PLEASE READ.

The events of this story have been changed dramatically. If you're reading from where you think you left off, you WILL BE CONFUSED. Please re-read to understand. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

The rumble of the plane's engine soothed the shake in her hands and the panic shooting up her spine. Merlin had announced that morning that they would be skydiving for their lessons, and though they had all been trained, only a few were genuinely excited about it. They had been sized for HALO suits and shipped off, Quentin a nervous wreck next to her. From the second they had entered the plane, he looked like he was ready to vomit everywhere. She was terrified, too, but knew she had to remain strong for him.

As the plane bounced along with turbulence, she felt the grip on her hand grow stronger, glancing over at Quentin. "Alright, yeah?" She asked, feeling like he was going to break her hand if he gripped any harder. It was her first conscious time being in a plane since escape, and even though she had spent months of her life inside a plane, th hesitance remained.

Quentin shuffled in his seat uncomfortably and blinked, making Theodore laugh across the plane. "Yeah, I'm alright." He replied, eyes immediately going back down to his hands. It was like he was trying to convince himself that he was on the ground. "Not a big fan of heights." The words trailed off at the end, and Sam felt a slight pang of sorrow for him. She half wondered if there was a story behind his terror.

"Couldn't tell." Samantha said with a smile, earning a breathy laugh out of Quentin. Removing her hand from his vice like grip, she patted his knee and took a moment to steady herself. "It'll be alright. You're near top rank, all you need to do is jump and you're set." She was about to open her mouth again, but was cut off.

"Listen up." Merlin's voice came through their headsets sharp and clear, a small green icon appearing in the bottom corner of the heads up display, alerting all who weren't listening that he was speaking. "Your mission is to land on the target without the radar detecting you. If I read you on the radar, or you miss the target, you go home. Is that understood?" A second's pause was all Merlin needed, taking a sip of his coffee. "Drop zone coming up. Thirty seconds."

As if pulled by puppet's strings, they all stood in unison, adjusting their suits as they waited in pairs of two. Sam barely came to Quentin's shoulder, but she could still feel his heart hammering from there. If that wasn't an indication of fear, she didn't know what was. "One way down, Q." She mumbled, staring at where the doors were slowly starting to open from the bottom of the plane. She'd done enough cargo drops in her life that hearing the roar of the wind around them no longer scared her.

"Fuck, Sam." Quentin said, his breathing starting to grow uneven. "I can't do this." They were second in line, just behind Leo and another candidate they all called Brogue. The siren above the doors began to wail, flashing red and letting them all know that it was fifteen seconds to drop. Adrenaline had started to pump through her veins, replacing the fear and worry. "I can't do this!"

Grabbing hold of Quentin's vest, she forced him to look at her. "Stop fucking about!" She said, having to yell to be heard now. "You're a Kingsman, Quentin! No hesitation." The green of the siren pushed the group in front of them out of the plane. She had no time to wait and see if he would follow, instead shaking her head and running out of the plane. That was always something strange to feel, the absence of anything around you. There was no ground, no water, nothing. Just emptiness.

Her brain went into autopilot as she barrelled towards the ground, smile broad when she heard more and more candidates join her in the air. She felt free for the first time in a while, and when she turned to her back to watch everyone else fall out of the plane, she held her breath for Quentin. More and more bodies poured out of the plane, yet she didn't count him. Fuck. "Q, it's now or never. Jump!" Samantha encouraged, knowing that their headsets would have been set to communicate. She shifted her weight and saw the glowing green K appear on her display, tightening her limbs to her body as she and the others caught up to Leo and Brogue. Her ears were filled with the sounds of cheers and laughter as they all enjoyed the weightlessness, doing small tricks and playing around. Quentin's name flickered in the corner of her monitor, and she looked up to find him shooting down towards them.

Watching them from the safe confines of his desk, dots and names appeared on his screen slowly as he prepared to speak once more, hearing the joyful screams of them all. The last candidate to jump was gaining on them, and soon enough he would be able to continue with the next part of the exercise. It always amused him when they assumed the job would be that simple. "My, my, you're all cheerful." He said, a slight bubble to his voice as he sipped on his coffee lazily. "Didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you? Any idiot can read a heads up display, but a Kingsman agent needs to be able to solve problems under pressure... Like what to do when one of your group has no parachute."

