"So how much have you been hiding your skills?" He asks me, voice dropped lower to keep the other initiates from hearing.
"A lot. I've made them the average, but they probably think I'm worse because of my arm." I tell him. "Besides, I know I don't want to stick out, but it's getting harder and harder to not get competitive. I'm almost glad I've been out of fights."
"Hmm… so how did Four and Eric know about your kicks if you haven't fought? I thought you were going to work on punches to disguise it anyway." Axel questions, and I purse my lips.
"Four's been my sparring partner so I don't affect anyone else's training… I may have decided to throw in a few to his knees and neck…" I mumble guiltily. "But only a few! I thought he could pass them off as flukes but apparently not."
"I wouldn't worry too much about getting me in trouble, the leadership like me at the moment. But what about Eric, those two don't usually share much." Axel carries on, and I bite my lip. Should I tell him? He's the one I trust most here… he does seem as close as anyone could get with Eric…
"I was training on the punching bags whilst the others were on gun work." Lies are always best when they're partly true. "He accused me of holding back, and… half attacked me. I may have gotten carried away."
"Half attacked you? I guess that's good for him, but what did you do?" Axel asks, a smirk on his face. "Did you catch him off guard, oh please tell me…"
"I hooked his ankles and got him clean in the neck." I admit and Axel bursts out laughing.
"Are you serious? That guy is not easy to get, my god I want to see that!" Axel laughs. "How are you not dead yet?"
"I left him to cool down for around an hour, I think that may have helped… I doubt it'll happen again he was fighting me at 50%." I say honestly, but Axel suddenly frowns at me.
"How did you leave him to cool down, didn't he grab you and eat you limb by limb?" He asks and I avoid his eyes.
"Um… well… he was only out for under an hour…" I say mirth in my voice as Axel folds over laughing. "Come on you, you're giving us away, order me to do something!"
"My god…" He mumbles between laughing. "Go hang a target up, I'm giving a science lesson.
Sure enough once everyone except Beth and Lily had gotten here, Axel began his training. Though Lily would probably benefit from this the most.
"Right, question number one. What do you do when your opponent is bigger, stronger, and better than you?" He asks, answered by silence. "Come on, there must be some noses around here…"
Instead, one of the candor brutes, Mickey answers. "Run away?"
"Incorrect. You have to hit them where it hurts most. Disable them, a hit to the torso may hurt, but it won't do much to hinder them. Slow them down, and it'll leave openings." Axel explains, before moving to the target of a body I hung up. "Knees, shoulders, broken wrists are always good, the jaw can be nasty as well. None of these will really give you a killing shot, but for the smaller, faster of you, this is the best option. And for the girlies out there, I'm sure you can think of a nice way to disable the guys here." Axel hints, smirking widely with a wink on his eye.
"You've been training with Four and Eric, both brilliant fighters I must say, and though they may think they're opposites, they're not. Both are extremely well built, and if you work on it, smaller built people like you can get faster than them." Axel explains.
"Surely we should just get bigger than them? Muscle up." Kasper, the biggest, meanest and unfortunately most skilled of the three candors says. Axel sighs as he looks at him.
"Sure, waste away your life lifting weights. But there will always be someone stronger." He says, a glint in his eye. "Right, since the knees, wrists and such are quite easy to break, be careful, and pair up with someone generally your size, and I suggest that you trust not to break you in half."
Everyone pairs up as usual, which luckily includes pretty much everyone being reasonably evenly matched. Beth and Lily still have many laps to go, and they're going to miss the session they need most, especially Lily.
"Avery, with me." Axel beckons me over, a hidden smirk with a challenge on his lips.
"I don't really care what order you do them in, just change it up, and get good practice with each hit. Off you go." Axel starts the others off, before without warning sending a quick to my wrist which I narrowly avoid.
"Straight off it seems…" I mumble, before retaliating with a quick one two to his opposite elbows which of course he dodges easily. We take it in turns to trade light warm up blows, before I receive a quick nip to my underarm.
