The next morning when I go to the elevator to go downstairs, there is a boy in the metal contraption when the doors slide open. He has floppy blue hair and big blue eyes, his swirling blue and green Shinju attached to a silver bracelet on his right arm. He is wearing a normal blue t-shirt and ripped jeans. A water elementalist.

The boy sees me coming and his face lights up. I step inside with him and the doors slide shut after he presses a button that says 'cafeteria'.

He beams at me and shakes my hand, "Hi! My name is Nero and I am from Mizu City! You must be from Dendo! Nice to meet you!" He says happily, shaking my hand vigorously.

"Umm....hi." I say, startled. "Erm...do you know a girl named Espurna?"

Nero frowns in concentration as he lets go of my hand, "I don't think- oh! Purna! Yeah I know her, I used to go to school with her!" He suddenly gets excited, "Hey! Have you ever seen anything this cool?!?" He points his pointer finger up and a small bubble of water appears above it. He twirls his finger around and the water turns into a small stream, swirling around his finger.

I watch in amazement as Nero's eyes sparkle, "And this is the best part!" His finger stops twirling and the water moves up until it is above his finger in a straight line like a pole made of water. Slowly, the water changes shape into a tiny dog.

My mouth falls open. The dog's mouth moves like he's barking and then it runs toward me through the air, incredibly life-like.

"My aunt used to have a dog like this." Nero says, "She was the one who helped me make him." He makes the dog run through the air until he is inches from his mouth and....eats it.

He licks his lip, "I've been thirsty all morning!" I laugh a little and Nero beams at me.

"Hey..." I start, but before I can finish, the doors open and we step out. I look around. The walls are metal and all the chairs and seats are as well. There are seven tables and each one is a different color. Brown, yellow, orange, blue, light blue, white, and a table that is just metal. Kejut waves at me from the yellow table and Nero starts walking over to the blue one. I sigh and sit down at the yellow one.

"They are going to pass out food once everyone is here!" Kejut informs me as I sit down.

"They sure are taking their time..." Pointy Nose mutters. As if on cue, a woman appears carrying a tray with bagels.

"Hello!" She says politely, setting the bagels and juice onto the table. Pointy Nose digs ravenously into his food and everyone takes his lead.

"So!" Kejut says through a mouthful of food to no one in particular, "The rooms are great, huh?"

My attention wanders as Kejut begins a conversation about our new rooms and I look around to see what everyone else is doing. The people at the light blue table, the wind elementalists, are eating, but one boy is just reading. He has thick-framed glasses and freckles, his bagel's untouched in front of him. I watch him for a couple minutes before a ruckus over at the metal table draw's my attention. One boy is warping the white table, the ice elementalist's table, so that a girl with long white hair can't get her bagel. She reaches out to pick it up when the table suddenly moves to the left, bringing her bagel with it. After a couple futile attempts, the girl starts to get watery-eyed and runs out of the room.

The boy starts to laugh and a couple others do too, and I feel bad for the girl. Apparently, so does a metal elemenentslist. A girl with silver hair that splits above her right ear so the rest of her hair falls over her face walks up to the boy and shouts something at him. He looks at the ground, his face red and the girl nods before sitting down. I giggle and somehow the girl hears me. She winks at me and I hastily look away. After I check to make sure the metal girl stopped looking at me, I turn to look for Nero. He is sitting at the blue table, goofing around and making the other water elementalists laugh. A couple girls look at him adoringly.

I roll my eyes. Flirts.

"What about you, Blitz?"

I turn around and see Kejut looking at me curiously.

"Erm...." I begin, but I don't need to think of an excuse because food saves me.

"Does anyone want some more bagels?" The woman from earlier says, appearing once again with her bagel tray. Nobody does and she smiles at us, "Well, of you don't want anything I would suggest you start getting ready to leave. We will be going shortly." And with that the woman turns and walks away.

I stand up quickly and rush over to the elevator, getting there first and pressing the number four button. I get to my room and just sit on my bed for a couple minutes. I read Dad's letter some more and flop onto my beanbag. After about ten minutes the announcements reaches me over a speaker on the wall I didn't notice yesterday.

"Time to go! Be at the front door in five minutes!" A woman's voice says

I stand up, and, carefully setting the letter on my bedside table, walk down the hall to the elevator. All the other Dendo City representatives appear and we get in. On the way down we pick up the metal and ice elementalists too. I am crammed in between Kejut and a boy from the metal elementalist city, Kinzoku City. I can tell because his hair is silver.

