Kasakov's third person time (about two months in)

Kasakov liked how Alex Cub was turning out to be one of the best trainees they ever had. The kid was just so damn good. He got the special prize for working out who K Unit were (though that wasn't much of a surprise). He did wait a week, probably to see if anyone else got it first. He picked up his language (Hindu, because he knew nearly all the other languages we had to offer) in the first month, and could hold a semi decent conversation with the teacher. He could do all the runs, without getting out of breath. He knew all the martial arts moves, but didn't obliterate his partner in the sparring. He actually lost a few matches! He could shoot bullseye every time with a gun. Without even looking. After he'd been blindfolded. And span round. And as for stealth... It was like he was a ghost, or a shadow. He just wasn't there. The one time he was found, was when the branch he was sitting on snapped. He was left hanging from the tree, and K Unit, very shocked, as the branch had nearly hit a very hyper Eagle. Well... probably annoyed that it didn't hit Eagle. When Kasakov punished him for that (spend the whole day without food), he went and had his most spectacular day yet! It was as if he did it just to prove a point. He still didn't know how he managed to survive. K Unit were definitely going tougher on him than on any of the others, but it didn't affect him at all. Even with all his scars. This guy was born to be a spy...

Alex's POV

On the 95th day, we were taken out of the compound. We were going to New Zealand! Jack had always wanted to go there... I hadn't thought about Jack much recently, mainly because I was trying not to cause too much trouble, like finish the assault course half an hour before the quickest time. That would raise too many questions. It was surprisingly exhausting, trying to do bad. Anyway, I had survived 95 days of K Unit pushing me harder than anyone else, and no-one noticed. Well, none of the trainees anyway. And now we were going to New Zealand to do one last bit of survival training. We had the 96th day to recover from jet-lag, but on the 97th we were being dropped off in the middle of a forest, and had to follow instructions to find different markers. I was sat next to Corinne on the plane. She was listening to music, and fell asleep about a third of the way there. Sleep sounded like a good idea, but I wanted to get over the jet lag quickly, so that meant not falling asleep until about 7 or 8 local time. We got to the hotel at 6, so I had a couple of hours to kill. I decided to catch up on the news from around the world. From what I could see, no-one had taken over the world, but there were a few suspicious deaths... but that was all. It sounded too quiet, but then most of the things I was looking out for, weren't reported in the everyday news. I considered hacking into MI6 just to see whether I still could, but I'd probably fry all the computers in the hotel. By the time I had logged off, it was 8.30, and I was surprised I was still awake. I walked up to my room. I was sharing with the weedy blonde kid. He had survived, to my surprise. Everyone had. I was still thinking about this when I fell asleep.

I was woken up at about 5.30, when someone sneaked into the room. I lay there, pretending to still be asleep. I heard them whispering to another person.

"Come on!"

"I'm not the one with the nail polish!"

"Shhhh! You'll wake them up!"

"Too late" I whispered back. Both of them jumped. "But I bet K Unit is still asleep." I could see one smile at that.

"True. You want to come along?"

"Why me?" They snorted.

"Why you? Because you're the best! You can hide from everyone, then it turns out you were just leaning against a tree."

"And you don't want to get in trouble with K Unit."

"...Yeah."

"Fine."

Almost half an hour later, we were standing by the reception with Kasakov, waiting for K Unit. They came down the stairs with a minute to go before we left. Kasakov looked suitably annoyed.

"A group of teenagers can beat the best of the SAS at timekeeping?"

"Well-" Wolf started

"LOOK AT MY NAILS!" Eagle yelled. "THEY'RE PINK AND SPARKLY!" Wolf looked ready to punch Eagle. Kasakov looked stunned. Snake tried to calm Eagle down. It didn't work, and we saw his nails were pink and sparkly too.

"Yeah, we don't know how he got in the SAS either." Jackdaw said. Kasakov just shook his head and walked out the door. We followed. There was an army Jeep sitting there. We piled in, CHERUBs in the back, K Unit in the front with Kasakov as the driver.

After half an hour of teasing K Unit about their nails, Kasakov stopped the car.

"Numbers 1 & 2, get out here. There should be packs with instructions of where to go next in those bushes." Corinne and I clambered out of the car. Kasakov drove off leaving a cloud of dust for us to choke on. We retrieved the packs, and checked what was in them. Useful things, like maps, rope and water bottles, but also things like a hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and a brick. An actual house brick. Corinne found her letter and swore.

"It's in Russian."

"Mines in Hindu. Want to swap?"

"You keep it. What does yours say anyway?"

"Walk north-north-west for about 20 miles, then follow the river until you get to the boat. Take a break overnight"

"What's at the boat?"
"More instructions is my guess."

After a day and about two and a half hours walking (we did sleep in the middle) through dense, green jungle, we stopped.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" I asked. Corinne shushed me.

