Author's Note: I just want to thank all of the people who have favorited/followed this story since the last update (way too many for me to acknowledge individually). I know I haven't updated in a while and I apologize, but I have been extremely busy with university, but I still appreciate all of the reviews and follows/favorites I've received. Please continue to review and at the end of this chapter I will list my FC for most of my OC's since someone asked about Isabelle's FC. Once again, thank you all so much. Much love, freenightfall28 aka Nicole.
Isabelle stood at the top of the observation deck with the instructors, her team, and Mattie's defeated team—Eric stood at the brunette's left side as Mattie was at Isabelle's right, besides her own team. The blond leader was extremely close, being shoulder-to-shoulder with Isabelle but the girl barely took notice of the physical contact; she was preoccupied with watching Warsan and Nikki's team face off in the labyrinth during their round, almost immediately after her own round had ended. Her left arm was crossed against her chest, but Isabelle rested her chin on her knuckles of her right hand as her eyes roamed around the course, following each individual that caught her attention as they wandered around.
Occasionally Eric would glance over at the girl, although he was careful not to turn his head and cause suspicion, but her eyes always remained on what was happening in the maze below. Isabelle was solely concentrating on the action before her, watching both teams as she tried to figure out their strategies.
Warsan's team had the upper hand, Isabelle noticed as his team took their formation. Warsan didn't lead the pack, however, instead he took his position in the back as he commanded the others to continue on forward. He had Sido up front leading the group with Morgan two walls behind as he was two behind her; Anne was captured and placed in the spot to the left.
On the other team there was only Nikki, Levy, and Mia with Conner being their hostage. The blonde's team was bunched together, forming a small but solid circle with their backs against each other's so that they didn't have a blind spot; unfortunately Isabelle saw that position as a weakness. With no space between any of them, they remained an easy target should Warsan's team find them and fire first.
Though Warsan's team had a better formation, Nikki's group was making up more ground as they moved quickly, the sounds of their boots padding against the stone floor rhythmically, lightly—the only sounds that could be heard in the room; just as before, it was nearly completely silent. Up on the observation deck, Isabelle wasn't nearly as cold as she had been down in the labyrinth. Up where she was, Isabelle found the warmth of the lights that hung from above, spreading it's radiated heat until she didn't feel as numb as she had before.
How strange that was, Isabelle thought, that she had been so numbly cold down there in the labyrinth. It was then that Isabelle's mind was flooded with questions—was it fear she felt down there? Was it anxiousness? Or perhaps it was something else, something Isabelle had never felt before, something she couldn't explain coherently? Had the others felt it too—Mattie, Warsan, and Nikki—as they roamed the empty halls of stone-forged walls? Had Four felt it when he was first sent out to keep the peace in the other factions? Had Eric felt it the first time he was sent out to lead a mission on his own?
No, she thought suddenly, firmly. Isabelle finally casted a glance over at the blond, her eyes watching him more intensely than she had realized, her eyes growing dark. Eric was born a warrior, a fearless commander; his veins carried adrenaline, his heart thrummed to the sound of war drums and gunfire. He did not feel terror—he instilled it into the hearts of his enemies, his advisories, and those who would dare defy him. Eric was a king sitting on a throne made of bones, the personification of destruction and ruin; he did not feel something as petty as fear in such moments.
But were there moments in which Eric felt inferior, felt such emotions that he would surely, outwardly, deny? Though he was hardened, stoic in some instances yet goaded in others, there was a time when he was not so, wasn't there? He was not born with a scowl, yielding knives; he was a child once, young and naive, full of dreams and hopes and wonder, wasn't he? No child is born with hate or anger or violence in their heart, so what had caused Eric to become so cold? Yes, he had brief moments of gentleness and genuine emotion, but what had made him hid 'neath a hardened exterior?
Isabelle assumed that Eric grew up in a decent home, since his mother was a sweet woman whom Isabelle had known through her own mother. Lotte was kind, always offering a benevolent smile and a wave to the girl when they saw each other at the Archives back at the Erudite compound. Lotte and Isabelle's mother chatted as they worked, idly but it gave the two woman a chance to somewhat socialize, even if it was only with each other.