"Okay then…" I mutter before blocking is next uppercut to my jaw with my foot, lowering my upper body. This is how I'd usually block blows, either moving out of the way or getting rid of any momentum a blow has by pushing it upwards with my feet. He sends a quick kick to my knee, and I let him use it to get right in my personal space. It's his main strategy, get really close in then use a flurry of his real strong hits (despite what he said earlier and the strategy he uses, he's as built as Four is). It's worked well on me in the past as I need to be a good metre away to get my strongest kicks in, but this time I let him pull me in, before ramming my elbow into his shoulder.
"Ow, fuck you. Fuck you." Axel whines to me playfully, and I smile.
"Didn't I tell you I've been trying to work on my arms?" I say pointedly, before glancing around. "Though let's tone it down, the others will start noticing."
We carry on comfortably, merely playing around with simple hits instead of anything more effective, before Axel calls time, just as Lily and Beth finish their laps, collapsing on the floor.
"Right, its lunch break, we'll be knife throwing this afternoon. You two ladies, you missed a great session!" Axel says, a grin on his face, boastful.
"Come on guys." Ben says, helping Beth up. I hesitantly give Lily a hand up, which she takes, though slightly awkwardly. And we head to lunch, all seemingly normal.
The next day it's fights again. There aren't any crazy matchups, as Lily was paired with Lottie, the slightly stronger erudite girl, but lost. She was doing alright, but never even attempted any blows to the head or thorax, what would actually count Lottie out. Lottie took advantage of that, as it seems she realised her measly hits would only do anything if in the right places. Lily was only down for 10 minutes or so, and it just shows how weak they both still are, she's completely fine now. Beth lost against Tom the second best out of the three candor boys as Ben won against Mickey the weakest candor boy. Jay had a pretty even fight with Zander, and managed to pull ahead at the end with a neat blow to his temples. What was worse…. Well I guess it was Dauntless' way of telling us they don't care if its weak against strong, it's a fight.
"Isobel, Kasper, in the ring!" Eric yelled, the last pair to fight. I was on the edge of my feet, next to Jay whilst Ben helped ice Beth's shoulder, Lily sitting beside them. 1st ranked against last ranked. It's cruel. I keep my face passive, trying to not feel or think as Kasper's first punch hits straight in her stomach. The most sickly feeling creeps up into my own stomach, as he hits again and again. She has a few indications of training, her blocks are up how Four taught us, her defensive position is good. But she's weak. Though there's no fat on her body any more, there's less than a third of the muscle on her as him, since she's so much smaller as well.
I can barely keep my eyes on the fight. I wouldn't in fact, if not to watch Kasper's moves, I'll have to fight him at some point. I can even feel a constriction in my throat as she falls to the floor for the first time. She was foolish, picking Dauntless. I mean they never say outright that they chuck people out for not being good enough, but Dauntless is the soldier faction, and people become factionless some way. She was foolish, but innocently so. And that's what gets to me.
Luckily I don't know her. I've never even asked her name, or passed her the vinegar at the dinner table. I don't know that she's innocent, for sure.
As I look at Kasper though, one look tells me he's not innocent. There's no reason at all to pummel her like this, and when I look closer I almost snarl. I'd love to say it was just because he's as vicious as his two friends, but there's skill. He's using exactly what Axel taught us yesterday. She's already got one very weak arm from a strong shoulder blow, and she's limping from something else. Her breathing is ragged, but he hasn't aimed once for her head or breathing system. He's doing it because he feels like it. As he picks her up from the ground by her t-shirt, as she hangs in the air, he drops her, a light smirk on his face, as if he were just discovering a new hobby. I let out a breath of air, when she's knocked out just from falling.
"Time, she's out." Eric says, and Kasper looks up slightly bemused, before walking to his two friends. Four moves to pick Isobel up, bloodied and bruised, taking her to I presume the infirmary. As my eyes follow him, there's a stare at me from the side, and I meet Eric's eyes. I didn't know what I was expecting, the same malicious smirk that Kasper wore, but I was surprised. He mirrored my own expression, calm, not bothered. But I could see what I was feeling, a solemn haze at the back of my mind.
