[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

[staff_and_wielder]

"I couldn't tell you," Nico said, slouching in her seat and glaring at her copy of the book. "I've read this page five times and I haven't retained any of it. My brain is rebelling."

She used to be able to read books she didn't like; that's what high school English Literature was all about, wasn't it?

"Uuugh."

[morethanmyth]

The cafeteria was about as rowdy as could be expected, with people loudly talking and laughing and sometimes hooting and hollering. Music was blasting from somewhere in the crowd.

The Dauntless born found friends in the crowd, leaving the initiates to sit together. Nico, Cassie, Kon, and Raph wound up crowding in next to Christina, Tris, an Erudite boy, and one of the Candor boys that hadn't been hassling Tris.

The food wasn't bad at least.

"Have you never seen a hamburger before?" asked Christine as Tris picked at hers.

"No, I've seen one," she responded, "I've just never eaten one."

"Abnegation eat plain food," said the Erudite boy. "Plant-based diet with no sauces and a minimum of seasoning."

"What textbook did you swallow?" asked Christina.

"Nice to meet you too. I'm Will. Erudite."

"Of course you are," said Christina. "The only Erudite I've ever met that didn't talk like a walking computer was, well...him."

She pointed at Kon.

Even Rocky had a montage....

[morethanmyth]

Four got them up early the next morning by clanging a metal bar against the metal railing leading into their dorm.

"I want everyone in the pit. Two minutes."

[othersdestructive]

"You look like you want to spit acid in someone's eyes," Raph said to Nico as he busied himself with pretending to tie his shoes. He, Nico, Tris, Christina, Al, and Will had headed back to the dorm to change after practice.

In Raph's case, he'd gone back to pretend to change.

[morethanmyth]

The trainers - Eric, especially - had an unfortunate habit of pairing mismatched fighters together. People they perceived as weak with people they knew would probably beat the snot out of them.

Only Four tried to be reasonable about it, putting people who were nearly evenly matched together, yelling out instruction and corrections to both as they fought, and making it so even the loser might learn something.

Right now, Nico was paired off with one of the best fighters in the group of transfers, and what was worse, she was the kind of person that played with her food, wanting to wear her opponents down slowly instead of just ending things with a solid knockout punch.

[othersdestructive]

One thing they had to worry about was a butterfly effect. Make a few tiny changes here and it could spread out like a cascade and change even bigger things. Their presence changed the game even if it only happened in subtle ways.

That meant they had to make sure those ripples didn't cause any tsunamis.

Kon had warned them about a particularly dangerous moment, where Tris might wind up in trouble, and they opted to hang around and make sure it didn't lead to catastrophe.

So they tried their best to keep an eye on Tris and when it seemed the time had come, a night that Tris walked alone through the railed hallway next to the chasm, they waited nearby, peeking around the corner.

"I see 'em," said Raph, "at the other end. They're waiting to ambush her. I call dibs on dangling one over the pit. We can't both do it."