Eric's father Sebastian was a quiet man, Isabelle remembered, as Lotte was the talker. It was Lotte who always wanted to know how life was—how were the kids, how was the home, how was school or work?—all while Sebastian just listened intently, nodding his head curtly or shaking his head nonchalantly, depending on the situation.
Now that Isabelle thought about it, it was hard to believe that Eric was the child of Lotte and Sebastian. Eric was so different—he didn't talk nearly as much as Lotte, but he wasn't completely quiet like his father; neither was he one for gentle consoling or genuine moments of kindness that both his mother and father acquired. How had Eric come to be the way he was? Who was the leader, the instructor that made him this way? Or was this aggression, this malevolent violence in him all along and it only took time, took a specific path to follow in order for Eric to fully embrace this sheltered side of him?
Finding that a sorrowful feeling had crept into her bones at such thoughts, Isabelle turned her attention back to the labyrinth below; Eric noticed, a smirk brimming his lips as soon as her eyes left him. He hadn't noticed, however, the cold look in her hazel eyes as she gazed upon him. Eric interpreted the glimmer in her eyes as something else, something a little less frigid and a little more wanton. Unbeknownst to him, Eric was utterly wrong.
To keep her mind off of the subject, Isabelle turned her attention back to the teams. To her surprise Warsan's team was close to their hostage, meaning that surely the round would end soon. As a bystander, Isabelle saw just how quickly the rounds went, but it was a differently story when you were down there in the grime, in the midsts of the action.
Being down there seemed to bend the rules of time—when nothing was happening it was almost as if time had slowed down to the point where Isabelle questioned whether anything was actually happening at all or if time had stopped. It was so strange, that phenomenon. When she was down there not only did time seem to stop, but she broke out into a cold sweat and the silence became deafening. All of it was surreal, like a dream—a horrible dream in which she was forced to attack her friends in a small, confined space against her will, not to mention it was all orchestrated by the instructors of her faction, pulling the strings like the marionettists they were. The worst part of it was that she knew they loved it.
Isabelle couldn't shake off how cruel they could be, the instructors. She understood a portion of their mentality, though. She knew that they were training future soldiers, she knew that. To Isabelle, however, it seemed that some of the tasks training that they made her and the rest of the initiates complete were merely for their instructor's amusement. Eric certainly loved it, embarrassing the initiates, as he made it known since day one when he mocked Isabelle when she tripped during boot camp or how he openly ridiculed girls like Mia—poor, poor Mia.
Upon thinking about the girl, Isabelle's eyes scanned the entire range of the course until she found the small, petite, brown haired girl. As her hazel eyes studied the visibly shaken girl with the gun, Isabelle couldn't help but pity the girl. Although she hadn't been doing nearly as bad as she had in the beginning of initiation, there was still no way that she was going to make it to the next phase—there was just no way in hell. Mia was meek, she adjusted poorly to adapting to a situation under incredible amounts of stress, not to mention she hardly had the skills to lead, nor did she have those to follow military tactics. She was a mess—canon fodder—and a danger to anyone in her team. It was mean to say, but Isabelle thought of Mia as nothing but a weak link.
As she continued to watch the girl stalk about the course aimlessly, Isabelle knew that she herself had changed, unlike the predestinedly doom Mia. Isabelle noticed that she had become tougher, her qualities of compassion seemingly dwindled down as her lust for competition increased tenfold. As she stood above the labyrinth, Isabelle's skin tensed with anticipation to get back onto the course. She wanted to be in here. She wanted to win. Isabelle wanted to show up Eric and prove herself to be a soldier worth acknowledging. During her entire life, Isabelle never thought of herself as an ambitious person, but once she started training at Dauntless, there never anything she wanted more in her life.
