A/N: My second Alex Rider, fic, this one again centers on the events of Scorpia. This time, it is an AU. Please R/R!
A man sits on the bed in his hotel room, polishing a well-used handgun with smooth practiced motions. The soft sound of cloth on metal soothes him, and his breaths are deep and even, thoughts far away.
He wonders how things might have gone, if he'd chosen to rejoin MI6. He wonders where he would be, if he hadn't betrayed the British government and thrown his lot in with Scorpia. Dr. Three was right, about needing only the right trigger. He had killed on his first assignment, however indirectly. The only difference this time was the deliberate choice to kill his target.
But what was the big deal? If not him, it would have been someone else. There were enough people willing to kill someone for money, so he might as well be the one to take the pay. They had not expected he would shoot, he knew. It was clear from the look in her eyes as he approached her and the shock as he pulled the trigger and ended her life.
After the shooting, a pleasant numbness had taken over, clearing his mind of thoughts and worries. He did what he was instructed to do, and that was that. The numbness soon became an addiction, a need to banish his confused and conflicted thoughts. Again and again, he was sent out, with a gun, a knife, a bottle of poison, and he reclaimed the numbness.
He became legend in the spy underworld, as known as the now-deceased Yassen Gregorovich. When operatives went undercover, they were warned of him, of the spy-turned-assassin who could sniff them out as easy as breathing.
Across an ocean from the reminiscing assassin, Alan Blunt sits in his office, Mrs. Jones next to him and a fifteen year old boy across from them. He tells the boy what to do on his first mission, and slides a picture across his desk. The boy picks the picture up, and examines the emotionless face. Beware Alex Rider, they tell him. If you see him, send an alarm and we'll pull you out.