Erudite Initiation complex

"Your Initiation will be separated into two phases, and then developing deeper into more specific content, like medicine and technology." Jean Matthews was saying "All of you will be expected to choose a subject and make a research about it by the end of phase two, when you'll have to present it."

As expected.

A bit of silence followed, with the Initiates nodding, and humming between them.

"For now, you'll be attending classes from nine to five, and after that, we expect you to study, or do something useful," the way Jean said 'Useful' left no doubt that they were going to keep their brains occupied, inside and outside of classes "but for now, you have a IQ test to start with. You'll be awarded a number of points, and based on them you'll have the minimums required to pass Initiation. Well, follow me."

Jean turned back, and walked out of the room, all of them following her into a smaller room.

"Wait here. The test starts in forty-five minutes. Please try and relax."

The moment she went out of the door, the entire room became full with whispers.

About ten minutes in, Theressa decided to try and make conversation.

"Are you feeling confident?" Theressa asked Anna, who was standing right next to her "I can see you're thinking about something, what is it?"

"Me? Oh, nothing to worry about, just about a girl that me and Mylah..." Theressa's confused face made Anna stop "...Oh, it's my friend, the one who transferred to Dauntless. Well, we found a strange girl some months ago... I think her name was Kaith..." Why am I thinking of this we should be revising!

"Kaith? Are you sure?" Theressa said, and Anna nodded "Well, first tell me exactly what you and Mylah did when you found her."

"Well, first Mylah bumped into her..."

A snicker came from Theressa. Looking back, that was actually funny.

"And then Kaith made a joke about our faction..."

"That´s common, from her..."

"And Mylah retorted..."

"She did WHAT?!" It's obvious you've never met Mylah.

"She talked back" Anna said, more slowly, albeit being obvious it wasn't needed.

"Oh, no, that´s possibly the worst thing you could do. Believe me, Kaith's the last person you want pick a fight with. That girl's tongue is sharp as a blade and her fists are strong as... I don´t know..."

"Titanium?" Why is she laughing?

"Yeah, something like that. Well, and next? "

"Well, then Kaith started threatening Mylah, who mocked her, repeatedly until Kaith shoved her into a Train support..."

At this point, Theressa was almost bursting into laughter.

"But, nonetheless they kinda kept insulting each other, and Kaith looked ready to strike her, and then Mylah gave up, and said something, and then Kaith climbed the train support, and simply went away, laughing." Now I regret not being closer to listen.

Theressa was trying hard to stop her laughter. Luckily no one around was paying her attention, being too stressed.

"Wait, you mean your friend was just... mocking Kaith right in front of her face? Hahaha, that's just priceless!" I don't agree.

They were interrupted by the doors swinging open, followed by Jean coming out of them. Has it already been 45 minutes? It must have been less. No way.

After being told to enter the next room, that was very large, an exam room, they all sat on the tables, where was a multiple choice IQ test resting, with a pen next to it.

"You have two hours. You may begin."

Anna put her pen down, with a satisfied sigh, and looked triumphantly at her paper. She managed to end her test twenty minutes before the supposed time, and it looked like she had been the only one to do so.

After re-reading it thrice, to see if there were any obvious mistakes, she put it down, looking around to see if anyone else had already finished. A few other initiates were already done, too, and they all seemed to be waiting for the buzzer to go off.

Anna decided to do the same, examining the room where they were at. Following the Erudite color scheme, it was almost all white, in a strange metal, cold to the touch that looked like plastic.

Startling everybody, the buzzer went off.

"Please stay on your seats, and put the test down." The erudite who had been watching over said.

After doing what they were told, two men collected all the papers, and placed them on top of a desk, where a scanner was.

"You may leave now, please head to the main hall." A robotic, female voice echoed through the room, its instructions being promptly followed. All of the Initiates left the room, whispering to each other.

"So?" Anna started "How was it?"

"I finished it right on time," answered Theressa "difficult, I guess. In Dauntless we never did exams, and things like this."

"No? That's strange, didn't you-?"