A few days after that, and it's back to normal Four and Eric training, starting with guns. I'm still trying to act the fool, at least a little, but I can tell Eric's getting impatient as he paces behind us. I'm not going to lie, I'm getting impatient. It still hasn't been long enough for me to be understandably good at this, with a week and a half's gun training under my belt, because we've been doing more hand to hand combat. And because of that, I'm still shooting at circles rather than the bullseye. And especially in the second half of the session, I can't even tell if I'm hitting where I'm aiming.
I'm in the lower half of the initiates, along with Isobel, Lottie, and Mickey. The two girls were kind of self-explanatory, Isobel flinches every time she shoots and Lottie jest straight up has terrible aim. Mickey as well, he's shorter but broader than the other two, which just makes me think he's dumber.
"Right, let's try something." Eric says as we move to change our targets. "You four. Amity, dumbskull, and you two sheets of paper. Line up next to each other." He obviously was irritated AND bored today. He's just about gotten to the point of calling us by name, when he's in a bad mood he just calls us by curse words, when he's bored as well they get more inventive. I quite enjoy them actually. I move up next to Mickey whilst Isobel and Lottie are on the other side of him.
"Move up to close range, this should be easy! The last one to hit the bullseye gets the pleasure of fighting me in the ring." He says, with a meaningful glance at me. Shit, I haven't fired a handgun since that first session with him. And I didn't even get that good with it, I merely stayed in the same position he'd put me in.
I line up as the rest of the initiates stand on the side to watch. Eric nods his head to me to shoot first. I line myself up, in the position my body remembers. I'm not throwing these shots, there's no way I can fight him not only for the second time with an arm out of order, but in front of everyone else. I take the shot without hesitation, but at last minute I remember my postures off, my shoulders were completely square as Four had shown, instead of slightly side-turned as Eric had shown me.
The bullet imbeds itself closer to bullseye than I would've thought, slightly low to the left. I'm confident the others won't get it on first try, though I haven't seen them short range.
Mickey misses, easily.
Lottie skims the edge.
"Pass, barely." Eric growls, and she stutters away to the side.
Isobel misses, but only by a bit. She seems to be more used to the handgun rather than the rifle, and I mentally pray for her to miss again.
It's my turn and I line up, correcting my posture, and shoot. This time my arms are too stiff, and don't withdraw correctly. It's low, and to the right.
Mickey misses. I guess he's my hope.
Isobel takes a deep breath before she shoots. It seems she's alright under pressure, and I curse under my breath as she too skims the bullseye, and gets the pass from Eric.
It passes to me once more, and the room is silent except for the few footprints from the outside. This time I'll have it. I'm relaxed, my postures perfect. My eyes line directly up with the bullseye.
It's off. Barely. To the right. Why is it always on the fucking right?!
I lower the gun as Mickey raises his own arms. His postures all wrong. It's not even similar to Four's, his feet are at odd angles and his grip is too loose. His shoulders are one in front of the other yet he's facing head on. He'll miss.
He doesn't.
"Well well amity, looks like you earned yourself an opportunistic spar." Eric taunts as I put down the gun.
"Eric, she's injured." Four states matter of fact.
"And?" Eric replies, his eyebrow twitching in annoyance.
"She isn't cleared for combat. You know that." Four says pointedly.
"I say otherwise."
"Eric-"
"Amity, if you injure yourself further you'll be issued further punishment, is that clear?" Eric barks at me, but there's a challenge in his eyes, for me to say no, that I have to answer.
"Crystal." I reply curtly, and just like before, it's barely a second before he's upon me, barely a second before I regret it, and he's throwing a strong punch. It's stronger than before, and faster, but I'd still say 60% strength. Besides, I manage to vaguely pretend to block whilst in reality I'm whipping out of the way. He pushes forward, unrelenting as I glance behind him until we've moved so far away none of the other initiates or even Four can see my movements, covered by his broad back.
