Disclaimer: I don't own anything you may recognise. This applies to the entire fic.

Chapter 1

The man stared down at the city of London. A haze of cloudy mist hung over the roads and buildings as the city awoke. The sun peeked over the skyscrapers in the distance reflecting off the many windows staring back at the man. A couple of hundred meters away the grey glitter of the Thames stood out amongst the black roads. Below him, the man could see the people of the city awakening. Multi-coloured blobs moved lazily about and the tiny specks of those hurrying to work were just visible. The city of London was awakening. The man smiled. A few more days of peace. A few more awakenings. Then it would be time…

The pole wobbled as Paulo hauled himself onto it. The platform was just narrow enough for him to reach and clutch the other side of it. Once he had, he lifted his leg up so his knee was on the platform and pushed downwards with his other foot. He managed to bring his other leg onto the platform, and stopped, letting the pole come to a stop before moving forwards and slowly standing up. It was hard when you were that high up, Paulo thought staring down at the green, brown earth all that way below him. Usually Paulo was ok with heights, but this was a bit different. Once he was stood up, Paulo outstretched his arms and then tentatively peered down to where his friends were stood. He could see the red blob of Amber's helmet down below.

"Ok Amber. You can come up now"

The five members of Alpha Force were on an outdoors pursuits course in the north of England. The holiday had been arranged by Alex, and so far the five teenagers had already experienced archery, canoeing, abseiling, horse riding and a zip line to name a few. Now they were tackling the high ropes.

The task the instructors had set them hadn't sounded too hard initially: Four of them had to climb up a pole and get on the platform at the top. They then had to hold hands, leaning off the platform and drop. Paulo was finding that it was a lot harder in practice. Out of the five of them Li had volunteered to sit the activity out. Knowing scaling the pole would be easier for her then her friends, she had instead opted to go up on her own afterwards, preferring to watch the other four struggle.

Paulo felt the pole start to wobble dramatically as Amber began to climb up it. He spread out his feet to balance the weight and grabbed the short rope that was attached to the platform. From the ground he could hear Hex and Alex shouting encouragement to Amber as she neared the platform. Paulo grinned; this was going to be interesting…

As Amber reached the top of the pole she craned her neck back. She could see Paulo's boots on the platform, and his hand clutching the rope. It hadn't been nice scaling the pole; it kept feeling as if her grip wouldn't be enough to keep her on. She knew that she was safely harnessed up, and trusted the instructor belaying her rope completely, but it still freaked her out having to trust completely to her grip on the wooden blocks attached to the pole.

"Come on Amber" Paulo said from above her "Take my hand".

Amber reached up and grasped Paulo's hand. It felt a little better to feel Paulo's hand strongly gripping hers. Slowly, with Paulo's help, Amber managed to hoist herself onto all fours on the platform. She was about to attempt standing up when she heard Paulo's voice from above her head.

"Amber, whatever you do. Do not raise your head". Amber frowned.

"What?" she asked, still staring at the wood of the platform "Why?" she tilted her head sideways without lifting it and stared upwards.

"Oh" she said bluntly "Sorry". Slowly she moved her head out from between Paulo's legs and lifted it. Paulo grabbed her arm and Amber slowly managed to lift herself up.

"Woah" she said staring around her "This is high" she caught Paulo grinning and smiled back. As Paulo called down for Hex to join them Amber looked downwards. There was barely any room left on the platform for Hex to stand on, let alone Alex.

"Paulo?" she asked tentatively "How's this going to work?"

Hex pulled himself onto the small space left on the platform. Managing to look up he couldn't help but smile. Paulo was still stood holding onto the rope, and Amber was gripping Paulo's arm, her heels off the side of the platform.

"Nice of you to join us" she said, a slight edge of nervousness in her voice. Hex just laughed quietly as he took Paulo's offered arm and started to stand up. Amber held her arm up too and after grabbing that, Hex managed to pull himself to his feet.

Slowly, he backed himself into the same position Amber was on Paulo's other side. Amber, obviously eyeing the very limited space left rolled her eyes.

"Wonderful" she muttered "What we going to do now?"

From the ground, Alex stared up at Hex as he clambered onto the platform. Behind him, Li was sat leaning back on her hands watching her friends intently with an amused look on her face. Alex caught her expression.

"Bet you're dying to get up there aren't you?" he asked grinning. Li switched her gaze to him and jerked her eyebrows up mischievously.

"I am looking forward to it, but not as much as I am to seeing how you're going to get onto that platform". Alex raised his own eyebrows apprehensively and looked up to his three friends thirty feet above him.

As he walked to the base of the platform and prepared to start climbing it in response to Amber's yell he swept a last glance at Li.

"I'm sure we'll manage. Just you watch".

Amber shifted her weight to both of her feet and leant forward into Paulo as Alex's head appeared from below the platform.

"Hello" quipped Hex who seemed to be literally centimetres in front of her taking up most of the remaining space and enjoying the activity immensely.

"Yeah hi Alex" she said sweetly "You know I don't think you're going to fit, you're going to have to go down" Alex knew she was joking and just grinned at her.

"We can do this Amber," he said confidently taking Hex's offered arm. Amber smiled back at him as she shakily let go of Paulo's arm with one of her hands and offered it to Alex.

"Don't cha just know it" she laughed.

Very slowly Hex and Amber, combined with Alex pulling himself up, managed to get Alex onto the remaining space on the platform. As he straightened up the pole wobbled significantly and Amber yelped in surprise.

"Ok then," said Hex from behind Paulo and Alex "Let's do this".

Amber fumbled around with her right hand till she found Alex's left. Then she slipped her left hand down till it met Paulo's hands. Once they had determined that they all had hold of each other's hands Alpha Force began gradually edging backwards. Once they were all facing each other in a small circle, their heels off the edge of the platform Amber grinned across at the boys and nodded, they all nodded back in reply as Amber shouted down to her friend on the ground.

"Ready to see something really brilliant Li?"

On the ground Li watched as the four members of Alpha Force slowly leaned back until the only thing keeping them on the platform were each other and the circle they had formed. It was a pretty amazing sight, and Li felt slightly put out she wasn't up there herself.

"Ready?" she yelled. Then, after a countdown of three, the four friends let go. The four of them fell back, and, supported by the harnesses slowly began to descend. Li smiled at the different ways her four friends had reacted to the stomach-rushing fall. Alex and Hex had both stayed silent, Paulo had laughed out loud and Amber had whooped.

When they reached the ground Amber turned to Li her eyes lit up.

"That was incredible!" Li smiled at her friend's reaction and sent similar grins to the boys as they unclipped the ropes from their harnesses and wandered over to her. She could see the excitement on all their faces.

Hex walked up back to Li still feeling the adrenaline of excitement that had flooded through him when he'd dropped from the platform. In front of him, Li had grabbed Paulo's still swinging rope and was already attaching it to her own harness. She grinned wickedly up at the rest of Alpha Force.

"Ready to see how it's really done?"