Chapter 8- Steep learning curves

She woke to the sound of Amar's shout.

"Come on you lot. Up. You have training at eight." He left, leaving the transfer initiates to scramble for the training clothes left underneath their beds. Once they were changed and ready, they all left for breakfast together, yawning loudly on Josh's part. Jules was tired from her wander last night, but was awake. They made their way to the dining hall, led by Eric, who, as a typical Erudite and knew exactly where they had gone the night before and led them through the maze with ease. Jules could have led it, but what would have been the point? She was keeping a low profile.

They ate a big fried breakfast in the canteen, Mia laughing at Four's amazement that food could be so nice. Jules guessed that they ate simple foods in Abnegation- she remembered Four had been suspicious of the burger yesterday. But there was an underlying current of trepidation and nervousness about what they would face in training.

When they made their way to the training room with five minutes to spare, Amar wasted no time. He picked up a box of guns and handed them round to everyone.

"This morning, you will learn how to shoot a gun properly." He told everyone, grabbing one for himself. "If you do badly in the first round, it is still possible to improve your rank in the following stages as each stage is not ranked equally. Because we're doing things differently this year, whilst you will be trained separately to the Dauntless-born initiates, to determine your rank, you will fight with them in different combinations, so that we can determine your rank alongside them. You will not be treated any differently to them, nor have any concession for you because you're a transfer. The only thing we will take into consideration is your gender, however, where possible, you will be paired with your own gender. Not among transfer training sessions though- Mia and Jules, you will be expected to fight all the boys. However, that does not necessarily mean that you will be last even if you lose to all of the boys- we take into account more than just strength."

Amar showed everyone how to load the gun and got them to load and reload it until everyone could do it smoothly and quickly. Then, he turned to face a wall with a row of targets.

"Watch how I do it and then copy me," he told them. Holding the gun in both hands, feet planted firmly, he squeezed the trigger and fired the gun. The bang was quieter than Jules expected, but still loud. Looking to the target, she saw a hole in the centre of the target.

Walking to her own target, she blocked out everything else around her and raised her gun. She knew that guns recoiled, which was why Amar had held it with two hands. Preparing herself, she slid the safety catch off and, aiming at the target, squeezed the trigger. The recoil was hard, but she was prepared for it and didn't step back as the others did when they fired their weapons. She looked at the target and saw that the bullet had just clipped the edge of the target.

"Good," Said Amar as he passed, "but try aiming very slightly lower than you want to hit. The recoil of the gun is slightly upward, so until you're completely used to it, aim lower- by a few degrees." Jules tried again, repositioning her feet and shaking out her hand that had gone numb from the recoil. Furrowing her brows in concentration, she aimed, both eyes open, and fired. The bullet hit closer to the centre of the target than before.

"Better." Amar nodded. "Don't close one eye," he told Eric, moving over to him. "You need two eyes to gauge distances properly." Watching the others, Jules saw that she had been the closest so far. They carried on shooting, moving on to moving targets halfway through the morning, until lunchtime. Jules' fingers tingled from the explosion caused by the gun and her fingers were stiff from being clenched around the gun all morning. But she knew this afternoon would be worse, when they would learn how to fight.

After lunch, they went to a new room, which was huge. It had a wooden floor with a large circle in the middle. Hanging from the ceiling, there were also some punching bags, hanging at equal intervals, and Jules saw a chalkboard at the side. Their names were on the board.

"This afternoon," Amar told them, shaking Jules from her reverie, "you will learn how to fight. Why? Well, obviously Dauntless is a faction that protects others, but also, even if you don't end up on the fence, you need to learn to fight to be brave. To be brave you must stand up for people. To stand up, you need confidence. To have confidence, you need to know that you can face whatever is against you. And you do that by learning how to fight."

The afternoon passed in a blur of punches and kicks. Amar showed them various techniques and had them practice on the bags. By dinner, Jules' arms and legs were aching and she was ravenous.

Joining the Dauntless-born initiates at their table, Jules saw that they looked just as tired as she felt. She dropped into a seat between Zeke and Shauna and tucked into her food without a word.

"Training hard then?" Zeke enquired. Without pausing, Jules nodded.

"Yours?" she asked.

"Horrible." He replied. "I ache all over. I ache in places I didn't even know I had muscles." Shauna laughed.

"As stupid as that sounds, it's still true. What did you guys do?"

Four, who had sat on the other side of Zeke, answered for her.
"We shot guns in the morning and learned how to fight in the afternoon. Apparently we have to fight you lot as well as the transfers?"

"Yeah, we heard that too," Lexi piped up. "They're doing stuff differently this year."

"Lexi, we were all there when Amar told us," Shauna sighed and raised an eyebrow at Lexi.

"Well, I didn't know it would be that different," she defended herself.

"True," Zeke replied, "but it makes no difference to me. It just means I'll be whipping you lot's butts as well as my lot," he joked.

"You mean you'll get beaten up by six more people!" Four told him, teasingly.

"Woah!" Zeke faked surprise. "The Stiff told a joke!" Everyone laughed, but they weren't laughing at Four this time. Jules was glad that Zeke had included Four- she didn't like to see anyone bullied.

