Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Divergent. You all have been patient. HERE IS CHAPPIE.

There are classes that are tiring. I feel like falling asleep on my desk, but Peter's incessant poking at my neck seems to keep me up. I can feel a bruise start to form where the point has indented my skin. Christina, who sits next to me, looks murderously at him. At some points I feel like I'll have to fling myself on her to hold her down from wrestling him right there and then.

But Eric is teaching us. She wouldn't dare do that.

My name still rings in my mind as we march outdoors once more. Not just the word but how he said it, how his voice made it sound. I'm not going to lie. I am not good at it. He is nice to look at, but he's my sergeant, and so any, what are considered almost unholy thoughts, in my minds, should be gone.

But I let them linger. I've never had them before. It makes me feel almost rebellious to harbor such thoughts. Nobody here can read my mind.

Outside we're led to a table. Along the table is guns. Tobias stands behind it along with Lauren. I straighten when Eric calls for everyone to do what he says. Follow orders. We have become robots in that way. Emotionless. Killing. It's strange. I don't know how I feel about it. I certainly don't like it. I don't like being controlled.

I let my hands fall to my sides as Tobias starts to talk. I barely hear the words he says. He is holding a gun in his hands. An M4 Carbine, I think he calls it. He flips it around, explains it, but the words are muddled in my head. I hear only his voice speaking. It's strange, how it fits him and how it comes out of his mouth and I should be able to understand him. But I can't.

I can't until someone pinches my back and it's all that's in me not to turn around and punch Peter, hopefully break his nose. But that's disturbing the camp. Wouldn't want to act out of line.

Tobias and Lauren shoot at targets, explaining how to keep your arms and legs and eyes and body while doing this. Lauren finishes her shots and nods for Tobias to do his. He steps forward, each step purposeful. He sets the gun against his shoulder, his muscles definite, hidden behind the cloth of his shirt. He sets into a position and suddenly shoots, making Christina gasp behind me from being startled. But I'm not startled. I knew what to expect.

He finishes, looks at the target he was shooting at. It has several black holes in it now. He turns to us and says, "Everyone grab a gun. You're getting involved now."

We're each handed an M4 Carbine. It's heavy in my hands, which feel small under such weight. It feels strong, making my grip on it harder. The smooth exterior feels flawless under my skin. It's so strange how such a dangerous weapon can look so compact and clean.

"We're going to do something called field-stripping," Tobias says. Peter lets out a wolf whistle and Tobias looks like he can cut off his air supply with only one hand. "This is where you take apart your gun and learn to assemble it back to its original state. You will be timed." Suddenly his hands are moving fast, faster than lightning, and his lip is being bitten as he strips his gun down to its bare essentials, tearing it apart like a piece of meat. My mouth drops open as he gives us barely ten seconds to take the sight in before he quickly, methodically, snaps the pieces back together. Within a few minutes he lays the gun on the table, steps back, and takes in everyone's awed expression. His mouth in a fine line as he says, "I suggest you hurry up and get started."

That sends everyone into action. Christina nearly trips me and Peter purposely tries to knock me over. I duck and avoid his elbow. He takes up the spot I was heading for at the table, moving his elbows around as much as he can to muck everyone else's guns up. All this with a cool expression and keen eyes.

My hands fumble around the parts of the gun. I barely heard a word as to what their names are. I have to disassemble it first. This is proven hard as I try breaking it apart. I snap something, I'm sure. My heart races as I try not to glance at anyone else's progress, feel pressured. I hear Lynn let out a whoop and Marlene a wounded sigh, though. Neither of which are a good sign for me.

I can feel eyes on the back of my neck. I dare to look over my shoulder. Tobias has his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes staring back at mine until he looks away. He walks to the other side of the table.

I turn back to my gun, my breaths coming out in short spurts. I have a disarray of gun pieces half caught in my hands. I never would have thought that this would ever happen. There is a first for everything, especially for me, when firsts come later in life than like everyone else's when they happen before they're a teen. Though, I'm sure no other regular teens are randomly trying to assemble a gun.

People step away from the table. Peter is next to me and one of the first to move. Tobias comes over, his arms folded over his chest, and looks over the gun. He takes it in his hands and I try to ignore them, but I can feel the pressure building on me as Peter's is pronounced fairly well done and I am drowning in gun pieces.

Christina steps away with a laugh. I have no idea how much time has gone by, but I feel like time is slipping away from me, the minutes piling into hours as my hands try to fit everything back together like a puzzle.

