Chapter 2

"We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another."
Veronica Roth,Divergent

Jace POV

I was stunned for a minute. What training? I wanted to get back home. There were some things I needed to take care off. Plus, Clary's parents would be worried. If they blamed me… who know how angry they'd get, or what they'd do. I'd rather not imagine it.

Looking at Four, I ask "What training?"

He looks a bit annoyed. "You know, initiation. Here at Dauntless, we train to become stronger."

We all respond with blank stares.

"Just get here by eight tomorrow. Tris and I will meet you in this exact spot."

"How long will this take?" Simon asks. "I need to get home some time soon. For a few nights, Mom will expect me to be with Clary. But if not, she'll freak out."

"You can't go home," Four says angrily. "Once you come to Dauntless, you have to stay. Initiation takes about a month."

"Unless you portal us back," I whisper to Clary. She laughs a little, but she looks upset.

"When I get home, I am so dead," Clary whispers.

Magnus speaks up. "Can we leave after initiation? I've got stuff to do. Being immortal hasn't caught up to me yet."

Four looks like he wants to yell at us. Tris lightly touches his arm. "We can't upset the guests," she tells him softly. But I can still hear them. "They can leave, you know. They did time travel. As long as we treat them like regular Dauntless members most of the time, nobody will know. Besides, they aren't like Christina. If you were lost, would like to spend a month in a foreign place and not be allowed to go home."

"Fine," Four says, giving up. "You can all go home after initiation. If you pass, you'll be free to come here whenever you want to. You'll be members then. I would show you the transfer's bedroom, but you guys can't sleep there. The other Dauntless members would get suspicious. We don't get initiates around this time. Ever."

Tris picks up where Four left off. "Max says you guys can have some spare apartments. We have three apartments. Each apartment has two bedrooms. Four and I'll show you where they are."

Turning, Tris headed down a hallway. I stepped next to Clary.

"So, that went better than expected," I told Clary.

"Yah," she responded.

"What do you think about the room situation?" I ask her.

"It'll work out," she says. "At least we get to go home. I feel bad for dragging everyone into this. It's all my fault."

"We all agreed to go with you. It's our faults as well."

"Don't worry Clary," Simon says. "I'll always follow you, no matter what."

'Nice speech mundane," I say. "If Clary jumps off a cliff, I'm sure you'll follow her eagerly."

"I'm not a mundane," Simon protested.

"Well, you're not a vampire," I point out, "and you haven't ascended yet. So you are a mundane."

Clary nudges the both of us. "We made it," she whispers.

"Here are the keys," Tris says, handing them to me. "You guys can go into your rooms. Don't forget to meet us tomorrow."

Tris and Four walk down a hallway together, and leave us alone. Alec is the first to speak up. "How'd we end up here of all places," he complained. "I thought Jace was reckless until I saw these people jumping on and off of trains. This place seems to be filled with people who don't care about their lives."

"Glad to hear that, Alec." I responded. "I didn't think you would ever find someone more reckless than me."

"Me either," he said. We all laughed. Isabelle came up and snatched a key out of my hand.

"I need rest," she said. "I take this room." With that, she unlocked a door, and entered an apartment.

Magnus came up and took the second key. "I'll take this room," he said as he opened the door. Alec followed him without a word. That left Clary, Simon, and me.

"I thought Alec would go with Isabelle for sure," I say.

"But then who'd go with Magnus?" Simon asked.

I decided to ignore Simon's question. "So, who wants to go with Isabelle?" I ask. I see Clary shake her head.

"You guys know her better, and can't stand to be with each other, so I won't go," she said.

"I'll go with her," Simon says. He turns and heads into the same room that Isabelle went in.

I walk over and open the door to the last apartment. It looks like a room in the Institute, but with less decoration.

I hear the door close as Clary walks in. "Are you okay with this?" I ask her. "Your mom would not like this at all. Why else didn't she want you to stay at the Institute?"

Clary looked thoughtful for a moment. "She doesn't have to find out," Clary said at last. I grinned. I did enjoy keeping secrets. "I wonder if they have cell reception here," Clary muttered. "I could text my mom."

