A.N.: I am back!

Alex was extremely uncomfortable. Actually, that might be an understatement. He shifted for the umpteenth times that day on the chopper.

"Coyote, please stop moving." Fox sighed from his left.

"Not my fault for being seated between you two," Alex muttered under his breath but he stopped shifting nonetheless.

Wolf growled from his right. And of course, the fate just love to toy with him, he was seated between Wolf and Fox. Not that Fox was bad, of course. It is just…the other guy who kept grunting his displeasure.

"So, what did the sergeant tell you yesterday?" Fox asked, leaning in slightly.

Alex gave him a glance, "A little bit of this and that."

"You can tell me, Al—Coyote." Fox chuckled, catching himself in time, "Not like it is classified. Why don't I ask you questions and you answer yes or no?"

Taking Alex's silence as a response, he asked, "Was it related to the selection?"

Sparing Fox another glare, Alex sighed, "Yes."

"Entirely about the selection?"

"Yes and no."

"MI6?" Fox guessed, seeing his unamused expression.

"Yes. I would have never guessed that." Alex said then closed his eyes, "Tell me when we get there."

"It is only ten more minutes," Fox told him but he shifted slightly to let the teen have more space to rest.

Soon, to Fox's surprise, Alex fell asleep. His head leaned against the headrest uncomfortably so Fox pulled him toward him so he could lean on his shoulder. Alex stirred slightly though he did not complain nor move away.

"You two are extremely close." Snake observed, watching as Alex seemed to curl toward Fox.

"Yeah…we were…" Fox almost said shooting buddies, then he realized that that lie seemed completely unrealistic. Speaking of shooting, he was extremely glad when the Sergeant had announced earlier, after breakfast, that the shooting for K-Unit would be canceled yesterday. Much to both him and Alex's relief. Him because he did not want Alex to be too uncomfortable. Alex, well, because of the undoubtedly rush of 'How in the world did you do that?' questions from the soldiers and unwanted attentions. They had spent the rest of the day jogging and doing physical exercises. He couldn't decide which one was worse.

"Ooh, I know!" Eagle piped up, "You two must be long lost brothers!"

Fox sighed, "Eagle, I have black hair. Coyote has blond. I don't think we can be related."

"And Fox's eyes are blue, Eagle. Coyote's are brown. Learn the difference between colors, Eagle."

"Yes, that's why I said that you two are looooong lost brothers!" Eagle said excitingly, "You see, Fox's mother and father divorced and his mother married to Coyote's father soon after. But you two have never met so-"

"My father was the only one my mother married to, thank you very much." Alex spoke, his eyes opened and had been observing the conversation quietly, being not able to fall asleep completely because of the loud droning of the chopper.

"Oh, hey, Coyote." Eagle smiled, "We were just discussing you and your long lost brother, Fox. You see, I have this theory-"

"How long?" Alex turned to Fox.

"Two minutes," Fox responded, smiling slightly at the deject expression on Eagle's face as Alex ignored him completely.

The chopper slowly started to descend, stirring up dust clouds as it landed at the sand and dirt covered landing pad. Alex spotted the recruits almost as soon as the dust cleared. They were all staring at the helicopter in a mixture of surprise and suspicion. He had to give it to them for not gawking like idiots.

The pilot turned toward them and motioned that they could deport. Their section of troop consist of only four units, K, L, M and N-unit. The L, M, N units jumped out of the chopper before K-unit descend for they were seated near the front of the cockpit.

"Recruits, stop gaping and get back to your station. We will be off in half an hour. No more, no less." The Sergeant in charge snapped and the recruits hurriedly went to gather their things.

The Sergeant walked over to the gathered SAS soldiers and stopped right in front of K-Unit before starting to talk, "Here for the selection?"

"Yes sir!" They snapped to attention and Alex could almost describe part of the action as 'trying to click their heels together as loud as possible'.

"What units?"

"K-Unit present," Wolf replied.

"L-Unit present."

"M-Unit present."

"N-Unit present."

"Good." The Sergeant turned slightly to direct their attention at the recruits, "We have about fifty of them here that passed the physical examination. All are regular soldiers. The reservists were put under a different group. We will be beginning the Fan Dance in," The sergeant checked his watch, "twenty minutes. I expect that you will have no need to rest before we begin?"

"No sir!"

"Good." The sergeant nodded then turned to Alex who sighed inwardly at the unwanted attention, "Agent Rider, I trust you know the purpose?" The question was asked in a slightly lower tone so that the SAS soldiers did not catch it.

"Yes, sir." He replied quietly, trying to ignore the stares from the other units, "Sergeant William informed me."

"Don't do a coffin trick again," The man chuckled, "It was pretty realistic, seeing how badly things were."

"Coffin trick?" Alex was confused.

"Iron board." The Sergeant reminded him with a raised eyebrow.

Alex grinned as he understood, "It was inevitable, sir. There was simply no other materials at hand."

"I see." The Sergeant said in an amused tone, "Selection should be easier than that."

"Depends," Alex told him seriously, "on who I am with."

