*The Initiate*

His eyes were of the darkest brown, Katherine noted, but they were cold and hard. His arms were strong – another thing she noted as he pulled her off the net. She felt his hands pressing into her sides as he lifted her down and put her on the ground. She was much smaller than him, at least a foot, if not more. She had to bend her neck to look up at him.

"Did you get pushed or did you fall by accident?" There was a little smile curling the corners of his lips, yet in her current state and with everything that had just happened, she felt that it was just as evil as Eric's vicious snare.

Trying to balance herself on one foot when she felt that she could not put much weight on her injured ankle, she looked him square in the eye. "I didn't need help coming down, if that is what you mean…" she said in a low and slightly defiant voice, and instantly hoping he wouldn't feel offended by it but he only raised an eyebrow.

She glanced around and saw most of the transfers separated into two groups, one made up only of Dauntless, the other – significantly smaller – of teenagers of other factions. That Candor guy was there, the face that she remembered smiling now void of emotions, the mouth pressed into a thin line.

"Name?" His question was sharp and short, almost businesslike. He must have asked that question at least 20 times already today, judging by the uninterested look in his eyes.

Katherine opened her mouth to reply but something made her hold her tongue before she could say Katherine. Thinking about it quickly, she felt that it was time for a change. Her name did not fit her anymore she was not pure anymore – hadn't been for quite a while now – and her choice of faction showed very clearly that she wasn't smart at all.

"Name!" He asked again, this time with underlying impatience. "If your given name is too difficult for you to pronounce right now, you might just go ahead and choose a new one, maybe one that's easier for you to remember. Cause…we don't have all day!" His words were meant to be mockery, yet she saw a chance in it to get away even further from her past.

Her brain rattled through her options. She saw that he was getting impatient but she knew that she had to make a smart choice here. There was something important about names, obviously, and for this man it seemed to mean a lot that she chose a new one. The difficult thing here was that it needed to be significant and it still had to fit her. She felt empowered by him giving her a choice as it would help her get a new identity, something she so desperately wanted. Maybe Dauntless wasn't such a bad option after all if she was even offered to be someone else?

However, her brain returned error message after error message, no matter how hard she wrecked it, as she couldn't come up with a brilliant new name. His eyes were tied to his, impatient flames flickering across the unreadable deep, dark pools. She quickly browsed through the options and came to the conclusion that changing her name simply would not really change herself.

"Well?" His eyes bore into hers, causing her to take a step backwards. "Katie!" she hurried to say.

"Sure?" It didn't sound like a question, he wasn't really asking. It was more like a half-heartedly given possibility to rethink the choice.

She nodded firmly without looking away. Katie sounded like a name that made much more sense for her. It sounded less cutesy, less girly and less pure and perfect. She felt that this new name fit with her personality much better. She felt like this choice gave her the possibility to initiate not only her life – or whatever it was that she would have here -, it could be the beginning of some kind of transformation. However, she felt that maybe that transformation had already taken place. Obviously, there was this need inside of her to be called by a different name. She wasn't sure if the decision to change her name stemmed from the need to suit the way she saw herself or to force the others – the ones who didn't know her – to think of her differently.

His almost black eyes stared deeply into hers and saw the same determination in the dark blue depths that were her eyes that he remembered from his own choosing of a name. She wanted to be – no, needed to be – different, start anew, just like him when he had first arrived.

It was these musings about names that had led Four himself to leave behind his given name, leave behind his father, his faction, his life. For Four, his old self Tobias was nothing more than a helpless little boy, so he had chosen Four as the name of his adult self in an attempt to leave the pain behind. To him, it signified his strength rather than his weakness. But he found that he just couldn't ignore his past; it kept creeping up on him, especially in his fear landscape. There was no one that he had let close enough to even grasp a glimpse of his old identity, no one he trusted to know his vulnerable side, the side of the child and not the man.

He now glanced upwards and saw another transfer falling, flailing, screaming at the top of her lungs. Another one who would not stand a chance here in Dauntless, Four thought. Once more, he looked at the small and scrawny girl with those big, almost haunting blue eyes that was still standing before him, wondering why on Earth she had chosen Dauntless out of all the options, then he pushed her to the side- as if wiping her from his mind - towards the small group of transfers.

The Candor boy came closer. "How's your foot?" He asked, genuinely concerned.

And it was just then that she remembered the pain, which was now a constant, dull and pressure-like ache. She had almost forgotten about it, but realized that she could barely move it, less put weight on it. "I'll live, I guess…" she replied dryly, "but I am seriously contemplating that those people here truly want to kill us.

"So, Katie it is?" he smiled.

"Yeah…short and sweet!" She laughed. "What name did you choose?"

He smiled even more. "I didn't change my name, I am actually quite proud of it. I think of it as something that has been with me for such a long time that it is a part of me. I wouldn't want to have it disappear now." His chest seemed to swell a little, truly a Candor. "My name is Daniel." He extended a hand. "Nice to meet you officially, Katie!"

She shook it with a smile. "Thanks for your help back on the train…"

"You're welcome. I mean, we're all in this together." He paused for a moment to see another jumper – this time Dauntless born – land in the net. "I won't ask what your name was before the name you just chose…but I would like to know why you decided to take a new name?"

