So this is a little intro to the fanfic I just wrote. Sorry because it's kinda short. This idea just came to me randomly and I wrote it all in an hour. If it doesn't suck I'll continue to develop it. I've read some Spy School fanfiction and I thought I'd do something a little different with the story.

Disclaimer: I'm not Stuart Gibbs.

Somewhere in the US

SPYDER's Headquarters

0400 hours

"You've got a mission." Joshua Hallal told me. "Infiltrate the Academy of Espionage. You're familiar with the school, aren't you? Good. Find the files about SPYDER in the principal's office. Then just delete them. Sound easy?"

We were sitting at a table in one of SPYDER's headquarters, eating our ice cream sundaes casually like we weren't discussing the best way to cause mass destruction. We were playing that game again, pretending to be casual. Joshua's distorted, scar ridden yet still handsome face was impassive. The one green eye that wasn't covered with an eyepatch glinted with a challenge.

I swirled my spoon around in my half melted, untouched ice cream. "Easy as pie."

He scraped the remaining ice cream off his bowl. "Good." He raised an eyebrow at my ice cream. "Are you going to eat that?"

I rolled my eyes and pushed it toward him. "I hate strawberry."

"Give it to me, then. No sense in wasting good food." I watched as he stuck his spoon in my bowl. "There's a catch in the mission," he said suddenly, between a bite.

"Oh?" I asked, interested.

"After you delete the files, you'll have to pose as a new recruit for Spy School." Joshua paused, trying to gauge my feelings toward this by watching my eyes. I shrugged nonchalantly, my expression bored. He nodded in approval and continued. "I know that the whole attack-the-system from the inside isn't really our style, but there's some things we need to know about the CIA."

"Like what?"

He looked at me seriously. "Like Ben Ripley."

I couldn't help the huff of laughter that came from my mouth. "You mean the kid who threw you off a cliff?"

Anger flared in his one eye. It didn't make me flinch like it used to. I was thirteen, five years younger than Joshua, but unlike him, I had been recruited by the SPYDER director herself when I was nine. Joshua might've had old CIA roots, but I had been loyal to SPYDER longer than him. We had the same ranking, and he knew he couldn't order me around than he could the director of SPYDER.

"Yes," he said, and I could tell he was gritting his teeth, "The kid who threw me off a cliff."

"What does he have to do with your plan?"

"Ben Ripley, as you know, has been on our radar for a very long time. He's thwarted our plans more times than I can count. You know what this means?" Joshua didn't bother to wait for me to answer the question. "It means he's a threat."

"Well, obviously."

He kept on speaking like I hadn't commented. "Since you and Ripley are the same age, you should be in the same year. Cozy up to him. Help him study, bump into him in the hallway, slip him a love letter, whatever you feel is necessary. He has to trust you enough for you to convince him to skip class and meet you by a select location, where we will-" He made the throat-slitting sign with a guttural noise that was scarily accurate to killing someone.

Frankly, I didn't see the point of the plan. "Why can't I just shoot him?"

"Because," Joshua said with an overly patient air, "You'd alert every single CIA agent that it was SPYDER's doing. They'll catch on and immediately catch on. You'd be in a holding cell, and they'd interrogate every single living cell of you before they snuff you out."

"I wouldn't just shoot him in front of the entire cafeteria. I can just kill him while he's sleeping and slip out a window or something."

"Too much risk of being caught," he dismissed.

"Your confidence in my skills is flattering." But I didn't press the subject. I thought of another point. "How am I becoming a recruit in the first place? Am I just supposed to walk up to the school and say, 'What's up, I'm a new recruit'?"

"First of all, 'What's up, I'm a new recruit' is moronic-"

"It's called sarcasm, Joshua-"

"Secondly, SPYDER's got that covered. Word's already got to the principal that you're a special case. You'll be going by 'Charlotte Anderson' and you have a penchant for hacking and shooting guns. There's a new spot that opened up in the Academy of Espionage, so having you suddenly appear won't raise any eyebrows."

Charlotte Anderson. I could roll with that. I was the best in my class at target range, so that should be easy. Hacking, to be honest, wasn't really my strong point, but I knew enough about it to pass it off as a computer whiz. I nodded. "Sounds simple."

"But your cover story isn't the part that's important."

He stopped to scoop some strawberry sundae in his mouth.

"What the important thing?" I prompted him.

"Erica Hale," he said, wiping his mouth.

"Your ex?" I said bluntly.

Joshua's expression turned sour. It faintly resembled a lemon. "We never dated. But she's a threat. Knowing her, she's kept tabs on everyone in the entire student body. She'll be curious about you, and she'll do her best to figure out if you're an enemy or a friend. If you're an enemy, she won't hesitate to kill you."

"Killer ex-girlfriend. Gotcha."

"This isn't a joke," he said sternly.

The Debbie Downer, as per usual.

His gaze sharpened like he could tell what I was thinking. "You cannot fail this assignment. I trust you'll remember everything?"

"Delete files, befriend Ben Ripley, stick to the cover story, avoid crazy ex girlfriend," I recapped. "Oh, and then kill him."

"Looks like you've got it." Joshua smiled grimly. "Good luck."

"Luck's for losers," I told him. I pushed myself out of the chair and strode away, calling over my shoulder. "I'm going to go pack my stuff and hijack a car. Enjoy your sundae."

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