We get to the bottom floor and pour out of the elevator. All the different city leaders are waiting for us. I spot Ms. Spitha standing beside Chikyu City's leader, Mr. Petram.

"Come on! File into the car with your city's color!" Kasai City's leader, Mr. Geni, shouts. I look at him in awe. He has spiky orange hair and angry eyes.

We all do as he says and I follow Ms. Spitha over to the sleek yellow hover-car. We drive for about ten minutes before the car stops and the driver announces we're here.

I look up and see the sky is clear, the only thing is the vast blue and a sun, tiny compared to the sky. We get out and walk across a small field into a building.

The building is all one floor and the walls are big and colorful. This is the Deciding building, where teams for the Harmony Games have been chosen for centuries. I look up and see the ceiling has pictures. There are seven elementalists. There's a man with brown hair petting a dog and a water lady playing with dolphins. That makes me think of Purna and her necklace and I start to get teary, so I look at another picture.

There's a man with red hair dancing in flames and a woman with silver hair hammering at an anvil. I turn around and see a woman with white hair playing in the snow with a child, a snow fox by her side. There's a wind man healing a bird and a man with bright yellow hair Darting around.

"Wow....."

I turn around to see Kejut and the others all admiring the ceiling too.

"Those are The Elementalists." Ms. Spitha informs us. "Fire, Water, Wind, Lightning, Ice, Earth, and Metal. Come on, join the crowd. I have to go to my spot." She says, pointing to a balcony with seven small pots, all different colors. She walks over to where she pointed and I follow Pointy Nose as he walks toward the crowd. I stand near the back with all the other kids from Dendo City and we wait for about ten minutes before Ms. Banyu, Mizu City's leader, quiets everyone. We all look up to see all the leaders.

Ms. Salju, Asiu City's leader, speaks.

"Welcome, lucky chosen ones!" She says, her voice echoing off the walls, "Let the deciding begin!"

The crowd of people cries their enjoyment and I look around for camera's. Starting now, they will probably be filming for the whole time. The audience loves to see the deciding.

Mr. Baja, the leader of Kinzoku City, steps up to his bowl.

"The metal elementalist for Team One is....." Everyone holds their breath as his hand moves around inside the bowl. It's so quiet we can hear paper scratching against pottery. I get a weird feeling of deja vu.

Mr. Baja pulls the paper out and carefully unfolds it. He reads it, his dark eyes reading slowly and carefully.

"Kin."

All the beetles cheer and push a girl forward through the crowd. For the deciding they don't announce last names. It isn't necessary. I squint and manage to make out the girl with the silver hair from breakfast who yelled at the boy. I notice she is wearing a choker with metal spikes and a bracelet on each arm with spikes also. She walks up the steps, beaming, to Mr. Baja. He just watches her, stony-faced.

Next up, Ms. Salju steps up. Like Mr. Baja she builds up the tension before reading out the name.

"Neve."

I smile slightly as I see the ice girl, also from breakfast, walk shyly past people, up the steps, her long hair swishing behind her, and next to Ms. Salju. What a coincidence. At least she won't get bullied. I think Kin will make sure of that.

Kin smiles at Neve and the girl smiles sheepishly back.

Mr. Petram, steps up and pulls out a name. I swear these people just want us to scream in frustration.

"Terro."

A boy with dark brown hair that falls over his eyes and broad shoulders steps up. Mr. Petram shakes hands with him and Kin smiles at the boy.

Mr. Geni pulls out a name.

"Ignis."

A girl with long orange hair streaked with yellow and red pulled into a ponytail swaggers up to Mr. Geni. She is wearing tennis shoes and shorts with an orange tank top and black ribbon-like things wrapped around her arms. I cock my head in admiration as I see where her Shinju is. The swirling red, orange, and yellow orb is attached to her earring, but it's no ordinary earring. It is a metal dragon curled around her ear, her Shinju clutched firmly in it's claws.

Ms. Banyu, leader of Mizu City steps up next, "Nero."

I smile as the boisterous boy bounces up to Ms. Banyu, making her smile.

Now Ms. Spitha steps up.

Please be me.....please be me.....

The paper rustles around.

Please....please...please....

"Blitz."

I almost squeal in joy. YES! The crowd parts to let me through. Kejut whispers something to me but I don't hear her. Before I know it, I'm up there and Mr. Angin, the leader of the wind city, Kuki City, is saying the next name.

