Disclaimer: I own own nothing except the OCs
Georgia: Welcome back my lovely readers! So here we are, in the next world of awesomeness. What have I got to report today... *look of concentration on her face* OH! That's right, we've moved base since last time we spoke. We ran into a few...issues with some of the locals last week, it wasn't my fault, I swear!
Altaïr: *walks on screen to stand arms crossed* Do not lie to your readers, Georgia. We both know if you hadn't punched that boy in the face none of this would have happened.
Georgia: *looking insulted* He started it...
Altaïr: ...
Georgia: Okay, look, *flings arms in the air* he was the one that couldn't take a hint! Besides if I hadn't done it you would have! *points at the assassin* You can't deny that.
Altaïr: *barely audible* This is true...
Georgia: *turns back to address her lovely audience* Basically what happened was this guy was hitting on me, and really going for it too, but wasn't exactly listening when I told him I wasn't interested. I was polite and kind about it...at first. Buuut, after a while it was clear he hadn't got the hint, so I punched him in the face. *mumbles* Turns out he was the prince...
Altaïr: Yes, he was the prince, even I knew that. So we were chased off that world and had to relocate to... *tilts head at her* where are we now?
Georgia: We are just in a slightly different version of my dimension at the moment actually, which is a nice change. So yeah, that's why we moved. Not much else to tell beyond that, so enjoy part 3!
I'm home! ...wait, what?
This journey was smoother than the last and I landed lightly on the other side of the portal, to be greeted by a post-apocalyptic scene. I quickly opened my storage and re-booted my bare feet, 'damn, this is a pain in the ass to keep doing,' I moaned, then stood back up to continue my survey of the area. Most of the buildings that surrounded me had falling down, it was clear to see nobody had used the sky rises here in a long time, almost all of them were crumbing down. I noticed that many of them were missing large chunks of structure and a couple were just rubble of fallen towers. But as I turned around in a circle I saw that the buildings behind me had been kept in perfectly good condition, there were even a few people in the distance, 'so people do still live here,' I thought to myself, 'wait, where even is here.'
I spun around slowly taking everything in, the sound of Woodkid still playing making the scene incredibly ominous, when I realised something. I knew this skyline. That building there . . . that was Sears Tower and I was standing under the "L", a very noisy elevated train that I used to hate. I was in the city I used to live in for 2 years, Chicago. A post-apocalyptic Chicago, but why was I here of all places? Were they trying to torment me?
As I was pondering the question a mass of black suddenly rounded the corner and ran towards me. I leapt out of their way and as they sprinted past me, with the odd splash of blue, white and orange in the mix, I realised where I was. I laughed out loud, because I was in the Divergent universe. The last of the Dauntless initiates breezed past me and I made the split second decision to follow them. If I was in this world for combat training Dauntless initiation must be what they wanted me to do. The initiates climbed up to the tracks and waited for the train to arrive. As I followed them up I briefly thought about how I would have been arrested for doing this when I lived here.
We only stood waiting at the top for a few moments before I heard the horn of the train blare as it got closer and I saw the sleek grey carriages round the bend to come barrelling towards us. 'Shit, that's going fast,' I panicked, 'I hope I can jump onto it in time.' The Dauntless born teens started running just before the train reached us. I promptly followed their lead knowing they had done this many times before and knew exactly what they were doing. I saw an opening in the train and leapt towards it, arms outstretched to grab onto anything. My hands snagged a bar and the side of the door, I heaved myself inside and slumped against the wall exhaling deeply, not realising I had held my breath until then, wishing I was fitter than my current pitiful level.
The carriage quickly filled up with 16 year olds and I noticed that I'd managed to land with - what looked like – all the transfers. It was at that point I looked at what I was wearing and breathed I sigh of relief. I thanked my lucky stars that I chose to wear a white t-shirt that morning - can I still call it that? What time is it here anyway? – as it meant I could call myself Candor and didn't have to explain my sudden appearance as a Dauntless nobody had seen before. I mentally rolled my eyes at the fact they identified each other by the colours of their clothes, seemed like a ridiculous idea to me.
I peered around the carriage to see how many of the windswept teens were from each fraction. Unsurprisingly there were no Abnigation, but there were 2 boys and a girl from Amity, 1 girl and 4 guys from Erudite, while the remaining 4 were Candor with equal numbers of each sex and then there was me, making a total of 13 transfer initiates. I mentally shrugged, 'about what I expected.'
We sat in the train as it barrelled down the tracks, wind whipping my hair everywhere. I frowned in annoyance, not liking strands of hair escaping my pony tail. It took me a few tries but I finally managed to retie all my hair in place. My hands fell to my lap as I let out a bored sigh, this train ride was longer than I expected. How much longer would this take? It was as I thought this that one of the transfers informed the rest of us in disbelief, "they are jumping out of the train onto a roof!"
