Together

Chapter 14★ Amy

I see Ender getting ready to head into the Battleroom for practice, so I quicken my pace in order to talk to him.

"Commander." I pull to attention. He turns.

"At ease. Hey, Amy."

"Hey." He looks over at me. I don't really know how to start. I take a deep breath in. "Some of the other commanders were wondering if it would be okay if they used new training regimen with their individual toons."

"Why?"

"To take some stress off of you and get the whole army to the same level of ability before doing advanced training in techniques."

"I appreciate the thought, Amy, but you should have consulted me before coming up with new training programs for the toons."

"I was just told about this at dinner tonight. No one's actually created any program. I forced them to stop and think about it."

"Told by whom?"

"The other toon leaders."

"All of them?"

"No. Dink, Tom and Fly." I feel guilty about giving names, they are my friends, but they should have told Ender first. Ender launches to a wall and I follow suit.

"My answer is that free time is free. If the others would like to implement the programs in free time, I can't stop them."

"Understood. I'll alert them after practice." He looks at me and nods. I look over towards gate B and see the army already in formation, ready for instructions. I turn to launch off of the wall to join them, but Ender grabs my arm.

"Thank you for telling me, Amy." I nod and he releases my arm. I launch off the star to go join formation with the rest of the army.

★★★

Ender divides us into two groups. Toons A and E are group one, and B and D are two. C is divided in half, four people to each group. Ender instructs us to divide in half and battle each other.

"Group one, head over by gate A." We all launch over to our assigned area. Ender follows but stops about halfway in between gates. He uses his commander's hook, as I have now learned, is what the magic metal loop on Ender's hand that can move people around and unfreeze them, etc, is called, to pull a line of stars out of the wall, forming what will be our boundary line. Group one circles up.

"How do you want this divided?" Asks someone. Tom looks at me. I noticed that Ender put Dink in Group two.

"Two from C, and four from A and E each on a team. Tom and I each represent a team until a leader is chosen. Go." They all look confused. Some look towards Tom. Clearly, they want further instructions.

"You heard the Amy. Divide." My toon immediately splits in half. Sammy, David, Wolf and Alai go to Tom. Two people from C come over to me, and two go to Tom. Slowly, toon E divides in half and four people come over to me.

"That's better." Tom says.

"I say we pick leaders now, and then talk about the actual battle," says Alai.

"Pipe down, launchy," someone scoffs.

"The launchy has a good idea Bruno, you pipe down."

"Yeah, Bruno. Pipe down."

"Shove off, Connor."

"Ooooohhh."

"Shut your traps!" Tom yells. "I don't care if toon C's got problems, save your problems for Dink! Work together for twenty minutes, and you just might get the chance to show up whoever ya got problems with!" They're all quiet now. "Team Me, you pick first."

"Tom." They all chorus.

"Well, that was quick. Team Amy, your turn."

"Amy." Most people chorus.

"Bruno. Aiden." I said Aiden. I look around. Bruno voted for himself.

"Amy you lead. Settled. Now how do we get this started?" They continue talking, but I only half listen. I look over at group two, but they seem to be having more trouble than us. Dink has to step in and break up Allie and someone else before Allie breaks his arm. I turn my attention back to our group. They still don't quite know how to start off, and are beginning to argue.

"We should just launch to the middle and start attacking on the count of three."

"No! That's stupid, what about-"

"You're stupid!" Tom is trying to calm some people down but it's not working.

"Silence!" I yell. They all turn and stare in shock. I haven't yelled in years, and forgot how loud I can be. "We do what we did last time. Toon A?" My toon nods.

"What'd ya do last time?" Bruno asks.

"One team launches to the other side and when they arrive at the back wall, they get two minutes to come up with a strategy, and then the team that stayed behind goes after them with their genius plan."

"But whichever team launches gets less time to plan," says the boy dubbed Connor by the earlier argument.

"If we do this, your team launches, got it Amy?" Tom says.

"That's what happened last time, and they still won." David replies. My toon laughs.

"My team. Launch to gate A." We all take off and the game begins.