The same voice as before interrupted Anna, and promptly everyone in the room was listening carefully.

"The tests have been corrected and evaluated. Please check your Personal Tablets for the results."

A small beep sounded as "she" stopped talking, and the fifty slightly excited Initiates took their tablets out from their cases. As they turned them on, some "Yes!'" filled the air, with the occasional disappointed "Ooh."

"So," Theressa questioned excitedly "what score did you get?"

Mylah, the great and powerful

Twenty-two Initiates jolted awake with a loud buzzer going off, and the lights turning on. At maximum luminosity.

"What, are we being attacked? Is it the factionless again?" A still sleepy Initiate shouted, jumping awake "Oh, right. First training day."

A few chuckles sounded, but quickly subsided, as an Instructor opened the door leading to the large dormitory...loudly.

"So, it's good to see you're all awake... that's good, last year I had to soak one sleepy-head that refused to get out of bed when he should. You have one hour to get dressed and be outside this exact door. Whoever doesn't feel like eating breakfast can stay in bed for one more hour, I don't judge."

A few snickers echoed.

"But, for the ones who actually want to eat something, which I strongly advise, you better be ready when I come back."

The Instructor made a move to leave the room, but, on a second thought added "By the way, my name is Thal. Suppose you'd like to know that particular information." and slammed the door. Loudly. Again.

"Soo... what exactly are we supposed to put on?" An initiate a few blocks away asked "I don't really see any- oh, there they are!"

In fact, there were a bunch of plastic transparent bags on a big pile, right on the middle of the room divided by black curtains.

Mylah grabbed one, and quickly changed into the Dauntless clothes.

"Hey, everyone! You better go outside if you want to eat something, you know. Again, I don't judge the ones who don't!" Thal announced, having entered the room silently. To vary.

Yeah, I think I do want to eat something.

A few boys were already leaving the room, and the rest followed suit.

"Well, it looks like everybody wants to eat! Good choice, 'everybody'! Come on, follow me, I don't bite! At least yet."

"This guy is really funny, don't you agree?" A voice whispered right next to Mylah's ear, startling her. It belonged to a not very tall (Still taller than me.) girl, with kinda short brown hair and a round-ish face. Her skin was pretty tanned, and all around, it was pretty obvious the girl spent quite a lot of time taking care of her appearance.

"Uhm... Y-Yeah, I do!" Recomposing herself, she added "Who are you exactly, for the record?"

"Oh, name's Kate. You're Mylah, right?" Eyeing Mylah's face of "How in hell does this girl know my name", she quickly added "Saw you yesterday talking with Thomas, he's a friend of mine, we met in… when was it? Fourth grade? Really nice guy. Oh, there he is, see ya!"

In fact, as Kate talked they had reached the giant, loud and crowded room they called "Eating Place", or just "Place" for short, that even at 6 A.M. was already filled with people. Loud people.

"Well, here we are, have a seat and eat something, as we will be leaving in half an hour" Thal shouted, so they all could hear.

"Hey!" Kate shouted from a few tables away "Come sit here, with us!"

Mylah looked over to where they were seated, and saw Kate and Thomas waving at her. With a shrug, she walked up to them and sat on an empty seat.

"So," asked Thomas "how was the first night in the best faction that there ever was?"

"Well, sleep-deprived, for a start" Mylah answered, with a small chuckle. "Not very different from my old life, for now. Kinda wish there was more than thin walls separating the beds, that way maybe we didn't have to hear or monitor!" Both seemed to agree.

"You'll get used to it," Thomas said "worse than that is chatty people in the middle of the night."

"Yeah, there was this guy that just wouldn't shut up about how candor sleeping rooms were better than Dauntless. That was funny" Added Kate"He's such an idiot. I bet the candor don't have our cool tech!" And they don't. Smiley face.

"Okay, you've made your point. Did you hear that...?" He was suddenly interrupted, looking past Kate's shoulder, in front of him, the animated look on his face being replaced by a frown.

"Thomas? What is it?" Did he spot a spider?

We both turned our heads around, looking for what made Thomas so angry.

Oh.

