A/N: Miss me? I hope chapter one didn't bore anyone too much? Haha well here's Chapter two :D

And Obviously, special thanks to my Beta - Fate's Silver Chain

Last time in Caught in the Fading Lights…

A single shot echoed around the silent forest area, sending the SAS men to their feet, guns drawn, regardless of ammo or not. Around them, 30 figures came from every angle, guns drawn, encircling the unit. Not only were they badly outnumbered, but they had no ammo and 2 members to protect.

They were trapped. And the worst thing was that each figure had a silver scorpion on their chest, glittering in the fading light.

Scorpia were out for revenge.

And they were going to get it.

To say the fight against Scorpia was dignifying, that it displayed the best of the SAS performance, would be a lie. Outnumbered 10-3 with 2 already-very-unconscious teammates made their chances of escape, well, impossible.

Maybe if the operatives attacking them weren't Scorpia and if they didn't hold so much grudge and hate for Alex Rider, who had ruined their company, and reputation, for destroying their careers, maybe their partners; the grudges went deep. For hateful, cold people such as those of Scorpia, once a grudge was founded, they held onto that grudge, used it to drive their anger to destroying It's source.

Also known as Alex Rider.

Eagle, Fox and Snake all took up defensive positions, firing. The men before them dive out of the way almost gracefully, before going into the offence and shooting down the soldiers. Within seconds, they all found themselves on the floor.

Snake tried to control his breathing, remembering the talk on being shot; if you breathe faster, your heart pumps faster and therefore you lose blood quicker. He felt a searing pain in his chest, but there was no blood. Muffled shouting rang in his ears as the edges of his eyesight dimmed, mind starting to go blank. He'd been tranquilized. They wanted them alive.

The Scorpia agents moved in quickly once the soldiers fell down, losing consciousness. 2 agents swiftly shot Wolf and Alex, just in case, before 5 operatives tied their hands and legs, slinging them over their back with ease, despite the soldiers being all near 6 feet tall and definitely not light in weight.

This was all done in silence, before they traipsed up the slope, dumping the bodies in the large white van, still parked across the middle of the road. Several other vehicles waited, out of sight to which the men dispersed towards.

2 operatives stayed behind, surveying the wreckage. The front of the car pumped thick, black smoke; flames licked the edge.

In the centre of the jeep, a radio suddenly cackled to life, causing the immediate attention of the assassins. Swiftly, they moved to the source of what sounded like a radio, just in time to hear what it said.

"…K-unit. Snake. Do you copy? Help is on the way. I repeat; help is on the way."

The two men smiled behind their masks, smiles of satisfaction, greed and hatred. By the time the stupid SAS arrived on the scene, there would be nothing left than a fire to put out, and the disappearance of their petty Unit to mourn.

Scorpia's footmen walked away, melting with the last of the shadows as the sun faded from the sky.

Groggily, Eagle sat up, mind on the verge of complete incomprehension. He shook it head and wiped his eyes tiredly, before surveying the room. It wassmall, roughly 4x5m, with black brick walls surrounding the entire concrete floor space. A small, bare bulb hung about 5 metres above his head, shining brightly and giving him a slight headache when he looked at it. There was no window, and he couldn't quite spot a door either.

Goose bumps blanketed his arms in the cold temperature of the room. Leaning against the wall, he pulled his knees to his chest, arms still annoyingly twisted behind him where they were bound, and watched his Unit in front of him, waiting for someone to stir.

Ten minutes of silence passed slowly for Eagle as he listened to his own breathing, to his teammates breathing; whilst also listening for any sound outside of the room. With very keen ears, he would be most likely to hear anything. But there was nothing.

A deep groan shattered the silence, before Snake struggled to sit up, one arm against the wall, eyes still clouded from the drug. The scots man swept the room with his eyes slowly, waiting for the blur to become clear before meeting with Eagles; green meeting blue.

"This is shit," he moaned, attempting to free his legs as he sat up, struggling with the rope that held his feet and hands.

"Yeah I know." Eagle muttered, head still pounding. "At least we're alive," he tried, attempting to brighten their low moods. Snake gave him the look.

Snake frowned, choosing to just ignore what Eagle said in favour of trying to argue that they might as well be dead if they were at the hands of Scorpia.

"Has anyone come in here?" Snake asked distractedly, looking around the room.

