Chapter 1

Freely we serve

Because we freely love, as in our will

To love or not: in this we stand of fall.

~John Milton

Jace POV

I walked over to where Clary was standing. She had a big smile on her face.

"What's going on?" I ask her.

"You'll see," she replies, "After we go through the portal. I just need to wait for Simon and Isabelle. Alec and Magnus are around here somewhere."

"Okay."

"Sorry, we're here!" I hear Isabelle shout from a distance.

"Cool!" Clary says. "Let's go now. Alec and Magnus will go first. I need to go last."

Alec comes running with Magnus. "We're ready," Alec says, "Warlocks first." Magnus grumbles something and Clary tells them to wait for us on the other side. Clary focuses as Simon and Isabelle pass through, following Magnus and Alec's lead. As I come closer to the portal I see that it looks a bit strange. It's a purple color, not blue like usual.

"Clary," I ask, "What's wrong with this portal?"

Clary looks momentarily disappointed, as if I've figured out an important secret.

"Well, it's supposed to bring us into the future, but I can't keep it open much longer. Let's go!" And with that, she pulled me through the portal with her.

I landed next to Clary on a somewhat rough surface. Behind us is a net. People are all next to this net. We are at the side of a building. I look over at Clary, who is taking in the sight.

"Well, I guess it didn't work," Clary said. "This looks like an old building, not a new one."

"Clary," I say, "look again. As far as I know, only shadowhunters wear all black. And those weird people who are jumping off those moving trains don't look like shadowhunters. They don't have any runes… only tattoos."

"How can you see them?" Alec asked.

"Well, some of them are approaching us now," I reply.

"So, we made it to the future," Isabelle said.

"Hopefully," Clary said. "Looks like those people Jace saw are coming. Be nice." Clary looked at me after that last comment. I pretended to look hurt as the strangers approached.

"Hey," Clary says. "Is this still 2014?"

A blonde girl responds to my girlfriend. "No, that passed a long time ago. Where have you been?"

"In the past," Clary responds with a smile. "I'm Clary. The blond guy is Jace. The other girl is Isabelle. The guy with the blue eyes is Alec, and the guy next to him is Magnus. We're lost. Where are we?"

"Well, Clary you're in Dauntless. You look like you belong here. You're dressed in black, and have tattoos. "The blonde girl received blank stares. "Well, I haven't been here too long either. It's our first day after our initiation. I'm Tris. Next to me are Christina, Four, and Will. We'll show you around."

"What tattoos?" Clary whispers to me.

"I think she means the runes. Mundanes always think that they're tattoos. Didn't you think I had tattoos the first time you saw me?" I respond.

Clary looks thoughtful for a minute. "No, actually," she responds. "I had other things to worry about until you told me about them."

I look over to see that the mundane leading the group was way ahead of us. "Come on," I tell Clary. "Let's go catch up. Then we can see if they are actually mundanes or not. They look like they could be shadowhunters."

Clary looks over at me. "I doubt they're shadowhunters." I pull her forward, and we run to catch up with our friends and the strangers.

Tris POV

I was walking with Tobias when I crashed into Christina and Will. I was going to be dragged shopping when some Dauntless stopped us to question us. Or, they looked Dauntless, at least. The redhead, Clary, I think, told me she didn't know where she was. I'll show them around, but they seem strange. I pull Tobias aside as Christina and Will take the lead.

"What do you think is the matter with them?" I ask Tobias softly.

"I don't know," he replies. "Maybe they are telling the truth."

"Nope. They have to be Dauntless. Look at them. They're wearing all black. They have tattoos. They all look well built, like they've been training recently. Look at the blonde guy, for example. He looks totally Dauntless."

"Are you checking him out?"

"No, but I think they may have temporary memory loss. I'll ask them."

"Nice tattoos," I say to Jace and Clary.

They glance at each other before Clary responds. "They aren't tattoos. They're runes."

"What?" I say, confused.

"Runes," Jace responds, "give us power. As shadowhunters, we need runes to strengthen us. They give us extra energy, power, heal us, and do basically anything we need them too, presuming they exist, or are created." He glances at Clary after his final comment. They look as if they have shared a silent message. Then, Jace speaks up. "You are shadowhunters, right?"

"What's a shadowhunter?" I ask.

Clary looks at Jace as if she told him so. "Well, I was right last time I guessed," he told Clary. "I can't win them all, but I can win ninety-nine percent of the time."

