Right now, you're probably looking at this and not believing it's real. xD
But it is real, and it's just a little slice of life to show what happened to Alex and Tom. :D
A young man, really, only a teenager, though he looked to be at least 21 stood on a tall church spire, feet balancing gracefully on it in a way that seemed physically impossible.
Except it wasn't impossible because this was Alex Rider.
Or rather, he once was.
Hundreds of personas had eroded away at his sense of identity until he was faceless, able to adopt any name and slip into it as easily as you would a new shirt. For the most part, he was genderless, too, being able to disguise himself effectively as a female, although he preferred being male. (He still wasn't over the stripper incident.) He only called himself one name—The Angel. (Well, that was only at work. Tom always called him Alex, but he didn't mind. It was nice to be able to hang on to even a scrap of his old life, back when things seemed so brighter and happier.)
The Angel was a ruthless assassin, having technology that stretched the boundaries of imagination, and was even rumoured to have no technology at all and was actually magical. He chose which people to kill, and when threatened, kept his calm and killed the person mercilessly. The victims were often found littered with small, painful cuts, bruises everywhere, deep gashes that wouldn't kill, drugs and poison that only increased their pain, and a single black feather shaped knife in their heart, the Angel's trademark. Interestingly enough, he left absolutely no fingerprints, or that that matter, any tangible trace that he was ever there.
It was obvious when it was him, but legally, they wouldn't be able to prosecute him because of the lack of evidence, even when the crime so obviously had his name all over it.
There had been that one time when he had visited a small town in America only for it to be completely and utterly obliterated with no survivors. It was obviously the Angel who had done it, but there wasn't even a weapon that couldn't have done that, leaving the law enforcement to tear out their hair while they tried to chase after a criminal who had murdered hundreds.
If only they knew how many more lives he'd saved.
"Oi, get down here, Lexxie!"
The Angel was jolted out of his reverie by a familiar, obnoxious voice.
He sometimes regretted ever saving Tom from Scorpia's trap.
He sighed and said, "Don't you remember what I said the first time you called me that? Don't call me that."
"Umm... Alex? I don't know if you've noticed, but you're doing it again..."
Alex shook his head, and the murderous look in his eyes faded. "Don't call me that."
Tom laughed in relief to see his friend had not gone crazy and gone on a killing spree again. That had been scary. Alex had run through an entire city like a murderous tornado of murderous fury and spinny death blades of murderous death and destruction. The place had never really recovered, and the last time Tom had checked, it looked like some sort of post apocalyptic wasteland that would look perfect as the setting for a video game. Glass, concrete, and corpses, both animal and human alike littered the streets. Crows had flown overhead feasting on the dead meat. Some vultures had also somehow made it there, and what wasn't eaten by the birds was being eaten by the dogs, nearly starving to death and foaming at the mouths. Even humans had joined in, fighting with knives and guns, and when those were useless, with nails and teeth. The place was probably completely deserted by now, except for maybe a few humans who were lucky and smart enough to survive, and probably a lot of birds feasting on the rodents of the city that would doubtlessly come.
"Well, we've got a new mission from Phoenix. There's this woman calling herself Dolores Sayle who's obsessed with Herod Sayle. Apparently she wants revenge on you for "killing her soul mate" and "daring to attempt to stain the beautiful bonds of love"."
Alex shuddered in disgust. Why were some people so crazy? Heck, even he was saner than most people on Earth, even though he was a cold blooded murderer and assassin-for-hire! "Tell me what they have on her, what her intentions are, and what do we get out of this?"
"Well, she wants to kill you—"
Alex snorted. He had heard this many times before, to the point of hearing it at the beginning of almost every mission. "What else is new?"
"If you had just let me finish, I would have told you. She's capturing Portuguese men-of-war and from what I've heard, they're in danger from going extinct because she doesn't understand how to take care of them properly."
Alex sighed and stood up. "Okay, let's go."
Turns out they didn't really need to kill her.
She accidentally fell into a tank full of them and Alex and Tom laughed gleefully as they released the Portuguese men-of war back into the ocean.
Just for fun, they stabbed one of his knives into her forehead with a note.
"Can you guys please stop sending me these incompetent villains and give me an actual challenge?"
The note was intended for the universe, but MI6 panicked when they got a hold of it. Apparently the entire thing had been a trick to lure Alex out by reminding him of the time with Stormbreaker. Dolores was actually being paid by MI6 to flush him out of hiding, although she wasn't actually an agent. (Well, at least, he doubted that she was. What kind of agent falls into a tank with Portuguese men-of-war in it?)
MI6 was ready to kill off an entire species just so they could kind their top spy, who might've been dead. Not that he was, but still! He had left his name behind with the rest of his old life; there was no way MI6 could've found out that the legendary Angel was actually Alex Rider.
A few days later, MI6 was begging for forgiveness from the Angel and tried to pin the blame on someone else.
Alex smirked and passed the note over to Tom, who then laughed so hard he began crying.
Sometimes, life really was worth it.
I know, I finally finished it! Funny thing is, I actually began writing this right after the second chapter.
But here it is! :D
There will be another chapter after this just to wrap it all up and to complete the circle. I'm finished writing it already, so you won't have to wait very long. I just need to proofread it, so it'll be out in a few days at the most, so stay tuned! (nope, never saying that again)
-Lightning