Divergent

Fight

Nilsa leaned against the barrier next to Eric almost pouting because he had taken her fun. She had wanted to wake up the initiates with firecrackers, an idea she had wanting to try for weeks. Since Zeke finally changed his door code she hadn't been able to use them yet.

"Don't pout." Her husband chuckled slightly. "I'm not." She lied turning her head. She could hear the smirk in his voice when he spoke again. "Course not. Because you know that as fun as torturing the initiates is that leader meetings are more important." He had pulled her against him as he spoke, the last words a near whisper in her ear.

She rolled her eyes before turning to face him. "Yes, talking about the same things we did last week and the week before with Jeanine was much more important than having fun." Her tone dripped with sarcasm.

"You know you have to play nice for now." He said quietly. She barely held back a snort and grinned impishly. "That's really rich coming from you, dear." His wink before he returned to his stone faced self as the initiates shuffled in damn near made her blush. Frustrating man.

They watched Four stand in front of the group and listened waiting for their chance to chime in. Nilsa wasn't technically a trainer, but it was better than the stack of paperwork and time cards waiting on her desk. Besides, half of them would 'mistakenly' end up on Eric's cleaned desk by tonight she bet. She was smirking at the thought when Eric spoke.

"The rankings will also determine who gets cut." Eric said pushing off from the barricade. "Cut?" Nilsa saw it came from the smart mouth Candor. "Is there suddenly two meanings to the word? Thrown out, how does that work?" Nilsa asked with a smile. The Candor paled having the attention of both leaders.

"At the end of each stage of training, the lowest ranking initiates will be leaving us." Eric continued calmly. "To do what?" An initiate called out. Nilsa wanted to facepalm. Not many options once you were tossed from a faction.

Eric gave a faux look of thought. "Well, There's no going home to your families, so you'd live factionless." His happiness at the idea shining through. "Why didn't we know that?"

"It's a new rule." Eric said simply. "A new rule? Somebody should have told us that." The Candor finally opened her mouth again. "Why? Would you have chosen differently? Out of fear?" Nilsa asked stepping up to the girl.

"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 get to choose you." Eric made their point easy and clear.

This had been in the works even before that horrible woman had started all her plans. It was one of the only ideas that Nilsa had agreed with.

————————————————-
She saw Eric leaving his office and threw down her pen to follow. Fun things followed where Eric went, especially with the initiates.

"What are you doing?" He asked when she fell in step beside him. She smirked and wrapped her arm through his. "You think I'd miss you kicking transfer ass." She scoffed. He chuckled darkly before looking back at his data pad. "You always have been a dark one, darlin'." She took that as the compliment she knew it to be.

They walked into the combat training room seeing the kids circling each other and throwing pretend punches. This was just pathetic. She knew what Eric would do even before he spoke to Four. 

"You ready for some real fighting?" He asked rhetorically. "Not even close." Four tried.

"First jumper, in the ring." Eric called. She saw the Abnegation girl look up. "Last jumper, time to fight." The last jumper was a large girl from Erudite. She had a scowl on her face and looked ready to fight. Nilsa almost felt bad for the stiff...almost. She has the tactical advantage if she knew how to use it.

They walked into the ring and faced each other. "How long do we fight for?" The bigger girl asked. "Till one of you can't continue." Eric said emotionlessly. "Or one of you concedes." Four tried.  Nilsa saw his eyes not leaving the stiff, well that's interesting. She tucked that information away for later.

"According to the old rules. The new rules: no one concedes." Eric explained. "You really want to lose them on their first fight?" Four tried changing his mind. "A brave man never surrenders."  "Lucky for you, those weren't the rules when we fought." Four dug at Eric.

Not acceptable. "Well, Four, you would have known the change in rules if you were in leadership." She said sharply. "But seeing as you're not I'd advise you to listen to someone who is. If you can't I'm sure Max wouldn't mind if we took over and you went back to your screens." She stood toe to toe with him, the height difference not stopping her in the least. She squared off with Eric weekly for goodness sake, He made Number's Boy look like a bunny.

She kept eye contact  with one brow raised until he broke and looked away nodding.

"Good. Now that that's done. Fight!" Eric called with a proud smirk. He loved when she took Four down a few notches. Having been first in her year over even the Dauntless born Four had nothing on her.

Nilsa walked towards the ring watching their movements closer while Eric kept score of hits. This was how they worked when scoring Dauntless fights.

Just as she expected the stiff was on the mat in moments. When the girl hesitated to knock out her opponent Eric spoke. "Finish it." He commanded. With a swift hook the girl, Molly, by her friends cheering had the stiff out cold.