"What are you trying to get out of this? You know I can't go full out, you still aren't." I mutter, and he smirks as our gazes hold each other.
"Perhaps you'll change your mind about that. You being a good sparring partner won't give away my help." He says in a falsely innocent tone. It's the same challenge in his voice that makes me do it. Makes me bring my leg up, holding his strong punch stationary as its momentum is gone. My body has bent to keep my centre of gravity low, and we pause for but a second.
"Just for fun then." I breathe out, a smile flowing onto my face naturally.
"For the fun." He agrees, before pursuing forward as I back up, clumsily dodging his blows.
I look over to the side momentarily, and catch the sight of the rest of the initiates. The three candor boys and the abnegation look on with something like malicious pleasure, whilst the rest all look at me with varying levels of pity. Most of all as I see… Lily. I won't lie, I don't like the feeling those looks give me. It makes me feel weak. But then again, the knowledge that it's all fake, it's all a play, that it's just for fun- that overwhelms any feeling of weakness with silent pride.
Unfortunately, that one moment of distraction, got me pinned to the floor.
"Never get distracted." Eric growls in my ear, my wrists pinned above my head while his body is to my side which one leg kneeling on both of mine. I know what I'd do now, I probably head butt him, slip one leg out and kick him in the ribs to shift his body weight off me, but I can't do that now. In fact, I'd probably have a hard time, since even though he isn't pinning me with all his strength I can't move a muscle.
"If you can't get out of this, I'm going to hurt you." Eric mutters, the dangerous glint in his eye. I know he will as well, and once again the imminent danger that clouds over me is filled with challenge. So I get out of it. Though in a more believable way for a sixteen year old girl from the amity farms.
I stand a good number of large paces away from him, wary as he stands. The tension throughout the room could only be pierced with a knife, even Four seems to be holding his breath. I lower my body into the standard defensive position, as Eric moves, enraged, towards me. His back is towards the initiates, so none of them can see past to the mirth dancing in my eyes as I realised that I've bested him again.
"Stop!" Eric stops, barely a step away from attacking me, when a clear, high voice rings out. "Surely she's had enough?"
Eric looks up to me bemused as we both realise we may have pushed it too far, too far for Lily to stand for our pretence.
"She was at a major disadvantage to begin with, she's never fired a handgun before, then you attack her with 3 limbs. Just because she kneed you in the crotch doesn't mean you can try to throw her into the infirmary!" Lily yells as Eric turns round. I can see her blood running cold as she's reminded of Eric's cold glare.
"Do I need to remind you, initiate, that in this room I make the rules." He barks at her. "I was sparring with amity, there's bound to be collateral damage." I can see his malicious grin even when his backs turned. My breath hitches, Lily can't get out of this one. I don't know what he'll do, but whatever happens to her will be because she stood up for me.
"You shouldn't spar a disabled opponent in any situation. It's immoral." Her voice is shaking but there's clear meaning in her words. I look away, shaking my head. She's really done it now.
I look up to see what Eric's doing as I hear him move across the floor, but my eyes widen as he grabs her by the collar and starts dragging her from the room. I thought he'd rough her up a little, nothing anyone else could do, but where's he taking her. The rest of the initiates, myself included, flock after them, Four joining in somewhere near the back. He continually drags her on the floor through the corridors, all the while Lily's looking around in panic.
I can see the map of Dauntless in my head, and try to figure out where we're going, as we get closer to the pit. The sound of water gets louder and louder, and all too late I realise where we are, as Eric chucks her over the side into the chasm.
Yay another chapter! I wanted to start adding in the more dangerous side of Eric, since so far most of its been incredibly tame. Plus, I've figured out how the reconciliation of Lily and Avery will turn out, though at least a couple of chapters after this. Also, hopefully either next chapter or the one afterwards we'll see Avery in her first fight! Will she hold back in order to not become a target, and work on her arms as she's been planning, or will she show her true skill? Please Read and Review as always