I have an idea to why they would come to the military base Tris is at. It is the opposing side in a war against the government, and they are coming to get weapons and help. And they accidently stumple upon Tris's workshop.

Gah! I sure haven't been writing frequently! Sorry, just haven't been sure what to write.

-Darian- 

I looked around furtively. The afternoon sun was hidden behind the tall buildings, but it was stil hot and dusty and humid. The light still filtered through . . . the shadows cast from the buildings were too light - still too light. I should have picked a different place. I tried to crouch lower in the shadows, trying to make myself smaller. Maybe if I stayed still . . . 

"There!" The raw yell made my heart catapult upwards with a firey streak of panic. They'd found me. 

Yells, running footsteps, and the smacking of hands in excitement mounted my panic, making ita almost unbearable burn. I'd handled this gang a few times and each time it was the same. Pure panic. Pure luck. Most times I'd barely get away with my life. They were rough and they stuck together -- the only way most younrger street urchins even had a chance to live. Many of them still didn't. Those who did were hard, cruel, desperate and mean. They knew how to fight, too. And from the sound of it, more of their pack had lived than usual. There seemed to be a good dozen of them out there - ready to fight me for either food or sport. I was dead meat. 

They came up slowly, smiling nastily. They knew I was cornered. They knew I couldn't go any where.  They had me. 

I stood up warily and watched them. The leader of the pack grinned, enjoying my uncertainty. I smoothed my hair, trying to act cool. He smiled even more.  I guess the sweat on my forehead gave that "cool" part away. 

"Hey guys." I winced inwardly at the tremble in my voice. "What's up?" Think. I can't summon a pistol or a grenade. I can't summon a house to land on top of them. I can't let them know of my powers -- I'll be dead in a day if I do. I could summon a rock but up against a dozen boys in a field full of rocks, one won't do much good. Glass pieces were scattered around my feet. This time I was really cornered. 

They laughed, snarling and leering. Their eyes were glinting evilly, as if thinking up new tortuous ways to kill me. One of them yelled shrilly, in glee. That was his mistake. 

They didn't notice the figure who popped its head into the alley and stiffened and started walking closer, crouching in a fighting stance. My savior -- if we didn't both get killed. I held my breath, hopeful that I wouldn't die today after all. 

I'm splitting this into two parts because it's gotten to long AND I'm not done with the second part yet. Anyways.... here's Rose!

Miss Rose Tavern~

"Rose?"

"Go 'way," she says, turning over in her bed so she can't hear the voice outside her door. Her mother told her to take the day off after her 'accident' this morning. Rose, ashamed and blushing, obliged. A few hours later, she's lying in her room, still pressing the wet towel against her face, though it's more of a lukewarm than a cold now, and she's not sure how much it's helping. But she knows that talking to the person outside her door certainly won't be helpful. Her brother knocks one more time before he enters the room, clearly irritated with her ignoring him.

"I'm not here to talk to you or comfort you or anything," Grease says grumpily. "I'm here to bring you lunch. Apparently everyone else is too busy serving customers to bring it up to you."

"What, no one's at the robot repair?" she asks.

He scowls and sets down a tray with a meat sandwich, a slightly bruised apple, and a glass of steaming milk. There's a note from her mother--"Hope this helps! Love, Mom"--leaned up against the glass. "She said to make sure you didn't throw the milk on your face," he says. "It sounds like you've taken a habit to doing that lately."

"It was once," she says, glaring at him, "and it's none of your business."

"I knew something was wrong with you from the moment my mother introduced us," he says somewhat remorsefully. "I guess now we know what."

"There's nothing wrong with me," she says. "People like me. People appreciate my job here. And how many people did you say were at Robot Repairs today?"

"Oh, yes, I'm sure your customers appreciated it when you threw their coffee all over your face!"

"Well, you--" Rose starts, and suddenly stops. The urge is back, the little voice whispering in the back of her head. I can't stay in this form forever. I can't stay in this form forever.

"Rose?" Grease asks. “Did you do something to your eyes, because--”

“Because what?” she says, trying to shake the voice out of her head. Stop it. I’m not some sort of monster.

“N-nothing,” he says. “It was probably just some sort of trick of the light.”

“Yeah,” she says, but the voice won’t shut up. “Trick of the light.”  Dark, deep brown eyes. Definitely not I prefer, but it could do. Changing it would not be hard. Not hard. At all.

What is wrong with her?! She reaches for the glass of milk, disobeying the voice, her voice, trying hard to resist the urge to become him. It’s an urge she can’t even comprehend. Grease starts to the door, but she hears herself saying, “Wait.”

“What?" he grumbles.

“I was just,” she says, taking a step towards him, “wondering what you thought of the color gree--AH!” she lets out a cry, expecting the warm milk to hit her in the face like the coffee this morning, but she never had a chance to let go of the cup. Grease had grabbed her arms before she could.