'Finally.' I stood up and wordlessly positioned myself a few meters away from the open door and prepared myself to run and jump. I received a few looks from some of the others but one of the Erudite boys came over to me and stood next to me asking, "you are just going to jump? No questions asked?"
I looked at the boy shrewdly, he was slightly taller than me, maybe 5'9" – 5'10", with a lean build, dark brown eyes with very light brown hair, that was quite long for a guy, swept to the side of his face. Catching sight of his Erudite blue clothes I gave him plain facts, stating flatly in a forced Americanised accent to not seem out of place, "you don't jump, you're Factionless," before turning back to face the door.
"Right," he mumbled quietly before copying my actions, "I'm Ben by the way," he stated, our shoulders bumping together as the carriage swayed.
"Georgia," I replied politely before seeing the Dauntless from carriages in front jumping onto the roof we were passing. I looked at my new acquaintance with a grin to say, "follow me," before sprinting and leaping into the air with as much power as I could manage, silently praying that it's enough to get me over the gap between the tracks and the building. I landed heavily on the roof with a satisfying amount of distance to spare and staggered to a halt.
Seconds later a blue form landed almost face planting on the ground next to me, with a grin on his face. "I made it!" he said with glee as he picked himself up off the ground.
I rolled my eyes with a small smile on my face and snorted in amusement, "yes you did. Maybe next time land on your feet though?" His reply was cut short by a hysterical scream. We turned together to see the Amity girl sobbing from the edge of the roof, looking down the gap between the tracks and roof. Ben looked confused, but I could guess what had happened - someone hadn't made the jump. Judging by who was crying I guessed it was the body of one of the Amity boys that was currently sprawled out on the street.
Not particularly wanting to see a dead body splatted on the pavement, I didn't follow Ben to the edge. A good move I thought when Ben turned around wide eyed and white as a sheet. 'Curiosity killed the cat, or rather in this case made the cat puke,' I mused to myself as Ben emptied the contents of his stomach onto the roof. I scrunched up my nose as I walked over to him and helped him over to where all the others were gathering. We were almost there when someone called out, "sure you shouldn't be a stiff?"
I whipped around towards the sound to glare at two of the boys from Erudite, I mentally rolled my eyes, 'of course it was them,' before saying, "just because I am Dauntless doesn't mean I stop being human. It's called common decency, maybe you should try it?" I replied, my voice practically dripping in sarcasm. The taller blonde glared back while the black haired boy's eyes widen slightly at my verbal attack, the latter obviously being the blonde's lackey. The blonde was about to move to retaliate when the only girl wearing blue put a hand on his arm before quietly muttering something I couldn't hear to him.
He glared at me before growling, "this isn't over," and walked away. Ben had recovered by this point so we started walking again, unfortunately being the last to arrive earned us a glare from the man with slightly greying black hair that was standing on the raised edge - obviously the leader.
He confirmed this when he opened his mouth to say, "my name is Max. I am one of the leaders of your new faction." He waved a hand towards the large open space behind him, "several stories below us is the entrance to our compound. If you can't muster the will to jump off, you don't belong here. Our initiates have the privilege of going first." His hand moved to gesture towards us, and the older members that had been at the ceremony parted to allow us to reach the edge.
The few moments of awkward silence that followed was broken by him demanding, "well someone's got to go first, so who's it going to be?" I rolled my eyes, 'guess these lot aren't as brave as Tris. Looks like I'm taking the leap of faith,' I thought as I walked silently to the edge and jumped up onto the raised portion. "Looks like we have a winner," Max said stepping down, his tone of voice suggesting he was slightly . . . surprised or unnerved, I wasn't not sure, by my silence and exasperated expression.
I didn't respond because I was busy looking down to see only blackness, logically I knew there was a net at the bottom of the pit, but it didn't stop the nervous butterflies from fluttering around my stomach as I gathered the courage to jump. I silently laughed at the irony of 'Don't Look Down' playing in my head, before mentally shaking my head to clear it of thoughts. I placed my arms out either side of me with my legs together, bent my knees and jumped out into the darkness - attempting to imitate an Assassin's Creed leap of faith.
I felt the wind whipping around me as I grinned, shifting to falling on my back as I enjoyed the sensation of falling, whilst desperately hoping that I hadn't butchered the elegant movement too badly for a first attempt. All too soon I crashed into the net at the bottom and bounced back up fairly highly, whooping with glee as the adrenaline courses through my veins. I performed a flip on my bounce, taking the opportunity to have some fun on what was, for a moment, essentially a trampoline.
