Call Me Merlin

"There's been more cases of people falling into a comatose state. We have yet to find the reason and it's been over a year since it has started."

"What do we do? Is it even in our jurisdiction?"

"As of now Eggsy, not yet. But we are continuing to monitor the situation." Arthur says while looking through his files. There was a small beat of silence before he noticed Eggsy was still looking at him.

"Yes Eggsy?"

"Want to have dinner with me tonight?"

"Don't we eat dinner together every night?" Harry raised an eyebrow in question.

"Yeah but, like a date this time." Eggsy shrugs. "I mean, we've been so busy rebuilding Kingsman and doing missions that we... haven't done a date before."

"Well, we did skip through the initial stages of courtship and went directly to fucking." Harry said with a straight face and Eggsy's face heated up.

"Please Harry?" Eggsy gave him a pleading look, coupled with his puppy dog eyes and Harry was a goner.

"Alright." He agreed.

"Yes! Let's go." Eggsy stands up and walks around the large table to grab Harry's hand.

"Now?" Harry glanced at his papers.

"Yes, now. We're going to be late for the reservations if we don't leave now."

"Reservations? You planned this ahead of time." Harry said accusingly.

"Of course." Eggsy said with a smug smile as they leave the tailor shop and into a waiting Kingsman cab.

'No!'

Sirius is falling and Harry desperately tries to grab him, any part of him, but no matter how much he runs, he never gets any closer.

'Sirius! No!'

'Harry' Sirius mouths his name just as he slips through the veil. Harry's eyes widen as he lets out a heart-wrenching scream of anguish.

Someone holds him back just as he was about to lunge and follow his godfather through the veil.

Harry struggles against the arms holding him but the hands on his body just kept on multiplying, grabbing onto every part of him until only his eyes remained visible.

Harry gives another scream as he was completely covered and buried under the crushing weight of hundreds and hundreds of arms.

Then his body is suddenly engulfed in ice, it fills his open mouth and he chokes on the liquid as it enters his lungs. His mind is instantly awake as he scrambles to sit up from his bed. Coughing and choking on the water that he heaves over the side of his bed.

He barely hung on to his dinner as he coughs his lungs out. Harry could sense David standing up from his bed beside him and a shouting match ensues while Harry spat the last of the water out. Sausage walks over to his soaked lap and whines while licking his face.

"Why the fuck would you do that you dickhead?!" He hears someone, probably David, shout nearby.

"I told him I would get even! It's not my fault he was crying and moaning in his sleep about his boyfriend! I couldn't fucking sleep."

"Stourton, grow up. You're twenty-seven for fucks sake." Harry recognizes Titus's voice speaking up from beside him.

"Aww. What? You his new boyfriend now Titus? Up for a poor little fucktoy to get your jollies off?"

Harry sees Titus sending a scathing glare and Stourton visibly deflates before making a retreat. Titus is a big man and could easily intimidate any prick like Stourton.

"You okay?" Titus asks turning back to him.

"Yeah. Just had a nightmare." He replied while shakily petting Sausage. "I'll be fine in awhile."

"Sorry that had to happen to you Harry." David said.

"It's okay, it's just water." Harry shrugs the incident off, he was kind of glad Stourton woke him up, as he was more concerned about the nightmare. Since creating his mindscape he hasn't had a single nightmare in months, so he'll have to check his mindscape over before going back to bed. He has a feeling that it was mostly due to the stress of the training that his shields slipped, but it was still better to check and make sure.

Giving Sausage a small peck on his furry head Harry stands up to get a change of clothes, feeling glad they haven't taken the beds left behind by the eliminated candidates yet.

"So where are you taking me?"

"Just some new place that popped up a couple months ago. Roxy said it has the best spagbol she has ever tasted." Eggsy explained.

Harry Hart tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Spagbol?"

"Oh, just spaghetti bolognese Haz, it's my favorite."

Harry just hums in response. How did he not know Eggsy's favorite is spaghetti? Maybe they do need to date more often if he doesn't know simple knowledge like that, all couples should know that about each other. Right?

"What else do you love to eat?" He asks nonchalantly, he doesn't want to seem like he's fishing for information.