“What is wrong with you?!” he shouts.

“I wish I knew,” she says. Then, before either of them get a chance to say anything else, there’s a zap, a spark, a sort of energy Rose can feel flowing throughout her body. Her vision goes blurry, the colors of the room fading and being replaced with ones that were never in the room to begin with, reds and pinks, purples and blues, yellows and greens. The colors swirl around each other until it all becomes green and finally fades to black. When she nexts opens her eyes, she feels strange, different. It takes her a moment to realize she’s not Rose anymore. Not at all.  

I'll try to post the next bit this weekend... I'm pretty busy with school, but I'll try.  

~Avalon~

I scoop up the last bite of hash, chewing mechanically. The savory delicaticy's flavor is muted. The pile of hash's outline reminds me of the sillouette of the serving girl as she leaned down to give my coffee. Two specks of pepper placed near a potato chunk cameoing as a nose bring back to me the eyes ... though they had been green ... and then suddenly, just for an instant, black. I shudder, bile rising up my throat. I push away the plate of food. 

"Let's go," I say to Markus.

"I'm not done," Markus replies. "Can you wait?"

"I'd rather not. The sight of food is making me ill," I answer, scooting out of the chair. "I'll meet you at the library at eleven o clock, alright?"

He nods. I push open the door of the shop, the small bronze bell attached to the door chiming in soft reprimand as I leave. Once outside, I take one deep breath of air after another, leaning against a wall as I watch people walk past.

A girl in a simple pale pink dress with brown trim skips past, her french-braided hair bouncing in the air behind her. A small dog on a leash trots behind her. The dog stops to sniff my hand, and the girl turns. "Who are you?" she asks, her perfect nose crinkling in disgust at my attire. 

"No one," is my sharp response. I hurry into a side street, wandering past small, tall buildings of wooden slats that wearily lean against their neighbors. My furious pace causes the black turtle neck to stick to my back. With a yank, I pull the turtle neck over my head and, leaning against a silent building, tie it around my waist. Suddenly I hear scrabbling and the crunch of rocks being tread upon, then a sharp, high laugh. I pop my head in. There's a pack of maybe two dozen young urchins clustered around one older urchin. The older urchin appears to be about sixteen, with a scar and long hair. 

Without even debating wether or not to save the street teen, I smoothly kneel so that I can reach the hidden pocket. Glad I have it on me, I pull out my dagger. My hand curls around the familar handle, which still smells a bit like his tobacco smoke. 

Instead of coming at me one by one like they do in the movies, they all mob me. Luckily, few are armed with real weapons. Most of them have a stone or a shard of sharpened glass.

I kick one urchin who's pulling back for a punch away and give another a good gash on his arm. Someone kicks me from behind. I try to stand but they push me down. The pressure on my back is knocking the air out of my lungs. Suddenly the pressure stops. I jump up and see that it's the older urchin, who yanked the lot of them off of me. He's weaponless but is making good work with just his fists. I swing my dagger like a sword and get some of them to back away, then join the teen. I stab an urchin in the belly. He crumples over.

As we continue to fight, some of the urchins seem to lose their nerve. A few back off. The scarred urchin punches one of the street kids in the nose and he keels over. Slowly we seem to get the upper hand. Suddenly all of the street urchins turn and run out of the alley. 

I turn to the guy who I just saved- who also saved me. As I wipe the blood of my father's dagger, I subtly study the boy. He's got midnight black hair that reaches about to his chin, a scar a bit like mine, sharp green eyes and tanned skin. Around his neck is a silver chain. He's a bit shorter than me, althought I think we're the same age. 

Tris~

After I finish fixing the burner, I put away my gloves, and wipe the coal off my face with a dirty rag. Ginger hairs have fallen out of my ponytail. The blacksmith comes around the corner. "Have you finished?" "Affermitive." "Great. Now I need some errands. Be back in 10 minutes." He shoves a crumpled up shopping list into my hands and pushes me out the door. I stumble forward as he slams the door on the back of my foot, catching myself before I could fall. I walk into the market place. All the market place is, is a street where many different traders sell their goods. I walk over to the spare parts shop. "What do you need?" the woman at the counter asks. "I need seven cogs, ten gears, and a spring." She hands them over, and I pay her.

Name: Electrica White

Age: 17 (if that's allowed, otherwise 13)

Personality: She's shy, the shyest girl you will meet. She's smart, and closed off. She values family and loves her family more than anything.

Appearance: Short red and orange hair, tall, glasses, earrings shaped like yellow roses.

Extra: She was abandoned as a child, and she has lightning powers.

l don't like writing long posts, but l will try to post often.

Markus~

l look at my watch, scrached and dented, but working. It's 10: 45. Fifften mintues until l have to meet Avalon at the liburay.

The hinges of the tarven door squeak as l push it open and walk out. Looking aroud, l slip down an alley. The air is brezzy and warm, rustling tree leaves. l lean aganst a sooty brick wall and grin. l could head over to the libuary, but l don't want to.