"Anemos."

I have to move to make out the kid walking through the mass of hands and bodies. When I do see him, I smile. It's the lanky kid from breakfast who was reading the whole time. He walks up, a book in his hand.

"Team one!" Mr. Geni shouts for the crowd. They cheer and I smile.

A woman comes from behind the balcony and gestures for us to come with her. Once we're behind the curtain, Nero starts talking a mile a minute to me, "Wow Blitz we're on the same team! Who would've guessed! Now we can tell all sorts of stores! I've always wondered what Dendo City was like!"

Ignis sighs, "Oh no, is he always like this?" She asks, turning to me. I smile and nod. She sighs again.

The woman who led us back here smiles, "Enough chit chat! You can talk in a minute! You must make your team name, symbol, and mascot!" She says as she walks.

Oh yeah....we get to decide our names.

The woman leads us to a small room with all sorts of stuff to make things. I see fabric, a sewing machine, paints, I even see a clump of metal.

"Here you go! Someone will come to get you shortly." The woman tells us with a smile before walking away, closing the door softly behind her.

We look around for a minute before Kin sits down, indian style.

"First, we should get to know each other!" The metal girl exclaims. I sit down first. Then Neve. Then everyone else.

"I'll go first!" Nero says, "Hi! I'm Nero and I really, really don't like cats."

Kin gives him a weird look, "Umm....okay. My name is Kin and I...am told I am good at singing."

Ignis pops her gum, "I'm Ignis and you'd better not mess with me."

Nero grins, standing up, "Or what?"

She gives him a death glare. "You don't want to find out."

Nero sits down quickly.

"I'm Terro." Terro says with a smirk, speaking for the first time, his calculating emerald green eyes looking over us, his hair falling over his eyes mysteriously.

"Hi Terro!" Nero exclaims. Me, Kin, and Ignis all roll our eyes at the same time.

"Who's next? What about you, Anemos?" Kin asks, turning to the wind elementalist.

The boy looks up from his book, "What?"

"Tell us something about you." Kin says.

He puts his book down and pushes his glasses up farther on his nose, "My name is Anemos and I like reading." He says, returning to his book.

"Shocking." Ignis mutters.

"And....Neve! What about you?" Kin asks, turning to the girl.

She twists her long white hair around her finger, letting the rest cover most of her face, leaving one, big blue eye for us to watch.

"Umm....my name is....umm...Neve....." She says.

I look at her over again. Man....she has a lot of white hair! It's really long, too. Reaches down slightly farther than her waist.

"And I....umm...have a snow ferret...." She says.

I gasp as her hair moves. Suddenly, a little black nose pokes out of her hair, soon followed by a head. The snow ferret wiggles it's nose.

Nero gapes at the ferret and Anemos puts down his book to look.

Neve giggles a little at Nero's reaction, twisting her hair around her finger again, "Her name is Frost and she's very smart. I taught her all sorts of tricks."

I coo suddenly, surprising everyone. Remember how I said I'm a sucker for cute animals? Well, this little bundle of fur is so adorable I feel my heart squeeze. The way her little nose twitches and her incredibly white fluffy face....

I can't help myself and move closer to Neve. "Can I pet her?" I ask, "I just love, love, love animals!"

Neve nods nervously, putting her arm near Frost. The snow ferret climbs onto it and Neve lowers her toward me. I reach out and scratch behind the cute animal's ears. Frost seems a little surprised at first but then begins pushing her head into my hand to get more.

We all laugh- except Ignis, who just smiles- and I feel my heart lift. Suddenly, the door opens and Frost dart back into Neve's hair. Nero falls backwards in surprise and we all look to see who entered and ruined our moment. The woman from earlier is here.

"Sorry to interrupt...are you done? If not, you have ten more minutes." She says before turning and walking out the door.

"Wow. That was kind of rude." Kin says, watching the woman shut the door with a frown.

"Yeah..." Nero says, sitting up and rubbing his arm.

"So what should our name be?" I ask.

"The Bloody Dragons." Ignis says.

Neve shudders.

"No...I think that sounds to evil..." Kin says, thinking hard.

"What about-" Neve starts.

"The Soaring Eagle's!" Nero exclaims.

"Creative." Terro says, rolling his eyes.

"I have an-" Neve starts again.

"The Chicken Masters!" Nero yells excitedly.

"What kind of an idea is that?!?" Kin exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air.

