Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

James Adams was sitting at his desk, falling asleep to the sound of his history teacher explaining something about world war 2 when a member of the CHERUB staff came in and told him to go to Zara (the chairwoman of CHERUB)’s office.

The boy knocked on the door, a quick “Come in!” telling him he could do exactly that, and he pushed it open.

“There you are James, I need to talk to all of you about an upcoming mission.” Zara Asker gestured to the other occupants of the room before continuing, “Have a seat, this is going to take a while.”

He sat down next to his sister, Lauren, who looked as if she was as confused as him. Most missions only had 3 or maybe if it was pretty big, 4 agents, however there was a grand total of 6 CHERUB’s (well technically 5 agents and Kyle) sitting in the chairwoman’s office: James, Lauren, Bruce, Kerry and Gregory (Rat). The CHERUB’s were most surprised by the fact that Kyle Blueman, a recently retired CHERUB, was also present.

“Okay as you're all aware Help Earth is an eco-terrorist group known for their brutality, recently the government received a letter stating that they have teamed up with another terrorist group, one of the deadliest in the world, even worse than Help Earth-“ Zara was abruptly cut off by James.

“A terrorist group even worse than Help Earth, yeah, sure.” he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes at her.

“James! You can’t talk to the chairwoman like that!” his little sister exclaimed, a horrified expression covering her face.

“SHUT-“ James paused, remembering where he was, “Sorry it’s just kinda hard to believe that there could be a terrorist organisation that’s even worse than Help Earth, I mean I’ve run into them a few times now and they’re pretty bad.”

“It may be hard for you to believe, but.. there are many far worse organisations, James.” Zara stated hesitantly.

“I suppose so.”

“Here are the mission briefings. Just so you know we will be heading to London tomorrow to meet with the head of MI6, as well as their best agent who will be working with us for this mission.”

**CLASSIFIED MISSION BRIEFING FOR JAMES ADAMS, LAUREN ADAMS, BRUCE NORRIS, KERRY CHANG, GREGORY RATHBONE AND KYLE BLUEMAN.**

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED WITH A RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION TAG. ANY ATTEMPT TO REMOVE IT FROM THE MISSION PREPARATION BUILDING WILL SET OFF AN ALARM. DO NOT PHOTOCOPY OR MAKE NOTES.

Help Earth
Help Earth is an eco-terrorist group that will go to extreme measures to stop companies from creating products that could harm animals or the planet. They are, however, willing to seriously harm and even kill to ensure that they get what they want.

SCORPIA
SCORPIA stands for Sabotage, CORruPtion, Intelligence and Assassination. They are a terrorist organisation willing to lend their services to anyone who can afford them, they are known for having the best assassins as well as being one of, if not the, most deadly and brutal organisation in the world.

The Grendels
Max Grendel was one of the founding members of SCORPIA, Grendel died of heart failure a few weeks before the events of Invisible Sword (see file) after retiring from SCORPIA. Max Grendel’s daughter-Ida Grendel- then went on to fill in the place on the SCORPIA executive board that was left after Abdul-Aziz Al-Rahim’s death (see file). Ida Grendel is currently trying to fully prove her worth to SCORPIA, she is supposedly trying to help bring SCORPIA back to the top by making an alliance with Help Earth and is undercover with her twin children in Germany.

The Target
SCORPIA and Help Earth’s target is Berengar Walter, founder of Walter’s Oil Industries, Help Earth hope to show the other oil companies around the world what will happen if they don’t immediately shut down their businesses. The two terrorist organisations supposedly plan on killing Berengar Walter, and possibly his family, to show this.

The Letter
The government received a letter stating that after Berengar, the next companies to be targeted will be two of the biggest oil providers for England, and that if they want to stop this that they will have to pay £1.5 billion to SCORPIA, as well as cut down their oil usage by 25% by the end of the year. Those are just two of the things that the letter stated would be needed for them to come to an agreement.

The CHERUB mission
Two of the CHERUB’s will have to befriend the grandchildren of former SCORPIA board member, Max Grendel. The agents will get close to the grandchildren as following:
Kerry Chang-Rudi Grendel
Bruce Norris-Hans Grendel
Another two of the CHERUB’s will have to befriend the children of Berengar Walter, to provide protection for them. The agents will get close to the children as following:
Lauren Adams-Otto Walter
Gregory Rathbone-Felix Walter
The two remaining CHERUB’s will be there as backup in case a CHERUB is unable to get close to the designated child. Kyle Blueman is also to try and infiltrate SCORPIA, this is only if possible and is not required. All CHERUB agents will attend the Bonn International School.

The Aliases
Kerry Chang and Bruce Norris will pose as adoptive brother and sister and will go by Kerry and Bruce Green, son of Zara and Ewart Green (Zara and Ewart Asker). Lauren Adams, James Adams, Gregory Rathbone and MI6 agent Alexander Rider will have their second names changed to Thompson and will pose as the adoptive children of Noah Thompson (Benjamin Daniels, MI6 agent) and Chloe Thompson (Chloe Blake). Kyle Blueman will have his second name changed to Brown, will be aged up by one year, making him 18, and will live alone and act as a student teacher at the school. All other CHERUB agents will remain the same age.

THE CHERUB ETHICS COMMITTEE UNAMINOUSLY ACCEPTED THIS MISSION BRIEFING BUT REQUESTED THAT ALL MISSION CANDIDATES CAREFULLY CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:

(1) This mission has been classified EXTREMELY HIGH RISK.
(2) If your cover is blown it is highly likely you could be kidnapped and tortured for information.
(3) SCORPIA is known for never allowing their enemies to leave alive.
(4) All agents are reminded of their right to refuse this mission or to withdraw at any time

As the last of the CHERUB’s placed their folders down, Bruce quietly muttered, “I didn’t even know that a mission could be classified as extremely high risk.”

There were a few murmurs of agreement as the CHERUB’s considered what they had read, none of them had ever been on a mission that was this dangerous. They were broken out of their thoughts by Zara.

“MI6 has requested that you spend a week training at an SAS camp in Wales, the MI6 agents will also spend a week here.”

