1
"Zoe!" there was a loud knock on the door and a familiar voice yelled. I'm still on my bed, and ignored the man outside. "Hanji Zoe get up or I'm gonna get you by myself!" I heard Levi yelled. I jolted up from sleep and got up from the bed groaning. It was just 6am and I haven't gotten enough sleep lately.
"alright! Coming!" I rubbed my head in dismay, my messy, brunette hair lays down past through my shoulder but I didn't care. I opened the door finding a short guy, his blue eyes were puckered by his brows, signs that he's really annoyed. "Why are you here?" I asked Levi.
"Get yourself ready!" he said leaning on the wall. "In 15 minutes!"
"Wait. What?" I furrowed wearing my glasses. "You mean now?"
"Something happened on the Utopia Wildlife center. Erwin called a while ago." he said heading to living room.
"What happened?"
"The usual. Forest fire." he said. "Now get ready, we also have to give the reports to Erwin."
–
Forest fires are one of the common problems our Wildlife Institutes faces. Poachers are the ones we suspect to start such a thing.
"We have taken care the animals and got them out on the fields. Yet two of them were injured." Erwin stated as we walked through the place where the fire have occurred. It took almost half of the field.
"So any idea where it started?" Levi asked.
"No idea, but the volunteers just saw the fire was already spread out at 4am." Petra answered. The people that were here last night was Petra and Auro with the rest of the volunteers, and that time, most of them were asleep. "Thankfully, we were able to stop it." Auro added.
"We've taken care the injured ones and brought it to the center." Petra said.
"I doubt that this isn't just a natural incident. It's still early to cause a fire forest in a time like that." Erwin stated.
I looked at the place carefully as some of the volunteers were busy cleaning up the mess. I noticed something or smelled something around as we walked through.
"D'you smell that?" I asked. They looked at each other. Mike who has the one with the strongest smell ability nodded.
"Seems like a gas or a kerosene." he answered sniffing. I looked at ground if there's such evidence that there might be something cause the incident. I could only see some burned trees and grasses, some were turned into ashes. But there's one thing caught my eye.
"I think I found what the cause of this fire." I raise my brow, wore my gloves and picked up the empty kerosene can. "Yep, you're right Erwin, this is not a natural incident." I handed him the can as he wore the glove.
"But who might do this?" Petra asked.
"Poachers!" I answered in disgust.
"They didn't stop do they?" Auro rubbed his head. "Those bastards won't stop troubling us."
"They won't, that's their business, they won't stop hunting these animals." Levi said.
We still didn't know who were these poachers that keeps on going our fields. All we know that there were not just only one group of them. Some of the poachers we know were given some warning but we didn't know if they are the ones who did this. I really don't like them! A lot. There's this certain incident that one of the wild animals that we kept on taking care were taken by the poachers.
"Alright, let's head back to the center and send me the reports. I'm gonna contact some team to investigate and monitor the culprit." Erwin ordered.
–
"Tomorrow you will take an expedition back to Trost Wildlife. You will be joining back to your beloved cats* soon." Erwin smiled.
A/n: cats refer to the wildcats(big cats) such as lions, tigers, leopard etc.
"Really?! Yay! I really miss my babies!" I jump out with excitement while Levi just sighed.
"You've just been out in a month but it seems an eternity for you." he said.
"Months is long enough doing just some paper works." I pouted, and Erwin and Mike just shook their heads.
"Before that, please review this kid." he handed me a some biodatas. "He applied as a photographer." he added as Levi and I read the person's data. His name is Eren Jaeger. "He's a student photographer." I commented. "he doesn't have any experience on the field or wildlife photographer." Levi added.
"But he does have the guts." I said and showed him the photos that was attached. Most of them were a landscape shot and a candied shot of people on streets.
"There are about 12 volunteers that applied recently." Mike said. "He's one of them."
"So we get to train new volunteers this year." I smiled.
"Yeah, but that kid insist if he could train as our one of wildlife photographer." Mike sniffed, Erwin looked at me.
"Then what you mean is..."
"Yeah, we decided if you could train him for a while, but before that, he needs to get used to the Center's flow of work and behavior first. So Levi, can we leave that things up to you?" Erwin turned to him making Levi raise his brow.
"You're sure to train this kid out of the field soon?" he asked quietly.
"It's still up to you two." Erwin crosses his arm.
"You sure are really hard for this kid. Lets just see if he can do it. He seems to be a good guy though." I commented elbowing him.
"Being in the fields wasn't easy you know that." he stated.
"I know!" I looked at him. "That's why we need to train them right?"
"Okay. I'm fine with it." he sighed and I jumped giving him a pat to the back.
–
The next day, we packed up early and head to Trost Wildlife center. We drove for about half an hour. I was excited that I hardly get to sleep last night!
