Alex slowly cocked his head to the side and rested it in his hand as he watched four men walk into the hall. Wolf. Eagle. Snake. And Not-Fox. Not-Fox was short Alex noted with a smirk. He stood at least four inches below Wolf despite the fact that his shoes had a higher platform than the standard issue army boots. All of the men were in full uniform and Alex was pretty sure that he could see the shape of a gun against Snake's calf under his loose fitting trousers. Surely that wasn't necessary? Were they honestly expecting to be attacked here or was it just precaution?

None of K-Unit had noticed Alex yet. It was a bit surprising since he was less than 6 metres away and slumped as low as he could go on the tiny plastic chair. Nevertheless, Alex wanted to stay off their radar for as long as possible. He was already in a bad mood and if Wolf decided that it would be fun to mess with Alex in front of 200 other kids, that would be the final nope he'd need that day to send him back through the window and away from all of his problems.

Abruptly, the echoing footsteps stopped. The men had reached the middle of the "stage" area and spun in unison to face the eagerly awaiting kids. Alex had to stifle a snort. They all looked so pretentious.

I bet that was Eagle's idea. He's so dramatic.

Predictably, Wolf was the first one to speak, addressing the kids with all the charm and kindness he could muster.

"So you shits probably think life in the army is a fucking stroll in the park? Fuck around in foreign countries, make some friends, shoot some bad guys. Eh? Think again." He pointedly scanned the rows of children in the back of the hall. "I doubt even ten of you could make the fitness requirement to be a private. Including the girls. Hell, most of you even ran straight to the back when you heard there was a possibility for audience participation. Are you honestly all that spineless?"

Even though it was obviously a rhetorical question, Alex was tempted to respond with Yeah, pretty much but he managed to hold his tongue before he did anything stupid. Instead he just rolled his eyes and tried to sink further into his seat. His ribs still hurt like hell and he was pretty sure some blood was leaking through his makeshift bandage on his arm. All of a sudden Alex realised just how tired he was. Today had been a wild ride and he couldn't wait to just sleep.

A sudden gasp pulled Alex's attention away from his thoughts and back to the men in front of him. When he saw the cause, he was actually pretty shocked himself. Apparently, K-Unit had taken it upon themselves to teach these kids about the horrors of war by showing them the most gruesome pictures they could find. Projected on the board were pictures of bullet wounds, amputated limbs, literal holes shot through people's stomachs and burns that covered people's entire backs. There were even a few corpses. Alex felt ill. And angry. He knew Wolf (because this whole thing basically had "Wolf" plastered over it in shiny pink letters) was trying to help in his own special way, trying to deter any kids who might not take the army seriously and thought that it would be easy, but this was a bit far. Some of these images wouldn't even make it onto an 18 rated film and none of the students in the room were older than 17. Someone in the row behind him puked.

Throwing caution to the wind, Alex stood up and stiffly marched over to the laptop and ripped out the cable which was hooked up to the projector. The large screen flickered to black, taking with it the horrific pictures. If the room wasn't silent before it definitely was now. Alex couldn't care less however, as he slowly turned to face Wolf with a look that hopefully said something along the lines of "you asshole, what the hell was that?"

A hint of recognition flashed in Wolf's eyes when their gazes met but other than that he showed no outward reaction other than mild annoyance at his performance being interrupted. Instead of the barrage of verbal abuse Alex was expecting from the man, he just crossed his arms, leant on one hip and calmly asked, "What the hell do you think you're doing kid?" Out of the corner of his eye, Alex could see Mr Jackson going nuts in his seat, silently screaming at Alex to sit back down. Alex ignored him but not after making sure to make eye contact with him.

"Well Mister Soldier-"

"Wolf."

"Mister Wolf-"

"Just Wolf."

"What?"

"It's just Wolf. No Mister."

"Oh, okay…Well Wolf, it seems you have forgotten that most of the people in this room are no older than 17 and despite the fact that Mr Jackson does bring up the average age considerably-"Alex heard a quiet choking noise behind him-"I believe that those pictures were…unsuitable for your young audience. I understand that it is the unfortunate reality of war but I highly doubt even half of the people in this room wanted to join the army anyway. Now you'll just be left with the sadistic nutters who like blood- trust me there are a few. I'm sure your employers will be pleased to hear that you've deterred at least 150 pupils-"

"Alright kid you've made your point. But seriously?" He turned back to the students. "Were you all that badly affected?"

As usual, he was met with silence since nobody knew whether it was a rhetorical question or not.

"Someone threw up on me." Alex offered helpfully. "You also made a group of girls cry over there. Oh! And I think a guy passed out over there. I think it was the foot that did it."

"Shut up. You can sit down and stop being a smartass now alright C-kid. We get your point." This time it was Snake who spoke. He looked pissed. Alex couldn't fathom why. He shrugged and was about to sit back down when Wolf's hand stopped him. He was grinning wolfishly and Alex got a really bad feeling that he had fucked up big time.

