Title: Stolen Innocence

Rating: T

Pairings: None as of yet.

Summary: AU – Eight year old Alex Rider was kidnapped from his home by the infamous Scorpia. Six years later, he's one of their best assassins in training and a well accomplished spy. Everything is now routine for Alex: the killing and the spying. But then Scorpia decide to send him on a assignment that will eventually lead back to old family ties. Can Alex do what he has to do to remain loyal? Or does family means more to him then his work?

Disclaimer: Of course I don't own Alex Rider. Thus the reason of the disclaimer!

Part I: Meet Alex

Chapter 1: Kidnapped

The doorbell went off for the fifth time in less than two minutes.

Eight year old Alex blocked his ears in frustration. He couldn't… wouldn't open the door because Ian had told him never to open the door to strangers when he was home alone, which seemed to happen quite a lot – staying at home alone that is.

Alex lived with his uncle, Ian Rider, and has done so for the past eight years of his life – his parents had died in a plane crash when he was less than a year old. Ian (as Alex had never been allowed to use the word 'uncle') was a very withdrawn person, he didn't talk much about himself yet he enjoyed taking Alex on vacations and teaching him new things – which Alex loved doing.

However, as much time Ian liked to spend with Alex, he seemed to spend an equal amount of time away on 'business trips' as he called them, but seemed to always come back with some strange injury such as a broken arm or various bruises on his body. Being only eight, Alex merely thought his uncle was an awfully clumsy man.

Alex's other caretaker was an American woman named Jack Starbright, she had recently moved in with them and was studying at one of the colleges in London. Ian had informed him that Jack was renting a room and would become Alex's more permanent babysitter, although Alex had insisted that she became his 'caretaker', he was too old to have a babysitter!

Anyway, Ian had taken off on another unexpected business trip and Jack was currently at school, studying. She had no time to organise someone else to look after him and so here he was, stuck at home with two strange men knocking on the front door.

Alex wasn't scared of the strangers, just annoyed that they wouldn't just give up and go away. He peered out the window again, as he was upstairs in his bedroom, and examined the navy-blue sedan parked outside on the driveway with interest. One thing that alerted Alex to the fact that the strangers were bad was that they didn't have a registration plate. Another thing was that the strangers were now pounding on the door yelling,

"Open the bloody door kid! We know you're in there."

Alex wasn't scared of the men; in fact he thought they were a little stupid pounding on the door like that. His next door neighbor, a cranky old woman named Mrs. White, didn't take well to noise and already the eight year old could imagine the strangers being chased by Mrs. White with a broom in her hands.

Giggling at the mental image, Alex looked around his room and found his cricket bat which Ian had recently bought for his birthday. Grabbing a cap from his cupboard, Alex ruffled his hair slightly before jamming the cap on his head. He then ran into the bathroom and used water to wet bits of his blonde hair so it looked like he had just been sweating.

Alex then hurried downstairs as quickly and quietly as he could, but there wasn't much point, the men were making so much noise that he could've stomped down the stairs and still not be heard.

By now, it sounded they were trying to barge the door down and Alex was left wondering why they wouldn't try and pick the lock like those people in the movies. Shrugging, he waited for a minute, secretly hoping that the strangers were going to go away, but that was unlikely because they seemed determined to come in. One that minute was up, he slammed the back door as hard as he could and ran towards the front, purposefully puffing to give the illusion he had just been running around.

With his bat in one hand and hidden behind the door, Alex opened the door a crack and stared innocently at the strangers with wide brown eyes,

"I'm sorry, but can you come back later?" He said sweetly, "My uncle's busy…"

The man standing on Alex's right did his best to put on a smile, but Alex could tell that it was forced, "Alex, don't you recognise me? It's Ash, your godfather."

Alex was surprised as the man, Ash, introduced himself as his godfather. A little thrown off, it took Alex a moment or two to regain his composure.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't really be talking to strangers…"

Alex moved to close the door, but Ash was quicker. The man quickly pushed the door open and Alex was forced to jump back to avoid being squashed against the wall.

"Go away!" Alex yelled, wielding his bat like a sword.

Ash smirked and took a step towards Alex, "I'm not going to hurt you, just put the bat down."

"No."

Ash frowned as Alex started backing away and took several steps to get closer to the boy. What he didn't expect next was Alex swinging the bat with all his strength and… hitting him directly in the groin. His face went white as he dropped to his knees in pain and Alex took another swing, whacking the man on the side of the head.

