Chapter 3

Erika is still half asleep. The initiates are in the training hall, learning some fighting skills. She's meant to be throwing knives with Aria, but it's so hard to get motivated.

"What's going on over here?" Tobias yells at them and Aria jumps.

"Nothing." They mutter in unison.

"Yeah, that's exactly what it looks like. Come on, get to it!" he yells, even though they're standing right beside him.

Erika groans loudly but Tobias hold up a hand to shut her up.

"No special treatment. Get going." He says.

Erika glares at her brother and picks up a knife and tosses it at the target, hitting the bullseye straight away. She says nothing, just stands and stares at it.

After a moment of staring at it himself, Tobias says softly, "You can do better." And he walks away, leaving her fuming.

"Don't listen to him, that was amazing." Aria tells her.

"No, he was right. I was like a whole centimetre off." Erika sighs heavily.

Aria stares at her friend in disbelief, "Are you being sarcastic? It's kinda hard to tell…"

"I'm serious. I have to make it. I need to get better." She tosses another knife angrily, and it knocks the other off the board, hitting the complete centre this time. She nods to herself, "That's better."

Sage taps her on the shoulder, "Hey, wanna teach me?"

Erika grins evilly and picks up another knife carefully, "Sure."

Later that day

"Aw, shit you guys… I'm dreading tomorrow, I really am." Erika mutters angrily.

Sage glances towards Aria, her eyebrows raised. "It'll be grand, Erika. I pity Aria, I really do. I mean, how unfortunate can you get?"

Aria groans in frustration. Tomorrow the three of them are doing their first part of initiation, and Aria will be wrestling Seth, that beautiful Dauntless-born she walked into yesterday. "Please, I don't want to think about it."

"Good thing you won't have to; out distraction has arrived." Sage says, and nods towards the line of boys walking towards them.

Uriah, Zeke and Tobias are heading their way.

"Shit, do I look okay?" Erika hisses.

"You look fine." Aria says softly, without even glancing in her direction.

When the boys reach them, Zeke goes straight to Aria, much to Sage's annoyance.

"Look, about that fight tomorrow…" he says, "I know there's supposed to be no special treatment, but I feel you ought to know that Seth was in a fight last night and has a huge bruise under his left rib, so that might be a nice place to land a punch."

Aria stares at him in shock, "Why did you just tell me that?"

"You need to survive this." Zeke says, and then he turns and grabs Sage, "You all need to survive this."

Sage pretends to ignore him for a minute, but can only last so long.

"Nervous?" Zeke mutters slyly with a grin. He knows she has a low pain tolerance, and wonders how she'll survive getting this tattoo.

"Shut up." She elbows him.

By this point they've almost reached the tattoo parlour. The three girls decided that after their first day in Dauntless initiation they would go out and completely finish the whole 'new faction; new me' thing.

Firstly, though, the piercings…

"Ew, no…. why would I get there pierced?" Erika asks after Tobias suggests a part of the body.

"Fine, suit yourself." Tobias says.

In the end she picks to get her ears pierced and then her cartilage as well. She exits the private booth afterward with a bright smile on her face.

"Aria, you next." She says cheerfully, "It won't hurt at all."

Aria has decided to get two cartilage piercings on her right ear, since she already has her ear lobes pierced. She's also getting her nose pierced.

The moment Aria disappears into the booth, however, Erika turns around and mimes screaming the F- word.

Tobias looks shocked, "What?" he asks.

"Oh that hurt so much, oh my God…" she mutters, making sure Aria can't hear.

Uriah hugs her waist, "It looks great though," he says.

Erika seems to relax in his arms. "I know right?" She says happily.

Then Aria exits the little booth.

"Well?" Tobias asks.

"Yeah, it was grand, just like you said Erika." She says calmly.

Erika almost falls over, "What?" she asks, "It didn't hurt at all?"

"Well, a little bit now, but not really… why?" asks Aria.

Erika groans, "Oh my God. I was lying!" she says, "It hurt so much!"

Aria looks surprised, "Huh, okay."

"My turn now!" Sage says, absolutely terrified. She pierced her own ears about ten times as a child, because she could never keep them open. But this time, she's getting her naval pierced.

