[LN] Thank Goodness We're Well-rounded Characters

[matchmadeinhell]

Kon was reading at relative superspeed. It wasn't at his usual brisk pace, because he found that the limitations of his powers meant he couldn't retain the knowledge for more than a few minutes at his usual speeds, so he had to slow it down a little, but he was still thumbing through far faster than some of the others were taking just to go through the study guides they'd quickly procured.

"Is it just the fact I'm reading this as superspeed or does this story make no sense?" Kon said, as he thumbed through page after page.

Another reality shard had fallen away and now that their brands had signaled it, it was time to go dimension-hopping. Fortunately, it was a very small shard in the middle of the wilderness in Siberia and the area of effect was spreading slowly, so they had time to prepare.

With his otherworldly wisdom, Manny had managed to help out on this one, communicating some clues about the world they were about to enter by flashing the image of a cover of a book.

A fairly terrible book. Apparently they were entering the world it was based on.

So they were doing their homework as they geared up to go and trying to make sense of the senseless.

"So what I'm getting from this is this is a world where you're not allowed to have more than one personality trait? I think? Under pain of death, you have to be a one-dimensional character."

Comments

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie flashed a smile at the girl who was actually from Abnegation before throwing herself onto the train after Kon, combining Nico's genuine performance with some of Kon's acted one into an awkward-looking bellyflop. She scrabbled the rest of the way in without aid of the door and staggered to the side to flop down against one of the walls.

"Woo!" she said breathlessly, legs sprawled out in front of her. "That was bracing!"

The girl actually from Abnegation followed her in, just as they lost the last of the platform. Cassie grinned at her, but didn't congratulate her out loud.

[othersdestructive]

A dark-skinned Candor girl sitting against the side of the train turned to the real Abnegation girl - who plopped down next to her - and laughed.

"Is it just me or are they trying to kill us?" the Candor girl joked.

"If they are, they'll have to try harder," said Raph, giving his tough guy act a good airing out. He plopped down next to Nico.

"You okay?" he asked quietly. He added dryly, "You know, other than wanting to burn everything."

[staff_and_wielder]

"I dislike this more than the time I almost got eaten," Nico answered in an undertone, which meant that she was fine. Or possibly that she was bleeding internally, the language of cranky Nicos was largely impenetrable to non-native speakers. But she was sitting up straighter and no longer holding her ribs where she'd banged them against the door, so it was probably the former.

She swallowed the I don't want to be here and offered him a weak smile before glaring down at the floor of the train car.

[matchmadeinhell]

Kon looked like he was about to crack a joke with the Candor girl when a man all dressed in black, with facial piercings all over his face, suddenly came over and shoved Kon towards the open train door.

"Recruit!"

Kon let himself get pushed, not wanting to make it clear exactly how immovable he was, even affecting a look of surprise, as the man shoved him out the door, holding onto his shirt and leaving him teetering on the edge.

"Dude, what the hell?" Kon said, eyes wide.

"I'm teaching you a lesson. I saw you back there, helping another recruit into the train."

He turned to look at the other recruits that had gathered around at the spectacle. Another man with dark brown hair came nearby, clearly wearing the edgy-looking Dauntless duds, but he said nothing, simply watching what the other man was doing.

"Take this as a lesson: weakness is not rewarded. Fearlessness and strength are. In Dauntless, everyone carries their own weight!"

"Hey, man, there's a wall coming up."

The man holding onto Kon didn't let him up.

"Like really soon," said Kon, eyeing the building that was rapidly approaching.

"I'm teaching you a lesson," said the man.

"You leave me hanging like this and it might take your arm off, too," Kon went on, his voice free from fear. He sounded like a friend gently nagging another friend about their poor life choices.

"Eric," said the man with the dark brown hair, warningly, and at the last second, Eric the Piercing Guy yanked Kon in by his shirt, just as a wall whizzed by the open door.

Only Kon didn't cower, he didn't collapse to the floor of the train in fear, which was fairly obviously what this "Eric" was expecting, given the smug and sadistic look on his face.

No, Kon stumbled half a step, then turned, his face suddenly going deadly serious.

"Now it's my turn," Kon said, and then he reached out his hand, grabbed the man by the throat, slammed him bodily into the wall of the train hard enough to stun him, then peeked out the open door to see if the coast was clear and held him outside the train, dangling him over the massive drop below.

His arm shook to make it seem like there was a strain. There was the faintest smell of burning ozone in the air, a smell that Cassie would've smelled more than once while fighting side by side with Kon. Though the illusion covered it up his eyes were sizzling with unreleased heatvision.