Much to his pleasure, the fun and games immediately stopped, and a panicked look entered all of their faces. Merlin made a note of how all of their heart rates had risen. "What?" Quentin squeaked, petrified. "No parachute? Merlin!" Samantha struggled to grasp something to do. The ground was a hard and cold ending, and they needed to solve their problem immediately.

"Fuck!" Theodore exclaimed, saying what they were all thinking with a single word. Everyone's heads were filled with panic as they looked around and tried to guess who would be without a parachute. Who was most easily disposable? Who had the most to lose? "Which one? What the fuck do we do?"

"I told you," Merlin replied smoothly, taking another sip as he remained completely unfazed. They'd never had a death from this exercise during his run as Merlin, but they had gotten awfully close. Kingsman agents were usually pretty good at coming up with something on the spot, even if that spot was a few hundred feet off the ground. This sort of confidence made this one of the easier exercises he had to observe. "Aim for the target, don't show up on the radar. And I hope not to be scraping one of you off the pavement, but if I do and you're inside the target, please know I'll be very impressed."

There was a small scream of "Oh, fuck you!" from Leo, someone Sam was pretty sure she had never heard speak before. Everyone's head swiveled towards him for a split second, almost as if they had forgotten the immediate danger they were facing. Drifting apart from each other now, everyone raced to think of an idea, Sam's head pulling one first. "Everybody listen, I've got a plan." Her voice was a scream, and she couldn't give a fuck if it was hurting their ears. If they wanted to live, they would get over it. "Pair up, grab the closest person to you!"

Following her orders, everyone seemed to get the idea of what was going to happen. Moving closer to Brogue, she stretched her arm out as far as she possibly could in an attempt to reach him. "Brogue, come on!" Sam shouted, making a grabbing motion towards him. Brogue glanced down at the ground, and Sam knew exactly what was going to happen the second before it did. She reached for him in panic, but he yelled and his parachute snapped up and took him with it.

Anger filled her every emotion, and Sam found herself cursing him out both in her head and out loud. "Fuck! Brogue, you absolute dickhead! We've got an odd number now. Quick, make a circle!" Sam's commands were sharp, calculating. The feeling of her time serving as a gunner and a rebel came back to her, and she was flooded with a rush of memories. Theodore screamed something to the rest of them, and she was snapped out of her momentary trance to find that he had locked hands with Quentin and Leo, gripping onto them with Hadley close by. Shaking her head, she continued in her attempt to lead them to safety. "We'll pull out cords one by one, and when we know who's fucked, the person on their right grabs 'em."

"Good thinking, Sam." Merlin praised, a smile nearly appearing on his face as he noted how similar Eggsy and her plans were. Nearly identical, actually. He'd ask if he had shared the mission with her once he returned. "You've got thirty seconds. Come on, hurry."

Biting back the urge to curse at him, Sam held her tongue as Leo announced he was first, pulling his parachute cord, snapping upright as his parachute opened up. Hadley soon followed, and soon it was just Theodore, Samantha, and Quentin. One of them was fucked, and it was a general consensus that they hoped it was Theodore. Sam couldn't say she would be too upset it one of them just happened to let go of him on accident. "Now me!" He called before they could interject, reaching around his chest and pulling the cord, following the same path as everyone before him.

"Fuck!" Samantha screamed, knowing that her fate lied with her or Quentin. Grabbing hold of his arms, she felt him wrap his hand around her stump as best he could, glancing between her and the ground frightfully. They were parallel to each other, and it struck her what she would need to do. The sirens inside of the display started to flash with the red sign of low altitude, and she could hear the other boys screaming for them to open their chute in her ear. On the other side of the monitor, Merlin sat up in his seat slightly as they neared the safety line, afraid their fates wouldn't be as lucky as Roxy and Eggsy's were. "Q, no matter what happens now, don't fucking let go." She said shakily, staring him in his eyes to make sure he understood.