"Yesterday morning you said you haven't gotten enough sleep. But last night you keep on texting me!" Levi said. "You should've slept during the trip."
"I was too excited to sleep on a trip." I giggled.
We pulled in through the Wildlife entrance. The center were guarded by large fences and the entrance's gate were secured by monitoring camera. The gate has a large signage of "Trost Wildlife Conservation". Below the TWC logo was a phrase, "We Save and Protect". Well that's the main goal of the Institute.
Erwin greeted us. He arrived at the center yesterday after we've discussed about the incident. He then introduce us to the new volunteers. Some of them were newly graduates from a university who studied biology. This is not the first time we handled trainees but that was last two years. So there were just few who joined the Center. Oh great! I'm feeling old.
The first to introduce named Annie Lionheart, a blonde, pretty yet she has a fierce look on her face. Next to her is Reiner Braun, a tall young and tough looking guy. AndBertold Hoover, unlike the first two, he looks innocent and kind. Historia Reizz was next, she's beautiful and kind, I love her smile and her golden hair and blue eyes. Okay lets proceed to Ymir, she's a tall young woman, with freckled cheeks and black hair, she's kinda serious though.
Their group will be under Petra Ral's and Auro's supervision.
So here's the second group. There's this girl Sasha Blouse, I could still see her chewing her last bite of bread. I could laugh so hard when Erwin scolded and she almost choked. She's energetic though, her eyes were bright and it looks like she could be a handful member. Next is Connie Springer, he looks like a tough guy, maybe it's because of his hair a bit of shaved. Yet he's much shorter than Levi. (tries to looked at Levi but kept hold myself to laugh).
Next is this guy Eren Jaeger, he looks so determined and his green eyes were full of motivation. I bet he could be one of the best researcher someday. Another girl from the group is Mikasa Ackerman, despite their surname being different, their bios said that they're siblings.
Armin Arlert, I thought he was a she. Having a straight blond medium hair that looks could be deceiving, if wasn't for his eyebrows I wouldn't knew it. (please don't kill me Armin) I've read that he's one of the top on the class.
The last two are Jean Kirchstein and Marco Bolt. Jean looks a bit of stubborn though but oh well, while his comrade Marco was a bit of a cheerful one.
These group were handled by me and Levi.
We tour them inside the facilities, giving some instructions. Later on, we head to the newly constructed building for the center that has only two floors. Some volunteers were cleaning the facility.
"This will be our laboratory and monitoring facility. The ground floor will be the laboratory, there are 3 or more labs to be use for the medical and experiments. The upper floor will be use by monitoring team." Levi explained.
"Later on guys, you'll gonna use this facility." I winked. I could tell they're also excited to be part of the team!
Yet Levi handed them some cleaning materials. "First of all. Lets clean this mess off." he said quietly.
"You too." he tossed a broom stick to me. "Alright, boss, whatever you say." I shrugged.
–
It's already dark and we just had our supper. I head back to my room and settled my things. My room wasn't that stuffy, just a desk and a bed, I usually do my paper and research works. I checked everything and pulled some stuff from my bag. I decided to check my DSLR and looked the latest photos. This baby will be useful later on. I smiled and walk out from the room. I stretched up my arms as I walked to the hallways. After the cleaning we guide the new volunteers to their room. In case we have to track and monitor on the field. There are some rooms we've made for every group.
Outside I saw some of our group hanging out on their free time. Levi was sitting on the bench near a tent watching them.
"Enjoying the view." I said as I made a shot, he just furrowed annoyed that I took him a candied shot. Levi didn't really like it when I do that. Hah! But it's fun teasing him like that.
"You should see your face. You're like making a music video." I laughed.
"Well, the photo I took while you were sleeping is way better than that." he said as if he won the teasing battle.
"You still didn't delete that?!" I stared.
"I was thinking to show that to the new group." he said seriously. I glared and he snickered.
"Well, I still have that shot of your most embarrassing 'plank'." I teased back and he raised his brow. "That was the most epic fall I've ever seen!" I suppressed a laugh.
"Don't mention it again." his cheeks turned a bit red when we recall the time he fell down on the snowy road. "Ok fine. I won't. It's just that..." I get a hold from laughing. "You look freakishly ridiculous."
He shook his head and grab my ponytail and looked at me. "You know who's the most freakish in here?" he smiled. I just blinked. "Who?" I asked looking at his steel blue eyes, suddenly noticing they were so pretty. "Right here." he said leaning closer. I furrowed. "What?"
"In front of me." he answered and let go of my hair. And before I could grab him he quickly ran back towards the camp.
"Go get some rest Freak*. We'll be early tomorrow." he called. That guy. I just nodded.
A/n: Levi usually calls Hanji by names and common of it was Freak.