"Put him down," the brunette man demanded, but Kon swung his other arm so hard at the man's stomach, he crumpled against the opposite wall of the train.

Then he looked back at the other man, briefly pulling him inside the door long enough for the man to avoid hitting a building, before dangling him back outside again. The man kicked futiley at Kon's chest but while he pretended it hurt, he didn't let go. Since his arms were so long, the man couldn't even get a solid kick in anyway. He tried to pull a knife but Kon twisted it out of his hand with a very nasty looking wristlock and tossed it down into the city belong. He reached for a handgun at his side and Kon simply undid the closure on his holster and pushed it out so it fell out and away.

"Listen up, Captain Facebling. If you want teach us a lesson or two, that's fine, I'm sure that's why you're here. You're definitely not here to look pretty. But there's being a dumb thug trying for the intimidation thing and there's being a teacher and if this is what you call being a teacher I'm not sure I like your teaching style. So I'd suggest you make a note in my permanent record that the intimidation thing don't work so well for me. And that if this is about being strong and fearless I got no problem showing you exactly how strong and fearless I can be. We understood?"

The man made a wheezing, choking noise.

"I'll take that as a very oxygen-deprived yes."

Just as he was about to hit another building, Kon drew him back inside the train and threw him at the feet of the other man, who was just now rising to his feet. All of the people staring were slackjawed with awe.

"You -" Piercing Guy choked, pointing at Kon, "You - factionless - you -"

"No," said the other man. "No. Just like he said, that was fearless. And strong."

Piercing Guy, Eric, glared as the other man helped him to his feet.

"Welcome to Dauntless," said Other Guy, urging Eric of the Many Piercings away with him. Kon leaned back against the train wall with his arms crossed.

"What," said the Candor girl in shock. "Just. Happened."

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie rocked back on her heels, having leapt to her feet in preparation to start knocking people down if they'd been getting any ideas about messing with Kon while he was dangling that Eric jerk out of the train. That had been...not good. As far as anyone knew, Kon was a muscular but at best unofficially-trained sixteen-year-old who had not only been able to hold a struggling grown man with one hand, but had also been able to both disarm him and to take out a second attacker without dropping him.

Also, heat vision meant that Kon was way more upset about this than he really should have been, considering that he'd actually been in danger of, at most, bruising when he hit the wall.

"I don't know," she answered the girl from Candor, stepping back. "I don't--WHOOP!"

--As her foot 'slipped', sending her plunging backward out of the open door and almost to her doom had she not caught hold of the edge of the door and the floor. She shrieked and kicked around long enough that hopefully everyone was distracted from staring at Kon before she pulled herself back up and inside the train car.

"...Door's still open," she joked in a weak voice. "Let's all move the other way."

[othersdestructive]

Raph started to stand up as if to grab her but she caught herself.

"Geez, careful there, blondie," said Raph, catching Cassie's cue and trying to help edge the conversation away from what had just happened. "Forget them trying to kill us - you'll do their job for them if you're not more careful."

But after she pulled herself in, he eased himself back down and nodded at the other Abnegation girl.

"What's your name?" he asked. "I'm Raphael - Raph, for short. This is Nico, and this is uh..." He pointed to Christina and snapped his fingers. "I'm good at faces, terrible with names."

The girl rolled her eyes. "That's because you two are always in your own little world," the girl said, her memories clearly supplying false memories of Raph and Nico. "Christina."

"I'm Beatrice," said the Abnegation girl.

[staff_and_wielder]

Cassie hadn't been kidding about her and Kon being attention hogs.

"Guess teamwork isn't compatible with strength and fearlessness," she said, pointedly ignoring Christina and whatever fake memories she had of her and Raph being off in their own world. She hoped the guy Kon helped wasn't going to get busted for getting a helping hand.

Surprise, surprise, this place continued to reveal more flavors of awful.

[matchmadeinhell]

The time Cassie's distraction took up was enough for him to calm down. He had let himself get too angry and it was only the awfulness of Dauntless that had allowed him to get away with it. He had to make sure he didn't push it in the future.

Kon rolled his eyes and slid down to take a seat against the side of the car with the others.

"Yeah, well, maybe they should've told us that before we jumped on." He just let that trail off and opted for introducing himself. "I'm Conner, by the way. My friends call me Kon."

"You're Erudite?" asked Beatrice, curiously. "You don't really seem the Erudite type."

