I Am Number Four recap

John Smith is the fourth of nine gifted Loric children sent to Earth when the Mogadorians destroyed their planet, protected by a charm that lets them be killed only in order. The first three are dead. When the scar marking Number Three's death burns into his ankle, John and his guardian Henri flee Florida and settle in Paradise, Ohio, where John enrolls in the local high school. He falls for Sarah Hart, befriends the alien-obsessed Sam Goode, makes an enemy of the football star Mark James, and adopts a stray beagle he names Bernie Kosar. His inherited powers, called Legacies, begin to surface: light and fire in his hands, then telekinesis, and Henri trains him in the woods outside town. Each use of them risks exposure, and eventually the Mogadorians trace him to Paradise. In a battle at the high school John is joined by Number Six, another surviving Garde, and by Bernie Kosar, who turns out to be a shape-shifting Loric creature. They destroy the enemy force, but Henri is killed. John leaves Paradise with Six and Sam to find the rest of the nine.

In a Kenyan jungle, Mogadorian soldiers hunt down and kill a Loric boy known as Number Three. On a beach in Florida, a teenager feels a scar burn itself into his ankle and knows what it means. He is Number Four, one of nine children evacuated from the planet Lorien with adult guardians called Cepans when the Mogadorians destroyed their world. A charm placed on the nine means they can be killed only in the order of their numbers, and Three's death makes him next. He and his guardian Henri burn everything that could identify them, drive north, and settle in Paradise, Ohio, where he becomes John Smith and enrolls in the high school. On his first days there he meets Sarah Hart, a former cheerleader turned photographer; Sam Goode, a bullied classmate who collects magazines about alien visitors; and Mark James, the football star and Sarah's ex-boyfriend, who decides immediately that John is a problem.

John settles into Paradise against Henri's better judgement, drawn to Sarah and to the ordinary life he has never been allowed. Henri fills in the history John barely remembers: Lorien was a living, generous world, the Mogadorians burned it out after wrecking their own, and the nine children were sent away with their guardians and with Chests of Loric objects meant to be opened as they grow into their powers. Those powers, called Legacies, begin to arrive. John's hands start to glow with a hard white light he cannot switch off, and he discovers that fire does not burn him. Henri explains that this is Lumen, the first of his Legacies, and that more will follow, and that every one of them is a way of being noticed. A stray beagle attaches itself to John and will not be shaken; he names it Bernie Kosar and it follows him everywhere. Mark James's harassment escalates, and John's temper is now dangerous to lose.

Henri begins training John in the woods and fields outside Paradise, drilling him on control rather than power. Telekinesis arrives next, clumsy at first, then strong enough to move a car. Henri opens the Chest and doles out its contents as John earns them, including a stone that lets him hold his hand in fire without flinching. Meanwhile John's ordinary life keeps colliding with his real one: he grows closer to Sarah, and Mark James's crowd corners them on Halloween night, forcing John to use enough of what he can do to get them away. Every incident leaves witnesses, and Henri's warnings grow sharper. Sam Goode, who has spent years reading about visitors from other worlds, has started watching John with obvious interest.

A tabloid story about a man with impossible abilities convinces Henri that another of the nine, or evidence of one, has surfaced. He drives to Athens, Ohio, to buy the story off and silence it, and does not come back. John and Sam go after him and find Henri held prisoner by two men who believe they have caught an alien. John gets him out using everything he has, and Sam sees all of it. Rather than deny it, John tells him the truth, and Sam, whose own father vanished years earlier after becoming obsessed with the same subject, accepts it instantly and becomes an ally. Henri is badly shaken: the trail he tried to erase now leads to Ohio, and he wants to run again.

John refuses to leave Paradise. He tells Sarah what he is and shows her, and she stays with him rather than running from it. His Legacies keep developing, including a growing ability to sense and speak to animals, which explains how strangely the beagle Bernie Kosar behaves around him. Henri, resigned for the moment, keeps training him and keeps preparing the exit they will eventually need. Mark James's feud with John continues to sharpen, and Sam is now part of the small circle who know. Between the tabloid trail, the witnesses in town, and John's own unwillingness to be careful, the number of people who could point the Mogadorians at Paradise is growing.

The evidence John has left behind in Ohio does what Henri feared. Signs accumulate that they have been located: Henri makes plans to leave immediately, and John, unwilling to abandon Sarah and Sam, delays. Training becomes urgent rather than routine, and Henri prepares John for a fight instead of a flight. Bernie Kosar behaves less and less like a dog. By the time the two of them accept that the Mogadorians are actually coming, there is no distance left between preparation and the attack itself, and the fight will happen where John's ordinary life is: in Paradise, with Sarah, Sam, and the rest of the town in it.

The Mogadorians reach Paradise and the fight breaks out at the high school, with soldiers and huge beasts against John, Henri, Sam, and Sarah. Bernie Kosar reveals himself as a Chimaera, a Loric creature that can take any animal's shape, and fights as a monster of his own. Number Six, another of the surviving Garde, arrives in the middle of it: invisible when she chooses, able to call down weather, and years ahead of John in training. Together they destroy the Mogadorian force. Mark James, John's enemy all year, ends up fighting on his side. The victory costs Henri his life; he is mortally wounded and dies, and John and Six burn his body as Lorien would have. Afterward John says goodbye to Sarah, leaves Mark to explain away what the town saw, and drives out of Paradise with Six, Sam, and Bernie Kosar, carrying Henri's letter and his Chest. Six's plan is now his: find the surviving Garde, gather them, and stop being hunted one at a time.

The Mogadorians find John in Paradise and attack the high school with soldiers and monstrous beasts. John, Henri, Sam, Sarah, and even Mark James are pulled into the fight, and the stray beagle Bernie Kosar reveals what he really is: a Chimaera, a Loric creature that can take the shape of any animal, sent from Lorien to guard John. Number Six, another of the surviving Garde and far better trained than John, arrives during the battle and fights beside him, turning it. The Mogadorian force is destroyed and the school is wrecked, but Henri is fatally wounded and dies, and John and Six burn his body in the Loric way. Mark James, John's enemy all year, ends up on his side and agrees to help explain away what the town saw. Sarah cannot come with them and John says goodbye to her. He leaves Paradise with Six, Sam Goode, and Bernie Kosar, carrying his Chest and a letter Henri left him. Three of the nine are dead, and the charm that has kept the rest alive holds only while they stay apart. Six's argument has become the plan: find the remaining Garde, put them together, and stop running.