Notes:.

-This initial prologue is a bit short. The first paragraph, for those who may notice, is a rewrite from the original books. Used to show how this piece of work differs from the original trilogy. I hope you'll be willing to give this a chance.

-This story is written in several Acts. The prologue is excluded from Act I. Many of the chapters in these Acts may be different character arcs. The main characters in this work are going to be Beatrice and Tobias, mainly. Don't go asking for their romance. Others mains will probably be Christina and Uriah. These main characters will have different times in the spotlight but have no planned character arcs. Side characters such as Lynn, Marlene, Peter, Drew, Shauna, Myra, Edward, etc will quite possibly have their time too.

-Chapter I in the first act, Act I- Tergiversate should come soon after this.

DEVIANT
"departing from usual or accepted standards, especially in social or sexual behaviour."
Synonyms: aberrant, anomalous, DIVERGENT, irregular, digressive

-Ｐｒｏｌｏｇｕｅ-

There once was only one mirror in my house. The sliding door was ripped from its place and laid on the floor of the upstairs hallway for weeks. I used to sit on a stool up there and stare into that mirror as my mother cut my hair. She used to twist my hair into a knot when she was finished. The way she seemed to lose herself seemed so practised it could've been an art. I could've never done that. Or maybe I could've. If the Dauntless had never come.

Jeanine has to take her fingers off of the keyboard for a minute when the tight sensation in her back become intolerable. She takes her glasses off the bridge of her nose and dumps them on the desk not far from her laptop. Jeanine shuffles in her seat, finally deciding to turn that desk light on, and swivels her upper body to one side, then the other, before bending back over her chair, raising her hands towards the roof.

Dear god, did she work hard. She could do with a break, but warring with another faction always made things a tad harder. Working with a bunch of geniuses in a faction built on a love for knowledge and worship for intelligence should make thinks a hell of a lot easier for Jeanine to have some time to herself, but it probably did the opposite.

A knock sounded from the door, and frankly, this late at night, Jeanine could hardly care less what impression she made on whoever was at the door so she kept stretching the muscles in her back, enjoying every little crack she heard.

"Enter," Jeanine said, shifting in the chair once more.

The door creaked open and the sound of heavy boots colliding with the floor could be heard as the person made their way closer to Jeanine's desk. The Faction Leader groaned, wanting to break her back on the chair. Dauntless wore heavy boots. Her Dauntless were all loyal, but thick as bricks. Making intelligent conversation with them was like trying to teach a brick wall about basic physics. Impossible. Jeanine could perhaps be able to parley with an intelligent individual on something such as Faction History, but she doubted that would ever come from a Dauntless.

"Tired ma'am?" The gentle, feminine voice surprised Jeanine enough for her to sit up enough to get a good look at the individual.

Jeanine raised an eyebrow at the woman who now stood at the other end of her desk. Though Jeanine felt the word 'woman' almost was a bit too mature for the person facing her. If they were a woman, they were only barely one. She would ask about this.

"You're not too old, are you?" Jeanine asks.

The person laughs, showing off a large toothy smile that reaches her bright blue eyes.

"Not very ma'am. I only turned eighteen this December." They say.

Jeanine decides to be polite and returns the smile. She notices the dark clothes the woman is wearing and feels every part of her immediately spur into action. The stranger must notice this and lifts an arm to tug gently on the blue strip of fabric that coils around her bicep. She's safe. Jeanine also noticed how the other arm -the one she didn't use to point of her allegiance to the Erudite- is behind her back. Again, the woman notices and brings her arm forward, revealing an odd, oblong metal box, with each of the side faces bearing the symbol of one of the factions, yet the Abnegation symbol is out of sight from where she sits. The Dauntless symbol glows a bright blue.

She places it tentatively onto the edge of the desk. The light in the symbol dies. Jeanine reaches out with the speed of a striking viper and grips the hand the woman facing her just used to place the Box down before her eyes.

"Thank you for this. You don't know how much this means," Jeanine says softly to her.

"I think I might be able to guess," they reply.

Jeanine stiffly shakes the woman's hand.

"May I at least have the name of the woman who entered my office at," Jeanine glances at the clock, "half past one in the morning to present me with the Box?"

The woman chuckles a little, using her free hand to brush away the mousy brown hair that fell into her eyes.

"I'll keep that to myself for now," The stranger says, her voice reverting back to the gentleness it had when she first entered the office.

Jeanine's nostrils flared slightly, and her grip on the woman's hand tightened. She could tell when they had withdrawn their hand -with some effort- and took it into the other one, and massaged it for a few brief moments. "I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again soon ma'am,"

With that, the stranger departs, and Jeanine is left looking at the door, before turning her attention to the Box. She picked it up and weighed in in a hand. It was so big she could barely grip it in a hand. The Erudite symbol lights up immediately, and not soon after the Candor symbol flickers to life. Jeanine yelps and drops the box like she had been burnt. The lights go out. She hated it already.

Unfortunately, this was her ticket to unlocking the truth. Jeanine picked the thing up again and reached down to pull open a drawer. She shuts her eyes to ignore the light coming from two of the faction symbols, and dumps it in the drawer and kicks it shut with a foot.

Was a day off any more possible now?

This I felt was an adequate set-up for the world of Deviant. If you can't tell, this is near enough a complete re-write of the events of the books. Or it looks like it in the plan in my head.

Hopefully, some of you are still eager to read on. I dropped a couple hints for who the strange woman who gave Jeanine the box is, and even a fairly obvious fact about Jeanine herself.

Also, I totally screwed around with fonts for the title and the chapter heading. Probably isn't allowed but oh well, doesn't matter.

If you don't mind, please drop a review.

~Carmahndra