Kon grinned. "What, on account of fact I reek of eau de jock? Why do you think I'm switching factions? I figured out early on I wasn't really cut out for that whole data-pushing smart guy thing. I wasn't surprised at all when I tested for Dauntless."

"That does make sense," said Christina, blinking as she realized the logic of it.

[mark_in_the_sands]

"They must have had you carrying a loooooooot of books," Cassie said, joining the group huddle. "I'm Cassandra, but I go by Cassie. Thanks for the introduction, Beatrice."

Kon seemed to have settled himself. Good, hopefully he'd stay that way.

"Who wants to bet on whether they're going to stop the train when it's time for us to get off?"

[othersdestructive]

"Sorry," said Beatrice instinctively, blinking at Cassie curiously, as if she was wondering why she hadn't thought to introduce her.

"Not taking that bet. With our luck, not only will they have us jumping off the train, it'll probably be through a ring of fire or something," Raph said wryly.

"Get ready!" called out an older Dauntless member and everyone started getting up off the floor.

Beatrice stood up and looked outside the door, up ahead. "...They're jumping. It's not even a joke, they're actually jumping."

"Are you serious?" said Christina as she got up to look too. "That's crazy."

"We so called it," said Raph, completely unphased. He'd made way crazier jumps than this, across far larger gaps between roofs. He held out his hand to Nico. "Together?"

[staff_and_wielder]

Oh God. That was definitely farther than they'd jumped to get on. Nico latched onto Raph's hand, not caring at all that they'd probably get shouted at by the instructors. She'd take that over blowing their cover by having Kon or Cassie have to fly to rescue her, or death by splatting.

This was stupid. This was so, so stupid.

She let Raph lead her to the far side of the train car across from the door so that they could get a running start for the jump, just trying to focus on breathing. It would be okay. They weren't going to let her die.

This was stupid.

"Three two one go!"

Nico tore across the floor of the train car and hurtled into space, windmilling her legs wildly as she tried to run across the air.

She missed flight. She missed flight. She missed flight.

She would have screamed all the way across if her heart hadn't been lodged in her throat since the moment she hit air.

[othersdestructive]

They both landed.

Well, Raph landed, pretty soundly, taking a few steps and skidding to a stop, successfully staying on his feet. It helped that his feet had such a wide pad and were, therefore, pretty stable. Nico wasn't so lucky. He felt her stumbling next to him, her hand wrenching out of his grasp. Protective instinct kicked in and he turned pretty much on automatic and caught her.

With the way she'd been tripping, however, this meant that he caught her in a full dip like he was about to kiss her.

"Uh."

"When's the wedding?" one of the other recruits called out, with others responding with raucous laughter.

The illusion seemed to have a very easy time of conveying the blushing that was going on underneath, as he helped her back to her feet, his hands momentarily pausing at her waist before he quickly withdrew them.

"You okay?"

[staff_and_wielder]

"I am going to vengeance puke on them," Nico answered, glaring at the recruit who'd shouted at them and the ones laughing as furiously as she was blushing. She was busy trying not to die or blow their cover, she did not want to deal with their not-kissing and her hormones right now.

She'd turn them into frogs, but that would definitely break their cover.

At least her legs were holding her now. They hadn't when she'd landed, which was how they'd gotten in this position in the first place.

[matchmadeinhell]

Kon easily made the jump, though he affected an exaggerated stumble as he landed to make it look less easy. Beatrice followed soon after, falling to her knees, and Kon helped pull her up.

"Hey blondie, what are you waiting for?" he called to Cassie. "You were tripping over yourself in a hurry to get off the train earlier."

[mark_in_the_sands]

"How about I come over there and shut your face for you?" Cassie called back as she tugged Christina back toward the other side of the car.

"Come on, you can do this," she reassured the other girl. "Watch me, okay? Do what I do."

Yes, she could fly, but the day Artemis would have let but I can fly stop her from teaching Cassie how to run and jump without using her god-given (or god-born?) powers would have been the day Artemis would have killed Cassie herself. Wasn't. Gonna. Happen.

As such, Cassie executed a jump from the train that could have been used in a how-to manual, except for the part where she used her flight to slow herself down once she was in the air. Overshooting the roof entirely wouldn't do her any good either, and her strength would carry her much farther than any normal human.

She hit the edge of the roof and stumbled forward and out of the way for Christina, who was just behind her.

...Just behind and further down than she should be.

Cassie whirled back around and lunged back the way she'd just come even as she saw Christina barely grasp the ledge.