“Wait a second! It says that one of the MI6 agents will be posing as the son of Benjamin Daniels, how old is he?” Kerry suddenly exclaimed.

None of the other CHERUB’s had noticed this and they all started whispering things to each other.

“I’m not sure, I was only given his name.” Zara said, “Anyways you should head back to your rooms and decide whether or not you want to do this, if so you should start packing because as I said before we will head to London tomorrow to meet with the MI6 agents”

Chapter Text

The next morning all of the 5 CHERUBs and the ex-CHERUB had gathered outside Zara’s office, they had all agreed to do the mission despite the risks and had their bags strapped over their shoulders. The door opened and Zara and Ewart asker walked out, also with bags, and headed over to the small group of CHERUBs.

“Okay let’s go! We’ll use one of the minivans.” Ewart, Zara’s husband, exclaimed.

The drive didn’t take too long, due to CHERUB campus being near to London, and they were walking through the halls of the building that called itself the Royal & General soon enough.

“Soooo, why exactly are we in a bank?” James asked.

“It’s just a cover, this building is actually MI6’s main base.” Zara explained.

“Ohhhhh, like how CHERUB calls itself a military training compound.” Rat jumped into the conversation cheerfully.

“Yes.”

By now they had reached the door to the office of the head of MI6 and Zara knocked on the door, even though the occupants of the room most likely already knew they had arrived. The door swung open to reveal the head and deputy head of MI6, as well as Ben Daniels.

“Good morning, Mrs Asker, please come in.” The woman sitting at the desk greeted her.

“Good morning to you too, Mrs Jones. Kids go ahead sit down, introduce yourselves”

“Hi, I’m Kerry”

“Bruce”

“I’m James”

“Lauren”

“Kyle”

“I’m Gregory but everyone calls me Rat”

“Rat?”

“My second name is Rathbone”

“Ah, ok. Mrs Asker-“

“Please, call me Zara”

“Very well then, Zara it is. This is Ben Daniels and this is Mr Crawley, the deputy head. Our other agent should be arriving soon, but you should know that he may not be entirely happy with the idea of working with you.” Mrs Jones warned them.

“Why? Is it because we’re children?” Kerry asked.

“Yeah, don’t tell me they’re the type of egotistical agent that refuses to believe that a child is better than them. I hate those kinds of people.” James hissed.

“James.” Ewart gave James a deadly glare.

“Well it is because you’re children but…” Jones hesitated, unsure if she should continue, “It’s quite complicated, you will understand when he arrives.”

“Have all of your agents been briefed on this operation?” Ben asked.

“Yes, we’ve been briefed.” Kyleyle replied.

“Okay, but you need to understand that SCORPIA is not a joke, even now that they are much smaller, their threats should always be taken seriously, no matter how crazy they may seem.” Jones said, “I have read your files, they’re quite impressive.”

The last part of Mrs Jones’ statement wasn’t entirely true, she knew that by their standards it was amazing what their agents had achieved, but compared to Alex it wasn’t really all that impressive.

“Thank you, Mrs Jones.” Said Lauren, she was very flattered by the compliments and she could feel her face turning slightly pink.

After a few more minutes of silence Mr Crawley spoke up again and announced that “Mr Rider has arrived.” The door to the office opened and in walked a teenage boy with dirty-blond hair.

“What do you want, Jones? I thought you had retired.”

The boy quickly scanned the room and noticed the other occupants.

“Who are they? Why, exactly, are there children here, Mrs Jones?”

“Hey, we’re like, the same age as you!” James shouted.

Both Mrs Jones and the child ignored him, Ewart and Zara both glared at him, silently telling James to shut up.

“You should really sit down first, Alex, it is a very long explanation.” Mrs Jones said.

“Then shorten it.” Alex’s voice was calm, but there was a hint of a threat in the background.

“Alex, sit down.”

It was an order and Alex knew it, as much as he wished he could just ignore everything this woman was saying, he knew that she could quite easily call security to make him listen (although he doubted she would, Jones wasn’t like Blunt). He sat down reluctantly, he could already feel the stares of the children around him burning into his back as he turned and walked towards one of the chairs opposite them.

“So, what is this Jones? If this is something to do with Nightshade then-“ Alex started.

“No, this has nothing to do with Nightshade. These children work for an organisation named CHERUB-“

“The organisation is very highly classified Mrs Jones, I would prefer it if you didn’t talk about it to this child.” Zara butted in, “I don’t know if this is your son or something along those lines but it would be better if you said as little as possible.”

“This child is my other agent, Mrs Asker, and he has clearance.”

“Woah, woah, woah, hold up. What do you mean work for?” Alex ignored the fact that Jones had called him an agent.

“CHERUB is a division of MI5, very few people know of its existence. The CHERUB’s are…” Jones paused for a moment, knowing that once she said this all hell would break loose.

”They are child spies.”

“What?”

Alex’s voice had become deadly. His eyes cold, devoid of any emotion, and his face had become a stoic mask hiding all of his thoughts, except, perhaps, for the slightest flash of anger that swept across his features before it was quickly covered up. Mrs Jones knew that one wrong word would be enough for Alex to make good with the underlying threat in his tone, that it would be enough for people to be seriously injured, possibly even killed if Alex wasn’t careful. She knew that as much as Alex tried not to acknowledge it, he was deadly, could be deadly, and this was a dangerous topic.

She knew she was walking on thin ice, ice that would crack with just one word.

“They aren’t forced to do it, Alex, they do this job by choice.” She said.

“Unlike me.” Alex muttered, but nobody heard.

“They are here because you and Ben will help them with a mission,” she continued, “They have had training, these agents in particular are some of the best-“

“How many are there, and no, I don’t mean roughly and I don’t want a lie either, I want the exact number.” He cut in.

“Sorry, but that’s classi-“ Zara was about to tell him it was classified but Mrs Jones answered him before she could finish.

“286 children live on CHERUB’s campus and are qualified for missions, another 81 children are living there and going to classes until they can start basic training at the age of 10.”

There was a moment of silence and Mrs Jones couldn’t help but compare the situation to the phrase “the calm before the storm”.

