#kmstarter

Holly needed an actual partner. Shit. She should have just asked. Holly would fight herself, if she could. And yet, she finds herself in the training room, barefoot, with no one but a marksman dummy molded from ballistics gel. Jogging over to the stereo, Holly turns the music up - it’s an odd mix between classical and trap music. The music helped her focus and stay energized at the same time. The thunder stomps even louder, and Holly turns up the bass, returning to her practice.

Step. Step. Lunge. A good 4 inches. Holly withdraws her blade. Step. Step. Lunge. A decent 6, but her arms were flimsy. Step. Step.

The power goes out. Shit.

Holly drops her blade and curses, quickly getting on her hands and knees and feeling along the floor for where it might be. Holly cries out as her hand grazes the sharp, needle edges of the weapon, and the blood that streams is warm. She breathes through her teeth, fighting the tears that were coming on, trying to gauge the damage that had been done in the dark, but her eyes had yet to adjust.

Ella was pushing herself more and more into her training. So much so that she hardly interacted with anyone anymore. A fire had started in her. She didn’t like being ignored by her mentor and it made her blood boil. She decided to take her anger and use it constructively. Tonight, it meant doing laps in the indoor pool. Her arms had already started aching but she felt powerful as she ripped through the water like a shark. 

She had lost count of how many laps she had done when suddenly the lights went out. She flinched and instantly stopped swimming, pulling her head up and looking around in the darkness. All she could hear was the water and her own heavy breathing. “Hello?” she called out. But no one responded. She swam slowly back to the edge where she knew she left her towel. She kept her arms stretched out, not sure when she’d hit the edge until she did. She blindly pulled herself out of the water and felt around on the ground till she found her towel. She dried herself off and blinked a few times, trying to adjust to the dark, and wrapped her towel around her. 

It’s been raining cats and dogs… or even elephants and rhinos. Henry was quite sure that London hadn’t seen this kind of storm in months or years.

Getting off the cab he ran towards the entrance to his block of flat. Opening the door he felt water dripping from his hair. It was impossible to make the short distance and stay dry. His coat was considerably heavier, so he took it off while going up in elevator. Something struck him; he hasn’t noticed his phone giving any signals of life since he’d caught the cab under the Buckingham Palace. Taking it out of inside pocket he was hoping that he just missed a message or ten.

His phone was quiet. Silenced as if there was nothing going on, as if the world stopped, as for example, the radio transmitters refused to work. Something was wrong, Windsor felt it in the air. When the elevator stopped, he immediately got off and went up to the windows to see the unpleasant dark clouds approaching from the North. He knew what was coming; before a thought could form in his mind, he reached the door of his flat and rushed inside, taking off all the wet clothes. After putting the kettle on, he changed into sweats and ran to his home command centre to try  reaching the HQ. Simple signal gave no return, so he tried knock harder. The servers were offline, whole database cloud was out of reach. Even if he started shooting missiles he would get no response.

Making a tea he checked the timestamp of the last message he’d gotten from the Frenchman; recently they just talked 24/7. Basically everything was the topic of their conversation from weather to clothes through comics and technology. Last thing they spoke about was that damn Ascot Royal Horse Race and tailoring the suits; Henry even sent the reply, but its status said ‘undelivered’ for the past hour. It’s never taken Calr so much time to reply.

The prince started feeling uneasy about this. Going back with a cup of tea to his centre he thought of checking the weather report; since the storm was coming to London, it could quite possibly hit hard the North where was the HQ.

The maps told him no more, no less - the storm was dangerous and taking a hit could cause some serious damage. He was quite sure Kingsman HQ had emergency power supply. So what was going on?

Henry tangled arms on his chest and looked at the central screen blankly. They should’ve been up by now. If they weren’t… that means it was some kind of attack or major system failure, but he would know that. That couldn’t be just the weather, however awful it was.

Alex was reading his book by his lonesome on his bed in the infirmary. Things have gotten much better for him in the past few days. The pain started to subside. He was able to sit up on his own. His ribs feel like they’ve recovered for the most part but he still had to take it easy. The sling around his arms was gone. And his cast was getting removed in a few days. He was grateful. He couldn’t bear just lying down here doing nothing.

And then it happened. Alex’s quiet time of reading was interrupted by a power outage that sent the room into darkness. He reached for his cellphone at the bedside table and illuminated his surroundings with the phone’s light. He couldn’t press the intercomm button because, obviously, that wouldn’t work. He sighed. Couldn’t this have happened when he was out of the infirmary?

After a few minutes of sitting in darkness, Alex realized that something was wrong. Why didn’t the generators start? Sure, he knew there was a huge storm outside, but he knew it wasn’t enough to cripple the electricity indefinitely. 

Something was definitely wrong.

Alex swung his legs out of the bed and reached for the crutches that were given to him a few days ago. Using his phone to light the way, he hobbled out of the infirmary.

[ dancing around Buck’s halls to I Really Like You by Carly Rae Jepsen with a bunch of Corgis following him like it’s no big deal ]

So, the queen mother tells me I absolutely have to invite someone to ascot horse race because I can’t show up solo another year. Soooooo, anyone? Free champagne and food. You wouldn’t even have to share bed with me, I promise.