"What place doesn't get reception?" I wonder out loud.

"Many places in Africa. And isolated islands," Clary responds.

"I wonder if they have Taki's here. I'm hungry."

"I'm sure they don't. You can probably order food off of robots or something. We're in the future."

"It looks worse than the present. But seriously, where's the food?"

"We could go and see," Clary suggests.

"Let's go," I say. "Everyone else will figure it out eventually." Clary and I both lead the room, and start to scout for a cafeteria or a restaurant or a café or… just a food place in general.

Tris POV

Tobias and I walked down the hall away from the Shadowhunters. He still looks pretty angry.

"Did their comments really bother you that much?" I ask him.

"It's like they're all Candor smart mouths," Tobias says, exasperated. "Like Christina, except I can't do anything about it."

"That's why I chose to be a faction ambassador," I tease. "So I don't have to deal with the initiates."

"If I hadn't chosen to train initiates, I wouldn't have met you," he responds.

"It does sound better when you put it that way."

"You're only saying that because it involves you."

"I could've chosen to train initiates," I say defensively. "I'm just not intimidating enough."

We turn and head into Tobias's apartment. "You're intimidating," he tells me. "Just not at first sight."

"Thanks, I feel a lot better," I say, teasing.

We sit down on his bed. "You'll always be intimidating to me," he says as he pulls me into a kiss. I put my arms around his neck.

"Tobias," I say. "What about the guests?"

"We can worry about them later," Tobias replies. "They'll be here for a while. We'll train them like any regular initiates. I'll skip the cuts, though. I've always disliked them."

"We?" I ask.

"Yes," he replies. "You did agree to train them with me when Max asked you to. It's too bad they've never heard of Dauntless before."

"It's a shame. They'll never know that they're being trained by two legends."

"Four and Six. We'd make a great team," he says. I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "We'll just wait until tomorrow. Then we can really asses these shadowhunters. Right now, we have time to ourselves. And we don't get that often do we?"

"No."

"So let's enjoy it."

Jace POV

As it turns out, they have food in a cafeteria. Nobody here has ever heard of a restaurant before. So much for going to Taki's.

Everyone else found the cafeteria eventually. They just asked some random stranger who looked at them like weirdo's before showing them the cafeteria. Or that's what Isabelle said, at least.

The next morning, we all got ready for training. While we were waiting, I looked at everyone's expression. Simon looked nervous, and Clary looked worried. She was probably thinking about her parents. Isabelle looked prepared to take on anything. Alec looked concerned, and Magnus appeared to be happy.

A few minutes later, Four and Tris made it to the meeting area. "You're early," Four mused. "Initiates are rarely early on the first day."

"Fighting demons requires a lot of hard work," Isabelle said. "Some of us are used to getting up early to train, or go out on a mission."

Four glared at Isabelle, and looked over at Tris. They shared a silent message, and Four moved on. "If you follow me," he said, "I'll show you the training room."

We followed Tris and Four into their training room. They had some punching bags and targets. Leaning over to Alec and Isabelle, I whisper. "Reminds me of the training place at the Institute, if we were 100 years in the past. And I thought we were in the future."

They both laugh and Four glares at them. "For initiates, you guys sure are rude," he says. "Lucky for you, you aren't from here, or else you all would've learned to keep your mouths shut the first time you spoke up."

Tris takes over for Four. "This is where you'll train for the first stage," she says. "The first stage is physical, the second and third are mental. For the first stage-"

"You'll figure that out soon enough," Four interrupts. I glance over at Clary, and she looks ready to take on whatever she needs to. We lock gazes, and I can see that she is a bit nervous. Following Tris, we all walk into the training room, ready for whatever is about to come at us.

Hey guys! Thanks for reading. I never thought I'd get more than 20 views:) Anyway, for me, freshman year is starting soon, so I'll try to update once a month, but I'll definitely update every two months. I didn't edit this chapter:)

See ya!

~DauntlessPokemonRide