“So you’re telling me, that this entire time you had a whole school of willing child spies!? This ENTIRE time!?! You have been making me do this for two years despite the fact that you’ve had almost 400 other children who could have been doing all of those ‘jobs’ instead of me!?” He had to pause to take a breath but he definitely wasn’t done yet.

“Did you know, Ben?” He asked after another minute, his voice sounding smaller than he’d ever heard it.

Mrs Jones answered for him, “Ben didn’t know until today, I didn’t even know that much until a couple months ago when they were discussed as an option for… for the whole thing in Rio De Janeiro. But Alex, they don’t have the same skills as you-“

“But you still fucking knew, you say you didn’t know much, but you still knew something! For goodness sake Tulip, stop trying to defend yourself!!” Alex was on his feet again by now and he towered over Mrs Jones.

Zara couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This kid had just walked in and started asking questions about CHERUB, apparently has clearance, and now he’s shouting at the Head of MI6, and even using what must have been her first name. As the shouting continued, she decided he must be crazy.

The CHERUB’s were just watching, wide eyed, completely frozen in shock at the scene in front of them. James thought that this kid was a bit big-headed, he looked as though he was around the same age as them so he couldn’t be that much better than them, could he? James thought back to how cold the boy’s eyes had been earlier and a shiver ran down his back. He still couldn’t help but think that the guy was pretty arrogant, you know, shouting at the head of MI6 and all.

“You couldn’t have told me at the start of all of whatever the heck this is?! And now you expect me to just go along and do whatever you say, to throw myself into danger when all I ever wanted was a normal life.”

“Cub- sorry, Alex. Calm down.” Ben said, hoping that maybe he could convince Alex to at least listen to what Jones had to say about the mission.

“Don’t, Ben, just don’t.” Alex wasn’t shouting this time but somehow that just made him even more terrifying.

“You know what Mrs Jones this makes you almost as F*CK!NG bad as Nightshade.”

Jones froze, and Alex knew he had hit a nerve. If he had been thinking straight he might have realised that that was low, too low, but he wasn’t thinking straight and he was simply too blinded by anger, by rage, to care.

When Mrs Jones spoke again, she was pale and Zara and Ewart saw that whatever this Nightshade thing was, saying that she was almost as bad as it was personal.

“Alex, please, just listen to me.” Mrs Jones was actually pleading him now, and you could hear it in her voice, could hear the desperation.

“NO! I already told you. I. DON’T. WANT. TO. HEAR. IT.”

“Alex..it’s SCORPIA.” She said this time her voice barely louder than a whisper, but it was still loud enough for Alex to hear.

Now it was Alex’s turn to freeze, though he tried to hide his discomfort it was still noticed by all of the adults in the room. He slumped back into his chair. He had been trained by both SCORPIA and Nightshade to not let his emotions show and so he managed to keep himself from paling too much, or at least he hoped so.

“You told me they had disbanded, that they were over, gone?” It was more of a statement than a question, he knows what she said-back when he was fifteen and still grieving Jack-he just doesn’t know if he can believe it.

“They recently resurfaced, and have apparently teamed up with a much smaller terrorist group, an eco-terrorist group actually, named Help Earth.” She passed him a large file, seemingly with more information than the CHERUB’s were given, and then continued, ”CHERUB has a lot of experience with Help Earth and you.. you have a lot of experience with SCORPIA.”

Alex looked away from Jones then, choosing instead to focus on the folder in front of him. He scanned through it silently for another minute or two before he spoke.

“You realise that if SCORPIA find out that I’m on this, that they will kill not just me, but these CHERUB’s too.”

Yeah, he’s definitely pretty big-headed, James thought.

“We will make sure the information isn’t leaked, only the people in this room know the full details of this operation.” Jones assured him.

“Could I have the CHERUB’s files?”

“Uhhh, no you can’t have our files, they are extremely highly classified, only CHERUB staff can have our full files, and maybe the head of MI6.” James exclaimed, how could this kid just ask for anyone’s file and expect it to be given to them.

“As I said before he has clearance.” Mrs Jones said, addressing James, before turning back to Alex,”I will have the files delivered to your house for later this evening, Alex.”

“Okay, but are you sure that these agents are qualified to go up against SCORPIA, I’d prefer it if they didn’t leave this mission in a body bag.”

“Don’t worry, Alex. These are some of their best agents and you will also be going with them to the SAS camp in wales for a week, you will spend a week at their campus first, to get to know each other. You will go tomorrow morning, make sure you only pack the essentials. Would you mind if they stay at your house until then?” Even if Mrs Jones had asked him as if it was a casual question he knew that she had planned on them going to his house from the very start.

“No, of course not.” He said, although in reality he minded very much. They were going to his home and he hadn’t even had the chance to prepare or anything.

“Perfect. Crawley, would you mind showing the CHERUB’s to Mr Smithers’ office, I need to speak to Alex in private. You may go as well, Mr Daniels.”

“Please, follow me.” Crawley said with that blank voice of his.

They all filed out of the room, Ben being the last, and walked through the halls towards Smithers’ office.

Once the two MI6 agents were in front of him James turned to look at Dana and muttered, “God, that guy is so big-headed, he’s acting like he’s a thousand times better than everyone.”

“James!” Kerry shrieked.

“Oh come on Kerry, I’m sure you were thinking that too. That kid definitely seems to think he is the most important person in the world.” Insisted James.

“Yeah I guess he acts a bit big-headed, but you still shouldn’t talk about him like that. I don’t know something just tells me he might have seen some stuff.” She agreed.

“Yeah,” Lauren cut in,”Did you see his eyes when he first walked in, they were so cold and completely blank. It was kinda scary.”

Kerry gave a grunt of agreement and Kyle said,”Yeah and did you see how he paled at SCORPIA’s name, Mrs Jones said he had experience with them. How could someone so young have experience with something like SCORPIA?”

“Ugh, guys, he’s practically the same age as us. We’ve done tonnes of stuff, CHERUB practically brought Help Earth down to its knees.” James moaned.

“I mean, it’s true. CHERUB’s are really well trained, there’s no way he could do what some CHERUB’s have done.” Bruce said, he agreed with James. The kid was definitely arrogant.