The other man was advancing, a big ugly scowl on his face. Alex quickly dropped the bat and ran into the kitchen. He looked around and spotted a canister of oven cleaner which Jack had used earlier before leaving the house.

Ian had always told him never to play with the oven cleaner because it contained something called sodium hydro-something that would burn his skin. Shrugging, he grabbed the canister and turned around as he heard the other man who had accompanied Ash enter the kitchen.

Alex immediately put the canister behind his back, staring at the man with wide eyes, "L-leave me alone." He whimpered, "P-Please."

The man's face twisted into an ugly sneer, "Too bad kid, you're coming with us."

"I don't want to." Alex whined, "I'm staying right here and you can't make me go."

"You don't have a choice." The man growled as he made a lunge for Alex.

Alex whipped out the oven cleaner and squirted the substance into the man's face. Alex winced as the foam started burning the man's skin as effectively as it dissolves grease in the oven.

Darting past the man's arms, Alex ran as fast as his legs could carry him towards the stairs. He scrambled up the stairs and tried to increase his speed as he heard the two men exchanging words. He presumed that Ash had recovered from his attack and was probably helping his companion get rid of the foamy oven cleaner.

Alex barged into Ian's room - which was usually off limits to him, but he was sure Ian would let him off the hook this time… after all, it was an emergency.

He grabbed the phone off its hook and began rapidly dialing the number that Ian had made him memorise in case of emergencies. Alex waited, and waited, but the dial tone just kept going on and on. He finally placed the phone back just as he heard the two men climbing the stairs and swiftly rolled under the bed. It wasn't a great hiding spot, but he was safe, for now.

"Where's that twerp gone?" The unknown man snarled.

"Check his room." Came Ash's reply.

"When I get my hands on him…"

"You will do no such thing or Rothman will have your head. Do not forget your orders."

Alex listened as their voices faded away, presumably because they had moved from the hallway and into one of the rooms, thankfully not Ian's. Alex slid out of his hiding place and crept quietly out of the room, poking his head out in the hallway to make sure the coast was clear before he slipped out of the room.

Alex started tiptoeing towards the stairs, eyeing his room warily in case one of the men decided to search a different room. That was the only disadvantage of having a room near the stairs – he had to make his way past it before he could go down the stairs.

Alex braced himself before he scurried past the entrance to his room, thankfully, the two men had been looking the other way and Alex wasted no time in climbing down the stairs, his bare feet barely made any noise as he descended.

As Alex reached the bottom of the stairs, he wondered whether he should go out the front door, or the back door. It took him a moment, but he decided that the back door would be the better option because he had quite a few good hiding places in the backyard. Happy with his decision, Alex began to make his way to the back door when he felt two strong arms grab his arms from behind.

Alex yelled in shock, he hadn't even heard the third person approach! He struggled furiously against his captor, but his captor was stronger and the grip on his arms tightened.

His captor, whom Alex figured out to be another man yelled something out in a foreign language and even though Alex couldn't figure out what the language was, he got the gist of what the man was saying.

"Let me go!" Alex yelled furiously at his captor, legs thrashing wildly.

The man replied with heavily accented English, "I don't think so." He sounded amused at Alex's attempts to get away, "I've got my orders."

Alex squirmed, and even tried biting the man's hands with little effect before Ash, who looked unusually pale, and the other man, whose face now resembled a bright red tomato, appeared with twin scowls on their faces.

"Hold him down." Ash said coldly, eyes flashing with anger. Of course, Alex wasn't too surprise at the look on his 'godfather's' face, he had hit him in the place where it would… hurt the most.

The other man moved to hold Alex's legs down, but Alex didn't give up easily. Ignoring the increasing pain in his arms, he flailed his legs, avoiding the tomato man's hands and almost landing a blow on the man's face.

After a minute, he finally managed to pin Alex's legs down as Ash pulled something sharp and pointy out of his pocket. A needle.

"Eep." He squeaked and tried to struggle again, eyes never leaving the sharp instrument. The one thing he hated the most in the world was needles, he had a particularly bad experience with them after coming down with a really bad cold and the mean doctors had continued taking blood tests. It had been terrible.

Ash smiled coldly, "I suggest you don't move, it'll hurt more if you do."

Alex closed his eyes, but did as he was told, for once. He shuddered once as the needle pricked his skin and almost immediately fell into a dreamless sleep.