A hesitant nod was the first response given by Quentin, followed by an "Okay, Sam." with nothing but fear in his voice. As she started to move, she noticed a change in his eyes, but paid no attention to it. Swinging her legs underneath him, Sam locked onto Quentin and held on for dear life. She knew the second she pulled his cord that if she was the one without a parachute, they would snap up into the sky, and there was a strong potential that she could fly off. "Yours first, okay?" She screamed, the low altitude symbol growing so large that it was the only thing she could see. Groping around around the back of his pack, her fingers eventually found the cord and she could have cried. Taking a deep breath, she ripped it, only to feel a hard jerk as they were thrown from the fall suddenly. "Yes!"

Quentin's mouth opened in a cry of joy as they slowed slightly, the ground coming towards them only slightly slower now. They were going to land in the K, luckily, but they just needed to get there first. Samantha felt the first shudder of a sob of relief take her, but her lungs were very quickly filled with the sounds of panic.

"Sam!"

Merlin's hand was reaching for the phone the second he watched Samantha slip from his arms, coffee cup having smashed against the floor the second he saw that she started to speed up again. Her screams were the only thing that filled the room, echoing the walls and nearly bursting his eardrums. His breath caught as she hit the ground, silence filling his ears after a sharp crack before Quentin started up again.

Refusing to notice that his hands trembled, Merlin hurriedly pulled up one of the outside cameras to watch as Quentin landed inside of the K next to Samantha. He kept his eyes on the screen as her vital signs flatlined, barking in orders that they needed a med team to the back gardens. Quentin ripped off his parachute, shaking as he fumbled with the latches on her helmet. Blood fell in a waterfall from inside as he tossed it off his shoulder, cradling her into his chest as she lay motionless. "Sam? Fuck, Sam, wake up!" He begged, voice no longer heard by Merlin as he sprinted towards where all of the candidates would eventually be.

Quentin pushed her hair out of her face, hands coming away coated in red. Her face was pale and he was struggling to find even the slightest hint of a pulse as he laid her down again and began to perform CPR. She continued to lay motionless, body pulsing as he pressed down on her chest and tried to force air into her lungs. "C'mon," he grunted in between presses, worry growing as she still remained unresponsive. "C'mon, you son of a bitch!" The medical team arrived not shortly after, dragging him away from her and out of the K so that the other candidates could land. He remained on the ground until Theodore had landed inside of the circle and Merlin had joined them, adrenaline still pumping.

"Well, that's one less person we have to worry about. Can't say I'm too upset about it, however." Theodore replied nonchalantly, slinging his parachute over his shoulder as the other three landed, all very far off of the target. He'd be lying if he said he didn't feel the slightest bit sorry for the girl, she was the only one here within the sea of men. Not to mention she was at a disadvantage. Wait, what the fuck was he thinking? The bitch had been ruining his life for months now, she was getting what she deserved.

Quentin took to his feet, towering over Theodore as he fumed. "How about you rethink that fucking statement, mate." He growled, showing off that there was a reason he was top in strength.

"Or what?" Theodore snarled, shoving his hands against Quentin's shoulders to challenge him. He was endangering himself, considering Merlin was only a few feet away from them, inspecting the ground where she had hit. "You'll sick your little lap dog on me, eh? She's a bit out of sorts at the moment."

"Good thing I can handle my fights like a man." Quentin snapped back, fully prepared to beat the shit out of him.

"That's enough." Merlin snapped, ending their quarrel before he had to deal with another fist fight. All five snapped into attention, Quentin's shoulder slamming into Theodore's as he passed by. Shocked by the possibility of his first death as leader, Merlin wasted no time in telling them who would stay and who would go home. "Leo, Hadley. You don't land in the K, you're not in the K. Brogues, you opened too soon, you were all over the radar. All three of you, pack your bags, go home." As the three of them dismissed themselves, Merlin turned his gaze to the last two standing. "As for you two-any of you fight ever again, I'll have you both put out."

Both Theodore and Quentin took their turn to leave, Merlin starting his march back to HQ with the hopes that he wouldn't have to call her family and notify them of her passing, but was stopped by a hand on his arm. "Merlin-she's-I mean, she's not-"

Merlin held his tongue from saying yes. "Miss Ackart's recovery will entirely depend on how badly she was injured from the fall. However, she landed inside of the K, so she shall remain at Kingsman. Fall out, Quentin." Shoving past him, he closed his eyes for a moment and breathed. He didn't have time to deal with Quentin. He had a job to do.