Images of her aunt suddenly appeared in Isabelle's mind and for the first time since her first week at Dauntless, she thought about her aunt's well-being. It's true that she and her aunt didn't see eye-to-eye with each other, but she was alone now that Isabelle had transferred out of her faction. Despite any dispositions she had with the woman, Isabelle hoped that she was doing well; being lonely was such a horrid thing to experience, especially knowing that someone close to you intentionally left to follow their dreams and ambitions—and knowing that they were doing so without you in the picture to share in the ups and downs was equally as hard to deal with.
Suddenly a swell of guilt formed inside of Isabelle, manifesting from the thought that she had left her aunt all alone back in Erudite. Her aunt didn't have a husband, nor did she have any children to keep her company, and ever since her brother died—Isabelle's father—there was no one she could turn to for support. There was tension between her aunt, Isabelle's mother, and herself. With no one at home for Aunt Patricia for companionship, Isabelle felt that it was her fault for the woman's isolation. Although there was slight enmity between Patricia and Isabelle, the girl was more than happy to keep her aunt company, the woman who took her in after her mother's passing. She was grateful for her aunt's hospitality, even if it was obligated of her to do so because of familial ties.
Booming sounds of bullets being fired below her caused Isabelle to come back into reality as she peered down into the labyrinth, leaning forward as she grasped the cold metal of the handrail in front of her. Warsan's team had taken the initiative as they fired first as they made their move on Nikki's team, advancing forward. Nikki's team, on the other hand, weren't as prepared for the attack as they scattered, breaking their circular formation and thus breaking apart the team as they found shelter behind various walls and they all spread out away from each other.
And then there was Mia. With all luck against her she hopeless trudged to the side, hugging the wall. Unbeknownst to her, one of Warsan's men—Morgan—had already detected her prey with her scope and she cautiously stalked the frightened Mia behind one wall about ten feet to the side of her target. With soundless steps Morgan crept forward to the next wall without being spotted by her mark. Isabelle watched intently as Morgan crouched down on one knee, peering into her scope with her finger on the trigger diligently. A moment later she pulled and the bullet hit the dumbstrucken Mia in the left leg. It was a stun-bullet and Mia fell to her other knee as her left leg gave out under her, mirroring Morgan's position. She quickly switched rounds and shot Mia once again, this time with a kill-bullet. The round hit the poor girl in the left shoulder and she hit the floor not but a second later.
"I knew she wouldn't last long," Eric whispered to Isabelle then, nearly inaudible to the girl besides him.
Isabelle let go of the handrail and crossed her arms in front of her chest, leaning on her right foot in order to get closer to the leader without looking suspicious, "lasted longer than I thought she would," Isabelle lied, trying to get a reaction out of Eric as she made sure to use a tone that was innocently naive, but certain as well. She had used that tone once before with Eric and it seemed to make him more interested in what she had to say.
Isabelle found Eric an anomalous thing, vicious but anomalous nonetheless. That made for a dangerous mixture—viciousness and anomalousness. Both qualities were found in the best of predators and Eric was definitely that, a predator. From day one he observed the initiates and sorted out the innocent ones from those who seemed to be more informed in the world and he made sure to single them out. He found perverse pleasure in mocking and toying with initiates like Isabelle, although now she wasn't nearly in the same group as she once was. Mia, on the other hand, still had her innocence and that is why is made her such an easy target for Eric, the other leaders, and the rest of the initiates who were more experienced with the hardships and roughness of the world.
It worked as she had caught his attention. The blond turned his head a bit towards Isabelle so that he could glance at her, his blue eyes as piercing as ever as they made eye contact with each other. "Really?"
"She's bad, but not horrible."
"I would beg to differ."
"She's better than some of the Dauntless born and that's a damn shame."
Eric turned his gaze back to the course before muttering a "very true" under his breath.
Isabelle also retuned her attention back to the action that had started to unfold below in the labyrinth. It was hard for her to keep her concentration on one thing at a time as her mind kept switching between watching Nikki and Warsan's team in the course as she observed their strategies and her own, internal thoughts. For some reason Isabelle found herself more distracted than she was before. Perhaps it was because she just wanted to get back into the course herself. The beginning of each round was a slow-burner and quite unappealing, but when things picked up it did become rather fun to watch.