"I HAVE AN IDEA!" Neve suddenly shouts.

We all jump and look at Neve in surprise.

"Umm....maybe, maybe we could do....umm....the Snow Ferrets?" Neve says quietly.

We all look at each other.

"I LOVE IT!!" Kin suddenly shouts, jumping to her feet.

"Yeah!" Nero exclaims, doing to same.

"Great idea Neve!" I say to the girl.

She smiles at the ground, "Thank's," She says quietly, "but I think Nero would have found a better one if I hadn't interrupted."

I look over at the boy with the blue hair, who is currently doing some kind of dance, before turning back to Neve.

"I don't think so." I say, smiling. Neve smiles back.

"Hey! I think I can make a really cool pin from this metal!" Kin says from the corner. I turn and see her pointing to the hunk of metal from earlier.

"I just need something to mold it into....a design..." Kin says, looking around.

Ignis pops her bubble, "I can draw something."

Kin looks at her, her head cocked, "Really?"

Ignis nods, "I just need something to write on...."

"What about this?" Terro calls from the corner. We look over to see him holding a wooden board and a piece of chalk.

"Where on earth did you get that?" Anemos asks, his book gone.

Terro shrugs his broad shoulders, "Found it. Catch!" He tosses the board and Ignis catches it smoothly, soon followed by the chalk.

Ignis bends down and starts drawing on the board, her forehead wrinkled. We wait a couple minutes before she stands up and shows us the picture.

Nero whistles in awe and I shake my head.

"Wow." Terro says. The design is basically a ferret curled up inside a circle, its tail almost tickling it's nose, a little dot for the eye. There are seven dots evenly spread out around the circle.

Ignis hands the board to Kin, who stares at it awe for a minute, studying it.

"Okay, I think I can do this." Kin says, handing the board to Nero, "Hold this so I can see it." She commands, cracking her knuckles.

Nero holds it so it faces her and she puts her hands out toward the lump of metal. I watch in admiration as a piece of it slowly comes off as though it's clay and floats level with Kin's grey eyes, which are watching the metal intently. Slowly, ever so slowly, the metal begins to mold. First, it changes into a circle, then the ferret inside is molded. Kin constantly looks at the board and then back at the pin. The back needle forms and glints in the light. Lastly, seven holes are evenly pushes into the outer ring, one added for the eye.

Kin lets the pin slowly float to the ground. We all gather around it as Ignis picks it up, smirking, "Wow. Do I have great designing skill or what?"

Kin speaks up, "Look at what cool thing this type of metal can do! Here, Nero, give me your hand."

Nero volunteers his hand immediately and Kin puts his finger on the ferrets eye. Instantly, the hole turns a deep blue and Nero jumps back with a yelp. I stare in shock. I have never heard of this kind of metal before!

I reach out and touch one of the outer holes, watching as it turns yellow, sparking for a minute before calming. Everyone else does the same until each of the seven outer holes has one of our elements and the eye is blue.

"I'll make the rest. Remember, we only have ten minutes. Nero, that one can be yours because the eye is blue. Hold the board, Terro." Kin says, starting to mold the next pin. Soon, everyone has a pin with their element in the eyes of the ferret, with all the other holes the other elements. I look at my pin, the ferret with a sparking yellow eye. All the other holes, light blue, whitish grey, silver, greenish brown, reddish orange, and blue. Wow....

I feel a cool nose on the back of my arm and turn to see Neve watching me, Frost standing on the edge of her arm. Frost nuzzles me again and I scratch behind her ears. She lets me for a minute but then moves away and crawls off of Neve and onto my lap. I giggle as her soft white fur tickles me. She noses my hand and I open it, revealing the pin. Frost reaches out and touches my pin lightly with her nose. I gasp as a white frost spreads over the pin, encasing it in ice.

I look over at Neve in disbelief to see her smiling, "I don't call her Frost for nothing." She giggles.

"What's going- whoa! Guys, come look at Blitz's pin! It's covered in ice!" Nero says, coming over.

Soon everyone has seen my sparkling white pin and we decide all of ours should be the same.

"We are, after all, the Snow Ferrets. Why wouldn't our pins be covered in ice?" Kin justifies as Frost touches her pin, encasing it in ice. Soon all of our pins are shimmering and beautiful, and just in time, too. We had just put the pins onto our shirts when the door bursts open and Nero topples over in surprise again

"Come on. Time to go." The woman says, turning and leaving abruptly.

