AN: Hi, this is for The Firms monthly prompt challenge. Hope you like. Please ignore anything that does not match up to the official storyline (there is most probably a lot). This was done for fun and the angle with which it was written calls for leniency in your set thoughts about what has happened in Alex Rider's life. And that of his father's.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything...

Glory

Some people become agents at MI6 for revenge, some people for glory, others simply because they are patriots that would do anything for their country.

Mr. Alan Blunt did so for glory. For the ultimate ego booster. When he was still a field agent he had been the best; the best fighter, the best shooter, the best information gatherer, the best liar. There was nothing he could not do. He was ruthless in his techniques, cold in his decisions.

Then that day, the day it all fell apart. The day that Agent John Rider came back from a mission, bloodied and bruised, holding onto life by nothing more than sheer will. That was when Alan Blunt's life started turning upside down. John had stared at him, eyes accusing even as they closed in exhaustion, mouth turned down in a snarl of hate even as he started falling, stumbling to his knees as he passed out.

Alan had been frantic, John had come back! His plan had failed and by the way John looked at him he knew, he knew that it was Alan who had set him up, Alan who had tipped off the organisation he was investigating, Alan who wanted him dead.

John had been making a pest of himself for the last two years, everything he did he did well, there was nothing he could not do. And he was surpassing Alan's own abilities.

There was even bloody talk about him taking over when the current head retired!

It wasn't fair! Alan had been clawing his way up to the top for the last twelve years, then a newbie comes along with half a gram of natural talent and suddenly it was Rider this and Rider that!

So Alan took matters into his own hands. With his experience and connections it had been frighteningly easy to set up the bait, to figure out a way to finish John off without anyone even thinking for a moment he was involved.

But he had forgotten the Rider's luck.

The damn Rider's luck.

If John woke up, Alan was dead. His career would be ruined, his life, his future, he'd be tossed into jail for attempted murder and killed in his sleep.

He couldn't let that happen. Nothing was allowed to stand in his way.

A week passed, then another, and another... then, finally, John Rider woke up. And Alan Blunt panicked.

He cornered the injured man in his room during one of the brief periods when no one was fawning over him. He made John Rider promise, on penalty of death to his new family, that he would never tell another living soul about his involvement in the attack. John had sworn and the next week, after some very careful, elaborate planning, (not to mention a lot of sweet talking to the higher ups.) John was leaving on a new case, one that would have been suicide for a lesser agent. John was leaving for Malogosto.

One month and fourteen days later, the head of MI6 died in a freak airplane accident. Agent Alan Blunt was named the new head of MI6. But John still had information. Information that could lead to Alan's downfall. So, the newly pronounced head of MI6 designed a tragic accident. He leaked false information to scorpia. John was discovered. It was so simple. The bomb, the plane, the manipulation.

John was so trusting, even though he knew Alan had tried to kill him before. Simple.

And with one flick of a switch; a switch that Alan had no connection to of course. All the evidence was gone. And Alan Blunt rose up to be a powerful, cold, glorious leader.

Because after all.

It is all for the glory.

AN: So... I hope you liked it. It confused me for a while but I think I managed to make my point. Please, once again, if anything doesn't match up to the story, remember, this is not meant to follow the books storyline... it is just meant to be some fun.