-Piper-Leigh's POV-
The past couple of days have gone quickly. Its been a blur of training with Johanna, Elodie and Jem and then joining up with Althea and the rest. I have to say, my favourite part of the day is when I get a few seconds alone with Conrad. I don't think he's interested in me like that though. It doesn't matter. Today was the the that I've been waiting for, the day we fight to secure the ranks to see who get cut, then its stage two, three and then the finish line. I'm so close but so far away. I walk next to Johanna and Elodie, with Jem close behind. As we walk in, all the transfers are pooled around Six as she stands in front of the giant blackboard. Which holds the name sof who is fighting who. Once we- the last ones to arrive- settle down she silently flipped the board over and I scan for my name.
Ruben Vs Alex
Johanna Vs Corey
Elodie Vs Sophie
Piper-Leigh Vs Jem
I glanced over at Jem, this would be easier if we weren't friends. But I had to beat him, I cannot be cut from the first stage. That would kill me. I saw Johanna smirking, she knew she would beat Corey, he was stronger than her, but she was faster and when she hit you it stung. She was the second fight. I was the last. I hoped they would be over soon. I wanted to get this over with, so I can see if Jem isn't to embarassed to be friends with me anymore.
-Johanna's POV-
I stepped into the ring after Alex got bored of kicking Rueben's ass. I felt confident, I knew I could beat Corey. I knew it. Six signalled to start and imediately, Corey went for my weak spot- my stomach, I easily side stepped and kicked him in the side winding him. I knew he'd go for a cheap shot as soon as we started. He was too predictable and that was my advantage. When he recovered, I punched him in the jaw and then kicked his feet from underneath him. I puched him in the nose, he hit up, getting me in the ear. He then overpowered me and pinned me to the ground. He didn't pin me very well though, He was too close to me and I managed to arch my elbow and hit him in the nose hard enough he recoiled. He put his hand to his nose, and when he took it away, it was bleeding. To say that annoyed him him was an understatement, he charged at me like a bull, but again I side stepped, this time, catching his arm and pulling him back so he got thrown on the floor. I kicked him while he was down, bad sportsmanship, I know but if I beat him once, It was unlikely I'd fight him again. After I'd kicked him a few times, Corey was most definatley not getting up again. Six told me to stop and I did. Stepping out of the ring triumphantly as Corey looked at me grudgingly. I know Corey, he wouldn't forget about this quickly. I just looked at him straight in the eye, smirking and raised an eyebrow. I was telepathically sending him a message. Bring it on. He just scowled, to anyone, it would be because he lost to a girl, but I understood what he meant. He knew what the way I was looking at him means. He understood clear as day.
-Jem's POV-
After Johanna's fight, or should I say brutally calculated beating of Corey, Elodie and Sophie stepped into the ring. Elodie won pretty quickly, Sophie only took a few hits to the jaw befre collapsing. Then it was Piper-Leigh and me. We both stepped into the ring reluctently. We were in the process of becoming close friends, we didn't want to mess that up by trying to beat one another senseless! I decided to goad her into hitting me hard and falling down so she would win, then, we wouldn't have to fight eachother again. Easy. I looked into her eyes and the plan to make her evaporated.
"Hit me as hard as you can" I said softly "I wont mind"
She nodded, chewing her lip, she snaked her arm out and her fist connected with my jaw. Hard. My head snapped back, I recovered quickly and kicked her ankle. A dumb move, but I wanted to look like I was trying. We carried on punching, kicking and running around eachother until she got a really good shot to my eye and I fell down. She was declared the winner. I smilled and jumped up and walked out of the ring. Six dissmissed us and as we walked down the halls, Piper-Leigh whispered
"Thanks for letting me win" in my ear. I turned to her and said
"I didn't let you win, Pipes, you didn't all yourself" She just smiled flushing with pride, I felt a surge of brotherly love towards her as I drapped my arm around her shoulders. I really was fond of her.
-Tris's POV-
It had been a long week. Because of the uneven transfer to to Dauntless-born ratio, Tobias's intiates had taken longer to finish their fights because they all had to fight one another. Once the Dauntless borns were finally done, we lost countless hours of sleep trying to figure out who would be ranked where, we hoped that each night would finally be easy to rank the kids, but it was like God was looking down on us saying "today is not that day"
I sat on our sofa, the infomation for each fight spread out in front of me on the coffee table. Groaning I tipped my head back.
"Why is this so hard? Why are this year's intiates so evenly matched? This is impossible" I grumbled, as Tobias came over with two mugs of coffee. He set them down, kissing me on the forehead.
"Tris," He sighed "Maybe we should look at this a different way, instead of looking at how many fights they won and who they beat, we should look at how they fought instead"
"Yes, but that means re-watching the fights, analysing them and comparing them to eachother, wich is basically, what we are doing now" I said grumpily, I don't know if this was just the Erudite side of my Divergence coming out or not, but not knowing the answer to something just rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't like it. Tobias blew air out of his nose in frustration.
"Then what do you suggest we do then? Compare how they did in target practice instead?" he snapped. I sat back up straight and looked at him.
"Hang on, that's not a half bad idea, but, how about we combine how well they did with target practice with their fight skills" I said in a rush, excited that we had finally gotten somewhere, even if was just an idea.
"That's brilliant, Tris!" Tobias exclaimed. He went and got the disk tht had the security camera footage that was taking in the training rooms. For some reason, all training sessions were recorded since my intiation, I worry that city officals are trying to hone into Diverents so that they can dispose of them, but I push that horrible, horrible thought from my mind as Tobias re-enters. We spent the night watching back the fights and the knife and gun practice, we scored our own intiates and compared the scores until we had a finished list. It was roughly 2 A.M when we fell asleep, hunched over the table. Tommorow, most of the intiates would be one step closer to having a ne home but for four of them, it would be a very different story.