I had been wanting to write an Uncharted fan fic since Among Thieves, but I never could come up with a story, or new characters, that I liked until now. I hope you enjoy. I do not own Nathan Drake, or any of the Uncharted characters. That honor goes to Naughty Dog.

"This is the part of the job I never missed," Nathan thought as he sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair. "Years of experience never really help you get used to it, and years away from the job haven't helped my resolve either." Nate's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a ring- clad fist making contact with his left cheekbone. As he felt blood dripping down his face, he hoped that there wasn't going to be a permanent imprint of the man's ring on his face.

"Good luck symbol or not, I do not want a lucky horseshoe imprinted on my temple for the rest of my life," Nate thought, then grunted in pain as he absorbed two more blows to the gut.

Nathan Drake looked around the small, damp room he had awoken in. It reminded him of the Nazi submarine base from when he was looking for El Dorado. It looked like the world's nastiest basement. It smelled like mold and death when he first woke up, but now he couldn't smell anything besides the blood filling his nose.

Two more blows to the face.

As Nate struggled to remain conscious, he pulled against his restraints one more time. It was no good. He wasn't going anywhere. He tried again to look for a way out, in case he managed to get free, but he could barely see the whole room. He looked at the dim bulb hanging from the ceiling, wishing it would do its job better.

Three hits to the chest and arms.

"And the other dim bulbs filling this room aren't helping at all," he quipped to himself as he looked at the four other men populating the room, including the ugly giant who had been making Nate his favorite punching bag for the past ten minutes.

"Hey guys," Nate managed to say between hits to his face. The giant stopped hitting him, and the three other men lounging behind him took notice.

"Have you guys done this before?" Nate asked with a weak grin, "I don't want to tell you how to do your job," Nate said in a sarcastic voice, "But aren't you supposed to be asking me questions or something?" The only response he got was another right cross to his jaw.

"Oww," Nate groaned, "Seriously? You haven't even said a single word to me! I just woke up to Frankenstein here hitting me in the face."

The giant was about to hit him again when one of the others stopped him.

"Lothar," called one of the men from the back of the room. The man motioned for the giant to step away, and Lothar complied. As the man walked up to him, Nate surveyed who he was dealing with. This man was slightly shorter than Nate was, with a smaller build. The way he moved bothered Nate though. His body language showed signs of being a trained boxer. That didn't bode well for Nate's face.

"Our boss wants to talk to you," the man said in a stern voice. Nate raised an eyebrow, but the man said nothing else. He just removed his glasses and wiped them down before putting them back on.

"Your boss wants to talk to me?" Nate said in a disbelieving voice. The man nodded. "You guys knock me out, drag me to this Godforsaken basement, tie and handcuff me to a chair, then beat the crap out of me because 'Your boss wants to talk to me?'" Nate let out a strained chuckle, "Haven't any of you ever heard of a telephone? I'm in the phone book." The man grinned at Nate's comments. Then after sharing the laugh with him, interrupted the moment with a swift punch to Nate's face.

"Definitely a boxer," Nate thought as his head rang. He blinked a few times, head hanging low, looking at his blood soaked shirt, before elevating his gaze to match the man looking at him.

"No? No phone calls?" Nate chuckled, "How about Facebook?"

One more punch to the gut.

"Just so you know," Nate grunted," I'm taken."

"What?" asked the man with glasses.

Through heavy breathing, Nate replied," I'm just saying, you seem to be going to a lot of trouble to get me together with someone, so I thought you should know I'm off the market."

Two more hits to the chest, one to the nose.

"Come on," Nate gasped, maintaining his cocky grin, "If someone's that desperate to hook up with me, you could at least tell me their name."

Just as the man was about to punch Nate again, the lights began to flicker, and he heard the sound of a man whistling. As Nate heard the tune, chills went up his spine and his heart raced. His cocky grin vanished. It sounded like a song you'd hear on an ice cream truck or carnival ride, and anywhere else it would have sounded innocent enough. But not here, not if the man whistling was who Nate thought it was.

"It can't be," Nate thought, the fear welling up in his chest.

The whistling stopped and a shadowy figure passed through the doorway and lit a cigarette. The flickering stopped, the man stepped into the light, and Nate's suspicions were confirmed. The whistling man was just shy of six feet, had a very lean build, and wore a black suit with a white shirt and no tie. His near-black hair probably would have been curly if it wasn't combed back with gel. There was a moment of silence as this man took a long puff of his cigarette. Then he looked down and brushed a small amount of ash off of his shirt collar, which stuck out over his lapels. He took his cigarette in his hand, and then smiled at Nate with a large grin that gave him chills.

"First cigarette of the day, always hits the spot," the man said in an Irish accent, one that had a tone filled with menace. Then he bent down to eye level with Nate, blew smoke in his face, and maintained his creepy smile the whole time. "Hello Nathan," he grinned, his voice taking an edge of mock friendliness.

Nate repressed the nervous feeling building in his stomach. "You could've called me," he said, trying his best to contain his nervousness and anger.

"Those are the first words out of your mouth?" Benjamin Edwards said, feigning hurt feelings, "Not a hello, no 'long time, no see Ben,' nothing?"

"I'm sorry, I'll start again. Please don't blow smoke in my face," Nate replied indignantly, barely containing his upset tone. Ben chuckled, took another puff of his cigarette. Nate looked at Ben in silence for a moment. He couldn't put his finger on what, but something about the man's appearance was unsettling. You didn't even have to talk to him, just look at him. There was just something about him that was somehow unnerving.