Four's POV
I watched as the First Jumper fell through the air, surprised at seeing the figure of a female elegantly descending towards the net. It was usually some headstrong boy who jumped first, wanting to seem the biggest and the best of the group, and never with any of the elegance this girl was displaying, nor the complete silence. I was instantly curious about this young girl, and my curiosity was amplified when she performed a flip on the net, almost as if she knew it would be there - which was impossible, it's a highly guarded secret – with an exclamation of joy of all things.
I walked over to the side of the net and held my hand out to help her down, hoping she accepted my hand and not another's, as I wanted to get a closer look at this peculiar initiate. She grabbed hold of my hand grinning as I pulled her off the net. She landed steadily and I asked her, "what's your name?" She didn't respond and seemed to be deep in thought, so I took the opportunity to look her over.
She stood a few inches shorter than me, unusually slightly plumper than most, with mousy brown hair in a high pony tail and hazel eyes. She looked . . . older than 16 somehow, and there was a look in her eyes that said she knew more than you. It was unnerving. 'I'm going to have to keep an eye on this girl,' I thought solemnly to myself, 'she is . . . different, and I'm not sure if it's in a good way.'
Georgia's POV
Sadly, the bounces quickly became too small to perform any fun manoeuvres so I crawled to the side of the net and grabbed one of the many hands offering assistance. I jumped down and thanked the hand that aided me whilst I peered up to see a handsome blonde guy that looked around my age, 'I bet that's Four,' I said to myself upon seeing a pair of crystal blue eyes. 'So this is…' I scrabbled to try and conjure the memories of this world, 'before Tris, but only just.' I was so deep in thought that I missed his question, only realising that he said something when I noticed his impatient expression, "sorry, what did you say?"
He sighed before asking, "what's your name?"
"Oh, Georgia," I replied quickly.
He turned around and called out, "First Jumper - Georgia!" I heard cheers from the direction he shouted in, but I was paying more attention to the falling figure, yelling in fear, that had jumped after me. Ben.
"Looks like he took my advice and then some," I muttered to myself smirking as I walked over to the net to offer him help. I hauled him onto solid ground, congratulating him on at least not screaming like a girl with a smirk on my face. He shot a look of annoyance in my direction for my comment but didn't respond, probably in an attempt to keep some semblance of dignity.
We stepped off to the side and stood watching as the others dropped down into the net, but as usual my mind became restless so I start mouthing along to Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now' that had begun playing in my head shortly after I pulled Ben off the net. "What are you doing?" Ben questioned looking at me like I was crazy.
"Singing. A song," I said slowly, "you guys do do that, right?"
"Erm, not typically, no. What is the song?" he asked curiously.
I looked around and saw that it was taking some time for everyone to arrive so I said, "what the hell. Sure. I'll sing a song for you." 'It's only one person after all,' I reasoned. So I sung the classic hit to him, gradually becoming lost in the music. I got all the way through the song before I noticed that my audience had grown to almost all the transfers. "Erm, sorry about that," I shyly looked down and shuffled my feet, "didn't meant to disturb you."
The redheaded girl from Amity smiled broadly before excitedly announcing that I hadn't and they would actually very much like to hear another of these new songs. I pondered the idea for a second before saying, "well… I guess I can do that; I can even do one you guys can help with if you want?" The suggestion was met with an excited agreement so I began repeatedly slapping my hands on my thighs twice before clapping, I told everyone to copy and that some should stomp instead of slap their thighs. Once they got the hang of it I burst into 'We Will Rock You', encouraging them all to join in singing the chorus. By the end of the song it had grown into all the initiates joining in happily. 'This is crazy,' I reflected to myself, 'I can't believe they lost music like this, these guys are loving it.'
That's when a new guy, also around my age, turned up furiously asking what we were all doing. Ben bravely responded, "Georgia was teaching us some songs we hadn't heard before," tilting his head towards me. I mentally groaned, I was in the shit now, if the multitude of piercings told me anything it was that I was unfortunately dealing with Eric.
"She was doing what?" said douchebag asked, clearly pissed off.
"I was singing some stuff for them," I said, hoping to divert some of Eric's attention from Ben.
I saw an evil glint come into his eye, "I don't believe you," he said sternly, "sing something else we don't know." 'That shouldn't be too difficult,' I mentally scoffed, then took a minute to think of a song. "Any day now," Eric barked.
I played 'Roar' by Katy Perry, giving him a glare before I began, belting it out right into his stupid little pierced face. I could already tell I wasn't not going to like him. At. All.
I finished the song with a defiant stare. Eric just grunted and shoved me along the path, bellowing at everyone else to follow. He fell in step with Tobias, no wait - he was still Four at this point (I've really got to remember that), and the initiates followed behind. As we walked I took in the dingy looking corridors, lit up by dimly glowing lamps on the rocky walls. 'Nice place they've got here,' I sarcastically noted, 'very light, very airy.'
