I'm really sorry. Life has been so busy. I will try to update more regularly, but I cannot promise anything. I will never give up on this fic, although the gaps between updates may be very long. Sorry again.

The teenager turned around to stare at Wolf. "RTI?"

Wolf looked at Cub with a weird expression on his face.

"What to you mean?" demanded the teenager.

Wolf glanced at Eagle, looking for support. What was he meant to do? The brat clearly didn't know anything about the situation, but why should he tell him anything? Maybe it would be good for Cub to experience a scare for once. But no, Wolf couldn't do that. Even he, the toughened SAS soldier, got scared sometimes in RTI. Not that he would ever tell anyone that.

"RTI - it's a bit like preparation..." Eagle started.

Wolf was annoyed. What was the man doing? Cub didn't need that much of a sugar-coating. He glared at Eagle. "RTI stands for resistance to torture. If you can't work it out from there, then there's no hope." Wolf spat.

"Wait..." Cub looked deep in thought. Wolf could almost hear the cogs whirring. "... so all of this isn't for real?" Without looking for confirmation Cub slid to the ground, the relief evident in his face. Wolf stared in astonishment. Did that brat think this was going to be a walk in the park, because it wasn't 'for real?' Surely he wasn't so stupid to think that he would get out of this uninjured because he was 'only a kid.'

Eagle took pity on Cub. "Do you understand what that means?" He said quietly.

The teenager looked up at the men, with an expression on his face as if to say 'how stupid do you think I am?' "Yes," he replied slowly, "Unless there's something you're not telling me."

Looking down at the floor, Eagle felt as if it was his duty to inform this poor kid what he was going to be subjected to in the near future. He obviously still didn't get it. "RTI, it's not exactly nice. They try to prepare us for if this event actually happens in real life, you see.

"In real life people don't go easy on you if they think that you're withholding information. I'm afraid that they try to replicate this in our training, so that soldiers like us have techniques and experiences to fall back on if we ever are captured. Not that you'd ever have to worry about that I suppose."

Cub made a weird humming noise at the last comment, but other than that Eagle thought that he'd done his part in keeping the teenager informed.

Wolf on the other hand had other ideas. "This is a serious matter," he stated forcefully. "I don't know whether you will affect our record, but I'm not prepared to take the chance. Don't. Mess. Up."

Cub snorted, and muttered something under his breath.

"I didn't hear you," Wolf snapped.

"You didn't need to," replied Alex dismissively.

Wolf glared at him, but before anything else could be said, the door to their gloomy cell was opened with an ominous creaking noise. Alex lowered his head as a shadow fell over the room. The SAS men sat into silence.

"Who's going first?" A male voice asked gleefully. "We promise not to hurt you if you tell us what we want to know. Why not do it the easy way?"

Alex scoffed inside his head. This man held nothing when compared to some of the people that he'd met before. He knew that RTI was probably going to be much easier than what he had endured at the hands of Scorpia, but really, this was just insulting.

"We're never going to give in." Wolf stated proudly.

"We'll see about that."

Alex could have groaned. This was not the way you deal with 'insane' men. In these situations, Alex usually employed his favourite tactic - play with their minds. It was a game that he was beginning to enjoy more and more when faced with idiots at school. After all, why waste all his Oscar-winning acting ability on just spying?

"Lets take the kid first," a second, deeper voice said, "I reckon he looks too confident for his own good."

"No!" Eagle protested, "Please don't."

Alex looked towards Eagle in disbelief. Who were these SAS men? Amateurs? The first rule in an interrogation situation - never let them know your weakness. And why was Eagle suddenly sticking up for him? The man had certainly changed his tune since their last conversation, or more accurately, confrontation. This was absolutely hopeless.

"Too bad," replied the first voice. Alex felt someone grab onto his arm a pull him off the ground. No way was he going to be dragged the entire way, wherever they were going.

"I can walk," Alex said quietly, and followed the men out of the cell, leaving the tense faces of two SAS men behind.

Soon after, Snake and Tiger woke up.

"Where's Cub?" Snake was the first to ask.

"He got taken," Eagle replied miserably.

"What?"

"I suspect he's being interrogated as we speak."

"They took a kid?"

"Yeah."

There was a short silence.

"This had better not go on our record," warned Wolf.

"What does our record matter?" Snake asked angrily. "There is quite possibly a young, defenceless, innocent child being tortured right now, and you're worried about your precious bits of paper?"

"He's not that young," Wolf retorted, "How old do you think he is? He's got to be at least 22."

"He came on a school trip here."

"School trip? You must be having a laugh?"

"It's true," chimed in Tiger, "I saw him and a load of other kids getting off a minibus before we were called to the Sergeant's office."

"And you didn't think to tell me of this earlier," Wolf said scathingly.

"Well... I -" Tiger's excuses were cut off.

"I am the leader of this unit. Did you not think that this information just might be important?" Wolf turned on Snake. "And you? How did you know?"

"What does it matter?" Snake replied, "Would you have behaved any differently if you had known he was younger than you believed him to be?"

"Are you accusing me?"

Snake sighed. "No. I am just pointing out that Cub cannot realistically be any older than 16."

"16," Tiger echoed.

"Whoa," Eagle breathed, "To think he is this good... at 16."

"You're both missing the point," Snake replied, "Yes, Cub is only 16. But what do you think he must have been through to become like he is now?"

"Karate classes when he was younger?" Everyone knew that Tiger was trying to avoid the question.

"Not likely - Cub's better then us. What happened to him?"