"Well, your dick for one. Cheesecake too." Harry just shot him an exasperated look but Eggsy just grinned.

"We're here!"

Eggsy practically dragged him inside the restaurant. "Reservations under Hart please." Eggsy informed the maitre d' and they were quickly ushered to a table. As soon as they sat down a waiter came by with the menu. Eggsy immediately orders the 'spagbol' while Harry decides to get a beef wellington.

"Don't you think this is pretty nice, innit? We should do this more often Harry." Eggsy says while bumping his foot to his.

"Yes, I think we should." Harry gives him a fond smile. "How's Daisy?"

"Oh she's doing great! Top of her class and you won't believe what she did the other day..." Eggsy spends the next couple of minutes gushing about Daisy's achievements. The small ten year old is very smart and social like her brother, it was no wonder she took to school like a champ.

When Eggsy saw their orders arrive he almost cheered, but that wouldn't be a gentlemanly thing to do. Not while Harry is looking anyway.

Eggsy immediately dug into his spaghetti while Harry looks on fondly. He takes a bite of his beef wellington and approves on the taste and execution. Harry hears moaning and noticed Eggsy had his eyes closed while enjoying his 'spagbol'.

Opening his eyes Eggsy sees Harry looking at him. Eggsy smirks and twirls some pasta on his fork and offers it to Harry. "Want some?" He teased.

Harry just leans forward and clamps his lips over the delicious strands of spaghetti. He slowly pulled away, never once breaking eye contact with Eggsy.

"Delicious." Harry says and chews, his eyes darkening with something else in mind.

It might have been due to this exchange that they didn't notice the sudden drop of temperature in the restaurant. Harry continued to tease Eggsy by slowly dragging his foot up Eggsy's leg.

Frost slowly crept up the window panes and a couple of costumers have flagged down the waiters to complain about the substandard heating, as some costumers have started to shiver.

There was a sudden strange tension in the room. It was then that both spies finally noticed something was amiss as feelings of dread and sadness begun to seep into their bones. No one was speaking nor moving and the room was soon dead silent.

Eggsy is suddenly clammy and breaks out in cold sweat as he remembers Dean beating him up so badly that he ends up in a hospital. His eyes go unfocused and his breath came out in vapors as the temperature continues to decline. Harry was too busy to notice these changes as he starts to remember the day Mr. Pickle died in his sleep, his little body cradled in his arms as Harry wept for the first time in years.

They both came back to their senses when they hear an abrupt scream fill the restaurant as a man near the entrance was suddenly lifted up into the air, his hands came clawing at his throat as if someone was holding him there aloft. The other customers started to panic and gasped at the sight. The two spies both stood up, shaking off the feelings of dread, fear and clawing sadness as they both activated their Kingsman glasses and grabbed their concealed weapons.

"Merlin what do you see?" Harry commands.

"I'm not sure. My feed doesn't show any signs of life, whatever it is, it doesn't seem human." Merlin replied just as the levitating man fell down limp to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut off.

The room turns even colder and he started hearing whispers, screams and pleading voices of Harry's past targets, as whatever it is seems to move around the room. Harry cursed as another man hiding under a table was also grabbed by an invisible hand, his gun at ready as the new victim was hung in the air like the first one. The man starts clawing on his neck while making choking noises and the customers shrieked and ran as far away from the man as possible.

They don't know what is causing the bizarre situation, nor do they know what it could be and what it could do. But this paralyzing fear of the unknown coupled with the awful feeling it creates stops them from trying to escape through the front door. Which was right where the attacks are currently happening, who knows if whatever phenomena will occur when they try to escape.

The new victim had his mouth fall open and is deaperately gasping for air. The sight was horrifying until a blur appeared and tackled the man to the floor. The awful effects were shattered as Eggsy dragged the man to his feet and pushed him out the front door.

"Go!" He shouts at the man as his mind was suddenly filled by images of Dean beating up his mother. He stands there, frozen, as he starts remembering every gruesome detail.

"Harry, try switching to thermal imaging. Whatever it is, it seems to be absorbing heat at an accelerated rate."