“I don’t know, there’s something about the way he acts; how he holds himself; how he looked around the room when he entered as if he was expecting to be attacked. He seemed a little tense the whole time really.” Lauren always had been mature for her age, her saying this just further proved it.

Chapter Text

“Okay, this is Smithers’ office, I will allow him to explain everything. He doesn’t know any details about the operation, other than what he needs to know, so please refrain from telling him anything about it.”

There was a chorus of Sure’s and yes sir’s before Crawley opened the door to the office. A man sat in a chair surrounded by wires, there was also a large briefcase on another table that was up against the right wall. The man looked like the type of person that was smiling or grinning more often than not. He was wearing a cheap suit, like the majority of the MI6 agents they had seen as they had walked through the building.

“Oh, you’re here already! My goodness what’s the time?” The man, presumably Smithers, lifted his arms over the cables and glanced at a watch on his wrist.

“It really is already 11 o’clock, sorry about the mess, I lost track of time. Please, do come in, have a seat.” The man paused for a second before he seemed to realise something,”Where are my manners, I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Smithers and I’ll be providing you with ‘gadgets’ for your mission, I haven’t been told much, but I understand that you will be undercover in Germany, so I’ve made sure that they are suitable for the environment you’ll be living in-“

“Wait, where is Alex?” Smithers interrupted himself.

“Mrs Jones is still speaking with him. Now, if you don’t mind Mr Smithers, I will leave our visitors with you. I have things I should be doing.” Crawley said, clearly not wanting to be there any longer.

“Yes, of course, I can’t imagine Alex being too happy about the situation.”

With that Crawley hurried out of the room, he looked like he might be starting to get a headache. The CHERUB’s also moved to sit down in various places around the room as Smithers tried to untangle himself from the mess of wires that seemed to want to keep him captive.

“Do you need some help?” Kerry said, using her sweet, polite-girl voice.

“Oh no, it’s ok. I’ve.. almost… GOT IT!” He exclaimed, almost proudly, in between grunts.

As the large man bundled the mess of wires into an empty corner in his office, a knock at the door followed by Alex walking in broke the awkward silence that had fallen upon the room after watching Smithers’ struggles.

“Hey Smithers!” Alex called out, looking far more happy than he had only a few minutes ago.

“Hello Alex, it’s good to see you’re still in one piece.” Smithers grinned at the teenager.

“Of course I am, you know me, luck of the devil and all that.”

“Ah yes, how could I forget. Have a seat, I have some stuff I’m sure you’ll like.”

“By the way I was wondering if you had an extra pair of those exploding earrings, I thought it might be good to have a pair even when I’m not on missions. You know, just in case.”

The moment Alex said exploding earrings almost everyone in the room’s mouths dropped.

“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll ask my assistant to bring a pair up.”

“Exploding earrings! What the heck! How would that even work? Wouldn’t it just blow up on your ears?! Isn’t that, like, super dangerous?” James shrieked, and if Lauren wasn’t frozen in shock she would have teased him about how he sounded like one of the little red shirts.

“Why would you even need exploding earri-“ Bruce questioned,”Wait a second you wear earrings?”

“1. I’m not going to tell you how it works. 2. No, it won’t just blow up on my ears. 3. Yes, of course it’s dangerous, it explodes. And finally, yes I do wear earrings, though normally only the exploding kind. They often come in handy when I’m on missions.” Alex replied to each of the questions, without even flinching.

Bruce continued his interogation by saying, “Why the hell would you need some miniature bomb on a mission? Do you just go around blowing up buildings or something?”

Alex raised one eyebrow at him as if he was stupid before replying,”No, I don’t just go around blowing up buildings. Planes, boats, helicopters and people maybe, but rarely buildings, and I don’t just do it for fun,” this time it was Ben’s turn to raise an eyebrow, ”and why I would need a ‘miniature bomb’ on my missions doesn’t concern you.”

“Well, actually, it concerns me quite a bit, I would hope that you aren’t just going to blow up our campus.” Zara replied, looking, as she said, quite concerned.

“I can assure you your campus will remain intact during my ‘visit’, I would rather not have Crawley drawling on about how much paperwork he has to do because I blew something up again. And I would definitely rather not be made to listen to another lecture on ‘what I should and shouldn’t blow up’ and ‘what is a valid reason for making something go up in flames’ again.”

Unfortunately, Alex’s words did little to comfort Zara and she was starting to wonder if he really needed to go to CHERUB campus, surely just the SAS camp would be fine. Daniels and Mr Smithers, however, seemed to find the situation hilarious, as both men burst into laughter only seconds after Alex had tried to assure Zara that CHERUB campus wasn’t about to be blown up.

“Really, Alex? You’ve blown up so many things over the years that Crawley gave you a lecture about ‘what you should and shouldn’t blow up’. Honestly I feel kinda sorry for the guy, maybe you should go easy on him, Alex.” Daniels suggested sarcastically after he had recovered from his laughter.

“I think the fact that you draw the line at blowing up buildings rather than people is the best part.” Smithers said.

“That isn’t even true though, when you were in Bangkok you ended up causing the collapse of that building by the river.” Daniels cut in.

“Hey! That wasn’t my fault, in fact that was kind of your fault. You’re the one who just went in and started shooting people!”

By now Daniels and Smithers were both laughing again, Smithers had his elbows propped on his desk and his face in his hands. Both men’s eyes were glistening with tears of laughter and they were starting to struggle to breathe. As the rest of the room took in the scene in front of them they all started to laugh uncontrollably, all earlier discomfort forgotten.

“Ok, ok, guys, we need to focus. What have you managed to make for us Smithers?” Alex said as the laughter started to die down once more.

“Well let’s see, could you pass me that briefcase?”

Alex walked over to the right wall and picked up the briefcase before carrying it over to Smithers. The man opened it up to reveal an array of seemingly normal, random objects. The first thing Smithers pulled out was a stack of iPhones, all different models.

