Eric Coulter Imagines

Leadership

You stand with your arms folded across your chest, staring out at the mass of newly arrived initiates before you. A few of them dare to risk glance your way and instantly avert their eyes once more, too nervous to stare outright. A man joins you, mimicking your pose and your thousand-yard gaze.

"You ready for this?" Four asks, and you allow yourself a slight smirk. "More than anything. I can't believe I was an initiate myself only last year." Four nods. "Are you going to go easy on these kids because of your fond memories of training?" You laugh. "Absolutely not. I'm going to run them into the ground. If they're not dead by the end of Stage One, I expect to see myself as one of their fears."

Four chuckles. "I can see that empathy is really one of your strong suits." You glance over at him with a raised eyebrow. "We're supposed to be whipping these guys into shape. You want me to be holding their hand all the way through it?" Four looks back over the initiates, who are still looking around hopefully, expecting an exciting new life as a Dauntless. They have no idea what they're in for. "I think you're going to do just fine."

In fact, you know you'll do just fine, even though this is your first experience as an initiation leader. You had thrived under the harsh tactics of last year's initiation, and you're eager to impart them onto these unsuspecting trainees. Hey, if you had to go through it so do they, right? Besides, you've got your best friend, Four, here to help.

You had met Four last year, when he had been leading your year's initiation process. You were always top of the class, which had caught his attention, but the two of you never talked much outside of training until Four realized why you seemed so similar to him. You two had a couple of things in common- you were Dauntless transfers, you were only a couple of years apart, and you were both Divergent.

Four was smart, you had to give him that. Once he realized that you had left your home faction of Erudite behind for some reason you weren't all that inclined to speak about, he had realized you were hiding something. You weren't too keen to tell him your true secret, so he had shared first, and one Divergent is always able to trust another. It was nice to have a friend who understood you, who had your back. When the two of you needed to back each other up or come up with excuses to make sure no one suspected your true Divergent status, you knew you could count on each other. That's just how it worked.

Back to the present moment- Four is jerking his chin in the direction of some man approaching you. "That would be Eric. He'll be running initiation this year along with the two of us. We had far more transfers this year than usual, so it's been decided that we'll have a third leader to handle the numbers." You nod, turning as Eric walks up to you. He holds out his hand. "Eric Coulter. You must be Y/N." You look him in the eyes as you shake hands. "I've heard a lot about you."

Eric chuckles. "Not as much as I heard about you. It's rare that one initiate would come out first in both stages of training, and never move from that position. It's a shame I missed seeing you train." You smile at that. It's true- from the first day of your initiation you had claimed the top spot after wiping the floor with some poor soul who had tried to take you on, and you never let anyone else take the title from you. What's also true is that Eric wasn't there to see it- he usually oversaw initiation, but he had been called away to patrol the borders. Four, instead, was there to witness your stellar training record.

You shrug. "Well, I'm hoping some of these transfers can do half as well. I'm looking forward to seeing the other side of initiation." Four laughs. "She's looking forward to beating the lights out of some kid who speaks out of turn. That's it." You roll your eyes. "I feel like that's an exaggeration, but okay." Eric smirks. "That's what I like to hear."

He glances at a clock on the far wall. "It's time to get started. Let's round these guys up and give them a tour." With that, your first meeting with Eric is over. It's time for the real work to begin.