"Listen." There was some bird calls, the wind rustling the leaves and...

"Water! That way." I pointed somewhere to my left, and we set off on that direction. 10 minutes later, we were at a massive waterfall.

"Lots of water."

"And there's the boat." Corinne pointed downstream. "Now how do we get down?"

"Do you still have the rope?"

"Yep. It's just here." She handed me the rope. I looked for somewhere to attach it. There was a sturdy tree close enough to the edge to keep the rope long enough, but far enough away that it wouldn't fall down whilst we were abseiling down. I made it down without any incidents, but as Corinne was about to jump for the last time, the rope snapped. Fortunately, she wasn't harmed, just a bit shaken. We made it to the boat. There were two envelopes, and a set of keys. Lots of keys.

"Follow the river for 18 miles. Good luck finding the right key!" Corinne read out. "Which key are we going to use?"

"We're not" I replied from beside the steering wheel, trying to work out which wore would go where.

"You're hot-wiring the boat?"

"It'll save time. How much fuel is there in the tank?"

"It's full. This seems almost too easy."

"You're right... Where's the engine on this?"

"In the front. Why?"

"It's too easy. There has to be something." I was right. I could see something dripping from a pipe. It was black and smelt funny. "There a hole in one of the fuel pipes." I called out. "We should get going soon before this all runs out."

We set off fairly quickly. We were alright for about 8 miles, when suddenly there was a massive bang.

"What was that?" Corinne asked.

"It sounded like a gunshot..." Why were they shooting at us?

"A what?! Why would the be shooting at us?"

"They're not." I pointed to the fuel needle, which was rapidly decreasing. "They're shooting for the pipes."

"Wouldn't that cause a spark?" Corinne pointed out.

"Shit." We grabbed the packs and jumped overboard. Just in time, because as soon as I hit the water, the boat blew up.

"Are they trying to kill us?" Corinne exclaimed.

"I hope not." Wouldn't be the first time someone's tried. "There's path over there. We'll have to walk the rest of the way."

About 6 hours later we arrived at a red flag, with envelopes at the bottom. Around it were some tents. Everyone else was there, even Kasakov and K Unit."

"What took you so long?" Wolf asked.

"The boat blew up." I stated. Stunned silence. Even Kasakov looked stunned. "I take it that wasn't supposed to happen then."

"Why are you so calm?" the blonde boy asked. I really needed to learn his name.

"Well... I was in a gang before CHERUB. They weren't exactly the most ...law-abiding of groups, though we were better than our rivals." I caught myself rubbing my chest at this.

"Which gang were you in? And who were your enemies?" Corinne asked.

"We were called 6," Snake choked on his drink at this "And The Silver Scorpion were our rivals." K Unit were looking deep in thought at this. Apart from Eagle, who had got distracted by a butterfly, just before I told them which gang I was in.

"You were part of 6?" Jackdaw asked incredulously.
"Ever meet a man called Ben Daniels?" Wolf asked.
"The name sounds familiar..." I replied. Snakes eyes were going wider and wider.
"But I'm glad I'm out of it now. Probably would have ended up in jail..."

"Why did you rub your chest earlier?" Snake asked.

"Ah... There's a good reason for that."

"What is it?"

"I... um... I kind of got hit by a bullet."
"You got SHOT?" Everyone, but not Corinne, exclaimed.

"That explains why you don't like taking your top off." She stated.

"Hey!" I was trying to get attention away from my wound. It hasn't hurt for a while, and I could tell Snake was going to go all mother hen on me.

"What if it was that group... The one that caught four CHERUBs and me a few days before I came here... I can't remember their name. They knew about you." Silence.
"But no-one knows about us. That's why we're so good."
"Apparently someone does."

That night, I could hear the adults (Eagle was asleep in his tent) discussing what I had said earlier, so I decided to watch them from the shadows. Yes, I was sitting in a tree again. It's not my fault they were having such interesting conversations which were keeping me from sleeping.
"Who was he talking about?" Wolf asked.
"The incident Alex was referring to, they were caught by someone claiming to be SCORPIA." Kasakov explained. There was a sharp intake of breath from K Unit.

"And they survived?" Jackdaw asked incredulously.

"That's why we don't believe them. Also, they admitted to only pretending to be them after they woke up in our custody."

"They were asleep when you found them."

"I'm getting tired, guys." Jackdaw said. "See you tomorrow." There was a chorus of nights, and Kasakov continued directly on with his story.
"No. We found them unconscious. Apparently, the last person they talked to was Alex." K Unit didn't seem too surprised by that.

"He's one of the best we've had. Even with his luck of the devil. It's like he was born to be a spy."