"Nope, not since I've been awake. I can't even find the door." Eagle replied truthfully, not caring about how stupid it would have made him sound. Though he knew that right now Snake wouldn't mess around and have a sarcastic argument with him.

The medic scanned the unconscious occupants of the room, noticing how Fox seemed to be on the verge of consciousness, his fluttering eyelids a tell tail of his state. Wolf too, seemed to be on the edge now, but Alex was still completely out of it, no sign of life apart from his shallow breathing, sometimes rasping.

"Eagle, can you try and get me out of these stupid ropes?" Snake half asked, half moaned. But Eagle nodded seriously. He shuffled over the Snake, and the man twisted his arms round so that Eagle could blindly attempt and untie his teammate. The work was difficult, and though they were trained for this, it took him 10 minutes to untie the medic's tightly bound hands. By the time he was done, both Fox and Wolf had regained consciousness and were fully aware, sitting and watching their work in silence.

In turn, Snake untied Eagle's hands before untying his own feet. Once they were both free and able to stand, stretching out, they set to untie Wolf and Fox. It must have taken the men around 40 minutes till they were all untied and standing, and through it all, Alex did not stir once.

The medic strode over to the blonde boy Alex, noticing how now the once bright red blood in his blonde hair was dark, dried. They had been here a while, maybe a day now. Crouching down, Snake gently began to turn him onto his back, which Fox caught onto and helped. They then worked to untie the bonds from both his wrists and ankles.

The damage to his wrist was then revealed, earning gasps from those watching. The ropes had rubbed against the skin, where already bruises had began to form from the car accident. A contrast of deep purple's, blues, blacks and reds swirled together, covering a large area from his fingers to half way up his fore arm. Most was obviously bruising where the arm had collided some time during the accident, but Fox didn't have to be a medic to understand what the red was.

"Anyone have a vest?" Snake asked, only loud enough for them to just catch his question.

"Yeah, why d-" Wolf asked, getting up and going to stand next to Snake. When he saw what was wrong with the boy, he gasped. "What the fuck!" he growled angrily, as he took off his t-shirt and vest, handing Snake the vest and then put his t-shirt back on.

"The crash. He was standing up at the time and was slung forward, through where the windscreen had been and hit the tree. He's broken his wrist-"hepaused, gently but firmly running his fingers over Alex's rib cage. "- and 2 ribs." Snake answered, whilst checking for any more injuries and making sure his airway was fully clear. "And the cut on his forehead needs looking to."

Snake quickly tore Wolf's vest in to pieces, professionally used the larger pieces to wrap the wrist, stem the sluggish blood flow and use it as a support for the broken bone. Considering the circumstances, that was the best thing he could use. Using one of the smaller pieces he'd put to one side, he put pressure on the cut on Alex's head to stem the blood flow as best he could. After half an hour of near silence, the medic went and sat in between Eagle and Fox, joining to watch Wolf absent mindedly pace; if his face and clenched fists were anything to go by, he seriously was angry.

"Anyone else hurt?" Snake asked lowly, though he hadn't spotted anything.

Eagle and Fox silently, solemnly, shook their heads. But Wolf snapped.

"WHY THE FUCK WOULD IT MATTER?" the rest of the unit were sent into a shocked silence as he continued, "we have an unconscious teenage spy, we are stuck in a cell, captured by Scorpia, the world's worst crime organisation EVER. Why would it matter if we were hurt or not?"

Furiously and no doubt not thinking straight, Wolf punched the stone wall, not recognising the pain when his knuckles started to bleed, the skin torn.

"Wolf, don't be fucking stupid man. We've been in worst situations that this before. We're the freaking SAS! Don't be so depressingly weak to give up on us, on Cub, already!"

It was Fox who had risen to his feet, risen to face Wolf and shouted his angry leader down. Snake and Eagle were even more surprised now; it just wasn't in Fox's personality to shout at Wolf like that, at anyone like that, much less to swear as well.

Before anyone could react to his anger explosion, a low groan echoed round the dingy cell. Their heads spun to the source in one fluid motion, rushing over the slowly awakening figure, lying passively on the cold ground.

As soon as he began rasping for breath, they pulled him into a sitting position, his body like a doll in their hands. Alex was propped against Snake's chest. The medic knew that if Cub was conscious enough and not deluded by pain, he would fully care about his dignity in the situation, and would have responded against him.