[matchmadeinhell]

Kon dove after her, just as thoughtlessly, sliding over the edge right after Cassie. The second he saw that she had snagged the girl's arm, he snagged Cassie's arm, managing to get a hold on the edge of the building just in time.

Okay, so, cover still maintained! But now they had to get the girl back up to the roof without breaking it.

The girl was panicking below them.

"Hey, listen - nnngh -" he grunted, trying to make this look insanely difficulty. "We've got you! We're not gonna let you fall!"

He went on, "Blondie, you got a good grip? We need to try to swing her up."

Of course she had her but they had to make this look tenuous.

[mark_in_the_sands]

"I got her!" Cassie called back over Christina's panicking. "You hear me, Christina, I got you! We don't have time for you to freak out right now!"

Christina wheezed, but she'd stopped flailing enough to grab onto Cassie's wrist with her other hand.

"Good girl! We're gonna swing you now, all right? Hold onto me until we get you up to roof height." She looked up at Kon. "Let's swing it, genius."

The three of them starting swinging from side to side, slowly at first but picking up speed an momentum as they went. It took a couple tries to actually get Christina onto the roof, but the grunting and struggling on her and Kon's side was all faked. They could do it all day if they had to.

Once Christina was up on the roof, Cassie braced her feet against the wall and pulled herself up along Kon's arm.

"Nice catch," she said with a grin as she pulled herself up across his shoulders. "You should hang around."

She clambered the rest of the way up and then braced herself to help him up too. Not that she really needed to brace, but good form was worth taking the time to practice.

[matchmadeinhell]

"If you getting all handsy on me is a thing that happens every time I help you catch some falling damsel, I'll have to keep it up," he said as Cassie climbed up. He was grinning as she pulled him up. "'Cause climbing, groping...same thing, really."

Flirting like they'd only just met - like they had back when they were younger - was turning out to be kind of fun.

Kon bowed over, hands on his knees, pretending to catch his breath.

"You okay?" he huffed out to the girl they'd rescued.

"Thank you," she panted, as Beatrice helped her to her feet, "So much. So, so, so much."

"You're wasting our time over there," called out Piercing Boy. "Initiates, here. Now."

He spoke like someone falling off a building and nearly dying was a minor inconvenience. He stood near the edge of the building and gestured down to a hole in the roof of a building below.

"Alright, listen up," said the man. "I'm Eric, one of your leaders. If you wanna enter Dauntless, this is the way in. If you don't have the guts to jump, then you don't belong in Dauntless."

"Is there water at the bottom or something?" asked an Erudite boy.

"I guess you'll find out," said Eric menacingly. "Or not."

"We just jumped and now they want us to do it again?" Christina hissed to Beatrice and the others, sounding understandably put out.

"Someone's gotta go first, who's it gonna be?" asked Eric, looking at the crowd.

[staff_and_wielder]

At least they hadn't chucked Christina off the roof for failing, like Nico had been half-afraid they would. Of course, maybe they were expecting her to refuse to jump again after what she'd just gone through.

Nico sneaked a glance at the girl from Candor, mostly ignoring Eric (she certainly wasn't going to volunteer to go first). Would Christina have died if not for Kon and Cassie? Would saving her change things, make it harder for them to get back?

[othersdestructive]

Raph stood there, arms, crossed, not saying a word. Even with the myth healing, he was fairly sure Nico and him wouldn't stand a chance if there was just concrete down there. Even the Super Duo probably would sustain heavy damage at this height.

So being the good ninja he was and actually caring about survival, he opted to wait for someone else to go first, his expression blank and bored.

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie vaguely recalled from the study guide that Beatrice had been the first one to jump originally. She had her own victories outside of this story, she didn't have any reason to try and claim this one for herself.

She leaned against Kon in the back of the crowd, 'breathing heavily' from the exertion of the rescue, and waited for Beatrice to step up and go for it.

[matchmadeinhell]

"What about you?" Eric asked Kon.

This was a good opportunity to back down when challenged. He needed to after stepping up and right over the line the last time he'd been challenged. Kon stood on tiptoe to look down in the hole.

"I'm gonna need a minute to stew that one over. Roll it around in my head a little bit."

"I'll do it," Beatrice said suddenly, before Eric could respond, stepping forward, and Kon ducked his head to hide a little smile.

She was staring at him and Cassie, with something a little like awe on her face - or maybe guilt. It was clear to see that their little dive to save Christina had affected her. She looked like she wanted to challenge herself. So she stepped forward, taking off her jacket, peering over the edge.