Harry quickly tapped his glasses and switched to thermal imaging, he almost balked at the floating creature appearing in varying shades of red among the blues of the room. He sees it slowly approaching Eggsy and he instantly felt rage flowing through his veins as he cocks his gun and unloads a clip onto the figure.

Eggsy hears the sound of gunshots as Merlin barks orders from his glasses. But instead of doing so he stands there gaping as Harry's bullets pierce into something unseen and the rounds stay floating in the air.

"Eggsy! Turn thermal imaging on, NOW!" He finally notices the command from Merlin and lifts his hand to tap the side of his glasses, switching on to thermal imaging. He instantly sees a creature of some sort floating a foot from the ground.

Kingsman glasses are definitely high-tech pieces of equipment as he could faintly observe the wisps of heat being absorbed into the creature, leaving it's surroundings cold and awful. The thing appeared all red in his screen with its center being the warmest part of itself. He can't make out its features but he could see it raise an arm to dislodge a bullet from its chest. It seems unhurried and unfazed by the attack, as the bullet merely falls to the ground.

The creature seems to morph its shape into a ball as it suddenly flies out of the room and into the streets. Eggsy follows it out the door and watches as the heat signature floats into the sky and flies away. The customers immediately felt warmer and could tell the invisible assailant is gone but are still shivering from the after-effects of the creature.

Harry joins Eggsy outside and they both turned pale as they observed three more nearby heat signatures float into the sky and fly away. They both turned to look at each other and turned to the man lying unconscious on the floor of the restaurant.

"Merlin, I need you to find and identify the man Eggsy just saved. We need to know what had happened when the creature grabbed him." Harry commands, his voice firm, belying the internal war he felt inside him. Eggsy entered the restaurant and knelt down to check the fallen man's pulse.

"He's alive, but unconscious." He reports and Harry nods. The people in the restaurant hesitantly start walking out, their gait slow and unsteady. Some women were sobbing as they clutched themselves or their companions. Harry moves out of the way and signals for Eggsy to join him. They both entered an awaiting Kingsman cab and were soon en route to the tailor shop.

"Merlin, check where those three other heat signatures came from and I want detailed reports of what went down in other locations."

"Already done, so far there are about thirty 999 calls in the area. I've ordered some agents to investigate, I will update you once were through."

"Good." He replied and pulled Eggsy into his arms. The man fell into his embrace willingly and they spent the next couple of minutes in silence.

"That was awful." Eggsy says against his chest and Harry tightens his hold over Eggsy. The scene from earlier repeating over and over in his mind. He felt his deepest fear almost happen, he almost lost Eggsy in front of his eyes and he was helpless to save him.

The tension was high in the cabin as the candidates wait for the next mission to commence. The candidates are wearing their sleek black jumpsuits that had their names stitched on the front. Harry was no longer lithe as he was when he first started his Kingsman training, he has filled out more and the jumpsuit shows that off rather well.

"Listen up, your mission is to land on the target without the radar detecting you. If I read you on the radar or you miss the target, you go home. Is that understood?"

The last remaining five candidates looked at each other and nodded. Everyone in this cabin has done skydiving before with the exception of Harry. But he's not worried, his exceptional skills in Quidditch prevent him from feeling anything more than excitement. This might be the closest he'll get to flying again, he can't wait for the thrill.

"You ever jumped before?" David asks from beside him.

"No," he gives a cheeky smile "How hard could it be?"

He hears Stourton scoff somewhere to to his left but he ignores it in favor of Merlin's announcement.

"Drop zone's coming up. Twenty seconds."

Harry and the others stand and wait by the cargo door. It opens and Harry grins at the view of the countryside, his stomach flipping in excitement. He waits for the signal, anticipation growing, the blue light turned on and he did a running start before jumping off the plane.

He whoops in delight as his body falls, wind rushing by him as Harry does turns and corkscrews through the air. This might just turn into his new favorite sport. He hears the others cheer behind him and he turns to see Titus slowly catching up to him.

They come together and do a formation in the air. Their laughter could be heard over the comms of their helmets as the others do stunts. Stourton in particular was showing off by doing multiple flips in the air.

"My my you all are an excited bunch." They hear Merlin speak.