"No, no. This leads on perfectly to our hand to hand combat demonstration and blondie here was brave enough to volunteer. We weren't actually going to do audience participation today but you know what? I've had a change of heart."

Alex paled slightly. On any normal day he would have been up for it despite the fact that he would probably get his ass handed to him. There was a major strength difference between them and these men trained on a daily basis to be able to beat small fry like him whilst blindfolded. They weren't just normal soldiers- they were SAS. However today was not a particularly normal day and Alex didn't think that fighting with at least one broken rib and a stab wound in his arm would end well for anybody.

Pride was not something Alex possessed in buckets, so he didn't mind trying to obviously weasel his way out of this with words.

"Way to pick on children Wolfie. I'm not exactly a fighter though- you'd probably get a better show out of…um…Mike!" He pointed to a large boy he knew had just started karate at the place where he used to take classes.

"Aw hell no Rider! You keep me out of this!" the boy hollered back in response.

"Mike get your ass up here before I come down there and drag you up here! We need more than one volunteer anyway so thank blondie for nominating you."

Alex could slowly feel himself becoming Public Enemy Number One and decided to keep his mouth shut. He coughed slightly out of awkwardness as he and K-Unit waited for Mike to make his way over and became a bit concerned when he noticed a small speck of blood on his hand. Holy hell, that's not good. I should probably tell someone. He wiped his hand on his hoodie. Maybe later.

Finally, Mike found a path through the chairs and sauntered up next to Alex. Despite the fact that he was obviously trying to ooze self-confidence, the boy did a good job at using Alex as a human shield to separate him from the rest of the soldiers.

"Alright boys," the wolfish grin was back as Wolf slapped Alex's shoulder, "this is how it's gonna work. You two see how long you can last against our newest addition to the team- Rabbit. We chose that for his code name because he was pretty jumpy when he first joined. We thought it was hilarious but he hates it. Anyway, if either of you can go for two minutes against him without conceding defeat I'll give you a tenner. To be extra nice, I'll even let you two work together. Cheer up Mike, you're not going to die. Not unless you give Rabbit a reason to actually try."

Everything felt slightly surreal to Alex at this point. Is this real? Is this even legal?

"Is this legal?"

He looked over at the teacher corner. They all shrugged. Well great.

"Alright then, let's just get this over with." Although Alex was still a bit pissed at Wolf he fully intended to throw the fight for two reasons. One, he was in pain and there was a serious risk of doing even worse damage to his ribs and two, Alex Rider isn't supposed to know how to fight. Two years ago it was a different story; kids knew not to mess with Alex and his black belt after the Shed Incident but since then his "ill health" had rendered him unable to take part in even football. He was no longer one of the Sporty™ kids. Just ill with an attitude.

He cracked his knuckles and walked forward to face Rabbit but Mike quickly shouldered past him.

"Don't worry sick kid, stay behind me and you'll be fine." He smirked at Alex.

Nope. Scratch that. There is no way I'm going down before Mike!

Despite his raging inner monologue, Alex's face remained impassive with perhaps a hint of bemusement and as Wolf fetched a stop watch. He stayed standing behind Mike. He watched as the boy in front of him brought his hands up into what Alex assumed was some kind of starting position he'd seen on Mortal Kombat. He was even doing the bouncing thing although it looked more like he was doing feeble squats.

"Alright, you can start," came Wolf's voice. There was a moment of hesitation before Mike lifted his fist and charged forward with a battle cry. Alex watched intently to see what Rabbit would do. He could probably easily side step the attack but Alex knew that these SAS guys liked to be flashy. His suspicions were confirmed when moments later Mike found himself flipped through the air before landing on his back. He actually had the audacity to look confused, as if there was no way he could have been taken down so easily before scrambling to his feet and attacking again. His approach was different this time and he opted for a classic tackle- something that had never failed him before. Again, Rabbit easily avoided the attack, side stepping and as Mike passed him lashing out to kick him firmly on the butt. It was more of a shove using his foot but it still sent Mike sprawling at Alex's feet. The entire hall was in hysterics at this point and even Alex had cracked a smile at his classmate's antics.

It seemed that Rabbit had decided to stop playing with Mike now however. Before the boy even had a chance to move he had him in a loose choke hold with his knee planted painfully at the base of his spine. Mike struggled for a moment against the weight on his back but when Rabbit threatened to tighten his hold around the boy's neck he quickly gasped out "I give up!"

Wolf let out a low whistle and a chuckle. "Not bad kid. You lasted forty-five seconds which is forty-five more than I expected. You can go and sit down-not you blondie, you didn't even try." Wolf caught Alex by the hood as he tried to slink away. He fiddled with the stop watch for a moment before clicking the button on top and shoving him towards Rabbit.

"You've got two minutes, starting now."

