasm, a wild fantasy based on faux bliss.

"You resisted it?" Snake said incredulously, evidently impressed. "Not bad, Calvin. But I'm afraid this isn't just liquid Murk… Dr Schmidt added some compounds to it so as to make it more than just a hallucinogen. He did mention it can act as a truth serum, and an instrument."

"Instrument for what?" Calvin blurted out.

Snake shot him a venomous smile and said, "Fear."

He glanced at a couple of other syringes and shrugged. "Those are for pain. But you have been trained to endure physical pain. I want to make your mind suffer, not your body."

Snake jabbed the syringe into Calvin's right arm violently, invoking a hiss of pain from Calvin. "Don't worry, son," Snake said, strapping Calvin's limbs down and then tightening the straps. "The pain should take effect soon. If you cooperate, we can end this quickly and get you fixed."

At first, the only physical pain Calvin was aware of was a slight ache in his jaw and the stinging pain in his right arm because of the injection.

And then it slammed into him like a tidal wave.

A burning sensation in his jaw erupted into an excruciating blaze of pain that overwhelmed him. The pain in his jaw kept getting exacerbated, and he felt as if his chin was swelling to the point where it would just combust. Calvin's eyes bulged until they were just fractions away from popping out of their sockets, and he felt his veins begin to constrict themselves on their own, causing the blood flow to be disrupted and the blood pressure to rise in his arteries.

Then he felt the air rush out of his lungs, as if they were giving up on him and making a mad dash for it. He gasped desperately, trying to prevent the air from abandoning him, but he couldn't. Nothing wanted to work for him- he was just sitting there, watching helplessly as the contents within the syringe began to shackle him to madness and agony.

His vision began to blur, and everything around him became a pixelated image from a Nineties computer. But there was no mistaking the black mass that had parked itself right in front of his hazy view.

"Where are all the secret entrances into Regalia?" Snake asked.

The haziness of the vision seemed to unnatural and yet so familiar… It reflected the perception of the outer world Calvin had become used to over the last few years. The idea of lines being blurred and grey areas where nobody could do the right thing had become commonplace in his world and had obstructed him especially in the last couple of years. Calvin could barely discern good from evil anymore.

But now, he knew what was the right thing to do.

He bit down on his tongue and left his lips sealed. If he spoke, he would probably tell the truth, so the best bet was to use every last ounce of discipline in his mental arsenal to fend off the urge to disclose Regalia's secrets to the monster in front of him.

"Let me ask you again," Snake said, and Calvin almost smiled when he and the frustration in the mercenary's voice. "I don't intend to repeat myself after this. Where are all the secret entrances into Regalia?"

Despite the agony he was in, Calvin remained tight-lipped. Closing his eyes, he screamed inside his head, but refused to allow a moment of weakness and vulnerability to let any words slip out.

"You never disobeyed Richard," Snake snarled, "yet you have the balls to disobey ME. I am your father, not that piece of trash who deserved to die!"

Calvin was so tempted to lash out at Snake, to tell Snake how a true father would never torture his son. But still he remained silent, stiffening his entire body and committing himself to becoming a mute for as long as that serum was egging him to speak. The pain seemed to heighten even more, and Calvin had to use all his willpower to halt the scream building up in his throat.

Snake, cursing in exasperation, grabbed a table and hurled it across the room, causing it to smash into wooden splinters. He grabbed a vial of liquid and threw it in Calvin's direction. The vial of liquid flew narrowly over Calvin's head and broke apart into smithereens when coming into contact with the wall behind him.

"TALK TO ME!" Snake roared. "I've waited so long to have a son again. Don't destroy this chance!"

Calvin may not be able to speak, but sometimes the smallest actions screamed out the loudest. So he decided to tell Snake the whole story with one small movement.

He shook his head.

Snake reacted in fury, taking out his gun and firing multiple bullets at the wall. Each bullet left a black stain on the wall, and Calvin almost threw up when he thought he saw black blood oozing out of the wall. But a quick blink was able to banish that frightening image to the back of his mind.

But a second blink later was to change everything.

Calvin didn't see him at first. He was just standing in a corner, watching Calvin quietly. But eventually, Calvin's anguish-filled eyes settled on the pale figure, whose piercing eyes beneath withering eyebrows made Calvin's blood cold.

Vikus glared at Calvin with those soulless eyes, and he began to stand up. His anaemic physical state didn't deter him from edging forward confidently, a cold grin beginning to develop and spread across his face. With every footstep, his grin widened and became so much more…

Terrifying.

Calvin had never been frightened of Vikus. He was a good man who would never have terrorised Calvin or caused Calvin to fear him. And yet Calvin was here, terrified of Vikus.

Vikus lifted a bloodless finger and pointed at a bleeding wound on his chest, right where Calvin's bullet had penetrated weathered skin and a weathered heart. It was a black stain on his chest, and blackish blood seemed to ooze out of it.

Calvin wanted to scream, to vent out his horror, but to his shock he found the scream firmly lodged in his throat, suffocating him and preventing him from calling out. Vikus was now right next to him, and he raised his hand to bring it down on Calvin. His frigid fingers caressed Calvin's jaw, sending another ripple of icy pain through Calvin's body.

The hands crept down Calvin's face and arrived at his neck. They then coiled themselves around it and began to squeeze the life out of Calvin, causing him to choke and send spittle flying across the room. But worst of all, Vikus' soulless eyes now had a new inhabitant, as demons and fire stared down at Calvin with bitter resentment. Calvin's eyes locked onto Vikus' red irises, unable to look away from the monster in front of him.

"Ready, Calvin?"