Just as the thought popped into her head, Warsan's team made their move once again. Warsan came sprinting from behind his team and ran to the walls at his right as another teammate of his, Sido, zigzagged between the walls as she ran to the left, trying to find Anne who was held captive just a few feet away from the girl. It didn't take Sido long to find Anne and she untied her from the chair while Warsan had fired warning shots in Nikki's direction. The strawberry blonde was holding her ground as she fired back at Warsan; her teammate Levy was searching desperately for Conner against the right walls. After about a minute of rapid fire, Nikki had stopped and retreated back into the labyrinth.
Just as Nikki left, Warsan had spotted Levy as she continued to peek behind walls in order to find the room with her team's hostage in it. He froze and watched the girl for a moment, unsure if she had seen him or not. After realizing what she was oblivious to his presence, the dark-skinned boy slowly crept back until he was securely concealed behind one of the walls just to the side of the girl.
Isabelle and the rest of the initiates and instructors watched as the boy knelt down on a knee and peered from behind the wall, watching Levy's position and her movements. Isabelle believed that he was about to take her out then and there, but when he didn't raise his gun it certainly made Isabelle narrow her eyes in confusion. Warsan stayed where he was and kept quiet with his eye on Levy as she weaved in and out from behind the walls, still perusing Conner desperately.
On the other side of the course, Sido had located Anne and successfully untied her from the chair, allowing the girl to undo her own mouth gag. Silver-haired Sido placed a thin finger up to her lips before gesturing her to stay put. The girl with the gun moved to the entrance and peered around both corners diligently, trying to find any traces of movement that could've been Nikki's team. When none where found, Sido gave a loud whistle before she paused for a moment;
Isabelle watched with furrowed brows, unsure of the girl's intention. Warsan, who was still motionless as he continued to watch Levy scurry about, waited a suddenly, Levy paused in front of one the openings. She peered in momentarily, silently, before the girl took a quick glance over her shoulders, to which Warsan ducked even further down towards the ground in hopes that he wouldn't be noticed. He wasn't as Levy turned back to the opening and made her way inside. Warsan took that as his cue and whistled back at Sido before he raised his gun, peering through the scope and aiming in the direction where Levy stood mere seconds before. His whistle was deeper than the girl's, but she got the message. Quietly, Sido motioned for the girl to follow and they were off. Sido led her teammate towards their base at the other side of the labyrinth, weaving through the walls of the course.
Less than a minute later, Levy's shadow could've been seen on the ground as she moved back towards the entrance of the room; she turned back as she spoke to Conner. Warsan kept his aim and when both figures moved out from the entrance and into the open, the dark-skinned boy took his shot. He fired twice on Levy, hitting her once in the shoulder and once just above the heart on her vest. As fast as he could, he turned his attention to Conner and shot him in the exact same places; the two fell nearly in sync, only to have Levy hit the ground about a half a second faster than her teammate.
Once that was done, Isabelle's eyes flew over to the opposite end of the course where Sido and Anne had just reached their base. The roam erupted in deafening applause and cheers as it did when Isabelle's team had done with same, signifying to Warsan that Sido had completed her task, and thus winning the round. Nikki sighed in frustration as she lowered her gun, seemingly knowing that it wasn't her team that had won.
Eric leaned over the edge of the handrail, noticing that each team had regrouped at their bases before they all entered their respective rooms; it didn't take long before the teams exited the rooms as they had taken off their vests and put their guns away. He whistled at them, gaining their attention, and gestured for everyone to come up; the instructors had an announcement. Warsan congratulated his teammates, hugging each member with a bright smile on his pretty face. He met up with Nikki as they headed up the metal stairs that led up to the observation deck where the rest of the initiates were. He smiled at his friend and offered a hand to show his sportsmanship, to which Nikki shook with a grin as well. Mia's leg was still a bit numb from the stun-bullet and found herself a bit wobbly as she climbed the stairs, but Anne reassured that she was just behind her in case Mia was to loose her balance. Conner and Levy were both sore in the shoulders and chest, so Sido and Morgan offered to help if needed.