“All of these phones function as any normal phone would except for the fact that they all have a few ‘hidden functions’. The first one can be accessed when you go on the app With a Mind to Kill, the screen should show where the hidden dart is pointing and then you just have to aim where you need the dart to go and tap on the screen. The dart is filled with a drug that is strong enough to knock out an adult male for around 20 minutes so make sure you don’t accidentally shoot yourself or anyone else on our side.” Smithers then went on to show them where the dart was and some of the other features.

If you went on the app named ‘Super amazing soldiers’ a distress signal would automatically be sent to MI6 and backup (a team of SAS men) would be sent to the location as soon as possible. The phone could also be turned into a listening device when you played the song, ‘What does the fox say?’ on Spotify. All of the features only worked with their owners fingerprint so they weren’t going to accidentally be activated by a civilian and any enemy operatives would have a hard time accessing them. The phones also already had each other’s numbers in the contacts, so they would be able to talk to each other. The iPhones were obviously all encrypted and secure so nobody would be able to listen in on what was said or see the messages.

“Okay well that’s all for the phones,” Smithers said after explaining what they could do,”I also made this necklace that when you press on the diamond in the middle it will start to record whatever is being said, it would be too risky to put bugs in Ida Grendel’s house in case they were discovered, but with this necklace you can record things whenever you hear something that might be of interest to us.”

“Really? That’s pretty smart, Mr Smithers.” Kerry said, still using a polite tone.

“Yeah, that’s sick!” Rat screeched.

“Thank you,” Smithers replied,”You will all also be provided with this pencil case, Alex you are already familiar with most of the items, but the rest of you aren’t, so let me explain. This eraser is a memory stick-MI6 wants you to try and download some information from Mrs Grendel’s computer. The pencil sharpener’s blade is diamond and should be able to cut through almost anything, this calculator is actually a camera jammer for in case you need to remain out of sight. Alex will show you how it works.”

Bruce raised his hand as if he was in a school and Smithers nodded his head at him signalling for him to ask Smithers his question.

“Why would we need a blade at school, actually, why would we need a camera jammer at school too? I mean it’s just school, even if it is with the children of terrorists, it’s pretty harmless.”

“Alex,” Smithers said as he turned towards the boy, ”Do you want to explain that?”

“Okay, well you see there’s these people called assassins, basically an assassin is someone who kills people-“

“Yeah we know what an assassin is, we aren’t idiots, but what exactly does that have to do with anything?” James interrupted.

“Well if you’d let me finish maybe I could explain, and sorry but I just thought that maybe I should dumb it down a bit since you all seem to know absolutely nothing about being a spy.”

“Hey!”

Alex ignored them and continued,”The main thing is that it is possible that SCORPIA will send an assassin while you are at school and you will need to defend yourself, I mean you will still have an extremely low chance of beating them but at least with a knife there’s a possibility your death won’t be too bad. Also you might need it at there house to cut into something,” or out of something, he thought absent-mindedly, “The camera jammer is probably more for Ida’s house rather than for school, you might need to make sure she can’t see something that you’re doing. Try and be careful with the camera jammer though, only use it when necessary because I imagine they would get kind of suspicious if one or two of their cameras just magically stopped working.”

He gave James and Bruce a look that quite clearly showed that he thought all of that was obvious. James scowled a bit, still offended at the fact that Alex had practically called them stupid.

“Anyways,” Smithers shot out the word, breaking the tension between the teenagers,”There is one other thing in the pencil case, the sellotape is already cut up in to small pieces, each piece is a tracker that you can stick on to practically any surface. The device will send a signal to MI6 whenever it moves more than a few meters, it is completely see-through and shouldn’t be very noticeable. You can maybe try and stick it on to a piece of clothing or a bag or something else that could lead us to SCORPIA.”

“Also, Alex, Mrs Jones asked me to give you a gun this time. I do hope you’re familiar with the Beretta 92FS Inox, I heard you have had training on how to use a gun.” He questioned pulling out the weapon.

Alex immediately thought back to his time at Malagosto, he supposed it was kind of ironic how he was going to use the skills SCORPIA taught him against them. He felt slightly uneasy thinking about it, what would the CHERUB’s say if they knew he had once worked for the enemy? That he had defected from MI6? That he had tried to kill Mrs Jones? He doubts they would be any nicer. They probably wouldn’t ever trust him again-that’s not to say that they do trust him but it is still possible they might in the future.

“Yes, Mr Smithers, of course I know how to use a gun.” Alex rolled his eyes sarcastically, “It’s pretty hard to be a spy and not, at one point or another, learn at the very least the basics of how to use a gun, Smithers.”

Already, Zara could tell that Alex still acted very much like any other teenager, at least most of the time, when his eyes weren’t dead, looking years older than the rest of him . He seemed like he might be a nice kid, relatively smart, mature, funny, the sort of things that they looked for in their agents. Although Zara thought he might be hiding something, she had, after all, noticed the slight tensing of his shoulders when Mr Smithers had mentioned his training on how to use a gun. He didn’t seem like he was tense because he was a bad shot, or as if he was lying entirely, more as if it had brought back bad memories. Perhaps she might be able to find out, of course she wouldn’t push him or anything but she couldn’t help being curious.

Smithers chuckled a bit at Alex’s remark, glad to see the boy still hadn’t lost his spark, even if at certain points it had faded until it was almost gone. He packed all of the ‘Gadgets’ back into the briefcase and handed Alex the Berretta 92FS Inox. Ben Daniels took the case and Alex gave him a glare that definitely meant ‘What? Do you not trust me to carry a case with high tech gadgets inside, some of which explode, even though you know I wouldn’t do anything bad with them’ and Daniels simply gave him a look of his own that showed that he knew that wasn’t entirely true and that he had definitely heard the rumours about ‘a pyromaniac of a teenager’ who ‘loves blowing up everything he sees’. Alex gave him one final glare before giving up, it’s not as if he genuinely wanted to have to carry a huge briefcase all the way to his house anyway.

Alex turned towards the CHERUBS, he still didn’t really seem to like the idea of having to do a mission with a group of teenagers, despite being one himself.

“Well, come on then, I imagine MI6 will have a car waiting for us, if you came by car you can probably pick it up tomorrow or something. We should really go soon so you can unpack and we can set up the beds.”