The Sergeant laughed, "Good point. Well, welcome to five weeks of hell."

"I will try my best to enjoy every moment of it, sir."

The sergeant just nodded before leaving to yell at the recruits for being slow pokes.

"Do you know him?" Fox asked, breaking the silence that stretched on as the units stared at Alex.

"No, not really. But I might have met him once."

"When?"

"Iron board." Alex said with a smile, "And the coffin. Did Peppermint tell you about them?"

Fox did not need to ask what 'they' are, "Yeah, most of them. Up to the point of the one we did together. So, he was talking about the second?"

"Yeah." Alex nodded, "He must have been one of the guards outside."

"I see." Fox said then grinned, "You get along with everyone, don't you, Coyote?"

"Except the ones that died," Alex said, sending a glare at Fox to tell him to stop talking.

"Wow wow, stop being so cryptic!" Eagle cried, butting into their conversation, "First the unforbidden sergeant, now Fox? Come on, Coyote! Just who are you?"

"I am Coyote. Nice to meet you." Alex told him dryly, holding out his hands mockingly.

When people say Fan Dance, it usually brought up an image of people dancing around in a circle with fans flapping in their hands. But in the Selection, it was nothing like that. Fan Dance, as Fox had informed him a mile into the hike, was a fifteen miles hike across the mountain range. There weren't any elements of fan nor dance in it. More like the heat and the hot air dancing around them and yelling insults. He wished that there was a fan, like the name said. But it was simply impossible. K-units were taking the lead and was supposed to switch to the back after a few more minutes. They were allowed four hours in total to complete the test. And additionally, they were supposed to march. Groaning and swaying like new leaves apparently weren't options available.

To Alex, it wasn't much of a problem after three years of being a spy and running from crazy lunatic sadists. But he was getting a little irritated at the curses from behind him as the recruits tried to remain in line through the march. The heat was stifling to say the least. And it wasn't very pleasant. At least there weren't flies nor mosquitoes, for which he was thankful.

"Alright, stop and switch with L-Unit." Wolf halted them. They were marching alongside the recruits near the front. Not directly in front of they would be leading them, which was something they weren't supposed to do.

The recruits walked past, most decided to not waste energy looking at them while the other were too tired to even comment about their presence.

"Brought back memories." Snake suddenly chuckled slightly as they fall into the back of the large group. A few recruits were struggling a medium distance behind them but they paid no attention. It wasn't their job unless they want to get binned.

"Those horrible horrible days." Eagle agreed.

"At least we passed," Fox commented.

Alex walked behind them, knowing that they would want time and personal space to talk about their adventures that did not include him. Freaking MI6, he thought as he took a sip of water. Getting him accepted completely in the camp was one thing, giving him standard mid-twenty selection tests was another thing completely. Either they believe in him wholeheartedly, how he doubted that very much, or they were trying to kill him. Sometimes, he seriously do believe that MI6 wanted to kill him without making it look like they wanted to.

"Hurry up, Coyote!" Wolf's call made him look up and realized that he was a few meters behind them, "Stop day dreaming!"

"I wasn't daydreaming!" He retorted but nonetheless, jogged a little to catch up with K-Unit.

"Oh, really?" Alex could hear the sneer in the man's voice though he refrained from retorting with something sarcastic.

"I thought we agreed that we would stay away from each other and not talk." Alex glanced at Wolf, remembering almost painfully of the shoulder-wrecking incident yesterday.

"It is not like I want to talk to you at all." Wolf snarled and rounded on him.

The Unit paused.

"Why would I even want you to hurry up? Wouldn't it be all better if you just die on the roadside and stop lying?"

"Wolf…" Fox warned.

"What lying?"

"Like hell you are twenty." Wolf growled, "First lying to come into the camp, then lying your way around the camp, fooling the sergeants because you are some king's spoiled little boy. If you say that you were not lying, tell me how old you really are."

Alex rolled his eyes, "Well, first of all, if I am not lying, twenty would be my age so I don't really have to tell you again. Second of all, I never said that I am saying the truth nor that I am lying. Please do not put assumptions on people before you have the fact."

"Then tell me, how old are you really?" Wolf sneered. At Alex's silence, he continued, "Are you going to cry because I broke your lie? Go ahead, cry, and see if your bodyguard sergeant daddies will come rushing to aid."

"Bodyguard sergeant daddies." Alex repeated with an amused smile, much to Wolf's irritation, "Never heard that before."

Before Wolf could start growling, Alex said, "All you need to know is that I am twenty. The end."

"K-Unit! Do you want to get binned?" M-Unit's leader yelled in almost a humorous tone.

"Coming!" Snake yelled back before turning to his teammates, "Well, let's get going, should we?"

"You will soon realize," Wolf hissed to Alex, "that this isn't a playground. And don't come crying to me when you get hurt."

"Don't worry," Alex paused, then seeing almost a satisfaction in the man's eyes, added, "Dear."

Years of instincts made him leap out of the way before the wolf's fist could connect.

My english is not very good, so please excuse any grammatical errors that I might have made on the way