"Wait, what! Woah-"

Apparently Rabbit had taken it upon himself to start the fight this time and had gone straight for a punch to the face. All at once Alex went into auto pilot mode and haphazardly lent back to avoid the punch my millimetres. He overbalanced slightly and to avoid falling on his butt (which would have been just as, if not more embarrassing than getting punched in the face) he did some weird backwards handspring which he only comprehended when he was back on his feet a few metres away. In the back of his head he registered slight pain coming from his chest but it was dulled by the sudden adrenaline rush. From that point on, he was constantly on the defensive, only doing as much as neccessary to avoid falling of getting hit too hard.

Only two minutes. You can keep this up for two minutes. I swear it's been two minutes already. Wolf you ass I see you smirking! This has been going on for way longer than two minutes!

In a sudden flurry of rage and perhaps bad pain-clouded judgement Alex dropped to the floor and swept his foot at Rabbit's legs, for once going on the offensive. True to his name, Rabbit jumped up to avoid the unexpected attack and tried to kick Alex's shoulder on his way down. Rabbit had realised from his first attack that Alex had obviously had some kind of martial arts training and had been waiting for the kid to actually do something other than run and block.

His short time in the air however gave Alex a small window of opportunity to grab his leg and yank it to the side. It was playing dirty and he knew it but Alex really wanted to end this as soon as possible and his small amount of pride wouldn't let him lose even though he had lasted far longer than Mike. That and the fact that in the back of his mind he had a small voice telling him that he was in danger and had to get away. It was the voice that had helped him through dangerous missions before but right now it was paranoid, unwanted and sounded a hell of a lot like Julius Grief- who admittedly sounded just like Alex , just more evil.

Rabbit, who Alex realised hadn't uttered a sound since he first arrived in the hall, let out a small grunt as he stumbled and fell to the ground. Alex still had hold of his leg so he quickly adjusted his grip and dragged the man towards him so that he could get above him. Mirroring the man's earlier tactics, he firmly planted his knee at the base of his spine then twisted his arm up just enough that it would hurt a bit. Rabbit struggled for a moment before going limp which Alex took as a sign that he had given up. He loosened his hold on his arm and moved his weight off of his back. Then before he could react, Rabbit head-butted him in the chin, turned around and fucking walloped him in the chest. Right in the broken rib.

Everything went white for a moment and Alex cried out. He hoped it wasn't too loud or at least above the normal yell-volume for someone who had just been punched in the chest. For some reason he didn't feel like explaining why he had broken ribs before fighting an SAS soldier. Slowly, and in spots, Alex's vision came back. He was glad to see that he hadn't passed out and was still in the same place he had been it moments before. Rabbit's forearm pinned his chest to the floor and slightly restricted his breathing and he was also sat on his legs. Alex was pretty immobile.

I think this is a pretty good time to give up Al.

Shut up voice. I can keep going.

Can you really?

Yes.

But do you actually want to? You have an audience remember?

Holy shit I forgot.

Is that sarcasm I sense?

You're me. I bloody hope so.

Just say you give up and you can go and get your chest seen to. I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure this fight made it worse. You saw the blood before, you could have internal bleeding. Now stop being a stubborn idiot and just-

"I give up."

Wolf pulled a face and nodded slowly. He clicked the button on the top of the stopwatch.

"Four minutes, five seconds. Not too shabby."

"Thanks." Alex wheezed back from the floor. He took Rabbit's hand when it appeared in front of him and was forcefully dragged upwards so fast that he stumbled into the shorter man. As he was recovering from the sudden change from horizontal to vertical he thought he heard Rabbit mumble "thanks" but he wasn't sure. He was still pretty dazed.

All Alex wanted to do now was sit down but yet again, before he could escape Wolf summoned him with a call of "hey blondie c'mere"

Alex groaned but obliged. He was startled when a ten pound note suddenly appeared in front of his face until he remembered Wolf's promise at the beginning.

"I didn't actually think that I'd be giving this away today but a promise is a promise I guess." He held out the money expectantly and Alex cringed a bit. It just felt wrong to take money from this man, this soldier who had made a good portion of his life hell and then saved him mere months later.

Their relationship was strange to say the least but you know what, I'm sixteen, I'm probably broke since MI6 never pay me so who am I to turn down money.

As Alex pocketed the note and sat down, quiet applause broke out from the spectating students and if Wolf had noticed the smudge of blood on Alex's hand, he didn't say anything.

/AN/ Wowzer, look at that, another chapter after over a month. I'm starting to spot a pattern here...Anyways, sorry if I didn't do the K-Unit chapter justice. I haven't read Stormbreaker in years so Wolf's characterisation was based on other fics. I also just realised my utter lack of Snake and Eagle dialogue whOopS. I guess I'll just have to try and bring them back later on. As usual, if you spot any errors please yell at me to fix them and I hope you enjoyed the chapter :) (reviews are always appreciated as well *hint hint*) /AN/