Fire [Alex Rider]

Julius fanfiction again.

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It was a remarkable sight, to see sixteen boys lying on their stomachs, eyes screwed up in deep concentration, aiming their sniper guns at a red and white target. It would have been less remarkable if these boys did not move as one, think as one, look as one and act as one. In their eyes—and in the eyes of their father—they were one.

The same one. They were all Hugo Grief, carbon copied sixteen times.

Sixteen shots ran out simultaneously, cracking the air like a whip of electricity. Fifteen bullets hit the bullseye of the target. The last bullet hit half an inch to the right.

“Adolf!” barked a man who was standing to the side, watching with cold, dark eyes. Even from his position on the opposite side of the field, he could tell that the bullet had missed its mark.

“I know you have joined us later than your brothers,” Hugo Grief said icily, “but that does not mean you will be exempt from punishment. I expect you to be at whatever level everyone else is, even if it means training more in your spare time. Do you understand?”

“Yes, father,” said Adolf Grief.

Hugo strode over to his son and, raising his cane, brought it down three times onto his back. Adolf winced, but bit his tongue and made no sound.

“Again!” Hugo shouted. He walked back to his place on the sidelines, watching as another sixteen bullets shot out from the guns. This time, all sixteen hit their mark. They reloaded simultaneously, they all aimed at the same time, and their hands pressed the trigger with the same motion. Except one.

One of the boys had missed the invisible cue, had fired it a millisecond after all his brothers. Hugo noticed, and scowled.

“You fired late, Julius.”

Julius Grief looked up at his father and bit his lip. “I’m sorry, father. I was distracted.”

“I do not want you to be distracted!” Hugo snapped. “In an assassination, distraction means failure. Fire at the time you planned, no matter what happens. If someone shouts, fire anyway. If someone enters the room, fire anyway. If someone points a gun at your head, fire the damn bullet!”

Julius nodded, and remembered those words until the day he didn’t heed them.

He received three strokes of the cane, gasping in pain but refusing to make another sound. He and his brothers reloaded once more, and fired, and this time they were perfect. Like they should be.

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“We all know which country I’m referring to...”

Britain! Britain! Say the word, woman! Say it!

There were no distractions this time. He was completely focused, his body filled with adrenaline, his fingers shaking as he waited for that fateful word.

Then someone shouted, and entered the room, and pointed a gun at him.

Everything he had ever learnt was thrown out the window at the most crucial time. Julius swung around. He fired, missed, reloaded, and then aimed once more, ready to kill the person who had ruined his life.

I’m sorry, father. Revenge is too sweet.