It was no more than Kaith, talking animatedly to a bunch of people around her. Good for her.

Mylah scoffed, and turned around. "Hey, it's just her, no big deal."

"Oh, yes, it is a big deal..." Thomas looked visibly irritated. Kate wasn't far from it too.

"Why do you guys hate her? It's not like she killed your pet, is it?"

"Well, it's pretty simple, actually. Y'know, we both are very competitive, and in EVERY. SINGLE. THING. we do, she beats me EVERY TIME."

"But that's not..." Really?!

"And rubs it in my face, every single damn time that she's better than me, when we both know that is not true." Okay, that's kinda bitchy.

"Well, she IS better than you, Thomas, otherwise, how would you explain her scores being higher than yours?" Kate pointed out.

"Sheer luck! All the time. And, if that wasn't enough, she treats everybody else as if she was superior! You know, like if we were just bugs in her path to the success!"

"Okay, you made your point, uh, Thomas." Mylah said quietly "But lower your voice, will you? Don't want to grab a certain someone attention, do we?" I live a pretty nice life without certain crazy dauntless poking around.

After a few intakes of breath, Thomas managed to calm himself.

"Okay, that's better... And you Kate? Do you dislike her because your friend does too, or..."

"She stole my boyfriend" Kate stated bluntly, with a hint of rage to her voice "In fourth grade."

Thomas looked like he was on the verge of bursting with laughter. "Yeah, she never lived that down! Even though it's been almost six years!"

"So... you hate a girl that never did anything to you just because she stole a boyfriend in fourth-freaking-year? That's... that's..." Mylah was torn between rolling her eyes until they fell from their sockets and laughing them off.

Kate looked none too pleased with this "Yeah! And what? It is a perfectly valid reason to hate someone! And," she added "we all know for a fact that she's a stuck up bitch with her little fan-club with absolutely zero brains-" Hey, be careful, karma's a bit...

"Hello, ladies! Is there any chance you were talking about moi? You know, if you wanted an autograph, you could have just asked, you know?" Kaith's voice coming right from behind Mylah's head startled all the three. Of course.

"I want one!" A male voice said from the sea of heads around them.

Kaith rolled her eyes and shouted "It was a joke, you moron!" Turning her attention back to the trio, she noticed Mylah was suppressing some chuckles. "Well at least someone has a sense of humor. So, were you?

"Unless you haven't understood that yet, and that makes you a bit of an idiot-" Kaith chose to ignore the insult (a rare occasion) "not everything spins around you and your band of morons you call friends-" Thomas starts. You both sound incredibly petty. Kaith's prettier though. Therefore, she has the advantage.

"Excu-use me, but I find more alarming that the second best initiate is filling this new kid head with your pathetic talk of-" Oooh, sassy. I'm your age, sweetheart.

"ENOUGH!" A shout, whose voice Thomas immediately recognized as Thal's, shut up everyone near "I've had enough of your bickering, Thomas and Kaith, we're setting a new rule here. You won't talk to each other unless I say so, got it?" Before any of them had a chance to complain, Thal had already turned around "We're leaving now, before these twoblow up this place again, which would be highly unwanted, may I add."

"Again"?!

Anna and Theressa

"Wait, wait, wait. Let me see if I got that right." Theressa said "Your IQ test result is very close to Jean's?"

A short nod was all that came from Anna as a response.

"No. Way. Is that even- wait." She squinted her eyes "An error? It shouldn't be possible. System's far too advanced for errors."

"I know. That's why you can't tell anyone. Not until I sort this out, if it really was an error or a legit score." Our software can't be failing now.

"Well, at least you don't have too much to worry about failing the initiation."

"Did anyone get cut? I didn't pay attention to the others scores, so..." I hope not. No need for more factionless.

Theressa shook her head, before being promptly interrupted by a sophisticated buzzer.

"All Initiates are to walk up to Classroom 34B, on the second floor. Normal classes will follow for the next month. Dismissed" A robotic voice spoke, effectively making everyone move along into their classes. School had began again, it seemed.

Yoohoo.