PETRA
After watching Ender walk towards the destroyed Formics castle, I headed towards the training area so I could keep my mind off what could happen. Unfortunately, I had to go through our barracks, where the others were, to get there.

I tried to run through fast, so they wouldn't see me cry, but Dink blocked my path. When I tried to go around him Bean and Alai stood beside him. I turned around to go a different way, but Bernard was behind me.

"What do you guys want? I need to train." I lied, more to myself than them. They all looked at each other, than at me in concern.

"Are you ok?" Alai asked. I was was about to give another lie when Bean interrupted me.

"Is it Ender?" He asked and even more concern appearing on their features when I avoided looking anywhere but the floor.

"Is he ok?" Dink said. I could tell they were about to rush off to his quarters so I stopped them.

"He's fine..." I said, "Hopefully." I whispered under my breath, but unfortunately Bean caught it.

"What do you mean by 'hopefully'." He said, sternly. I sighed.

"Follow me." I said, walking back in the direction I came from. A few seconds later we were getting the oxygen to go outside.

"Where are we going?" Bernard asked.

"You want to know if Ender is ok don't you?" I snapped, "If we run we can probably catch up to him."

A few minutes later we were walking into the castle. We all looked around in amazement, while at the same time looking for Ender.

"So, where is he?" Bean asked. We suddenly heard an eerie trill and everybody froze. We all knew that sound. It was the sound that plagued children's dreams, and turned them into nightmares. It was the sound that we had fought so hard to stop.

"Formics..." Alai mumbled. In a slightly louder voice I said what was on my mind.

"Ender!" I called out. We heard the trill again and I noticed it came from the thing in the center and I ran towards it. "There's a passageway, come on!" We went down it and saw Ender facing away from us. Bean was about to call out to him but I stopped him. We hid behind some rocks while we watched.

The Formics queen came out and started towards Ender. Not trusting ourselves to move we watched silently. She stopped right in front of him, brought up a claw, and placed it on the side of his neck, ready to slit his throat. He tilted his head as if to get away from the inevitable. A tear slid down his cheek as he closed his eyes. Tears were streaming down my face as I watched the scene unfold before me.

The queen retracted her claw, then used it to wipe the fallen tear on Ender's cheek. I withheld my gasp of surprise, but Bernard's slipped through. Startled the queen slashed wildly and cut deep on Ender's stomach. He passed out and the queen carried him away. The castle started to shake

In the chaos, I couldn't hear anything, but I could vaguely feel the others leading me out of the castle seconds before it collapsed.

Fresh tears streaming down my face, I collapsed. I didn't care the guys were seeing me cry. I didn't care that they were crying too. None of us cared. We had just lost our leader. Our friend. And last of her species or not, that Formics will pay.

Once everyone had calmed down enough, we headed towards Colonel Graff's office. Me and Dink went in while the others waited outside the door.

"Colonel, something horrible has happened." I said as we stood at attention.

"At ease, cadets. What's happened?" Graff questioned.

"Ender Wiggin has perished." Dink told him. Both of us had saddened looks on our faces, and Graff gained a solemn one.

"Take the rest of the week off. Tell me how this happened later." He commanded.

"Sir, if it's alright with you, our team would like to tell his family ourselves. We agreed it could be better coming from his friends." I suggested hopefully.

"Understood. I will arrange a shuttle to Earth set to leave in 0300 hours." He told us. I gave him a sad smile.

"Thank you sir." He returned the smile and me and Dink walked out.

"We're going to Earth in 0300 hours. Let's pack." I said.
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"Wow. We're here. We got to Earth." Bean said as we all stared out the shuttle windows at the planet below us.

"Remember we tell them the truth. Earth doesn't know anything yet." I told them.

"Do they know who we are?" Bernard asks.

"No. They don't know who was chosen yet. To them we're just another group of launchies." Dink explained.

"Let's go." Bean smirked.
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The car stopped in front of a two story house. I took a deep breath and looked at the guys behind me as we got out. We actually looked like normal kids. We had normal clothes on and our hair was styled normally. A girl who looked a little like Ender walked up to us.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" She asked with a confused look on her face.

