Waiting Four You

Chapter Rothteen (Tobias)

When I decided to have the initates actually end up fighting me, I was apprehensive, but I wanted to see firsthand what Tris could do.

I still feel some apprehension, but now that I've announced it, I have to stick with my decision.

I don't know what time it is when I hear my door creak open, but I can tell exactly who entered by the light steps sneaking their way to my bed.

"Shouldn't you be in the dorm?" I ask quietly even though I really want her lying next to me.

She sighs, "I couldn't get to sleep."

Rolling over, I see Tris place a piece of paper on my nightstand. I cock my head to the side in curiosity.

"The ring size," she explains. "And clothing sizes too. So that I don't forget."

I becon her to join me, and once Tris is settled in we both drift off to sleep.

The next morning, Tris leaves before me to meet her friends in the dining hall. I grab the paper with her ring size and head to the pit first figuring that this will only take me a minute. The jewler says that the ring will be ready by visiting day, and I head to breakfast.

Thinking of the fights for the day worries me since my fight with Tris will be first so that I can demonstrate how they will go. When I see her in the training room, I am surprised to see that she's in a tank top that shows off her muscular arms. I can tell that the other initiates are confused too as they gawk at her as if she's some sort of oddity. In all reality, Tris is an oddity because she's the only person from Abnegation with her build aside from me, but I built this up here, and they don't know where I came from.

Tris steps into the circle with me, and we get into our fighting stances. We circle each other trying to determine the weaknesses in each other's stances, but aside from keeping her hands slightly lower than necessary to protect her face, her only weakness is the size difference between us.

I spend more time than I should trying to determine the right way to start the fight. It's a mistake that I don't realize until I feel a heavy punch to my side. She's quick and to the point. I need to step up my game.

"Don't underestimate me, Four," she taunts using my nick name.

This time I see her rush in aiming for my gut, and I dodge it just in time. Her speed makes up for her size as we each get in a few hits, but she mostly dodges mine. Tris scores about three hits for every one that I get in. She is surprisingly much stronger than she looks, and I attribute that to having two years to practice fighting with Uriah.

Tris and I are evenly matched, and I know that if this fight goes on too long, we won't be able to finish all the fights scheduled for today, but if I concede, the initates will get suspicious of us. Tris tries and fails, yet again, to hit my jaw, she's just too short for her speed to help reach it in time. Before I can start the process of going at her again, she darts in and gets me a few times in the gut and steps out of reach just as fast. She drops her guard from her face again, so I decide to take the chance and go for her jaw.

Too late, I realize my mistake as she grabs my wrist and flips me over her shoulder right onto my back. She immediately finds her way on top of me with her knee over my throat just enough to keep me down without crushing my airway. It is at that point that I decide that it's okay to concede.

Tris stands and walks over to the other initiates as I circle her name on the blackboard as the winner. I see now what Uriah meant when he bragged about how good of a teacher he was. The rest of the fights go quickly as the lesser trained initiates fall quickly based mostly on their sizes rather than skill.

My table at dinner is close to the one Tris and her friends - the Erudite boy Will, Christina, and the Candor boy Al - sit at. Uriah joins them asking Tris how her first fight went.

"She practically destroyed Four," Christina responds for her with awe. "Where did you learn how to fight, Tris? I thought Abnegation was against fighting."

Tris sighs, "I have planned to transfer to Dauntless since I was fourteen. My mom told me to find a Dauntless friend to teach me to fight so that I would be ready. I've been practicing for the past two years."

I can hear the grin in Uriah's voice, "She surpassed me ages ago. We've been sparring everyday after school. Did you really beat Four?"

"To be honest, I think he could have gotten out of the position we ended in, but he probably thought the same thing I was. We were too evenly matched, and there was a chance that one of us could have ended up in the infirmary. A pretty equal chance on both sides."

She was right on why I called the match. I couldn't risk not being there for the rest of the fights, and the way things were going, I could have ended up in the infirmary just as easily as she could have.

I hazard a glance over at their table and see the huge grin on Uriah's face.  I better tell Zeke about that fight before he can because if there's anything that can be said about Uriah, it's that he loves to over exaggerate.