They all shuffled out of the room, following Alex’s lead down the corridor and into the elevator. It was a bit crowded with all ten of them in there but luckily the lift was larger than most. They got a few weird looks from other staff when they reached the car park, the MI6 operatives were confused as to why there was a group of around ten children walking through MI6’s private car park and towards a large black van with a driver waiting at the door.

The driver’s suit was just as bland and grey as all the other people who work at the Royal & General’s are. He looked bored, as if he didn’t want to be there (which was most likely true) and he paid barely any attention to the people getting in to the van other than one questioning look at Ben. The drive was spent in silence, luckily Alex’s house wasn’t that far from the bank, and nobody really felt the need to speak. Everyone was just trying to have a moment to think, the CHERUBS had been stunned after seeing Alex arguing with Mrs Jones. It had been even more confusing when only minutes later he had been making jokes and laughing with them, none of them were entirely sure what to think. Lauren and Kerry both thought that maybe the boy wasn’t so bad but the Rat, James and Bruce were convinced that Alex was just a show off.

Chapter Text

The black van pulled up outside of a large house in Chelsea London, they were only around twenty minutes from Stamford Bridge and you could just about see parts of the stadium. Alex’s house was one of the largest on his street. It had two floors, the first floor windows overlooking the street below. The ornate windows looking like something from a fairytale. The building had a small garden out front with two small bushes of hydrangeas, their colours blending perfectly with the off-white colour of the house. It seemed that perhaps someone who liked gardening lived there, considering the sheer amount of plants surrounding the house, there was even a vine with roses covering parts of door frame.

Alex walked up to the front door with everyone else following him, unlocking it with his key before shouting at someone.

“Jack, I’m back! We have some guests too.”

Someone came peaked through the hall from what was probably the kitchen if the smell of curry drifting in from the room was anything to go by. The person who must have been Jack walked over to them and the CHERUBS were surprised to see that it was actually a woman despite her name being Jack.

“Oh, hey Alex. I thought you said you were going to the bank? Are these guys from your class or something?”

“No they aren’t from my class and yes I did go to the bank, I’ll explain everything during lunch. They need to put their things away first and we need to set up some more beds. They’re going to sleep here only for one night though.” Alex replied, showing everyone in to the living room.

“Ben? You’re here too?” Jack questioned the man, after the whole thing with nightshade her and Alex had gotten closer to him. He came around for dinner once or twice and him and Alex exchanged stories (or at least as much as they could without going against the officials secrets act) over food.

“Yeah, ummm it’s an MI6 thing, like Alex said we can explain more whilst we eat.”

“Okay.”

Jack already had a bad feeling about this, Alex had seemed slightly irritated before and something MI6 related was never good news. She just hoped it wasn’t anything too bad, maybe they had assigned Alex and Ben to protect these kids or something like that. Even just thinking about it she knew it wasn’t true, Alex was probably going to be shipped off somewhere in a few days, maybe even tomorrow. It made her feel physically sick thinking about it, about how she could do nothing to stop it from happening.

Daniels and the CHERUBS put their bags down on the floor the teens were observing the room. It was quite large, with expensive furniture and decorative items scattered around the room in a way that made it feel even bigger than it truly was. There were few photos on the shelves although there were some empty spaces, it looked as if the pictures had been removed recently, hidden away somewhere. The house seemed as if it belonged to someone moderately wealthy, certainly not anyone who would be worrying about money. Kyle thought that perhaps it was because Alex’s parents had money and that he was used to being the centre of attention that he had been a bit rude before. It would make sense and he said as much to James in a hushed voice, making sure Alex couldn’t hear him.

Lauren was right next to them though and so she whispered, ”Sounds a bit like someone I know,” giving James a pointed look. Her brother rolled his eyes in response, he wasn’t that annoying.

Jack looked at everyone, then at the kitchen and then back at all the people, she let out an exasperated sigh. There no where near enough food for everyone so she would have to get takeout.

“I’m going to order takeout for everyone, what do you all want?” She questioned.

“What are the options, miss?” Kyle asked trying and failing to sound as polite as Kerry.

“Well there’s a nice Indian restaurant, Chinese or the Italian place a few blocks down does takeaway. Let me get the menus, we should still have them from the last few times we ordered food. I should probably switch the stove off or else the curry will burn.”

Hurrying a bit now, Jack went in to the kitchen to make sure the curry wouldn’t be ruined and then started rummaging through the kitchen cupboards in search of different menus. The CHERUBS had started quietly talking to each other about Alex, sharing their opinions about the boy. Even Zara and Ewart had begun talking to each other about the situation, when Mrs Jones had said that the MI6 agent might not like their CHERUBS because they were children they hadn’t really expected said agent to be a child themselves. They weren’t entirely sure what to think about the situation, he was probably good at his job if he worked for MI6 Special Operations and would most likely be able to keep up with the CHERUBS though they would make sure to push him to his limits to help him improve.

“Soo, is Jack your mum? Honestly I’m a bit surprised your parents are letting you be a spy, especially for MI6, I heard their working conditions aren’t as good as MI5’s. Where is your dad? Wait, is he a spy too?! Oh my god that would actually make so much sense, are you like part of a ‘Spy Family’ or something?” Kerry spoke rapidly, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“Oh, maybe you shouldn’t-“ Ben started but Alex answered the questions before he could complete his sentence.

“No, Jack isn’t my mum, she’s my guardian, she’s sort of like an older sister to me. Also my parents didn’t let me be a spy, they’re dead soo it’s a bit hard for them to make that kind of decision for me.”

The room fell in to an awkward silence, that wasn’t exactly expected. Seems like that happens a lot with this kid, the unexpected that is. Kerry felt so stupid, how could she have been so insensitive? Literally every single CHERUB is an orphan and yet she didn’t think of the possibility that Alex was one. Some of the children started fidgeting and Alex suddenly realised why they were all so much more tense. He quickly began trying to assure Kerry that she hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Wait, no, no it’s fine you didn’t know. Don’t worry about it, I mean they died when I was a baby anyways so I never actually knew them, so it’s okay really.” Alex was starting to go red with embarrassment, he wasn’t even sure why. He guessed it was just because it was a bit of a complicated topic.