Katie tightened her mouth as she clenched her teeth. Choosing was not really what she had just done. She had not simply chosen a name out of a whim, to her it meant a new and fresh start out of the misery she had called her life before. It took her a moment to formulate an adequate answer without having Daniel fall into the habit of pity. She didn't want anyone to pity her. "I guess I just cannot be the girl I used to be anymore. I mean, I left my faction and joined Dauntless – which I believe to be the most stupid thing I have ever done – but I haven't been who I was for quite some time now. It was time for a change…" She tried a lopsided smile, quite unconvincing as she could read from Daniel's face.

"Initiates!" The dark-haired boy's booming voice echoed through the cavern. Everybody went silent and turned to look at him. "My name is Four and I will be your leader. If you want to survive here, do as I say when I say so."

Katie frowned and bent over to Daniel. "Why would he say something like that? Are they really trying to kill us?" She remembered their conversation just a few moments ago as she saw others with confusion displayed openly on their faces. Sure enough, first jumping onto a train in motion then off of it, and then being told to throw themselves down from a building roof could already count as first degree manslaughter. Daniel grinned and whispered back: "It's not that they haven't tried!" Both giggled, trying to hide their faces from Four.

"The Dauntless-born have an unfair advantage." Daniel continued. "They tend to know what's down the hole. Sure, I guess they try not to let them find out in order to keep the odds but kids are curious. I know I would be. And since the final ranking measures us transfers against the Dauntless-born, it might not be a bad idea to follow his advice. He seems to know what he is talking about."

That made sense to her. Daniel seemed to have done his homework before choosing this faction and not come in all blue-eyed like Katie.

Four walked up close to his new transfers with quite a lot of disdain in his look. This bunch of misfits would bring him nothing but problems, he was sure. Then he turned around with a low and audible sigh. "Follow me!"

Everybody did. They walked through roughly cut tunnels and spacious halls, climbed narrow ladders and finally came to a stop at the ledge of a deep cavern. Katie could hear water splashing somewhere at the bottom, but it was too dark and too deep to see the river.

"The chasm should remind you that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy." Four spoke up again. "Try to jump, be it to show off or to do whatever else you have in mind, you will end up dead. It's happened before and it will happen again. I will only warn you once." He saw many throw a daring glance downward, but that scrawny girl with the injured foot caught his eye. She stood dangerously close to the edge, watching the wide river run in the depth. There was something dangerously serene in her look, and he felt a pang of jealousy. The river with its spraying waters was his safe spot, his hideaway, his sanctuary. He did not at all appreciate the idea of an initiate wanting to share it with him.

"Let's move on!" He felt himself move towards her, brushing against her shoulder, almost as if to warn her. She reacted as desired, as he saw her take a step backwards. The serenity he had seen before in her eyes was quickly replaced by resignation, which in turn made Four wonder but he couldn't stop to allow himself to care.

The transfers once again lined up behind him and followed him through the endless, winding passageways until reaching the largest cavern so far. The roof seemed open to the sky, there were metal structures with ropes hanging down and people climbing up as if it were the easiest thing to do. Katie saw sparring rings, running lines, and people fighting. Four lead them up to the nearest sparring ring, where Eric was waiting with a bored expression on his face.

"Being Dauntless is being at an always ongoing competition and we are constantly trying to improve and bring out the best in us." Four let his voice boom through the cavern. "The initiation process is taken very seriously. I bet you can understand that our aim is to make you become the best initiatives you can be and that we can only achieve by having the whole initiation process fostering a sense of much more competition. So instead of competing against the system to reach a particular score in order to move forward through the stages, you will be competing against each other. I want you to know that we consider joining Dauntless as an honor and a privilege that needs to be earned, not seen as a right."

Looking over the transfers, seeing their excitement written so clearly on their faces, he couldn't suppress another long sigh.

Initiation is divided into three stages…" Four continued. "Your progress will be measured and you will be ranked according to how well you perform in each stage – or not." He paused and let his words settle. "There are two stages of training. The first is physical. You will have to push your bodies to the breaking point and you'll master the methods of combat. The second phase is mental and again, you will need to get to your breaking point. You'll face your worst fears and conquer them unless they get you first. You'll be trained separately from the Dauntless-born, but you'll be ranked together. After initiations, rankings will determine what jobs you move into. Leadership, guarding the fence, or keeping the Factionless from killing each other."

"The rankings will also determine who gets cut!" Eric cut in and everybody jumped at the sound of his voice.

"Cut? Cut!" Several transfers whispered but no one dared to speak up.

Eric smiled that vile, matter-of-fact, cold smile of his. "Yeah, cut! At the end of each stage of training, the lowest-ranking Initiates will be leaving us." He seemed to be reveling in the confusion and plain fear he saw on the initiates' faces.

"To do what?" One boy, Erudite by the colors, had put on a defiant frown.

"What do you think? You should know that once you're out, there's no going home to your families, so you'd be factionless." Eric's smile widened.

"You can't be serious!" The Erudite boy continued, not ready to back down. "We chose to be in Dauntless at the ceremony. You cannot just randomly kick people out!"

"It's a new rule. Would you have chosen differently had you known? Out of fear? I mean, if that's the case, you might as well get out now. If you're really one of us, it won't matter to you that you might fail." Eric laughed, a little too loud, a little too long "Yes, you chose us. Now we get to choose you!"