"Do you live here?" Bean asked. When she nodded I knew who she was. I looked over at the guys then back to her

"You must be Valentine. We've heard a lot about you." I said with a smile shaking her hand. "I'm Petra. This is Bean, Dink, Alai, and Bernard." I said, the guys saying 'hey' or 'nice to meet you' when I said their name.

"Are you friends of Peter's?" She asked.

"Uh, no. Ender." Bernard told her.

"Then why are you here, and not him? Did something happen?" She asked worriedly. Alai gave her a sad smile.

"I'm afraid we would like to talk to your parents about this first." He told her. She nodded and led us inside. When we got to the living room she left.

"Mr. and Mrs. Wiggin we have some good news and bad news for you. Two months ago Ender was promoted to commander of the Dragon Army, our army."
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When we entered Ender's room Valentine and an older boy with curly blonde hair were whispering.

"Umm, this is Peter." Valentine said.

"Peter? THE Peter?" I asked, growing angry. Before I could do anything Dink stepped in front of me and grabbed my shoulders.

"Petra calm down. Remember WWED." He stated calmly. WWED: What Would Ender Do.
I know it's cliche but, it helps.

"Ok, but if he threatens anyone here, I'm not holding back." I said, glaring at Peter.

"I second that." Bean spoke up.

"Me too." Bernard said.

"What's your guys' problem with me?!" Peter yelled. Dink started getting angry along with the rest of us. He turned around abruptly and got in Peter's face.

"Our problem is that during battle school, no matter how tough things got, we knew Ender had had it worse here. Because of you. Alai was bullied in battle school. Ender stood up for him. No one wanted to train with Petra, because she was a girl. Ender did. Everyone thought Bernard was a big bully. Ender proved them wrong. He helped every one of us. And if you so much as harm a hair on our heads, I will do the same for him." Dink finished. Peter nodded and sat down on one of the two beds. Valentine looked up.

"Helped?" She asked. We nodded in response. "As in past tense?" She said worriedly.

"Unfortunately... yes." Alai told her. Valentine broke down and Peter had a few unshed tears himself.

"Ender's... gone?" Peter asked.

"Maybe. We're going to tell you a story." Bean told them. "I was first to meet him. We were in the shuttle, he had gotten there later than everyone else. I told him that, and in response he told me his name. We became fast friends. General Graff came in and started talking to us. He snapped at Ender, who had been smiling and asked what was so funny. He said it was because while we may think we are vertical and Graff's horizontal, he would see it the other way around. Graff asked us if it was funny. We all said no, but Graff said it was, and that Ender was the only kid on the launch with brains. Most of the others hated him after that. Well until Dap got mad." We all smiled and chuckled a little,"Sargent Dap had said not to ask any stupid questions. Ender suddenly asked if our mail was being blocked. And... short story short Ender defended himself saying it wasn't a stupid question. He ended up doing at least 30 push-ups before Dap stopped him and told him he would never salute to him. When he left everyone just looked at Ender like he was a god or something. They treated him like it too." When Bean stopped Alai skipped ahead to when everything really started.

"We had some free time one day, Ender started playing this mind game on his tablet. There was this weird troll-goblin thing telling you what you had to do. You had three lives. There were two goblets and you were supposed to pick the one that wasn't poison. He had tried both of them and died each time. I watched him play the last round. I asked him which one he would pick. You know what he said? Neither. I didn't understand until he crawled through the monsters eye and killed him. When I asked him why, he said that it was what they wanted from us. Then over the intercom they told him to follow the green light and to not take anything with him. I didn't see him for awhile after that." Now Dink carried on the story mainly because I couldn't talk about the happy stuff without crying until I pass out.

"Then he joined me and Petra's army. Our captain deemed him unworthy and later ended up in the hospital wing."

THIS CHAPTER IS GETTING LONG SO...

TO BE CONTINUED...