The eight of them ascended up to the observation deck a few minutes after Eric waved them up. When they arrived, they received another loud, rambunctious around of applause and cheers. Warsan grinned, showing his white teeth as he glanced over at his team, nodding to show his appreciation and acknowledgment for doing their part in his strategy.
Four hushed the initiates as he looked down at his watch, demanding for silence which took them a bit longer to do, but it wasn't long before he had their undivided attention. "Congratulations to Warsan's team for winning this round. Its time for us to break for lunch, but once we return Nikki and Mattie's team will face off in the course to settle fourth and fifth place, then immediately after that Warsan and Isabelle's team will go in the final round to determine second and first place for this assignment. I expect everyone to be back here as soon as possible, for we won't wait for stragglers—that applies to everybody."
Eric nodded as he took a step back from the rails, causing Isabelle and the rest of the initiates to turn his way, "At lunch you will group with your appropriate teams and discuss your strategy during that time for your next round, for you won't have time to plan anything when you come back; once you return from lunch you'll immediately be led to the back rooms in order to suit up and grab your guns before your final round begins."
"You are to only mingle with your own team," Four said rather harshly, "if we see you disturbing or making any sort of contact with anyone other than your assigned teammates after you leave this building you and the person you come into contact with will have points deducted from their score, which may result in a drop in the rankings, which would be rather unfortunate. Have I made myself clear?"
"Yes, sir!" The initiates roared back in unison.
"Then you're dismissed." And with that Eric left, turning on his heel as he made his way out of the back room of the training facility, not even bothering to give Isabelle a final glance before leaving.
Is turned her head slightly as she watched Eric leave over her shoulder, the sounds of his heavy footsteps echoed through the seemingly silent warehouse. When he left Isabelle turned back to glance down into the maze, her eyes scanning the entire area trying her hardest to memorize each wall, each turn, and each little crevasse in hopes that it would come in handy for her round against Warsan.
The other initiates started to leave the building as well, not wanting to waste any time lingering around the place when they could grab some food and prepare for their next encounter in the labyrinth. Nearly everyone had left, but Isabelle was able to catch a fleeting glimpse of Nikki as she followed the flow of the crowd that started to exit, rearing in the back, so Isabelle grabbed the blonde lightly by the arm and pulled her over to where she was by the handrails.
"Got a minute to spare?" Isabelle asked with a gentle smile, innocent yet sincere.
"We're not supposed to talk to each other until after all of this is over," Nikki whispered, glancing around quickly in hopes that no one would notice.
That caused Isabelle to scoff, her smile turning into a smirk, "Four said we aren't allowed to speak to each other until after we leave the building."
Nikki scoffed too, leading into a light chuckle as she glanced down at the ground for a moment before her attention was back on Is, "so what did you want to say?"
"I just wanted to tell you good job on your performance in the course; you were given probably some of the worst contenders in the game and yet you still did well—it won't go unnoticed."
"Thanks, you gotta deal with what you get—no gain in complaining about it."
"Exactly," Is replied, still smirking. She heard a bit of commotion behind her, so Isabelle looked over her shoulder to see her team waiting somewhat patiently behind her; it was Avicus who had his arms crossed over his chest as his foot shook with aggravated annoyance that told Isabelle that it was time to wrap things up, "I have to go, but good luck in the next round."
"You too, Is."
Face Claims for my OCs:
Catalina Sandino Moreno (circa Maria Full of Grace) for Isabelle, Suraj Sharma for Warsan, Mia Wasikowska for Mattie, Saoirse Ronan for Nikki, Imogen Poots for Kathryn, Dane DeHaan for Robbie, Aneurin Barnard for Avicus, Rami Malek for Ashur, Adèle Exarchopoulos for Artemis, Avan Jogia for Durro, Freddie Fox for Virgil, and Franka Potente (circa Run Lola Run) as Angelique