AN: This is my first Alex Rider fanfiction. I'll try to update as soon as I can, but no promises :) Hope you like it, and review! Tell me what you think :D

Disclaimer: If I was a renowned author, I would not be on this website. 'Nuff said.

The company continued to talk in low, mournful voices to each other, or with overpowering, sympathy-laced voices to the parents of the unfortunate victim. They never even noticed the presence of one very small-looking boy, with his shoulders hunched, and his expression openly miserable.

Normally, this boy would be considered handsome in every aspect of the word, but for today, his expression, his body, every part of him for that matter, was too mangled with grief for any passerby to look past and see the better aspects of him.

While in a normal situation, anyone seeing a person in this much grief would be overwhelmed by an intense need to give that unfortunate person a hug, this was not the case for this boy. His aura, if there were such a thing, seemed to give off signals that people would be foolish to ignore. He seemed to scream 'I'm volatile, I'm dangerous, walk away right now!', without uttering a single word.

Which brings us to another point about the boy: he was silent. While everyone else in the room offered their condolences to the parents, when he reached them, he merely nodded. Nothing more, nothing less, to anyone who tried to start a conversation.

That is, until he reached one person, a man named Ben Daniels, specifically.

This boy treated Ben Daniels, or Agent Daniels as he was known in the workplace, to a gaping, open mouthed expression of surprise before the curt nod.

Personally, Ben was surprised that he had gotten anything more than a nod from the tall 16 year old. He was usually more skilled at hiding his emotions than this. For this boy was none other than MI6 tool, Alex Rider.

Not that Ben could really blame Alex for his show of emotions. Today, after all, was the funeral of his best mate, Tom. Alex blamed himself for the death of his friend, and was dying inside over it.

Little did Ben know, while Alex did blame himself somewhat, for not being strong enough, fast enough, smart enough, his main concentration of blame was not directed towards himself; rather, it was directed towards a man sitting in the head office of one Royal and General Bank. Or, he seethed to himself with a sudden bout of anger, the head of bloody MI6.

But then, just as quickly as the anger had come, it was drained out of him, leaving him cold and empty. This was his best friend's funeral. He should hardly spend this time yelling at Blunt (inside his head, of course), instead, he should be reflecting on his friend's admittedly short life, not the cause of his untimely death.

For the next few hours, from the time he arrived to the ending of the ceremonies, Alex spent a private time which we shall not reflect on, so that Alex is able to keep some much-needed privacy in his life.

After the funeral, Alex headed home, thoroughly depressed. This, of course, was understandable. He had lost his best mate just a few months after losing Sabina. He sat, curled up on his favorite couch, wrapping himself in the cloud of dark feelings that seemed to follow him around like a storm cloud. After resolving to get up after just a little bit longer, the phone began to ring it's annoying, repetitive, destined-to-give-any-listener-a-headache kind of ring. Alex was hard-pressed to not just ignore it, but perhaps it was something important, and that itself was enough to get him to the phone.

"Hello?" His voice seemed to echo out over the phone line.

"Alex Rider. The Royal and General requests your immediate presence to discuss details of your account." Alex was about to hang up on the woman, but something about this situation was sending shivers up his spine. He had learned long ago not to ignore his senses- they had saved his life enough times for him to learn that particular lesson.

"I'll be there in thirty," was his crisp reply.

"We'll send a car," came the reply, as Alex knew it would.

"No need," he said, rather civilly he might add, "I'll take the tube." Though the car would, undoubtedly, have been much more comfortable, he felt like he was holding onto one last piece of his old, naive self by refusing to take the car.

All he got in the way of response was a detached, "Very good," before the incessant beepings of the phone.

By the time he reached the bank, he was jumpy and nervous, which was nothing compared to how he was when he reached the threshold of the building. He glanced back at the surrounding building, while carefully skirting around the place where he had been shot.

The guards that happened to be on duty both gave him a reassuring smile; they had thought him and his actions a little strange, before that had learned what had happened a little less than two years before.

It was easily said that they had gained a deal more respect for him the moment they found out what the unorthodox spy had gone through on the doorstep of Military Intelligence Sector Six's own doorstep.

After successfully maneuvering past his... ahem, trouble spot, he walked to the elevator. He was given nothing more than a passing glance by the secretary, which was rather foolish in his opinion. What if someone disguised themselves as him and... did something.

Oh, never mind. He had been up to Blunt's office a total of eight times for missions from MI6, and numerous other times for others from other agencies, and debriefings. So, he supposed, it wasn't TOO odd that he wouldn't be kept from going up immediately.

Anyway, the elevators would take care of any unwanted visitors, a fact he was reminded of as soon as he entered it, and sensed the many different machines analyzing him and sending all the data to either Smithers or Blunt's office withing a few milliseconds. This, also, unnerved him a bit, but it was nothing that he couldn't handle.

He quickly fixed two of his possible three masks on- one that covered most of his feelings, but gave away his inner feelings through his eyes, as well as his completely emotionless face, which he used in the company of any MI6 operatives. Except perhaps Ben, he amended within his head. His third mask was reserved for his missions. It gave away what others wanted to see- happiness even when he was sad, that sort of thing. He used to use it on his friends as well, but now, Alex reflected grimly, he had none.

This thought, while depressing, wasn't enough to make the slightest dent in Alex's mask. He steeled himself even further, in from of Blunt's door. When he found himself sufficiently ready, he burst through the door, without so much as a knock. One pair of startled eyes met his, as well as another pair of blank, lifeless eyes.

"What do you want?" He demanded, without so much as a pretense of politeness.

"Sit down, Alex," came the drab voice. Already in the motion of doing so, Alex splayed himself across the chair, taking up as much room as possible. Alex smugly noted the brief flash of annoyance visible in the head of MI6's eyes.

"Well?" Alex drawled. His efforts were rewarded with the brief second Blunt took to recompose himself. No matter how victorious he was feeling at the moment, he still knew who was in charge in this situation. Still, two shows of emotion in one day! How weird was that?

"Alex," Blunt said, decidedly, well, bluntly, "we are sending you back to the SAS training center in Wales, Brecon Beacons."

Alex stared at him for a moment, and was only then able to come up with the rather intelligent-sounding answer- "What?"

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