Sorry about the wait guys! I know it's been a while but I'm sure you'll get over it :)

As soon as I had stepped out into the hall, I was ushered into a classroom by Mentor Trudy.

'You have given us a bit of grief.' She said angrily. 'We've had to move you and Fidelia to another room.'

'What, why?' I asked incredulously.

'Because yours is receiving maintenance after you almost burnt it down. Well at least you got another Alm. We were all starting to think that you were a hopeless case.' Oh, Mentor Trudy, her brain-to-mouth filter had once again failed her. 'You'll just have to go to class in your training kit. The Lab hasn't finished fire proofing your class clothes yet.'

'Okay.' I said, glad that our short walk was over.

I silently entered the classroom. Mentor Peter stood at the front of the classroom. We had four classes a day, and then up to three trainings which were always bunched together. I had already missed my trainings, and two classes. I had also missed Lunch and breakfast and my stomach was rumbling. Classes were taught upon ability, not age. I was in a low Mathematics class along with Otto, Carrie, Wyatt and Rufus. Otto is the youngest in the class being thirteen, then followed by Rufus and Carrie at fifteen, and then Wyatt and I being sixteen. Wyatt is kind of quiet, so we relish all of the words that come out of his mouth. Some of the things he says are so hilarious that he has us all crying with laughter. Wyatt's words are like butterflies in winter, rare and awed. One time in summer, Winona caught a small blue butterfly in a jar. Mentor Stephen spent a whole week with us studying the cycle of butterflies and how they lived. That was when we were all quite young, and then as we got older, the Mentor's didn't do that kind of 'nice' stuff anymore. We were raised to be inquisitive, and now, trained to be warriors through gruelling trainings and informative classes. The government's weapons, we got used to the idea quite young and it doesn't bother us now.

The classes are divided into six subjects: mathematics, English, Languages, Computers (which is mainly just hacking databases) the Sciences and the Arts. It's pretty basic, but most of our time is consumed in combat. Maths is my most hated subject and I don't even try.

I walked along the desks and found one at the back. Carrie looked at me quizzically and Wyatt grinned at me. Otto and Rufus were both engrossed in a game of Pinch. It's pretty much where you pinch someone, starting softly and then harder and if they made a noise or tapped out you got to eat their desert. We'd been playing it for so long, that we had forgotten who started it. I rested my chin on my hand and tried to make sense of the quadratic equations that moved across the board, but I couldn't focus. All I could think about was poor Kermit, and whether he was okay.

My last class for the day was art, which I was excited for. Art was my favourite apart from training; it involved painting, and modern arts like architecture and drama. We didn't have a teacher, just each other. Art was an open subject and took place at the end of the day right through till dinner. At least ten of us turned up each night and being unsupervised, we mostly did what we wanted. I scanned the room for Fidelia and saw her. I rushed over to where she was sitting.

'Fidelia, I know what happened to-' She cut me off.

'Kermit arrived in Science today, he won't show me his bruises but there was blood soaking through his shirt.' She looked at me, clearly trying to hide how upset she was.

'Fiddy, it wasn't your fault, he's fine now. They need to keep us in order. Kermit broke the rules.' I insisted. She just glared at me.

'You don't believe that Mags, why would you say that?' She looked at me, waiting for an answer. I knew she was right. I didn't believe it. Kermit did nothing wrong, why was I trying to stick up for what Mentor Christian did? I hated him. I opened my mouth to say more but Fidelia got up and left.

I sat down at one of the paint splattered desk and opened my sketch book. I returned to drawing a picture of Fidelia but I couldn't so I started to draw flames curling out the window of Mentor Christians office. My pencil became an extension of my hand and I drew, it took my mind off my new alm and helped me control myself. I decided that I would approach Avery at dinner, and then we would have a while to talk about what happened.

I was interrupted by Mentor Trudy barging in, she called out my name and Winona pointed me out.

'Magdalene, you are wanted in the test lab.' She said. I nodded and put my sketchbook in my white, carefully labelled shelf.

'Do I need anything?' I asked, packing up my pencils.

'Just yourself,' she motioned at me to hurry. I finished clearing my desk and trotted behind her down the corridor, eager to find out about my strange new ability.

I entered the Testing Lab; I was grinning and bouncing on my toes, at last I would be able to get answers to all my questions. Now that I knew Kermit was safe, well as safe as he could be, I could let myself be excited. I sat in a plastic chair and waited for the Scientists to call me in. I suspected that it would be the man and the lady from the med room. I caught snatches of sentences through the door, I didn't mean to eavesdrop but their voices were quite loud.

'- very rare indeed.'

'- what tests shall we run?'

'-put her under.'

The door opened and the pair from the Medical Block emerged, just as I had thought.

'Hello Magdalene, how are you feeling?' The lady asked.

'Good ma'am, thank you.'

'I'm glad, now we need to run a few tests to understand your new alm. As we know, it is an elemental alm, but stronger than any other we have seen.' The woman started. I just nodded.

'It is a fire alm. This particular fire is extremely hard to develop, and even harder to control. Based on some of the diagnostics we ran, you should be dead.' The man continued. He was being rather blunt, but I would expect nothing less.

'For these particular tests, we need to take a blood sample, but we will do so after we watch you try and control the fire. This will be held in the Training Room.' The woman smiled, but it wasn't particularly friendly, more nervous. They started out the door. I tried to speak, ask more questions but they had already pushed me into the hallway. They stood towering, at each side of me, and I felt tiny and helpless.

We entered the huge training room. It was completely deserted but was in perfect order. The spongy combat mats had been wiped clean of blood and all of the training equipment was stacked neatly on allocated shelves. The training room hadn't a single bit of white on it. The walls were a dark grey and the floors were all black. The furthest wall had an array of blunt practise weapons, and behind a door there was a room full of state of the art weapons that were used only for those whose alms needed them. I walked into the middle of the room on the black floor. It was cool under my bare feet. I looked expectantly at the scientists, hoping they would tell me what to do. It was clear that they weren't picking up on my looks so I just went for it and asked what to do.

'Show us your fire.' The man replied. I nodded and bit the inside of my lip. I wasn't really sure how to summon my alm.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I thought back onto all of my training sessions with Mentor Kyung. I focused my power into my hands and released it all. I thought I could feel the energy surging through my body, humming. I stood there with my arms spread wide, my palms facing the roof and my eyes squeezed shut, thinking about the flames licking my hands.

A scientist coughed and I opened my eyes.

Nothing had happened.

I had failed.