"Cub? Can you open your eyes for me?" Snake asked gently in his ear.

Slowly Alex opened his eyes fully, momentarily blinded by the bright shine of the light. He squinted for a moment to let his eyes adjust, only to then see Eagle and Fox (the creeps) staring at him in concern. The teen then discovered that he was propped against Snake, whose head was right beside his ear.

"Ah crap," he muttered, and Fox grinned.

"Ha! And you said my language is bad!" he exclaimed childishly, momentarily forgetting the severity of everything.

"It is bad!"

"Where are we?" Alex asked, his voice was slightly slurred and his head was pounding.

"In a cell. Does anywhere apart from your ribs, wrist and head hurt?" Snake asked him swiftly. After a short pause, Alex shook his head at this and the man sighed in obvious relief…well near relief.

"Cub I think you have a concussion." Snake stated simply.

Alex stared at him, uncomprehending what he had said.

His reply was a slurred "Wha-"

"See," Snake said cockily, smiling slyly.

They rolled their eyes.

As soon as Alex had opened his eyes, Wolf had switched from his crowding position in preference to pace the room, curses bubbling in his mind for Scorpia, for MI6, for his annoying milkman, for everyone and everything annoying. But he kept thinking of Alex, struggling to come together with the fact that he had pissed off Scorpia of all agencies. Admittedly they knew very little of Cub's past, and certainly nothing of his missions with the exceptions of Point Blanc academy and when he was in Australia with Fox.

Some of his colourful curses escaped his mind, leaking through his mouth, escaping his attention; Wolf did not seem to realise that he had spoken aloud, instead just continued his pacing and occasional swearing.

Fox, Snake and Eagle were sitting in near-comfortable silence. Eagle absent mindedly fiddled with a loose thread on his camo pants, twirling it through his fingers in an ever-changing pattern, whilst Fox chose to lean against the wall, slouching, with his eyes closed. The man could pass for sleeping, if not for the fact that his breathing was changing in rates, not like the rhythmic breathing of a sleeper.

Alex still sat propped against Snake. Under the medic's supervision, he had fallen into a light sleep, though there was no doubt that a slightest movement from Snake would cause the teen to stir. When Eagle and Fox had raised eyebrows at the fact that Snake chose to keep Cub against his chest, he had immediately defended that he was already comfortable, and that him laying down could lead to infection in his cuts, worse than the infections that he was bound to develop anyway if he had no treatment.

But the other men of K-Unit were convinced that Snake cared greatly for Cub, not that that was a bad thing. Without saying, they silently admitted to themselves that they too would have most probably done the same thing.

It had been well over an hour since Eagle and Snake had first spoken, but so far, no one had come for them. They still hadn't quite discovered the exit.

Without warning, a door size section of the wall slid open, luckily not where any of the soldiers had been sitting. An even brighter light had now drowned the room, before a tall, dark figure sectioned out the light; causing the occupants able to leap to their feet to do so, settling into stances that they could fight from with ease.

Snake wrapped a protective arm around Cub, pulling him a little closer to his chest. He did not want to see Alex harmed at the torturers hand.

The figure wall quite tall, with curly hair and a limp in one leg. It was difficult to see his face properly, half obscured by shadows, half by his slightly wild black hair, as he simply stood in the entrance. However, it was easy to spot the two tall, armed, and muscled, men with their guns cocked, no doubt willing to shoot them if necessary.

The figure took what seemed to be a slightly strained step forward, allowing K-unit to see him clearer, revealing his identity. It was a certainly a man, his eyes a dulled out blue, skin tone Caucasian. His nose was small, but he had full lips and dark, large eye brows with a prominent chin.

"You!" Fox shouted angrily, taking a step forward as if to confront the man with the cruel smile on his face. Whatever had happened between the two in the past was obviously burnt deeply in Fox's memory, and he certainly as not happy about whatever it was.

At the very same time, Snake's green eyes had nearly doubled in size, part confusion, part disbelief. Voice full of a mix of emotions that came out above the rest as alarm, quietly, he said, "Anthony?"

Alex stirred, sensing the change in the atmosphere. As he slowly came round; his eyes scanned the room, taking in everything he could before settling on the man just 2 metres from him. Brown locked with blue, one holding hatred, one holding defiance.

"Ash?"

Chapter 3 should be posted soon I hope! Reviews are welcomed!

Jellie