"I bet you'd like to kill me, wouldn't you Nathan?" Edwards said in a playful tone. He grinned when Nate remained silent, "Take a shot at me?" he whispered in Nate's ear. "How about it?" he shouted enthusiastically, hopping in front of Nate, bent over, with his hands on his knees like a child. "I let you out of the chair, and you get three go's," Edwards chirped in a sing-song tone.

"Three go's?" Nate asked.

"Come on, I completely understand why you'd want me dead, so I'll give you THREE! Three chances to hurt me, to kill me, TO DO YOUR WORST!" Edwards shouted, "Then," he paused, letting that disturbing grin linger on his face before leaning in to whisper in Nate's ear, "It's my turn."

Nate sat there for a moment as Ben looked at him, staring with his large, soulless black eyes. Normally Nate would have come up with an amusing quip, but even his inner jester seemed too scared to say anything.

"No thanks," Nate said in a defeated tone, his uneasiness showing through on his face.

"I didn't think so," Ben grinned, "That's because you know what I can do, what I've done," he paused for a moment, "You're afraid," he said in a mocking whisper. Then, Nate watched as Ben put out his cigarette in his own palm. Nate felt chills run up his spine as he smelled burning flesh, but what disturbed him most was that not only did it not seem to hurt him, but Ben looked like he actually enjoyed it.

"It's okay," he whispered playfully, flicking the extinguished cigarette butt to the floor, "You should be afraid." Edwards paused a moment, then turned to the men standing behind him. "You gentlemen can leave; I can deal with Mr. Drake. Besides…" he turned his head back to Nate, his grin more malicious than ever, "you won't be any trouble, will you Nathan?" He paused for a few moments as Nate stayed silent, "Didn't think so." He turned back to face his men, who walked out of the room one by one. After they left, Ben moved towards Nate, and released his restraints. Nate hated to admit it, even to himself, but he would rather have stayed tied to the chair and been left with those four thugs than deal with the man who was releasing him. They scared him less.

"You know," he said as the ropes and handcuffs fell to the floor, "I didn't expect them to be that rough on you."

"Really?" Nate asked. He groaned in pain as he stood, aching all over. He made no move to escape, and wouldn't have even if he was one hundred percent. He knew it was a bad idea.

"Yes really," Edwards replied in a mocking voice, "I told them to go get you, and if they wanted to, they could get a few shots in for fun. Didn't expect them to just beat you until I arrived."

"Yeah you did," Nate replied.

"Yeah, okay I did," Ben replied, shrugging his shoulders with a playful, mischievous expression on his face.

Nate stood there nervously. He could never tell if Edwards was joking or not.

"This was plan B though, be glad we didn't go with plan A. Plan A was my idea."

"And what was plan 'A'?" Nate asked.

"You really want to know?"

"Not particularly."

Ben grinned. "I said we should kidnap your lovely wife Elena, and slowly cut pieces off of her until you did exactly what we wanted. We could have controlled you like a puppet on strings."

Nate fumed with anger. "Don't you mean 'unless I did exactly what you wanted?'"

"Hmm?"

"You said until. Don't you mean unless?"

Ben pretended to ponder this for a moment. "Uh, no," he said blatantly. He stared at Nate's angry face for a moment, then with a smile said, "Well there's no question you'd do what we want! So, what? I don't get to have my fun just because you're cooperating?"

"Don't mention her again. And if you ever so much as TOUCH her, I'll KILL you!" Nate shouted, barely able to control himself.

Ben feigned a look of terror, then said playfully: "Those three go's are still yours if you want them." He stared at Nate with eager eyes for a moment, "Thought not. But tell me something."

"What?" Nate asked, still holding in a combination of intense anger and fear.

"Does she taste as good as she looks?" he asked, licking his lips, a devilish, sadistic smile on his face. What was most unnerving about that question was that he couldn't tell if Edwards meant that as a euphemism, or if he was talking about cannibalism. Both ideas caused Nate anger to rise even further.

"Too bad the boss didn't approve of plan 'A'" Ben said, faking a childish sadness.

"Who are you talking about?" Nate asked, but his gut told him he already knew the answer. Then his blood began to boil as a voice confirmed his suspicions.

"Who do you think Nathan?" The new voice said in an articulate drawl. Nate stared in disbelief at the man who walked into the room. Whatever nervousness and fear Nate was feeling was replaced with rage. The man was about to speak again, but Nate had rushed across the room, tackling him to the ground.

"YOU!" Nate yelled in blind rage, "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

He managed to land two punches to the man's face before Edwards had one hand around Nate's throat, lifting him off the ground with ease. Ben held him there a moment, Drake's feet dangling off the ground. He struggled for breath as Ben's hand squeezed his throat. Then Ben slammed him into the wall, holding him in place. Nate's head rang, and he felt warm blood flowing down the back of his head as the room faded. The other man stood up, wiped blood off of his face, and motioned for Edwards to let go. Edwards complied, and Nate slumped to the floor, gasping for air.

"I'm sorry Nathan," the man said, "But like Ben said, we aren't done with you yet," The man chuckled, "But you should've known you hadn't seen the last of us."

Nate gasped for breath, and barely heard the man's words as all of his pain and injuries got the best of him, and he slipped into unconsciousness.