"She has got to stop doing that!" Nero exclaims as we follow the woman out the door.

She leads us back up to the deciding room and asks us what our team name is. Kin tells her and she leaves, ordering us to wait here. While we wait in the strangely empty room, I memorize the picture on the ceiling. The woman reappears, all the other teams in tow. I see Zhen first, leading a group of people, a pretty girl with long orange hair at his side. I frown as I see what's on his wrist. A black snake is wrapped around his arm, it's fangs glint menacingly in the light.

Once everyone files into the room and waits for a couple minutes, the leaders of all the cities go back to their spots on the balcony, in front of their bowls.

"We have our teams!" Ms. Spitha announces.

Everyone cheers again, but not very loudly.

"First off is, the Black Serpents!"

Zhen's team all raise their hands in the air and cheer for themselves. I glare at them.

"Next, the Iron Wasps!"

A group of elementalists including Pointy Nose raise their hands in the air and I see they are wearing metal rings with wasps attached, their stingers sharp as the Black Serpent's fangs.

"The Water Horses!"

Kejut and a group of all girls cheer for themselves, and I notice they are wearing necklaces with blue horses.

"The Stone Bears!"

All boys.

"The Crystal Wolves!"

"The Hungry Sharks!"

Each of the said teams raise their voices and I hear our name called,

"The Snow Ferrets!"

Our team sounds a lot less threatening next to the others, but I hope it will pay off later. Along with the rest of my group, I raise a fist in the air and shake it, cheering. Nero was very enthusiastic in this category.

"Now, let the Harmony Games officially begin!" Mr. Geni exclaims, his red hair glowing in the lighting.

We all cheer-an action we seem to be doing a lot-and follow the leaders as they lead us to the back of the building, where we all know they have seven rooms, one for each team.

The woman from earlier leads us into a specific room and drops us off, leaving immediately after.

"Rude, rude, rude." Ignis mutters, walking into the room and flopping onto the orange bed. "So rude....."

We follow her example and lay down onto our colored beds. Jeez, these people and their colors.

Suddenly, Kin sits up and looks over at us, a mischievous glint in her big grey eyes. I sit up curiously and look at her

"You know what we should do, just to spite them?" Kin says evilly.

"Whatever it is, I'm in." Ignis says smiling.

"We should switch beds." Kin says, swinging her feet over the edge of her bed.

"Ooooo." Neve says nervously, twirling her hair, "What if we get in trouble?"

"We won't." Terro says, "It's not like we're disobeying any rules or whatever." He swings his feet over the side of his bed too, smirking, "This is gonna be good."

So we proceeded to switch beds, and that is how I ended up sleeping in a white bed. Great.

The next morning after we woke up and got ready, a man walked in.

"Hi!" He says happily. We make weird grunting sounds back. None of us are morning people.

"I will be helping you to the first event!" He informs us happily, "Follow me!"

We trudge after him as he walks out the door, all of us to tired to be nervous. My feet drag as we get into a car and drive somewhere. Honestly, I start to fall asleep, but Kin keeps shaking me awake.

After about the third time, the metal girl laughs and rolls her eyes, shaking me, "Blitz! Aren't you excited?!"

I sit up and look at her blearily, vaguely noticing she has a blue streak in her hair, "I don't feel anything but tired in the morning."

Kin smiles at me and I stretch, trying to keep myself awake.

"You're an electric elementlist! Shouldn't you be full of energy?" She exclaims.

Anemos, who is on the other side of Kin, asks, chuckling slightly. He has abandoned his book and now pushes his glasses up farther on his nose, and action he seems to do a lot. For some reason it strongly reminds me of the weird girl we met outside of Miota's.

"Once again, nothing but tired." I yawn.

Suddenly, I get an idea. I snap my fingers, "Good idea Anemos!"

Anemos gives me a puzzled look, "I didn't-"

He stops talking as he sees what I'm doing. My hands are rubbing together, creating sparks which land on my skin and shoot through my veins, speeding me up. I triumphantly blink my eyes, glad to find they don't feel like leeches sucking the life out of me.

For the first time in my entire life, I actually feel alive in the morning.

The world must be ending.

"Can you do that to me....?"

I look over Anemos to find Nero watching me sleepily. I smile, now awake, and rub my hands together. Ahh, the wonders of thermal energy. Once I feel the electricity tingling on my fingers and hair, I reach out and put my hands on Nero's arm, trying to only let a little bit out to perk him up. It works, and seconds later he is bothering Ignis to no end.

