Disclaimer: Fanfiction. Fan-fiction. That indicates a fan wrote this, doesn't it? If I was really the author and wrote fan fiction of my own story, that would seem really really big headed. Of cause not owning the Alex Rider books wouldn't stop me from being big headed. I would just be big headed about something else. But I'm not. I hope… Now can anyone tell me where my point here disappeared to? I seem to have lost it…

They made their move at eleven o'clock in the morning; about ten minutes after the red haired lady had left. They didn't know where she was going, didn't care as long as she was out of the house.

There was a door round the back of the house made almost entirely out of glass. It led out to a small, messy garden in which the thieves where currently standing. Daniel lifted out the chisel from their kit-bag and leant against the door frame. They knew exactly what to do to break the lock on this type of door. It was harder then they had expected due to a double locking system that this make didn't usually have, but there was a weak point that the manufacturers hadn't noticed. The thieves had however, and after a couple of minutes they where in.

The first thing that Mike managed to do when he entered was knock over a glass lampshade. It shattered on contact with the laminated floor and Daniel swore at him. Out of the two, Daniel was the boss. This was because he was stronger, faster, cleverer and crueler then Mike. And he wasn't a heroin addict either. The same could not be said for Mike.

If you had known Mike before he became addicted to drugs, as well as after you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. This was because he had always been a bit weird. And drugs had made him a just that bit weirder. Mike took a delight in vandalizing other people's property. If he couldn't live in a nice house with nice things, neither could his victims. He was less violent then Daniel though, who loved to cause pain. It wasn't that Mike had a conscience, or disliked to see others in pain, but because he was a coward, paranoid that someone he hurt sometime would came back and get him.

Daniel wasn't his own boss though. But at least he was out of the two of them, meaning he could get away with whacking the other criminal hard round his head with the palm of his hand. "What the hell did you do that for?" Mike yelped. "Someone might have heard you, you bastard!" Daniel hissed venomously.

Mike muttered something about 'sorry', 'accident' and 'no one here'; But Daniel wasn't paying him any attention. The plan was to simply ransack the place as quickly and as efficiently as they could, in, say ten minutes. (6.45 was their record, but that house had been much smaller then this one and had contained very little worth stealing.) As soon as they could they would scarper with their kit bags bulging with stolen goods, just as they had done many times before.

Daniel started by going over to a cupboard and wrenching it open to look for valuables.

Not wanting to stay in range of Daniels fists, Mike went off to explore upstairs. Upstairs was mostly unknown territory as they hadn't been able to see much of it from where they had been spying on the house for the last few days.

If they had been able to see that the house contained, not one obviously personalized and lived in bedroom, but two, what would they have made of it? That the red haired lady had a friend, husband, son or boyfriend that sometimes stayed in the blue painted room with football posters stuck haphazardly to the walls? What would they have cared? As long as he wasn't in at the time it didn't matter. He was in though. They just didn't know it quite yet.

Mike climbed the stars swiftly and looked round briefly before choosing his first target. He went to the door straight in front of him and opened it. A bathroom. He strode in and glanced round. There often wasn't much at all of value in a bathroom, and after swinging open the doors to the cupboard under the sink and seeing only make-up, he concluded that this was one such case.

He straightened up and started to turn round. Then did a double take. He had just spotted movement in the mirror…he was sure he had…

He glanced back round at it and saw a figure standing, framed in the doorway behind him.

"Now what's a guy like you doing in here trying to steal make-up for?" A youthful male voice asked him calmly. He spun round, away from the mirror to face the boy, his fists raised and an ugly look on his face.

---------Alex---------

Sometimes Alex just couldn't believe his luck. It had been said he had the luck of the Devil. Well Saturn was probably having fun laughing at him right now. Just a few hours after arriving back from his last mission in the middle of the night, shattered, jet-lagged, battered and feeling decidedly under the weather, he woke to the crash of glass braking and raised male voices.

It took just a few seconds for his sleep fuddled brain to snap into gear. What was going on here? It wasn't Jack down there, that much was obvious by the male voice he just heard. And it wasn't the TV. Televisions didn't often stamp noisily round the house.

He slipped out of bed and crept towards the door. Ears straining for every sound he managed to work out that there must be two people in the house. One downstairs, in the dinning room, opening the cupboards and searching through them. He could hear the sounds of things falling to the floor and more glass shattering as Daniel roughly shoved anything he didn't want out of his way.

And the other man…approaching footsteps and the heavy tread of booted feet on the stairs warned him of the fast approach of danger.

Every inch of his being on red alert, sleep completely forgotten as he listened to their movement while trying to formulate a decent plan. He glanced round for a weapon, though he was already pretty sure there was nothing in his room that could help him, and as he did so he glimpsed a bright pink post-it note on the bed-side cabinet. That hadn't been there when he had fallen asleep…

Without a sound he crept back over and picked it up. It was a note from Jack. Alex allowed himself a quite sigh of relief. The note, written in Jacks familiar untidy scrawl told him that she had gone out shopping and that she would be back soon. So at least that was one less thing to worry about. Jack wasn't in any immediate danger. But by the sound of those footsteps, he was.

Time to act. He could hear one of them enter the bathroom next to his bedroom and decided to try and deal with him first. Where as any other person his age would have probably hid in their room and used their mobile to call the police, Alex left his mobile where it was and slowly eased open his bedroom door. They might hear him if he tried calling the police, and chances were, since the room he was in was right next to the one the criminal currently occupied, he would be disturbed by the stranger before he even managed to explain what was happening to the police.

He needed the element of surprise. He couldn't risk loosing that. So instead of taking the safe way out, he decided to do what he did best and throw himself straight in front of trouble. Or at least, sneak up behind it.

Silently thanking which ever gods had chosen to keep the door well oiled enough not to creak (so probably Jack), he made his way silently out of his room. He glanced briefly down the stairs but could see no sign of the other man. Good. It would be a lot harder to try and deal with both of them at once.

He stood outside the bathroom for a few seconds, composing his face into and expressionless mask and preparing his body for the pain of a fight.

Then with a deep steadying breath, he stepped into the doorway the thief had just entered a few seconds previously. Almost immediately the man noticed him. If the situation hadn't been so series, Alex would have laughed at the shocked look on the criminals face as he spotted someone other then himself reflected in the mirror. But this was no laughing matter. He had hoped to sneak up behind the man and knock him out, or in some other way eliminate him as a threat. It was just more bad luck that the stranger had happened to glance up at him before he made his move.

Alex didn't let it faze him though. Or at least, he didn't let it show on his face that he was swearing rapidly to himself in his head. Instead he just came out with a typical flippant remark.

The thief swung round to face him, his fists raised and an angry glint in his eyes. Alex immediately got into a fighting stance himself, and one that was much better then the other mans. It was clear that he had had no sort of martial arts training, where as Alex was an expert.

The other man didn't even have the advantage over him of height as Alex had expected. He was just a tiny bit taller then Alex himself and didn't look very strong. His face was pale and pinched looking, his hair cut short, badly and a couple of day's stubble clear on his weak chin.

He pulled his colourless lips back in a snarl and spat, "Who the hell are you?"

His face still emotionless, Alex replied, "Someone who has a right to be here. Do you?"

His only reply was an animal growl and a sudden aggressive lunge towards him.

I said it would be longer then the last one ^^. Sure it's no 100 page story, but at the same time it's not bad considering that I only posted the prologue up yesterday.

I hoped you enjoyed reading it enough to give it a review…and didn't hate it enough to review it instead…There's a difference. One would make me happy and you would get virtual cookies. The other would make me cry… and sneak up on you in the night to dig your heart out with a spoon…