Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider.

Alex tried to make himself laugh at Tom's attempt to diffuse the tension in the room, but his mind was already elsewhere. He was at an impasse. On one hand, he could secure both the room and the terrorists, but run the risk of blowing his story even further out of the water. On the other, he could waltz back to his desk and pretend nothing had ever happened and the two unconscious adults at the front of the room didn't even exist. Neither option looked particularly appealing, but Alex did have a strong desire to live to see the next day. Sighing, he started browsing the room for tape. Particularly something sticky that would be painful to rip off.

Ten minutes, five overheard gunshots, three rolls of tape, two empty machine guns and one desk in front of the door later, Alex realized that the adrenaline rush had worn off. But to someone who was used to far worse injuries than the ones he had accumulated so far in the day, the disbelieving gazes of his classmates were felt almost more physically than his bumps and bruises. Deciding that he couldn't avoid everyone any longer, he slowly turned to face his desk rather than look anyone in the eye. He limped to the back of the room, cursing cramped muscles and bleeding head wounds the whole way.

Alex was tempted to collapse into his chair, but he couldn't afford any weaknesses yet. So instead he lowered himself gracefully into the desk where less than half an hour ago he had been taking diligent notes on ideal gas laws. Looking disinterestedly at his bleeding arm, he called out to his classmates.

"Does anyone happen to be carrying gauze, by any chance?"

With that, the room exploded.

"What was..."

"How in the..."

"...hell is going on?!"

"Where'd you..."

Alex clamped his hand over his mouth, and to his eternal astonishment, everyone quieted instantly. Pushing his discomfort at that fact aside, Alex asked, "Do you want them to hear us?"

Seeing his classmates fervently shake their heads, he bit back a grin.

"Besides, I asked if anyone had gauze."

They were staring again and making him even more uncomfortable when Gemma Ward, a quiet girl with glasses spoke up.

"I think there's some in the bottom-right drawer of the desk. There might be some pain meds there too, I don't remember."

Her best friend, Zoe Jenkins, shot her a questioning look. Gemma swallowed before answering.

"He's...was, my uncle."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. Most of the girls and a few more perceptive of the boys were shooting Gemma sympathetic looks, but she was looking at her desk.

Alex took a deep breath and made his way to the desk where Mr. Wells' corpse lay. He'd experienced dead bodies before, plenty of them, but none of them had struck him like this one. There was a look of eternal surprise etched onto his face, as if he couldn't quite believe what was happening.

Alex tore his gaze away and gently pulled open the bottom-right desk drawer. Sure enough, there was a first aid kit. Closing the drawer and limping back to his desk, he opened the kit and removed the gauze and Tylenol. He deftly wrapped up his arm (not an easy feat, seeing as he only had one hand available) and dry-swallowed two pills. He couldn't see anyway he could possibly bandage his own head, so he settled for soaking up some of the spare blood before giving it up as a bad job. Head wounds always bled the most.

It was silly, but Alex was more afraid of facing his classmate's reactions than the two terrorists he had subdued up front. As a matter of fact, at the moment, he would rather deal with more terrorists. People his own age frightened him more.

Deciding he couldn't pretend that they didn't exist any longer, he looked up. There was no explosion this time, only warily interested faces. It seemed he was having a staring contest with every person in the class. Finally, Ryan Kent, the most outspoken of the boys in class, spoke up.

"So...Rider." His name was said with more respect than Alex had grown accustomed to in the month or so he had been back in school. "What the hell was that?"

Alex stared at him, hard, more confident now that he only had one person to confront. Just when the silence started to grow awkward, Alex answered, calmly, "Karate."

Ryan stared in disbelief.

"Yeah, we know it was bloody karate that you were doing up there, Rider, but that doesn't explain the guns!" He was whisper-yelling at this point - infuriated enough to lose his temper, but not stupid enough to risk their lives by shouting.

Alex opened his mouth to retort with something sarcastic, maybe like, "It doesn't, does it?" (Not particularly clever, but he couldn't bring himself to care very much), when more gunshots rang out. They had been going off sporadically while he was "tidying up", but this was louder, and therefore closer. And it wasn't stopping.

Alex was itching to investigate, but that wouldn't do anything for Kent's curiosity. He was too observant for his own good.

Instead, he replied, "Listen, Kent, now is not the best time to get into my personal life. It would take too long."

Next to him, Tom sniggered.

Ryan didn't seem pacified, but he let it go. Alex was thankful. They had a lot of things much bigger than an irritated schoolboy to deal with.

For instance, the shots still going off at the end of the hall. It sounded a little too much like a gunfight for Alex's liking, but the more he thought about it, the better that possibility started to look. If there was a gunfight, then there were two different sides, which meant that MI6 was probably here. He normally wouldn't cheer too much at their presence, but they were his only hope at getting out of here alive. He had no gadgets, no backup, and an entire classroom full of civilians.

The sounds of gunfire were growing closer, and Alex saw a few girls starting to quiver. Janice Murray was crying softly in the back with a group of friends trying to calm her down. To be honest, he was surprised no one had screamed yet, but they all seemed to be taking his warning about staying quiet very seriously.

Alex was still trying to digest the fact that because they'd seen him take out those two adults - Bear Man and Asian woman - they looked to him as a leader. It was unsettling. He was used to working alone.

Contemplating this recent change in class dynamics - if Alex had picked someone out to be class leader, it would've been Ryan Kent, which, come to think of it, may have been why he was so disgruntled - he jumped when he heard the desks in front of the door scraping on the floor. This time he heard at least one girl scream. Running as fast as his sore leg allowed, he slammed the door closed again and sat on the desk in front of it. Hopefully the extra weight would prevent anyone from pushing their way into the classroom.

Instead of the yelling he expected, all he heard were muffled curses.

Then, "Jesus! We're with the SAS, kid, now open the damn door!"

Fighting back a rising sense of dread - if he would rather face terrorists than his classmates, then he would definitely rather face his classmates than anyone from the Special Air Service - he peeked out of the glass section of the door. Staring him in the face was a man he didn't recognize.

"Prove it." He said, unwilling to open the door only to get shot by an impersonator.

The young man grumbled, but pulled out his dog tags, which Alex had seen often enough (he had a pair of his own, after all) to acknowledge that they were real.

Carefully pushing the desks to the side of the door, he cracked it open to see four men. The first was the nondescript man he had seen through the door. One held a bleeding nose that, Alex realized with a start, he had probably gotten when Alex slammed the door in his face. Another had ginger hair...

Alex audibly bit back a groan. He was face to face with the K Unit.

AN: So, what do you think? I have to say, I was more than amazed by the response from the first chapter - it completely blew me away! Sorry this isn't longer, but this seemed an appropriate place to cut it off. I have to say, though, that all of my updates will probably come slower than this because I've got a lot going on right now. But your reviews sure do put me on the right track. :)

Fun fact of the day: While I was searching for some British-sounding names (I want this to be authentic!) I came across this study. It turns out that, in Britain, the two unluckiest names are John and Helen! Weird, huh?