She lets go of Zeke, who grins encouragingly at her.

She goes into the tiny booth. The girl simply reaches out and quickly pierces her and then it's over. And there's pain. And Sage thinks she yelps out loud. She knows she cries.

She stumbles out of the booth and straight into Zeke's arms. She lets out a sigh. "I am never punching another hole in myself ever again." She states, and Zeke laughs.

"Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but we're getting tattoo's now, babe."

Sage curses loudly. "Fine. Let's just get this over with."

Erika goes first. She's decided to get half of the Abnegation sign running into the Dauntless sign. This takes ages, but the girls wait patiently. After all, Erika has Uriah in there with her the whole time.

Aria goes second. About an hour later, she exits the booth, a bandage over the inside of her forearm. She tells them she got 'Dum spiro spero' tattooed on her.

Then it's Sage's turn. She gets her old name tattooed across her right hip. This was easier to get done, in a sick kind of way, because the pain was constant.

Zeke has decided he wouldn't go in with her, as he's terrified of needles, which probably wouldn't have helped the situation at all.

Once the tattoos are finished and the girls are all sore, they go to the final shop; the hairdressers!

Erika gets her hair dyed black with purple streaks, which suits her amazingly.

Aria gets her hair dyed electric blue, which really brings out the colour of her bright blue eyes.

Sage dyes her hair black with fire red dip dye, making it look as if the bottom of her hair was engulfed in flames.

After all this has finally been done, they go to eat. While they eat they discuss the other initiates.

Erika's least favourites are the twins from Candor. Sage doesn't know them from her childhood, which helps a little. The twins are called Alice and Abbey, and Erika unfortunately has to fight the both of them tomorrow.

Aria, not so subtly asks about a scary girl who seems to be hanging out with Seth a lot, along with another boy who she knows as Finn.

"Oh, that's Katherine," Tobias tells her. "From Dauntless, she's terrifying."

Aria doesn't react much, just nods carefully and stares at the table until she can control her poker face. "Oh. Cool… They're not together though, right?"

Tobias smiles, "I don't think so."

Then there were the Erudite, some of whom Aria knew already, like David. He was unbelievably quiet, but amazing with any sort of weapon.

There were more, (obviously), but none of them seemed to stand out much in comparison.

Eventually, there's no more to say, and there's a big day ahead of them tomorrow, so Tobias sends them to bed. Yes, that's exactly what happened.

"Erika, you should go to bed, it's getting late." Tobias says, without even looking up from his food.

Erika stares at him, completely shocked, and Uriah grabs her hand instinctively, as if to keep her with him. "Are you kidding me?" she asks.

Tobias looks up, "You can take your friends with you, if you want." He says.

Sage bursts out laughing, "Please."

"You're all going to be fighting two fights each tomorrow, so yes I am completely serious. Now go to bed." Tobias says in a low tone.

Erika glares at him and then kisses Uriah on the cheek, "Goodnight." She murmurs.

"'Night," he replies with a smile.

Erika turns to leave and Aria and Sage stand to follow her, when Tobias coughs, "Erika, don't I get a good night kiss too?" he asks with a grin.

She turns, "Eh, I don't think so." She says and carries on walking.

Stifling their giggles, the girls follow her to their rooms.

The next day

"Erika and Abbey up first." Tobias says.

I won't bore you with the details, but basically somewhere in there Abbey manages to hit Erika in the face, leaving Erika with a bleeding nose.

"Ow, my nose!" Erika yells, leaving the other girl stunned. "Oh my God, my nose, I can't feel it... I've lost my nose!"

But Erika doesn't give up. She quickly gets herself together again and is doing pretty well until she loses the fight.

Then, she goes to fight Alice. This time, Uriah walks in the door mid-fight. He starts to cheer her on, and this builds on her confidence. In the end, Erika wins. Immediately after she's announced the winner she throws herself into Uriah's arms, and he hugs her, "Well done," he says.

"Sage and Finn." Tobias barks.

Sage isn't quite sure how she manages it, but she somehow wins the fight. She feels kind of bad, since he's originally from Dauntless and a friend of Seth's, but what can you do?