"I'm surprised the Stiff can speak, let alone joke," Eric sneered.

"Leave off!" Jules and Zeke both shouted at the same time. Four merely glared at Eric, his arms folded defiantly.

"Okay, everyone, just calm down," Mia told them, her Amity habits coming through. Everyone stared at her and she blushed. "Sorry, old habits," she muttered. Four just stood up and took his tray to the station, before walking out.

"What do you have against him, Eric?" Jules asked softly.

"He's a stupid Stiff, that's what!" Eric replied, aggressively.

"Not anymore," Jules replied and got up too. She was followed by Shauna, Mia and Zeke, who had finished as well.

"Hey, do you want to find some decent clothes?" Shauna asked Mia and Juliette. They nodded and Shauna led them to her favourite store, where she was greeted warmly by the shopkeeper, who was called El.

"What sort of style are you going for?" Shauna asked them both. Exchanging a glance, they both shrugged.

"All I know is I don't want anything yellow or red," Mia grinned and walked off to browse. Jules awkwardly shrugged again.

"My mom always chose my stuff and I wasn't allowed to wear makeup- my parents think that wearing pretty clothes and makeup is deception, trying to make yourself look better than you are. So I have no clue, except I want to wear all black." El moved over, and stood, looking over her for several seconds, biting her lip, before nodding.

"I'll choose some stuff for you to try on. What's your size, honey?"

Jules told her, feeling distinctly uncomfortable at having clothes chosen for her, but still glad fro the help. Shauna went off to find her some makeup, and telling her, at Jules' protests, that she needed new mascara anyway. El came back with an armful of black items and directed her to a small room to try on.

Separating them, Jules saw pants, shirts, boots, a jacket and a dress. There were two pairs of tight black pants, one leather, and the black button-down shirt that was tied at the bottom, meaning it would show her midriff. The dress was short and hung loose to the hips but ended in a tight, stretchy skirt at the bottom. El had also given her a pair of matte black combat boots and a leather jacket that zipped off-centre, along with a baggy vest. They were all black and had not a trace of any other colour, as some of the Dauntless clothing did. She loved them all, especially the boots. Mentally assessing her points and counting the items, she smiled as she realised she had more than enough for all of them. Quickly trying each one to make sure it fit, she gulped at the amount of skin she was baring. Her mother would have a fit! But she wasn't in Candor and this outfit was tame compared to what some of the other Dauntless wore. Although she was a little nervous about the dress, which barely came down to her mid-thigh, she wanted to fit in, so she got the lot.

Thanking El for finding such fabulous clothes, she met Shauna and Mia, who had even more clothes than Jules. Shauna found a mirror and showed Jules how to put on mascara, eyeliner, eyeshadow and lipstick, applying them for her and explaining the technique. Insisting that she keep them and refusing her offer of payment, Shauna paid for both her own and Juliette's makeup. At Shauna's insistence, Jules changed into her new clothes and she chose the leather pants, boots and shirt, reluctantly leaving the jacket as it was too warm. Shauna smiled and dug out a hairtie, securing Juliette's long hair in a high ponytail.

They met up with Zeke, who had been looking at getting a piercing but had decided against it. When he saw them, his eyes widened slightly. Jules realised that she was the only one that had changed much since he last saw them and blushed as Zeke wolf-whistled, nodding as they headed to the tattoo parlour. Mia had decided to get a tattoo of the Dauntless symbol on her shoulder and Shauna wanted to scope out some designs for another one on her arm. As they were walking down, Mia with Jules slightly ahead and Zeke and Shauna hanging back, she heard Zeke mutter "she looks even more hot now," to her. It seemed she had sensitive hearing, because Mia raised her eyebrows at Jules' blush, not having heard the remark. She shook her head as they entered to the tattoo parlour and Mia moved to talk to Budd, the tattoo artist who was a walking advert for the parlour. Jules walked over to the displays of hundreds upon hundreds of tattoos.

"See anything you like?" the voice behind her made her jump. She turned to see a woman whose only visible tattoo was a bird on her neck. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," she continued. "I'm Tori. Do you want a tattoo?" Jules thought for a moment.

"I want to get a tattoo that really means something; I just need to figure out what, so not yet." Tori smiled.

"Take your time. A tattoo is a very private and important symbol for some people. Is your friend getting one?"

"Yes, Mia wants the Dauntless symbol." She was being led to the side by Budd, who got his stuff ready. It seemed Mia was having it on her right shoulder blade.

Jules saw Four enter the parlour and look around for someone. When he saw Tori, he walked determinedly over and Tori greeted him. It seemed she had been his tester for the aptitude tests.

"I want a tattoo," he told Tori, "but it may take a while, because I think it will end up big."
"Okay, let's talk about it in the back," she told him, leading him off.

Once Mia was done, with strict instructions from Budd about when to wash it and take the bandage off, and Shauna had a few ideas to mull over, they decided to turn in. It wasn't that late, but they all agreed they needed to keep their strength up in preparation for the fights the next day. Jules was pretty sure she had worked out the pairings- she would be against Mia, Josh and Adam would be against each other, which left Four and Eric to be the final pair. Jules was sure that would be a fight to remember.

What do you think? Please comment! See you next time :)