The Lorenzo School of Gifteds

Chapter nine I Grouping

After Ally and I had raced and went back to our group I cuddled with Sean and fell asleep with Sean on one side and Anna on the other. Sean and I talked in the morning while eating granola bars. Afterwards I met up with Ally as she was doing her "leader work".

"How many have we lost?" I ask her.

"Ten from the dogs and five from the Beasts," she sighs and shakes her head.

"What's this for? Why is Mr. Moon making us do this?" she asks. I shrug. The fifteen people gone somehow doesn't faze me. I walk with Ally as she goes to other people. As we go I realize she's splitting the one hundred one left of us into ten groups and naming them. When we come to the eighth group a guy stops Ally.

"Really? Groups? And naming us? What is this, a game to you?" He asks her. Ally straightens her shoulders and tilts her head upwards.

"This is a game to Mr. Moon, not me," she says, "I'm splitting everyone into groups so it's easier to battle when we do. Naming the groups off is better than calling everyone off individually in the morning too." The guy shrugs and walks away as if he's satisfied. We finish the groups and I look at her list of names. I'm in group two. The second defense line. She catches me looking.

"I know you're good but I can't let you go out first. The first defense is merely to stun whoever or whatever we fight," she says. I nod. Each group has ten people in each. Ten groups, ten people. That's only one hundred.

"You're not in a group," I say. She nods.

"There's ten groups and eleven leaders," she points to herself, "I put my most trusted people as the leaders of all ten groups. Sam's the leader of One, You to Two, Sean to Three, Lilly to Four, Lexi to Five, Mia to Six, Fitz to Seven, Zach to Eight, Connor to Nine, and Jade to Ten." I nod as she speaks. She has this whole thing figured out. She seems to read my mind when she says, "There's a lot of time to think at night." She hands me my list and Sean's to give to him. I recognize a few people on our lists. I go back to Anna and Sean and give Sean's list to him. I explain what we're doing. In a matter of minutes everyone is standing with their animals facing Ally who's standing on a car. She has everyone part into their groups and haves the leader of each come forth. The ten leader's step forward to her.

"One, you are our distraction and stunning group. You will not use weapons unless necessary or until someone has given the order to. Two through Eight are our fighting groups. Use weapons. Nine and Ten, you wrap things up. Meaning you make sure there are no stragglers that survive. I will go amongst all groups helping to do what I can. After each 'Quiz' or 'Test' you all will report to me and say how many have been lost. Hopefully if any at all," She expresses each detail. At the end she says, "Good luck."

We all get into our groups and onto our animals. Barely anyone speaks. We continue raiding houses of useful things. We promise to Ally beforehand that we won't destroy the houses. We continue this for two days. On the third day in the middle of the night Mr. Moon's voice booms through the town.

"My dear students, now is time for your first Quiz," he pauses as everyone groans. "Now, now, it won't be that bad. We'll just have some fun." He's gone as fast as he came. We all get into our groups and wait for attack.

"Kill anything that moves!" Shouts Ally. I nod towards her. Her eyes blaze with bright blue and as she yells her throat glows blue from inside her. I can see why she would be mad. As I think about this I begin to be mad. Why is he doing this? There's no reason to kill us off like this. JUST KILL US ALREADY! I shout in my head. My eyes glaze over with the blue grey they are. Now I'm glowing. I look around me. Every dozen of people there's one or two people glowing different colors from the inside out. Sam glows purple and a random boy is orange all over. No one seems to care.

The ground begins shaking again. Ally runs over to me in a flash. "Beastys?" I ask. She shakes her head no.

"We were inside when the ground shook. Most likely because of the Beasts weight. We're outside and this feels like an earthquake," she says. I agree. Teams Three, Seven, Eight, Nine and One are on one side and Two, Four, Five, Six, and Ten are opposite. Two semicircles. Like our plan had said. The ground shakes harder now. Buckling and jolting everyone and occasionally throwing someone off their feet. Animals screech and people scream. Suddenly a large cracking shuts everyone up. The ground between the two semicircles is parting. People back away from the crack. Ally and I stay where we were for two seconds then run towards the growing crack.

"What's happening?" she asks. I shrug.

"I have no idea," I say. I watch as everyone on the other side moves farther away. I look over to Ally. She's watching Connor. Sean. I think.

"No, no, no," I scream. I move to the crack and slip on some concrete. Ally catches my arm and pulls me back. I let her drag me away. After a bit, the ground stops moving. The other five groups are at least fifty feet away now. Too many people are on the other side.

"Now what? Is this the 'Quiz'?" I mutter to myself.

The crack in the ground begins to glow a green from the bottom. Plasma wolves again, I say to myself. After a few seconds I realized what it was. I was a long snake-like creature. Four heads were attached to one body. I grab my gun and aim like everyone else had. Then looking through the scope on my gun, I noticed they were like plasma wolves but snakes. Plasma Snakes. I used my ability to try to control the Plasma Snakes but a head turns toward me, in striking position. I give up. I finally realize how big the snakes are. They must be a little smaller than an apartment building. I yell at my group to get back. I notice the snake coming at me full speed because of my shooting. I quickly move out of it's way, taking a step back as it has a mouthful of concrete. I jumped on it's head to have more control. I looked up to see that the other heads are striking at the other groups. One head is having at Sean's group and another at Connor's. Everyone is striking back. One of the giant snakes come crashing down after half an hour of fending them off. This might take a while, I say to myself. I continue fighting the snake that is attacking our group. Another group comes over and helps. After five more minutes the snake is down. It screeches and falls back into the black abyss it came from. Jade's group had helped.

"That was weird," She laughs afterwards. I nod. All the people with flying animals shoot to the sky and help with the two snakes left on the other side. I watch from my seat on Anna as the other two Plasma snakes fall back into the abyss.