Kerry felt slightly better knowing that Alex hadn’t ever actually met his parents but she still felt terrible about it so she apologised, “Are you sure? I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said any of that!”

“Don’t worry it’s fine seriously.”

Luckily for Kerry, Jack came back at that exact moment with a small handful of papers. She placed all of the menus on the table and everyone began looking through them deciding what they would get. Jack had managed to find the menu for a burger place too and so James, Kyle and Rat all ordered burgers. Lauren and Dana got vegetable noodles whilst Kerry chose chicken tandoori. Alex and Ben decided to share a large pizza, they argued over whether or not they should put anchovies on the pizza before they eventually decided that one half would have them on and the other wouldn’t. There was enough of Jack’s curry for three people so the Asker’s and Jack agreed to just eat that.

Whilst waiting for the food everyone began introducing themselves and telling everyone a bit about each other, James was mainly just showing off, Kerry was acting like the perfect child whilst she talked with Jack. Alex and Kyle were standing in a corner, not saying a word other than when one of them randomly decided to try and have small talk. Eventually Kyle moved over to James to speak with him since he hadn’t seen him in a while. Nobody really noticed Alex’s presence, his silence causing them to forget he was actually there. Alex however was entirely aware of the people around him, he had listened to each of their conversations trying to better understand what each person was like. He had already decided he wasn’t a huge fan of James, he thought his sister was more sensible despite being younger. He thought Kyle was nice too, he seemed like he preferred to listen instead of talk. Alex decided that Bruce was the type of person who would fight anyone who challenged him, he had a good build and his hands were rough from what was presumably past fights. Alex knew immediately that Rat was a logical thinker and that when he was older and more mature he would be perfect for the world of espionage. Kerry was easy to read, she always tried to impress figures of authority and refused to break rules. Alex had a feeling though that if someone got on her bad side that she would go all out to make them regret it.

As Alex surveyed the room a second time, the doorbell rang so he walked over to collect the food. Jack helped him carry one of the bags back in to the living room and everyone took out their food. Once all the food from each restaurant had arrived, Jack dished out her curry and the people began to eat.

“So, you said you would explain over lunch.” Jack stated giving Alex a pointed look.

“Maybe after, I mean everyone is eating,” Alex chewed on another mouthful of food to prove his point,”Also, don’t you normally say not to talk with your mouth full?”

“Alex. Stop trying to avoid the conversation and I’m sure we can make this an exception to the rule.”

“Jack.” Alex whined.

She gave Alex a small glare and Alex knew she wasn’t about to give up. He also knew that they had made a promise not to keep things from each other after everything and that he would have to have this conversation eventually so he might as well do it now.

“Well the CHERUBS already told you that they work for MI5, right? Ummm.. so basically I’m gonna work with them to help find out some information about this terrorist organisation-“

“Which terrorist organisation?” Jack demanded, Alex had really hoped she wouldn’t notice the fact that he didn’t mention their name.

“Well, that isn’t really important..”

“Alex, which organisation? We said that we wouldn’t ever hide things from each other, you know after.. Cairo.”

“That’s the thing, it- it’s SCORPIA. They’re back.”

“…”

That was the last thing Jack had expected, to hear those words. SCORPIA was supposed to have been destroyed, gone and no longer something they had to worry about. These people had tortured Alex, tried to kill him, kidnapped him and even kidnapped her. She couldn’t possibly allow Alex to go, she knew that he would want them gone permanently and that he would fight her. He would argue that they might eventually come after them and that then they would either have to run or fight, but she would still try to convince him. Maybe she could do it, hopefully she could do it.

“I know what you’re thinking Jack, I don’t want to go either, but I have to. They’ll find us eventually and then they will..” Alex paused looking at everyone else in the room, “They did everything they could to get to me before and I doubt that has changed now, I can’t just sit here and allow you and Tom and Sabina, pretty much anyone I care about to get hurt by them. I can’t let them do that, Jack. Please.”

“They might not come after us, Alex. You’re presuming they will but they might not.” She knew it was useless though, he had made up his mind and unfortunately he was probably right.

Alex could see she had given up trying to stop him, he felt bad about making her worry but he had always been pulled towards danger and he didn’t want SCORPIA or this Help Earth group to hurt anyone.

Ben and Alex explained more about their mission and Zara told them all more about Help Earth. She shared some of the information that MI5 had collected over the years with them, though at first she was hesitant to say anything with Jack in the room. Alex had assured her that Jack wasn’t a security risk.

Jack had looked quite concerned the whole time, most likely still worried about Alex. It had all happened so fast, one minute they had been putting away their shopping and the next Alex was being called by the bank and he was leaving the next day to try and hunt down a terrorist organisation. Jack had been fuming when she found out they had given him only one day before they would take him for further training. She had hoped that they would at least have some time before Alex would leave for what could quite possibly be months. She figured she should at least be grateful that they had waited until after his GCSE’s and that at least it was during the summer holiday rather than them pulling him out of school again.

Once everyone had finished eating, Zara helped Jack wash the dishes and tidy up the table. The children helped a bit too but none of them really wanted to, most of them were exhausted from waking up early and then the journey by car. Ewart had decided that it would be best if everyone went to bed early, around 8:30, since they would have to get up early again tomorrow and then they would have two weeks of training with far less sleep than normal. Nobody had argued with this, most of them had even had the same idea. They all agreed to set the beds up after putting the dishes away.

“Okay we have two spare rooms, the first one is upstairs to the left,”Ian’s room, and the second is just next to it. Someone can use the sofa, a couple of people can stay in my room, we should have a spare mattress and sleeping bags somewhere.”

“Okay who’s sharing a room with who?” Zara asked, “Kyle you can sleep here on the sofa, if you want.”

Bruce and James groaned, they had obviously been hoping to be able to have a room for themselves.

“Sure.” Kyle gave them both a smug smile.

“Me and Ewart will take one of the spare rooms. Who is going to stay in Alex’s room? Bruce? James? Rat?”

Bruce immediately shook his head, which meant James and Rat would stay in Alex’s room. James looked completely miserable, how come he had to stay in that brat’s room. He was definitely going to get his revenge on Bruce soon.