"Yeah... It seems like spying's in his blood." I smirked at that. A parent, and an uncle worked for MI6 and people wouldn't expect me to spy? At this point, the aforementioned luck of the devil struck again. The branch I was sitting on snapped, and I was sent crashing through the tree. I landed in a dazed heap at the bottom, with a very pissed off Wolf and Kasakov, a shocked Snake and a chortling Eagle, staring at me.

"What? You said I was born to be a spy. When did Eagle turn up?"

"Even with your devil's luck." Wolf added.

"You know, it's not the first time you've fell out of a tree at us. Something you want us to know?" Eagle added.

The next morning came far too soon, in my opinion, even though it was the last day. Kasakov went off to bed after checking if I was ok, saying 'don't wake up late tomorrow. 0600, whether you like it or not.' K Unit and I had walked away from the camp to talk so we didn't disturb anyone else. They wanted to know what I had to do with 6, and whether it was MI6. I told them everything. Well, I left out who my parents were, who Ian was and what happened to Jack, and some of the more gruesome details from my missions, my real name, and the fact that I trained with SCORPIA, but they got the basics. Actually, I only told them the basics – I'd been on 9 missions, but I didn't mention Ben once and that I was undercover at the moment. I also told them about what my cover was here. They took while guessing who The Silver Scorpion were though. I almost had to tell them! Anyway, after everyone got up, we had a 6 hour hike to where a helicopter was waiting to take us back to England. Everyone had to stay together though, so Corinne and I couldn't turn up an hour early, which was a shame. After about 4 hours, I looked up to the sky to see a quite low aeroplane rising into the sky. Another half hour after that, I could hear rumblings in the distance. When we arrived at the airport, I watched the other trainees faces. Some of them were quite funny. Corinne, however, didn't seem too surprised. When I asked her why she replied "I'd already seen two planes by the time you saw your first."

We arrived back home without anything going wrong, though Corinne seemed concerned about something.

"What's up?" I asked.

"We don't have our shirts yet." She was right. In GMT, we hadn't finished the 100th day, and you only got the shirts after you completed all of the days. When we got back to camp, her concern seemed reasonable now. We were lead back to the training grounds.

"To get your grey shirts" Kasakov announced "You must beat one of K Unit at this assault course. Only one of you may partake, so choose wisely." We huddled in a group. The scrawny blonde boy (I found out his name was John) asked

"Who wants to to it?" No one volunteered. It was silent for about a minute.

"I will if no-one else wants to." I offered.

"Can you win against a member of the SAS?" John asked.

"Can you?" Corinne retorted. "'Cause I think Alex could. He's been holding back the whole time. Yes, I did notice. Did you expect me not to?"

"Did you just say that in one breath?" I asked.

"Yes. Now do you want to beat K Unit or not?"

"Might as well."

I walked up to the start line. Jackdaw was waiting for me. He looked completely sure of himself. It looked like he was going to underestimate me. I didn't want to underestimate him though.

"You two ready?" Kasakov asked. Jackdaw nodded.

"Good luck." I whispered to Jackdaw.

"You'll need it more, kid." I smiled.

"GO" Kasakov shouted. Jackdaw sped of the line. I ran up to him, and tripped him over. I could hear laughter behind me, but I ran on ahead and got across the course in a record time – half an hour faster than the record. Jackdaw was 15 minutes behind me.

"You tripped me up." he stated.

"Well noticed."

"That's unfair."

"Life's unfair."

"That cliché's overused."

"It's true."

"You cheated."

"Were there rules?"

"..." I smiled.

"Can I have the grey shirts now?" I asked Kasakov who'd been standing behind me for the argument. I turned round to see him wipe the surprised look off his face.

By the time I got up the next day (everything had finished about 9pm, and we were still jet lagged) it was lunchtime. I walked to lunch where everyone was eating. I sat next to James who was telling a story about a football match. About 10 minutes after I sat down he noticed me.

"... and then I went -bloody hell Alex when did you get here?"

"Was I in that football match? And about 10 minutes ago. Everyone else noticed." Everyone else was pissing their pants at this point.

"Hey, well done! You passed!" Lauren said, having noticed my shirt. At this everyone seemed to notice the grey shirt I was wearing. Congratulations came in from everyone.

"So? How hard was it?"

"I bet you found it easy, right?" I turned round to see Corinne standing there. "Can I sit down here?" I moved up a bit, and she sat down.

"So, Alex, who's this?" James asked.

"This is Corinne. She was my partner in basic training. Which, no I did not find easy, but wasn't overly hard either." No-one believed me. Probably because they couldn't imagine harder than basic training. I just hoped they didn't think that was as hard as life was going to get. At this point, someone came up to me

"Alex Cub?" They asked

"No. He's over there." I said and pointed in a random direction. They believed me! Poor kid. After a minute, they came back, looking slightly annoyed.

"Zara wants to see you when you've finished." He really didn't look very happy. I quickly finished up my lunch.