Gifted

Chapter 10: Journey to the Battle Dome

A few days after Landen's confrontation with Abbie and her friends at Blackwell, toward the evening as the sun was setting, the Washingtons were finishing up their normal family dinner together. Suddenly, their daily news station started airing on the family's holo TV in the living room. The news anchor on the channel began reporting a story about a teenager at a nearby Advancement School who came to Blackwell High School and attacked a non Gifted a few days earlier, during after school hours.

"The teachers at both schools admitted that until recently, they were unaware of the altercation between the two students. Blackwell students stayed after school to inform them of the incident that is now the talk of both schools," the news anchor said. "Advancement School 01-18's principal made a comment to one of our reporters, wanting to inform the general public that the school had already taken immediate disciplinary action on the student who committed the act. He went on to say that he and the rest of Advancement School 01-18 would let the law deal with the student. They would cooperate any means necessary by taking proper action against the student at the Advancement School."

"Liar!" Landen said. "Abbie came at Kenzie first, and I was only protecting her. I didn't want to use my powers, but that was my sister!"

"We know, Landen. It's okay. Just calm down," Giovanni said while still watching the news report on the story. "The news is good at taking bits and pieces of a story to fit their own agenda."

"This is the same reaction I had toward my situation when I was your age, but don't lose yourself to this," said Kora. "Remember what we talked about."

"Mom is right. Don't let this get to you. We're here for you. If they see you start to fall apart, they're already winning," said Kenzie.

After the news report, Landen felt tired and started on his way to his room to go to sleep for the night. Just as he went up to his room, in the corner of his eye he noticed what appeared to be a red flashing light outside of his window in the distance of the midnight sky. He couldn't quite make out where the blinking red light was coming from, but soon the red flashing light began heading toward his neighborhood, and even closer to his home.

Landen continued looking into the sky, seeing the clouds and the dark midnight air lit up by the stars shining before he finally found the flashing light again. It was now in his neighborhood, passing by other neighbor's houses within his subdivision before reaching his home. As Landen continued to glance at the mysterious flashing red light as it ascended over his house, he saw a large ship uncloak itself as the red light continued to flash.

"What is that?" Landen asked himself.

The uncloaked ship was high above his house. Despite how large it was, it made no noise. It was hard to make out from the sky, Landen thought, but it resembled the look of a stingray, and it appeared silver in color. The wings were huge, coming out from side to side. In the center of it, the craft held a black glass obscured from any sight of what laid inside. The craft moved extremely fast, leading Landen to not understand how anyone else didn't notice the vessel besides him.

After a few minutes of floating still in the air, the craft emitted a quick beam of light that rained down on the Washington's lawn. Figures stepped out from the beamed light. There were two men outfitted in black suits and black shades. They were wearing a white coiled wire with an earpiece on their ear, which it seemed they used to communicate. Following the men in black were a group of soldiers from the Black Starlight Gifted Armed Force armed with their blaster guns and equipped with heavy combat armor. Lastly, an individual who appeared to be the soldiers' leader came out from the beam's light before it dissipated into thin air.