"Any idiot can read a heads-up display. A Kingsman agent needs to be able to solve problems under pressure. Like what to do when one of your group, has no parachute." Harry could almost hear the glee in his deep voice as Merlin says that last bit, the doubt was totally erased when he caught a distant chuckle through the mic.

'This man will be the death of me for sure.' He fondly thought, as if Merlin wasn't giving one of them a death sentence.

"What?!" He hears the others shout over the comms.

"No parachute?!" Stourton says, panic in his voice. Not showing off anymore are you?

"Which one is it?" Titus asks, as dread quickly fills them. Harry wasn't worried too much. Alright, maybe a little bit.

He knows about The Three D's of apparition: Destination, Determination and Deliberation. Unfortunately, he has never apparated before, the one time he apparated onto the school roof was an accident. But he knows that magic is a wondrous thing, and could do the impossible with enough belief and determination.

"What do we do?!" David's voice cuts through his musings.

"I told you, get to the target and don't come under the radar. I hope not ta be scraping one of you off, but if I do have to and ye're inside the target, at least ye'll know I'll be very impressed."

"Shit."

"Oh God."

"Everyone listen in, I have a plan." Titus says and they all look at him. "We're an odd number so we can't pair off, so get closer and make a circle." They all nod and started to form the circle.

"Sorry, I can't." One of the candidates was hyperventilating, he seems to be having an attack. He grips the ripcord and pulls, his gasps and cries echoing in their helmets.

'Fuck' Merlin thought, this wasn't a good time for Sean to have a panic attack. One of the downsides in having a veteran candidate, PTSD comes unexpectedly.

"You have thirty seconds, come on now, hurry." Merlin says as they reform the circle.

"Me first!" David says and pulls his cord, his parachute deploys and his cheers could be heard.

"Me." Titus says next and pulls his cord before any of them could protest, his parachute deploys but the act sends Harry careening to the side, flipping uncontrollably.

"Fuck!" Harry shouts over the comms as he barely manages to steady himself

"Shit! I'm sorry!" He heard Titus shout.

Merlin cursed as they slowly reach the low altitude line on his monitor. Suddenly, he hears another parachute deploy and sees Stourton's fall slowing down.

"Yes! Hahaha." Merlin hears the laughter and feels anger flow through him at the betrayal.

Harry cursed at Stourton.

"Prick!" He shouts.

"See you on the ground." The reply from Stourton had him growling.

Looking at the rapidly approaching ground he feels as if time was slowing down. Using his occlumency, he analyzed the situation. He could apparate away anytime now but something in him says not to. His instincts have never done him wrong, something in him is saying to put his trust on the man overlooking their test.

"Merlin, I trust you with my life." He says as time continues, barely seconds have passed and Harry pulls his cord.

The parachute deploys perfectly.

He grins as he crash-lands right on the target. "That, was bloody amazing, let's do that again." Harry is giggling nonstop, the adrenaline still coursing through his veins.

And that was how Merlin found him, still giggling on the ground with his helmet off. "So you trust me do ye?"

Harry lifts his head up from the ground to stare at Merlin, the air between them crackling. "With my life." He says just as Titus lands on the target with a grunt, Harry grabs onto his leg before he could be dragged off the target from the strong winds.

Stourton comes walking up to the target sans parachute with a scowl on his face. Harry feels relief that the prick missed the target. "Karma's a bitch ey Stourton?"

"Shut up."

A few moments later David landed on the target but Sean was still nowhere to be found. With his panic attack who knows where he could have landed.

Merlin decides to go forward with the results, it would take Sean more than an hour to get back to Kingsman property by walking on his own and has already ordered someone to retrieve him.

"Stourton, you don't land on the K, you're not in the K. Pack your bags and go home."

The scowling candidate cursed under his breath and Merlin's stern look slowly turns into a glare as he adds. "And even if you did land perfectly on the K, I would have still kicked you off. That was a disgusting display and it perfectly proved you're not fit to be a Kingsman. Now get out of my sight." Harry felt himself shiver, either from residual adrenaline or the display, he doesn't know.

"Harry, Titus and David. Congratulations on making it to the final three. Fall out."