They came to a halt suddenly and Eric informed us that the Dauntless born initiates were to follow him as they didn't need a tour, leaving the rest of us with Four. It was then that I noticed that I could only see one figure wearing orange, the other Amity boy had vanished.
"Where has the other Amity kid gone?" I whispered to Ben over Four's introduction.
"I don't-"
Ben was interrupted by a grumpy 17-year-old male, "is there a problem over there?" he asked sternly. 'Greeaat,' I mentally groaned, 'good job Georgia, lets get on the bad side of your instructor before you even start.' Before Ben could get into trouble too - I seemed to be magnet for it but there was no need to drag him down too, he actually had to make a life here - I repeated my question to Four. "He didn't jump," he replied curtly, "meaning he has no place here."
I was quiet after that, no need to make a bad situation worse. He gave us the tour, but I didn't pay much attention to what he was saying, I just took in the amazing views. The Pit was a truly astonishing sight, oh the health and safety people of my time would have a nightmare here. But what truly left me speechless was The Chasm, with the waterfall cascading down behind the bridge with a roar. I always knew it would be impressive but actually seeing it took my breath away.
We ended up finishing in the dining area and my stomach rumbled loudly as we arrived. I tried to calculate the last time I ate, but with the time jump and not knowing how much time had passed in this world, I couldn't work it out so I gave up. Instead I piled my plate high with a burger, salad, chips (or fries, as they called them) and an assortment of vegetables.
I didn't even realise I was behind Four until he looked back and questioned, "you think you've got enough food there?" with raised eyebrows.
I gave frown and put my hand to my chin in a contemplating fashion, scanning the options in front of me before seeing one of the few foods I had missed from my time here, deep dished pizza. My eyes lit up and my mouth started salivating, pepperoni deep dish, my favourite.
"Nope," I exclaimed happily before placing a slice on my plate and nodding in satisfaction, "now I do." Ben smirked from behind me and I didn't see Four's eyes rolling as he walked away.
Ben and I found some seats and started eating when we were surprised by the redhead girl sitting down next to me, her hair clashing horribly with her orange clothes. "Hi," she said quietly, "do you mind if I sit with you? It's just . . . the others from my faction didn't make it…" she trailed off and I sympathised with her.
"No problem," I replied kindly, "my name's Georgia, and this clever clogs here is Ben."
"I'm Sally," she introduced herself with a slight shy smile.
"Sorry that your friends didn't make it," Ben said gently.
"It's okay, I'm not surprised really, there is a reason there aren't many transfers from Amity to Dauntless," she replied carefully.
I nudged her gently with my shoulder to encouragingly say, "well you can be the one that makes it all the way to being a member." She smiled at me and conversation drifted on as we went back to eating.
After dinner Eric introduced himself and led us to the dorm, we all remained silent as we sleepily trudged through the dim hallways, not wanting to enrage the man again. He came to a halt in front of a door to say, "some ground rules; you have to be in the training room by eight o'clock every day. Training takes place every day from eight to six, with a break for lunch. You are free to do whatever you like after six. You will also get some time off between each stage of initiation."
He paused for a moment to look us over, god knows why, probably to intimidate us. "You are only allowed to leave the compound when accompanied by a Dauntless" Eric added. "Behind this door is the room where you will be sleeping for the next few weeks. There are only 10 beds and 11 of you, we anticipated that more of you wouldn't make it to the compound," he glared at me when saying the last part. 'What did I do this time!?' I sighed, 'this is going to be a very interesting stay…' I decided dejectedly. He then informed us that one of us would have to sleep on a mattress on the floor and we were to fight it out after he left.
I started to drift off when he explained how the training would work and people questioning why we are to be ranked and then removed. I heard more questions and gasps when they were told only the top 10 initiates were kept in Dauntless, then even more upon hearing if they didn't make the cut they were Factionless. He then delivered the ominous line I read in the book oh so long ago, "you chose us, now we have to choose you."
Without another word he stalked off back the way we came, leaving a stunned silence behind him as we filed into the room. Before anyone started fighting over who would sleep on the floor, I walked over the the mattress in the corner and slumped onto it - exhausted after being awake half a day longer than normal. I didn't even bother changing out of my clothes or brushing my teeth, I passed out instantly.
Altaïr: So, this book, it is popular, yes?
Georgia: Very popular, yeah. I fucking loved this book series, I must have read all of them 10 times at least. They were awesome but I was so sad at the end...
Altaïr: What happened?
Georgia: Nuh uh. Spoilers. I'll tell you later, I don't wanna spoil if for anyone who hasn't read it yet.
Altaïr: *grumbles* Fine. Well thank you for-
Georgia: WAIT! Don't sign off yet! I almost forgot, thank you to for reading my story! Hope you are enjoying it! OK, now you can sign off *grins at him*
Altaïr: Thank you for reading Georgia's story, we have faith we will see you next time. Have a good week until then.