And then everything around me stops. There's silence. Complete silence. I look up from my pile of pieces to see rough versions of the guns sitting on the table. I haven't even something resembling those pieces of crap.

Lauren looks across the table at me and says nothing. Tobias says nothing.

I gulp, feeling uncomfortable under the stares.

Lauren straightens and calls for everyone to fall in line. She nods to Tobias, who in turn gets what she is saying. I wonder what it is. I know it's about me. How I'm struggling through these courses though I'm giving everything I have.

The rest of the day is filled with silence. Christina, at seeing how distraught I am, says, putting an arm around my shoulders, "Don't beat yourself up about it."

I don't want to. I try to forget it happened, but there's the smirks, the sounds of pleased arrogance emanating from Peter, Drew and Molly. Even Eric seems to know that I failed miserably. He smirks at me, shouts at me more. I barely hear him, though. I close my ears, try to shut him out of my mind. I need to not focus on them. Will tries mouthing them off. Al tries to cheer me up. But their efforts are in vain. So they give up and we don't talk at the dinner table.

Mail call holds nothing for me but another appointment with Tobias. At least it's not Eric, though Tobias is hardly better. He saw me fail. It would probably be better for me to have Lauren staring at me with her stony eyes instead of Tobias looking at me.

I try not to look at his eyes. They engulf you, they're so dark. So I look at my hands in my lap instead, hope he doesn't expect me to join in the conversation.

"You were frazzled." Wow. Real blunt of him.

"Yes, sir," I say, looking up, almost defiantly. I am mad at myself for doing badly, but I'm not going to have him sitting and judging me.

"You obviously have inexperience in handling a gun at all," Tobias says. "Ever used one before? Held one?"

"I've never even used a water pistol," I say.

"That's a problem, seeing as you're in training where guns save you," Tobias says. I catch almost a slight grin, but it disappears. He's not friendly. He's an instructor. A teacher.

"You can't expect a person to be able to disassemble and then reassemble a gun in that time frame the first time," I say. I'm a bit spiteful now. They expected us to know that, like it's a basic skill we should have had. But I don't, and that's not my fault. "Without instructions. Completely from memory."

"It might have helped if you were paying attention," Tobias says. He leans forward slightly, his arms folded in front of him and on the table. They're within inches of me. "You weren't paying attention. I know that. You were distracted. Your fault. You should know to watch and learn."

"You can't expect me to memorize what you were doing, though," I say.

"Still trying to defend yourself?" He sounds a little surprised, like he wasn't expecting me to be like that.

"You're doing the same," I say. "Don't play the victim."

Holy crap.

No. No no no no nope nope nope nope.

This is beyond bad.

Number one rule: don't make your instructor mad. Don't make any of the drill sergeants mad. It's practically mandatory around here, and I just accused him of playing the victim.

I should have him yelling in my face, making me shrink from him, but he's still in his seat. Still looking over at me. It's unnerving and almost worse. He doesn't look angry or threatened or provoked. No. Thoughtful. Taking me in.

"I know," he says finally. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. I was waiting for him to speak, like his words gave me permission to breathe. "It is unfair. But don't blame me. It's the system. I merely pour out what they want me to say, to demonstrate, to make you do and master."

"How do they expect you to master that?" I say cautiously, still wary of his rank and my brashness.

"I don't know. They think people are robots made to be fashioned, to be made into their image of what they want," he says quietly.

A robotic army. Makes sense. They don't want people to be different. They want them to conform to what they want. We signed up for this, though. I signed up to be made to assemble a gun as fast as I can and do their orders. And suddenly I'm disgusted with myself.

"I can teach you," Tobias says.

"You already did," I say, my voice sounding annoyed.

"How to disassemble and reassemble a gun," Tobias says, as if my words didn't perturb him. "The right way. Slowly, with instruction. Without the other students. Without that pressure. One-on-one."

I straighten. A proposition. One-on-one might work for me. I just need his patience and a gun. That'll work. I nod.

He nods and orders me away. I walk down the hall, curling and uncurling my fists, which are sweaty. He might lose his job for this. He is breaking a rule. I just know it. Singling me out and teaching me in secret when he should just scream at me to get it, make me cry. But no. He isn't doing that. Eric would do that. Tobias isn't.

And for that, I'm grateful.

FOURTRIS BUILDING. YESSSSS. And remember, I'm basing all I know of the military system from Wikipedia, so please don't blame me for inaccuracies. Thanks for reading!