Down another twisting alley, round a corner, and-Oh.  There is Avalon and a boy, talking. He seems odd to me, for some reason. 

l want to disappear. l don't want to be here. At the sound of my footsteps, both of them turn around. "Uh, hi." They whirl around, confused.

"Who's there?" The boy asks. What the.....

l take a step forward. "Avalon-"

"Who are you?"

l'm puzzled. l raise a hand-And it isn't there.  l stumble back. "What-"

Sorry for posting so close together--I finished this earlier than I thought I would, so I decided to post it. 

Rose~

"Oh no," she says, looking in the mirror in the bathroom downstairs, although she's not Rose anymore. She's Grease.

"What did you do?!" She can hear her brother's voice echoing through his own head.

"I think I... stole your form," she says slowly.

"You did what?! Then... am I in your body?"

"No," she says. "No... You're trapped up here. In my head," she realizes with horror.

"I don't understand," he says. "I must be having some sort of nightmare..."

"This is my nightmare," she realizes, choking on her words. "It was real. I... I was always the monster."

"Why is this just becoming a problem now? Why happened to you to make you do this?!"

"I don't know..." she cries. "I don't know what's wrong with me!"

"Grease?" She hears Lucky's voice from the other room. "Is something wrong?"

"Go away!" she shouts. "Lucky... you don't know what I might do to you!" She pauses. "Leave me alone!"

"I know you're not an axe murderer, Grease," Lucky says, appearing in the bathroom doorway. "What's up?"

Rose gives him a desperate, scared look that makes him take a step out of the doorway.

"Go away," she says.

"Okay," he says, suddenly serious. "What's wrong? Because this isn't like you at all, Grease..."

"I'm not Grease." The words tumble out before she can stop them, and Grease curses at her inside her head, his head.

Lucky gives a nervous laugh. "Is this some sort of prank? Because my lunch break is almost over, and yours is, too. We need to get back to work."

"Lucky. I'm serious." Rose is aware of the tears springing to Grease's eyes. "I've done something awful I'm afraid can't be undone..."

"What do you mean, you're not Grease?" Lucky says slowly.

"I'm... I'm... It's me, Rose," she says, bursting into tears once again. "I stole Grease's form... I don't know how, but I did it! And now he's trapped inside my head and I'm trapped inside his body and I can't even remember what brought me to do it in the first place..."

"Rose," Lucky says solemnly, "what do you mean, you 'stole his form?' Have you always been able to do that?"

"Oh, gosh, I don't know. I mean, it's not like I got an instruction manual or anything," she snaps.

"If this is a prank--" Lucky starts dubiously.

"You still believe this is a prank? I'm sure I could do it again, and you'll know it's not a prank, when you're trapped up here," she says, knocking on her head. She stares at him for a moment before collapsing into tears. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that, it just came out! I don't know why this is happening to me today--"

"Does this have anything to do with the coffee incident this morning?" Lucky asks suddenly.

"It has everything to do with the coffee incident. I was going to steal that girl's form, Lucky, if I hadn't done it! And... but... this time it was an accident! I swear it was!” She frowns. “Okay, part of me didn’t want for it to be an accident, but... but I don’t understand why...”

“If this is true...” Lucky begins.

“Which it is,” Rose cuts in.

“...then we have no choice! We have to go on an adventure!” he finishes, a grin washing over his face.

“What are you talking about?!” Rose and Grease yell at the same time.

“You’re crazy!” Grease shouts.

“I agree with Grease for once,” Rose says.

“What’d he say?” Lucky asks.

“That you’re crazy.”

“Oh... Well, hear me out. You probably don’t want to be stuck in his body forever, right?” Rose nods. “And Grease probably doesn’t want to be trapped in his own head, right?” Grease shouts several exclamations suggesting that yes, he most certainly would. Rose winces.

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, he doesn’t.”

“And I don’t know anything about magic--”

“How do you know this is magic?” she demands. “How do you know it isn’t some sort of crazy science thing?”

Lucky looks at her. “Rose,” he says, “it’s magic. Don’t try to give me any other explanation. And since I don’t know anything about magic, and Mother and Father certainly don’t, we’ll have to go on an adventure.”

“Oh, yes? And what will we tell them?”

“Nothing,” Lucky says. “We’ll just be gone for an afternoon.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

He sighs exasperatedly. “We won’t let the patrol bots get us, don’t worry about it! I’ve literally waited my whole life for some sort of excuse to get out of here--!” He takes a deep breath. “Sorry. But frankly, we can’t stay here. Mother and Father will wonder where Rose went eventually. And someone out there has got to know what’s going on!”

“But what if no one does? Where do we start?” she asks, following him out to the back entrance.

“I say we look for your real parents,” he says. “If anyone should know, it would be them.”

... 

I'm waiting for you to post, True.