"Get up" I say standing at the entrance of the initiates' room. I can hear some initiates moan at the early waking. "Get dressed and be in the training room in 5 minutes" I say turning my back on the initiates and walking toward the training room. Lauren stands on the opposite side of The Pit with the Dauntless-born initiates.
The training room is by far my favorite part of the Dauntless compound. The room holds some of my best memories and the scent of dust, sweat, and sharpened metal helps me relive those memories. I'm pacing the training room when Peter walks around the corner with the other initiates following him. They're mostly quiet, probably still tired. I doubt they had to get up as early in their old factions. At least not to train.
"Ok" I say once all the transfers are in the training room. "There are two stages of training. The first is physical, the second mental. You and the dauntless-born will be separated for the first stage but together for the second stage. You will be ranked together." I finish. "Why will we be ranked?" Edward (an Erudite transfer) asked. "We need to find out who is really dauntless. If you rank low enough you're out"
"Today you will be learning some basic fighting skills." I say "Who will we be fighting?" Peter asks barely letting me finish my sentence. "Each other?" I nod. I can see the smirk cross Peters face when the thought of beating up his fellow initiates crosses his mind. He's not the biggest guy in the room but I could see him being able to take most of the initiates.
I teach them the basic fighting techniques and strategies before be break for lunch.
I sit down in the same place I sat yesterday at dinner. Tris comes over again but this time without Christina. "Where's your partner in crime?" I ask. At first she looks at me with a look of surprise as if she didn't believe I was talking directly to her and not a group of initiates. "Christina" she says emphasizing her name like I don't already know who Christina is "wasn't feeling well." "Well she needs to train so make sure she comes back after lunch" I say. I realized that what I had said sounded more ruthless than I meant it to be.
There's silence between us until I get up to prepare for the next session of training. I dumped the rest of my food out in the garbage and walked down the tunnel to my room. Next round of training is in 30 minutes so I have time to organize fights from whit I've seen from them so far. I can feel someone behind me and I was almost sure who it was. "Curious for a stiff aren't you?" I say. "Like you said" said catching up to me. "There's reason I left them" I smile. I couldn't help but feel like I've seen this girl before. She is a stiff maybe I saw her at school before I moved to dauntless.
I enter my room with Tris at my heels. I know my room is pretty small and a bit messy but I don't spend much time in here anyway. "You can sit" I say when Tris walks in after me. She leans against the bed frame but doesn't sit down. "Stubborn" I observe as I pull out an old chalkboard from behind my bed.
"Why did you transfer?" I ask Tris. She doesn't answer but I don't nag. It's not like I have a right to know anyway. I sit down on the bed and start writing all the initiates names. There's an uneven amount of transfers so one won't be fighting tomorrow.
I spend about 15 minutes pairing the initiates as Tris plays with the string on the blinds. I have the names paired up with Tris' name to the side. I decided she'd be the initiate not to fight. Not that she's weak but she's small and I know anyone could hurt her pretty badly. She finally looks over at what I'm doing and frowns. "Why is my name not paired with anyone else?" she asks finally sitting down. "There's an uneven number of initiates." I answer trying to keep it simple and not make her think that I think she's weak. "Don't get too excited. You'll defiantly be fighting the next day." I say. "Yeah, because that makes me feel better" she mutters mostly to herself, but I still laugh.
"We need to go" I say checking my watch. Training resumes in 5 minutes. I get up and she follows me to the training room.
We walk into the training room and most of the initiates are already gathered in there. I show them the board and who they will be fighting tomorrow. "Now that you know who you'll be fighting we should get started training." I say looking toward Tris. I don't even know why.
