The Devil Wears Yellow

4

They were woken up in the morning to Four banging on a metal pipe.

"Everyone in the pit in two minutes," he yelled. Eden quickly changed and put her shoes on before running out. She had put her hair in two Dutch braids last night so she didn't look a mess like half the people did. She got down to the pit and saw that half of it looked like a training room.

"Hey," Al said coming up next to her. She sent a smile up at him.

"Good morning," she said and he smiled back at her. It was hard not to because of how contagious her smile was.

"There are two stages to your training. The first is physical, push your bodies to the breaking point and master the art of combat. Second is mental, again breaking point, you'll face your worst fears and conquer them unless the get you first. You'll be trained separately from Dauntless born but ranked together. Rankings will determine what jobs you move into. Leadership, guarding the fence, or keeping the factions from killing each other," Four ranted and a screen popped up with all their names on it in a random order.

"The rankings will also determine who gets cut," Eric said while standing with his arms behind his back.

"Cut?" Christina asked.

"At the end of each stage, the lowest ranking initiates will be leaving us," he said and Eden swallowed the lump in her throat. She was going to have to push herself really hard now. Harder than she thought.

"To do what?" Al asked beside her.

"You can't go back to your families so you would live factionless," he said and there were gasps.

"Why didn't we know?"

"It's a new rule."

"A new rule? Someone should have told us," Christina added.

"Why? Would you have chosen differently? Or out of fear? Well 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. You chose us, now we choose you," Eric finished and sent a look to Eden. Her face didn't falter from when she walked in.

"Let's start with a run," Four said and took off. Eden was used to running so this wouldn't be a problem. They ran out of the compound and around the outside area. Four stopped by a guard and talked to him.

"I really don't wanna be one of them," Al said while looking at the factionless.

"You won't be," Eden assured him.

"Let's go!" Four called and started running again. Eden managed to stay right behind him the entire time while the others started trailing behind. All except for Peter.

"Not bad for a softie. I must say, I like you much better in black," he said to her and she rolled her eyes.

"And I like you much better when you aren't talking," she said back and Four smirked at her comeback.

"No need to get feisty. It's a compliment," he said and she shook her head. Four stopped when they got to the pit and they waited for the others to start coming. "Nice legs by the way. Those loose clothes always hid em."

"Can't say the same for you," she said while stretching out a bit. Peter just smirked and did the same.

"Since you guys like each other so much, you're partners," Four said and Eden huffed. "Everyone on the mats. We are going to do a few combat exercises."

"I'd say this is a fair match up," Peter said standing across from her. He stood at six feet tall so he was much bigger than her. Nearly everyone here was much bigger than her. They looked over at Four and copied his motions. They were just tapping their forearms against each other in different combinations.