"Yeah, stiff, take it off," one of the other recruits, a Candor transfer, joked nastily. "Put it back on - OW."

The punch to the arm he got from Kon was less than subtle.

Beatrice slowly climbed up onto the ledge, looking down at the gaping chasm.

"Any day now, recruit," said Eric.

After steeling herself with a deep breath, she finally jumped.

"Atta girl," Kon muttered to himself.

Eric waited several minutes until a whistle came up from below. "Next."

Now Kon stepped forward.

"Oh, now you're not afraid, after the stiff already went?" asked Eric.

"What can I say? I'm a follower, not a leader. Monkey see -" He climbed up on the ledge, his back facing the drop, crossed his arms, and grinned. "Monkey do."

Unlike Beatrice, he didn't hesitate, flopping backwards with the kind of abandon that came of being born with flight. To him, there was nothing more natural than the wind in his hair and the feeling of free fall. It did take a lot of fighting his own instincts to not catch himself at the bottom with his flight though, but he managed to, landing in the massive net that was stretched out there.

Then, just to be a giant, giant dick, he shouted up loud enough for the others to hear: "HEY! THERE'S A NET DOWN HERE! COOL!"

Next to the net, Four - the man that'd tried to stop him from pummeling Eric, pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You're not supposed to tell the recruits that are left - never mind. Move."

"Whoops."

Kon hopped out of the net and walked over to where Tris was waiting.

Back up where the other recruits were, Eric was also pinching the bridge of his nose.

"How," said the other Erudite Boy quietly. "How did someone like him come from Erudite? How?"

"Next!" shouted Eric, sounding very agitated.

[staff_and_wielder]

Nico so wasn't going next. She was going to let a few more people go ahead and jump off the dumb building so that she was somewhere in the 'not brave enough to go first, not chicken enough to go last' range, and then she was going to jump off into the net.

Good thing Kon called up about it, it at least meant that she wasn't going to have to catch herself on any other stupid climbing equipment.

She hunched her shoulders and glowered at the edge where other recruits were lining up to jump.

This was still freaking stupid.

[othersdestructive]

"Next!" Eric called out.

"Eeeh, I waited long enough," Raph muttered. They knew for sure now that they weren't just going squish at the bottom.

"Pitiful," he said more loudly, as he walked over to the ledge. "Everyone's doing scared little bunny hops in."

"And you can do better?" asked Eric.

In response to that, Raph stopped a few feet short of the edge, gave the man an even stare, then flipped up to the ledge and did a handspring off it, grinning a wicked grin the whole time, briefly glancing over at Nico right as he went over the edge.

It hadn't been as complex a set of flips as he was actually capable of since he didn't want to play up his acrobatics too much until they started getting into training but it was enough to get the initiates all roaring with laughter and applause.

Even Eric had the smallest little twitch of a smirk tug at his lips, one that stayed there until the next whistle.

"Next!"

[mark_in_the_sands]

Cassie put her hands on Christina's shoulders.

"Go on," she said. "Do it now before the fear settles in and you have to work harder to overcome it."

She pushed the girl from Candor forward, then shoved Nico into line behind the boy Kon had helped onto the train. She didn't want to leave any of those three up here with Eric. Really, she didn't want to leave anyone up here with Eric, but Nico was part of her team right now and Christina and the boy might already have 'unsatisfactory' stamps on them, so they got her extra attention.

Nico shrieked when she went over the edge, but Cassie could make a good argument that at least half of it was fury.

Cassie made a show of jostling for position with the rest of the recruits, but since they technically needed to impress while she just needed to pass, she mostly let them win. Unfortunately, being last netted her some personal attention from Eric.

"You aren't taking this seriously, recruit," he snapped, shoving her back when she stepped up to the edge. She let him shove her, for the sake of her cover, though that didn't stop her from narrowing her eyes. He was still talking, snarling really, but all she heard was the posturing of a bully who'd been humiliated and was trying to soothe his damaged ego.

On one hand, she could take it. On the other, she was an Amazon and she didn't have to take it.

(Diana could have sat through the yapping of the sad little man with nothing but pity for how he'd been twisted, but Diana wasn't here.)

"Let me show you how seriously I'm taking this, sir," she said, and tackled him off the edge of the building.

It was a long way down. Long enough for her to push away from Eric so that they landed in the net separately. Cassie bounced up first and crawled off the net.

"Thanks for showing me how it's done, sir!" she said, voice sugary sweet.

No need to humiliate him in public again, after all. Better to do it in private, where he could only gnaw his own liver.