"Well," I say, "let's get on with our tour.

(Line break)

After the tour, Tobias and I decided to take them to Max, and describe the situation.

"They say they're from the past," I tell Max. "They look like they'll make a good addition to Dauntless, but they say that they're shadowhunters, and that they fight demons. They have some weird tattoos that disappear once they use them. They have weapons that I've never seen before. Four hasn't seen them before either. I don't think they exist at all."

"Weird," Max says. "Let me see these shadowhunters. I don't want to believe that you two lied to me. I also don't want the factionless in my compound.

"I'll go get them," I volunteer. I leave Tobias with Max and go over to my apartment, where I let the so called shadowhunters stay. I don't use it much, so it wouldn't hurt to let them stay there. I reach the door, and call them. They seemed pretty peaceful when I entered the room.

"Your presence is needed. You'll be seeing Max, our faction leader. He'll decide what to do with you." After I deliver the message, they all look at each other, and follow me out of the room.

Clary POV

Tris tells us to follow her to meet her leader. I fall into step next to Jace. He looks over at me, questioning.

"When will we got back to our time?" he asks. "I doubt there are any demons in this realm."

"I don't know," I say suddenly worried. "I didn't tell my mom about this. It'll be a bit until I can open the portal again. I'm not sure I have enough strength."

"Don't worry about your mom," Jace says soothingly. "There must be cell phone reception somewhere. Just tell her you took us through a portal with you."

"It's a good thing she likes you now," I say. "At least more than before." Looking over at my friends, I see Isabelle talking to Simon, and Magnus talking to Alec. Isabelle walks over to Alec, and joins their conversation.

"I'm going to talk to Simon," I tell Jace.

He looks over at Simon, and then at Tris. "You'd better be quick," he says, "it looks like we're almost there."

I fall behind until I meet Simon."I don't when we can leave." I whisper to Simon. "I feel like I've messed up."

"It won't be that bad," Simon replies.

"We might miss your next couple band performances. And your mom could get worried. I know mine will."

"I'll just tell her I need to sleep over at Eric's for a few nights."

"Unless this takes a few weeks, months, or years.

"Then it's a school thing."

Tris turns into a room, and we follow. I stand next to Jace, and in front of Simon. "I brought them." Tris announces.

"Very good," a man, presumably Max, says. "So, you're shadowhunters." He looks over at us. Glancing at Four and Tris, he says, "They look Dauntless to me."

"Ask them," Four says. "They claim they don't know anything, and they don't look like they're lying."

Max glances at us. "They have all black on." He looks at Magnus, who is wearing lots of glitter. "Most of them," he amends. "They also have tattoos."

Jace speaks up. "They're runes, not tattoos." Under his breath, he mutters, "Typical mundanes."

Max says, "What's the difference."

Jace starts to look slightly annoyed. Alec shoots him a look, and he looks worried. He whispers to me, "We're not supposed to tell them about the shadowhunter world, what do we do?"

I consider this for a moment. "Be as specific as you can without revealing anything. I'll give this one a shot. Trust me."

Looking up at Max, I say "Our runes disappear, and we can replace them. It's not very painful to put them on, and there is no pain when they disappear. Any shadowhunter can put runes on themselves. Your tattoos are permanent, and you need a tattoo artist to put them on you."

Jace looks impressed at my answer. "Better than what I was going to say," he whispers as Max considers this information.

Max speaks up after talking with Tris and Four. "I'll let you stay, given you can pass our initiation. Then you come whenever without being bothered. First, I'll ask you a few more questions."

Max questioned us about factions, aptitude tests, the factionless, manifestos, and other nonsense we had never heard of before. He made us show him our weapons. We only showed him Alec's dagger. Clearly, he had never seen one before. After Max decided that we were not planning to hurt his faction in anyway, he let us stay in the transfer dorms, until we were trained by Tris and Four tomorrow.

After the meeting we were greeted by Tris and Four. Four spoke to us about training. "Your first day begins tomorrow. At least you didn't have to jump off the net. Welcome to Dauntless."

And that's the end of Chapter one. So, what do you guys think? I had to use the quote by Milton that was at the end of City of Heavenly Fire. I couldn't help it:).

Please read and review. You can Pm as well. Thanks for reading! I'll try to update once a month since there's school, but I'll definitely update once every two months.

You can also check out my two other Divergent stories, Tris's ghost and Becoming Champions. More information about them can be found on my profile page. Bye!

~DauntlessPokemonRide