I laugh and do it to everyone else who asked. In no time we arrive at the Harmony Game's stadium and I look out the window. We drive into a huge parking lot, full of cars and people. I gulp, feeling my chest tighten and the butterflies finally appear. This is it, I'm going in. I follow behind Kin as we walk out into the crowd. Once they notice us, they start whistling and applauding. I cringe and hunch my shoulders, hiding behind Kin, who waves happily.

An image of Dad flashes in my mind. He must be watching me cower, shaking his head. I can't let him down.

I take a deep breath before standing straight up again. People with camera's are all over the place, including one in front of us with a small red dot blinking just above the lens. I look over at Kin to see her smiling at the camera with the dot and I copy her, plastering a fake smile on and waving at the camera. This seems to satisfy the camera-man and the red dot stops blinking.

We walk across the parking lot, the other teams behind us, and into the stadium. The man leads us across the fields and into a room, where we are told to wait for a moment for further instructions.

"What's going on?" I whisper to Kin. She watches the door that the man exited from as she answers me, "They have to get the stadium up. They have all sorts of fancy controls to change the field for the different rounds." I nod and wait silently for the man to come back.

Suddenly, I'm shoved from behind and just barely manage to stay on my feet as a familiar voice sneers behind me, "Think you and your team can win, Worm? Think again."

I turn to see the Black Serpents, Zhen in the front with a pretty fire elementalist at his side, her face curled in and ugly sneer.

"Fotia." Ignis growls to the fire girl.

"Ignis." The other fire girl, Fotia, says with clear dislike.

"Well?" Zhen smirks. I glare at him, my fists clenched at my side. No. Stop. What about Dad? Calm down.....deep breaths......deep breaths.....

"Are you to scared? Is baby Worm to scared to stand up for herself?" Zhen sneers.

God I want to punch that kid in the face, but I don't have to. Ignis reaches out and clenches each of Zhens arms in her hand, making Zhen's eyes widen. First in shock, then in pain.

"OWW!" He yelps, jumping back and falling to the ground. I stare at Zhen's arms to see small burn marks the shape of fingers on Zhen's arms. I look at Ignis to see her giving Zhen the death glare she gave Nero earlier, full of warning, but Fotia doesn't see it. She puts her palms together, about to blast fire at Ignis, when she gets hit from the side with a jet of water.

I turn to see Nero in his attack position, his palms facing Fotia and dripping with water. Ignis grabs his arm and my arm and pulls us into the crowd and away from the Black Serpents. The others follow us.

Just as we get to our spot, the city leaders appear.

"Quiet down please!" Mr. Baja says unnecessarily, as everyone is watching him, nervous excitement sketched on their faces. "Welcome to the first round of the Harmony Games!"

Everyone cheers and Mr. Baja waits for a moment before speaking again, "The teams will each be given instructions and will begin the games. Good luck to all and may you make your city proud!"

A couple people clap to that and the leaders disappear again.

Suddenly, Kin squeals, her fists balled by her cheeks. I look at her in mild surprise. "Sorry," She apologizes as she sees me watching her, "I'm just so excited!"

I smile as I remember Purna saying something similar when we first got here. I reach out and put my hand comfortingly on her arm, "Don't worry. It's going to be great."

A hand taps my back and I turn to see the man from earlier. He hands me a piece of paper and gestures for me to follow him. He leads us through a hall to a metal door with our pin design engraved onto it.

He gives us a smile and opens the door, closing it behind us. The room is more of a chamber than a room. There is no decoration except a little red bell in a corner and another metal door on the other side of the room. I look down at the paper the man gave us, quickly reading it out loud.

"Snow Ferrets,
This round is the creativity round. You will need to create a display using only your elements. Each and every one of you must contribute in some way. You have ten minutes to think of one before the doors open and you must show it to the judges. Good luck."

For a full minute we sit there in silence before Ignis snaps us from out hopeless states by clapping sharply. "We have about nine minutes to do this. We can do this. We will do this, but we can't if we don't try." With that short and kind of terrible speech, we get to work. Ignis does the most, being a designer and all, while the rest of us just add an idea or two here and there.

In nine minutes, we're done. Done and terrified. Well, I am at least.

"Oh my gosh! I can't do this!" I exclaim, pacing. Kin stops in front of me so I'm forced to look at her, surprised slightly to see her looking stern.

