Girl on Fire

Chapter 17

After two months, everyone had got back from their missions. Each different language group were called to have an announcement, though most of us had picked up on the other languages by now.

The boy who had greeted us when we first got here stood up on the make-do platform, made up of logs, and cleared his throat.

"Hello, Spirituses." he said importantly. "You might not know my name so I'll tell you now, it's Leo Akaishi, and I am here to inform you that the next challenge is on."

There were a few whoops and cheers from kids at the back, but mostly gloom settled into the group as we imagined what would be coming up next.

"So your next challenge will be somewhat different to your previous one. Your first one was more to do with stealth and infiltration. It was assessing your ability to get in and out of a building. It wasn't really a dangerous one." a subtle glance at us, "Your next test will be more to do with survival. This jungle, in case you haven't already guessed, is the Amazon, and is therefore huge. Your task will be to keep yourself alive in any way possible, using any skills you have, your good judgement, and, above all, teamwork. Last time you were put with a group of people that we thought you might know, but this time you will be assigned completely randomly, so as to make you work with people that you don't know in order to make you more prepared."

A few people in the audience groaned and started whispering. Ali, who was stood right next to me, looked up at me sadly.

"Does that mean that we aren't going to see each other for ages again?"

I shrugged, "I guess so." I said dejectedly.

"So," Leo continued. "We won't bother knocking you out this time, you will just have to willingly come into helicopters with us so that we can drop you off at different locations. If you are wondering why we keep using helicopters, it is because it is the most inconspicuous if other humans see us. Speaking of which, you will have to look out for normal humans so that no-one sees anything that they're not suppose to. If anyone tries to escape, we can easily find you and you will be put straight into the lower stream."

I looked at Tefia, who looked angry at this, and smothered a grin.

Suddenly, I could hear the distant thud of rotors in the air and we turned around to see the helicopters.

There was ten of them. All jet black and sleek, looking like they were cutting through the air. They looked like they had one-person cockpits. They landed a while away from us, so as not to flatten us, and the thudding stopped.

"And there's our ride. Now, I'm going to call you over group by group to go over to the helicopters and you'll be dropped off a few groups at a time. So, first:" And then came a string of names put into groups. I wasn't really paying attention, until I heard Ali's name.

"Ali Passmore." Leo said and Ali gave me a big hug before walking over to the other people in her group. As well as I could see from there, she was with a shapeshifter, an ice, a growth, a flexible, and a light. The shapeshifter was nervously flickering from human to lion, which was a bit unnerving, and the light was a bit dimmed around where they were stood.

Ali waved to me, before wandering off towards the helicopters with her group.

I had to wait until three loads of helicopters had gone off before I was finally called out.

"Paul Findley, Ash Wiles, Ivy Mazer, Ryker McCullagh, and Tefia Rodwell." he called.

I actually gasped out loud: not Tefia. I would take pretty much anyone but Tefia. I glanced over at her and she was looking at me in a way that indicated she was thinking the same thing.