Vikus suddenly evaporated into thin air, a ghostly cackle seeming to linger in the air even after the apparition it belonged to was long gone. Calvin's eyes now settled back on Snake's imposing figure, genuinely frightened out of his wits by Vikus. The mercenary held a syringe in his hand, and he jabbed it into Calvin's left arm.

"If you won't tell us anything," he sneered. "Then I'll destroy any hope you have left, of going back to your friends."

Calvin shook his head.

"Fine," Snake snorted. "I warned you."

Calvin's vision became increasingly distorted again, until more than three-quarters of the world in front of him was shrouded in darkness. He thrashed about in his chair, as raw fear began to wrap itself around his long-broken heart. Seized by panic, Calvin's pupils began to dilate as he stared intensely at the writhing darkness.

An object was placed on his chest, and that object began to move and squirm about on his body. Calvin angled his head to tilt it downwards, and he came face to face with a rat. A small rat, looking vulnerable and lost on the vast plain of his torso.

But then it turned to face him and his heart skipped a beat. Its face was bleeding and its eye sockets were empty, staring back at him with sheer darkness. It snarled and hissed at him, causing him to begin squirming in his seat as well. His eyes began to focus on the rat's tail as he became more and more fearful, jerking about violently in his seat.

The tail flicked up and down like a snake and seemed to slap itself down on his chest. The little rat edged forward towards his face, triggering his heart to pound harder and harder against his ribs.

The shards of darkness suddenly coalesced together to form a giant rat's face, and Calvin nearly ripped his straps off from sheer terror of seeing the rat. The fearsome image suddenly disappeared, as did the little rat on his chest. He retreated back into the darkness, panting desperately and praying to the darkness to stay where it was.

But the prayers ended up being futile as his image was suddenly scarred again, but this time it was a huge rat which crashed through the darkness. The carcass of the poor creature was hauled and dropped in front of him, nearly invoking another scream from him.

"This guy's name is Clawsin," Snake's voice somehow filtered through. "A bunch of us caught him near the plains of Tartarus, and we brought him back to the lab for Dr Schmidt to run some tests with him. The little shit's dead now, of course, but we were able to learn some interesting things while experimenting on him. Who knew the scientists hired us for pest control?"

Calvin recoiled at the sight of the rat's corpse. Clawsin was a rat's name he had become familiar with. He worked under the espionage wing of Ripred's division, and was part of the scout team which regularly checked out the advances of the foxes. To see someone he knew dead was not something unfamiliar to Calvin, but when he saw the scars and the wounds on Clawsin's body, he knew the rat had gone through unspeakable agony. It was hard for Calvin not to retch at the missing genitals and the innards which threatened to tumble out at any instant.

But his disgust and despair morphed into horror as the carcass seemed to take a life of its own. It invaded his memories as Calvin became flooded with images of all the little details on Clawsin's body. Calvin was becoming vulnerable.

He was becoming scared.

A normal white rat was placed next to him and he flinched in fear instantly. His gaps were punctuated with the slightest whimper, and he closed his eyes only to find himself bombarded constantly with images of Clawsin's body. And when he opened his eyes, he found himself paralysed by dread and trepidation at the sight of the small white rat, gazing at him with apparent hunger.

Calvin now yanked hard at the straps, trying to free himself from this cage where he was never safe. His mind was now a swamp of dead rat corpses, while his view was the white rat, which was causing his heart to crash with cymbalic screams every second he gazed at it. He could barely feel his body anymore. All the blood in his body rushed away from his face and fingers and chest.

To his utter relief, the white rat was removed from his vision by Snake. The mercenary seemed to leer down at him, before saying, "You will never speak to any of your rat friends ever again. If you want to continue speaking to the rest while they still live, I suggest you cooperate with us."

Despite the nightmarish experience he had endured, Calvin did the only thing he could still do- He shook his head.

Snake rose to his full height again and sighed. "We have caught everything but Underlander humans. We can go through every last animal down here, if you want to."

Calvin just gritted his teeth.

His world was suddenly enshrouded in darkness again, but this time the darkness looked much more organic, flowing together and swirling about with brilliant coordination. They began to part like the Red Sea, and Calvin's eyes zeroed in on a bat.

The bat flitted about the room harmlessly, landing in a corner and resting for a few seconds before launching itself off and flying about eagerly. Then it seemed to turn and hover in mid-air, facing Calvin.

Time slowed down. The shadows split apart to form millions of tiny faceless bats, all hovering near the real one. They stared at him intently, scrutinising his battered body and bruised soul with unseeing eyes. Then they began to fly towards him slowly, each beat of their wing sounding like an ominous drumbeat for the hellish nightmare which hurtled towards him.

Calvin stared at the black mass advancing with determination and resolve, traits which now deserted him in the face of terror which bore the smile of the night. So finally, finally, after what felt like hours of suffering…

Calvin screamed.


Trust me when I say this was a really difficult chapter to write. I really had to pour a lot of time and soul into creating this. I hope it satisfies you all, and although most of you are here to see Gregor kick ass, I honestly hope as well that you guys enjoy all these Calvin chapters. He's been sidelined a bit so far, but I'm slowly prodding him back into the story because he is one of the main characters.

I pray this scene wasn't too disturbing for you all. If readers skipped it, here's a REALLY basic summary: Snake tortures Calvin for information about Regalia, tells Calvin that he is Calvin's real dad, and basically conditions Calvin to be scared of rats and bats, at least those two species SO FAR. I leave it up to your imagination as to how many animals Calvin developed a phobia for.

Favourites/follows are highly encouraged. As usual, reviews are appreciated!

Question: Do you think Snake really is Calvin's dad? Discuss in the reviews section!