"Don't say that!" She says, putting her hands on my shoulders, "You will be absolutely fine. We're going to crush it out there!"

I know she means well, and I feel a little better, but it doesn't stop my nerves. My hands shake uncontrollably and my stomach hurts as the nerves take over.

Before I have time to collect myself, the bell in the corner rings and our time is up. The door swings open to reveal the stadium, the stands packed, full of people wearing different color shirts and holding signs. I spot a couple people with white shirts holding signs with a ferret on them, but they are dwarfed by the number of people with black shirts, holding snake signs. Great.

The crowd cheers so loud as the doors open I think my ears actually pop. I start to hyperventilate and Kin seems to notice. She moves closer to me, her hand landing on my shoulder, holding firm. With her other arm she waves and smiles at the crowd, shooting a couple at the camera's. It seems impossible to have this many people in one place. It's practically a furnace with all the body heat, and the air smells like sweat and excitement.

The field is green, fake grass everywhere, but in the center there are seven chairs, each occupied by one of the leaders from the various cities. They wave us over and we walk over to the open area in front of them. The crowds have quieted down, but a couple people are still screaming at the top of their lungs.

"I assume you read the paper?" Ms. Spitha asks, leaning forward so she can speak into the microphone. We nod. She smiles, "Well then, good luck!" And with that she leans back and poises her pen, watching us expectantly.

We get into our positions and I look over at Anemos. He and Nero are supposed to start the show.

Anemos waits a few minutes to build up the tension before beginning. The wind boy starts by twisting his arms, creating a cloud high above his head. It grows until it's the size of a small car and then Nero acts. The goofy boy twists his finger around in the same motion he used when he made the dog in the elevator. The cloud turns darker until it starts to drip, then pour.

This is my cue.

I feel my stomach clench as I zap each of the droplets at once so they become sparking raindrops, beautiful in the light. I hear the crowd oooo and ahhhhh.

Neve points her finger at the drops and freezes them, shortly followed by Kin shooting metal spikes at the frozen, sparking drops, making them explode, showering down, the little pieces glinting in the light. They almost reach us when Ignis shoots fire from her palms at them and they turn into steam.

I smile. It's going well. Now for the grand finale.

Terro shoots dirt into the sky and each of us shoot our element into the sky too. My electricity cracks through the sky, followed by everything else and combine to form our pin.

My mouth drops open as the smoke and dust clears to reveal what we just created. And it's glorious. Terro's dirt is in the shape of our pin, and Neve froze the whole thing over. That, combined with all our elements filling in the outer holes, completes the picture of our pin. To finish it off, Kin shoots a large metal spike at the picture, smashing it and making tiny fragments of ice shower down on us. For a couple minutes nobody speaks.

I start to get nervous. Was it that bad? Maybe we did something we weren't supposed to......

Ms. Spitha breaks the silence by clapping. Then Ms. Banyu joins in, followed by each of the leaders. The crowd soon follows and in the next minute everyone is screaming and clapping and cheering. I swear my smile was so big it stretched off my face.

"Thank you! That was truly spectacular!" Mr. Angin says into his microphone.

"You may exit the same way you came. Through the metal door." Mr. Baja informs us, pointing to the door we arrived through. We smile and wave as we leave, the cameras all trained on us. Anemos opens the door for us and we all step in, grinning like idiots.

"OH MY GOSH THAT WAS AWESOME!!!" Nero exclaims as soon as the door closes.

"It was very fun!" Anemos says, looking excited as well.

"WHOOO HOOOOO!" Kin shouts, pumping her fists in the air happily, "We aced it!"

Neve smiles, Frost poking her furry face out of Neve's hair. Ignis leans against the wall, her arms folded, "That'll wipe the ugly smirk off the Black Serpent's faces."

I just smile, looking at everyone celebrating in their own way. My heart is still beating a mile a minute, but not out of fear, out of excitement.

We might win this thing yet.
****************
Okay, I just wanted to say, I love this chapter. I don't know about you guys, but I love Ignis, Anemos, Nero, Neve, Kin, and Terro.

AND NOW FOR MY SHOUTOUTS FOR COMMENTING

Blackwolf403 , who writes pokemon fanfics and who gave me helpful feedback
&
Shock445 who's comments where kind of pointless....but I said I would shoutout so I will.

SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT SHOUTOUT

there you go Blackwolf403 and Shock445

HAPPY BIRTHDAY