Next, she fights another girl, Anna from Candor. She loses; probably due to the fact that she knew the girl from her home town and didn't want to hurt her. I know, excuses, excuses...

"Seth and Aria."

Aria steps up and so does Seth. Aria lunges froward to punch him but he blocks her, grabbing her wrist and whirling her around so that he has his arm around her waist. Aria freezes, and then whirls around to face him again. She grabs his beanie off his head and puts it on her own. Seth grins slightly.

"It suits you," he murmurs.

Aria smiles happily, "I know."

Suddenly they're kissing. The whole room is silent, just watching in shock. Aria is the first to pull away, but they don't let each other go.

"Disqualified!" Tobias barks harshly, but they don't care.

"I thought this way might have been best," Seth tells Aria.

"I don't know about that, but I won't complain." She smirks and kisses him back.

Suddenly there's cheering behind her and Uriah and Erika are jumping up and down. "You go girl!" Uriah shouts.

"Yeah, you do." Seth whispers.

After the rest of the fights

Erika slumps down at a table, her nose still bleeding heavily, but she's got it more or less under control. Uriah hasn't let go of her hand at all since the fights.

"You okay?" he asks softly and Erika nods.

"Do you want anything?" he asks.

"Dauntless cake!" She exclaims.

"Sure," Uriah says. He stands and leaves, going to get her some food.

Once he's far enough away that he can't hear what they're saying, Zeke mimes cracking a whip and Sage bursts out laughing.

"Poor Uriah," Seth says with a smile, "You have him so whipped!"

Erika looks confused. "Eh, I don't own a whip..."

Aria laughs and explains the term. Once Erika understands she laughs happily, "I do kind of, don't I?"

Erika leans back and pops her shoulder blades over the back of the chair and scratches her back when suddenly she jumps, "Oh my God you guys, feel my back. If you put your shoulder blade back, it's all flabby!"

Everyone bursts out laughing. There's just something about a girl holding an ice pack to her face with one hand and scratching her back with the other and then asking you to feel her back, you know?

Uriah reappears, "Here you go." He places a huge slice of chocolate cake down in front of Erika.

She smiles up at him, "Thank you," she says in a babyish voice.

Zeke snorts and Erika glares at him while taking a massive bite out of the cake. After the first bite she seems to realise that holding up an ice pack at the same time is going to be hard, so she places it on the table.

"How's your nose?" Uriah asks.

"Fine. It likes food." She says, as if that was normal.

Aria raises an eyebrow, "Okaaay..."

"I swear! If you don't believe me, just ask!" Erika insists.

"Ask who?" Aria asks in an exasperated tone.

"I don't know, okay? Someone." Erika says, rolling her eyes.

"Hey we never got to feel your flab!" Sage reminds her.

"Oh yeah, here." Erika shows her.

"I'm sorry, what did I miss?" Uriah asks, a confused puppy look on his face.

Erika laughs and explains, "Do you wanna feel it?"

Uriah grins, "Sure." He reaches a hand down her back and Erika squeals."You're so cold!"

"What the hell is going on here?" a voice yells.

Erika leaps about three feet into the air and then realises it's just her brother.

"Oh, we're just feeling your sister's flab," Aria tells him.

"Her what?" he asks, clearly trying to contain his anger.

"My flab! here, you try!" Erika says.

"No, get away from me!" he says, backing away quickly.

Erika looks hurt, "But it's so cool..." she whines.

"So am I, but you don't see people coming up to touch me!" Tobias says.

"Sure you do," Seth says, a joking smile on his face, "Remember when-"

"No. Now shut up." Tobias interrupts.

"Hey!" Aria stands up for Seth.

"Hi!" Erika says sweetly, trying to make a distraction.

Sage decides to join in, "Hi! Wow, it's been way too long, how have you been?"

Uriah joins in too, only he's also imitating a gossiping young girl, "Oh my Gawd, did you do something with your hair, it's gorgeous!"

Eventually everyone becomes distracted and a minor fight has been avoided.

So no one notices at first when Seth murmurs something in Aria's ear and they disappear together moments later.

Once people do notice though, they realise that they should all be going, since tomorrow was to be the day of the Simulation tests!