A grey blur flies past me and hits the net. An Abnegation. First jumper. She sits up and I help her out of the net. I know her, just by her deep blue eyes and blonde hair. She recognises me too.
"Don't say anything. We'll talk later." I tell her, dropping voice so only she can her me, before turning to the crowd of Dauntless behind me.
"First jumper - Ashlyn."
The cheers of the crowd seem somewhat muted as the realisation sets in. Ashlyn is here. My sister. In Dauntless. I don't have much time to think before the next initiate drops into the net. A Dauntless born boy. Lauren helps him out of the net. The next five are Dauntless, then an Erudite. Something about her catches my attention. It's not her faction or anything like that.
"You survived!" Ashlyn cheers, hugging her. The girl looks confused.
"Of coures I survived. The fibres in the net are strong enough to support extreme weights and the fall wasn't long enough to do any damage, physical or phycological, whatsoever."
Now Ashlyn looks confused. Typical Erudite.
A Candor boy walks up to her, a confident smirk on his face. I am about to make sure nothing extreme happens when the next initiate hits the net and my attention is pulled away. As I help a slightly ill-looking Amity onto solid ground, I listen to the conversation. Not, of course, because of pure curiosity, but because I recognise that smirk. It is the same one that Eric often wears before he punches someone.
"Hey, Erudite."
"Erudite is my old faction," she informs him, in the kind of voice one would use to speak to a child, "my name is Artemis."
Either she's purposefully being patronising, or less smart than most of the Erudite that end up factionless. The Candor boy either ignores this comment or dismisses it as a bad joke.
"How smart are you actually?"
I turn around. Something in his voice tells me this is going to end badly, probably for Artemis.
"I've never taken an IQ test," she replies, "but less intelligent than my brother. He could build working robots. Out of cardboard and old batteries. And wire. And several other components."
I can tell from her voice that she really admires him, and I hope that one day Ashlyn will speak of me like that.
I notice, almost too late that his hand is curled into a tight fist. And his position is wrong. If he hits anything too hard, he'll probably break his thumb. And her glasses.
"Are you smart enough to dodge this?"
With impressive speed, his fist flies towards her face. With even more impressive speed, she catches it, twisting it painfully behind his back.
"Yes. Yes, I am. However, if you had not given me a prior warning, and therefore an advantage, I wouldn't have been able to dodge. On the contrary, intelligence has nothing to do with speed or ability to dodge punces, so your question is irrelevant. May I recommend not giving your target warning in future?"
He just scowls at her.
I supress a smile and help another Dauntless-born out of the net.
~~~
Chapter 3 by MagicaeSeptum.