Chapter Text

The next two hours passed by quickly enough with Lauren, Kerry and Rat playing a few games of monopoly, Kyle, Bruce, Alex and James playing different video games and the adults just making small talk. Ewart asked if they wanted to all do something together, since they were supposed to be trying to get closer with each other to feel more comfortable around one another. They decided to play Charades, they would go in to two groups, they chose names out of a hat so the groups would be random. The teams were like this:
Group 1 = Alex-Bruce-Lauren-Ewart-Kyle
Group 2 = Kerry-Rat-James-Zara-Jack

Unfortunately Ewart hadn’t quite anticipated just how competitive the game could get, despite it being an attempt to get them all to work together. The game started off like any other would, one team (Group 1) chose a card and Alex acted it out. Their team only had one and a half minutes to try and guess what the card was, if they were able to guess the card in time they would earn a point, the team with the most points after five rounds would be deemed the winner. Both groups gained 1 Point the first and second round, it was during the third round that it started getting really competitive.

It was Lauren’s turn to act something out, since they were doing movies the piece of red card that she got from the stack said Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. After miming out to her group how many words were in the title, that the third word was ‘and’ plus that the fourth word was ‘the’, she decided it would be best to make them guess the word Chocolate next. Immediately her first thought was that she should just pretend to eat chocolate, so she did exactly that. Unfortunately people can’t read minds and so nobody could tell that it was chocolate she was supposed to be eating.

“What’s that supposed to mean? That you’re eating something, cause guess what people eat in like every movie in existence.” Bruce commented, frustrated from his lack of ideas.

“Wait so the title goes _____, ________, and the, some sort of food or maybe eating and then, _______ again?” Ewart muttered under his breath, “What on Earth is that supposed to be?”

“WHAT ARE YOU EATING?!?!”

They were quickly running out of time so Lauren started acting out factory instead, unfortunately she forgot to sign to the group that she had moved on to the next word. As her team became more and more confused the sound of a timer going off rang out through the room, they all groaned in defeat, feeling dejected at the thought that they hadn’t been able to score a point.

Lauren walked back over to the sofa, giving them all a pointed look before muttering under her breath which movie it was, most of her group were pretty annoyed at not having gained a point. Bruce seemed to think that it was somehow Lauren’s fault, though she wasn’t about to agree because it most certainly was not!

James had just picked out a card from the deck, he walked to the front of the room after glancing at it. Hopefully it shouldn’t be too hard to mime, after all they were doing movies and he got Jaws. Who doesn’t know the movie Jaws?

The round barely lasted 30 seconds before Jack shouted out the answer, all of group 1 was groaning in frustration. They somehow managed to get one of the hardest things to do in the same round as the other group got the easiest. It wasn’t in any way fair, at least that’s what Alex and Bruce thought.

“Oh come on, that’s not fair!” The two boys chorused.

“Yeah well neither is life.” James replied, sticking his tongue out to tease them.

“But you got the easiest title ever!” Bruce spat back.

“Yeah and then I had to do the incredibly hard job of acting out an entire word. You’ll never be able to understand the struggle.” He turned his head away with an exaggerated humph.

James really liked annoying Alex, he had already decided that there was absolutely no way he was ever going to so much as consider being nice to that rich prick. Never for the rest of his life.

The game quickly evolved into some sort of seemingly high risk competition after that, despite there only being two rounds left. Group 1 managed to overtake Group 2 on the last round although some might claim that there was cheating involved even if they aren’t quite sure of how yet.

Everybody dispersed and went back to doing random things and talking with different people. Somehow a conversation about which types Haribo were the best ended up dragging 4 people over on to the chairs around the dining table. Ewart and Zara naturally formed a pair and were doing whatever it was they had decided to do. James and Bruce were still arguing over the Game of Charades, with both of them insisting the other had cheated. This of course left Alex and Kyle.

Their conversation had started off as just normal small talk, mostly just so as not to be left in an awkward silence. It had however become more of a sharing of experiences, they were the two oldest out of the teens and therefore slightly more mature. Kyle especially, since his days working for MI5 had supposedly ended not too long ago and he’d started living his life as a mostly normal person. What he’d done and seen couldn’t be erased though, same went for Alex. Now, obviously they weren’t about to start telling each other all of their secrets and every traumatising event they’d ever been through, but instead they were just talking about things like; the dumbest henchmen they’d ever met; the longest villain monologue they’d ever had to listen to or how they had taken down different people in combat. It was nice to have someone to talk to about this kind of stuff after not really having anyone to talk with for so long.

Alex knew that Tom, Sabina and Jack didn’t completely understand what it was like, in a way he hoped they would never have to, but it was slowly burning him from the inside. Burning him and suffocating him as the smoke slowly built up inside his lungs and the flames stung his core. He needed someone to talk to, but there wasn’t really anyone he could talk with.

For Kyle it was slightly more a matter of not feeling comfortable talking with anyone about his past. Of course, he couldn’t tell anyone in his university since it was all classified and James, Bruce, Kerry and all the others still saw this as a bit of a game. None of them really took it too seriously, that’s not to say that they were always irresponsible but they just didn’t quite understand. Alex did though, whatever had happened in his past had made given him a far greater understanding of life. It worried him a bit, a normal 16 year old doesn’t have the same look in his eyes that Alex does, a normal 16 year old doesn’t flinch away from loud noises.

They don’t look away and lose themselves to somewhere far away when you ask them if they’ve ever killed someone.

Alex does though.

Chapter Text

Hi, first of all no, this isn’t me abandoning this fic. I will be continuing to write it. Sorry I haven’t updated in a pretty long time however I will start updating regularly now.

The next chapter is almost finished and I hope to have it done by the end of the week so you can expect that soon. I’ve also finally gotten around to writing a chapter plan for the next couple of chapters too.

However I also want to say that this fanfic is mostly written as something fun to do for myself. I’ll try to make sure I finish this fic though, instead of just leaving it on a random chapter.

Once again I’m really sorry that I haven’t updated in so long.

P.S. The next chapter will have angst… a lot of it. So be warned.