A/N: Hello my readers! I would like to thank you for selecting this story to read. I may not be the best writer you have seen but I still hope you enjoy the story. I accept and appreciate constructive criticism and welcome it, however if you are only going to post slander and to tell me how horrible my story is, just don't post it. This is my first fanfiction and I hope it is enjoyable to all of you. Let's get started! -SuperKaiokenGoku

Italics: Thoughts

Normal: Talking

Chapter 1: First Freedom

I slam the door behind me slightly panting, with my ears straining to hear any movement outside. I tense and hold my breath as footsteps run past the door. I hear shouting.

"Where did that girl get off to, she was right here a second ago."

"I don't know, let's go have a look over there."

"Are you sure we should keep looking, I mean she could be anywhere."

"Yeah, this place gives me the creeps, and I'm getting hungry too."

"Are you hard in the head or something, if she gets away with that equipment, we're going to have to deal with all the problems it's going to bring and I don't want to be down here any longer than I have to with you idiots. We're going to keep looking and we're going this way. Do you retards understand."

"Yes sir." "Yes sir."

I risk a peek out the window and let out a breath I was holding in when I notice the three men in tan jackets with a green unicorn across the back run off to go and find something I know they won't catch.

Knowing that I'm safe for now, I walk up to the wooden table in the middle of the room. I ignite the lantern that sits on top of it and place the bag I was carrying and empty its contents on to the table. The goods I nicked from the men in the tan jackets spread out on top of the table.

"Stupid Military Police," I think smugly. "Can't even watch their most prized possessions, besides their meat and wine."

I look over the metal contraptions and many straps that I neatly organize on top of the table. "Omni-Directional Mobility gear," I mutter as I let a small grin cross my face.

I have been trying to get my hands on the gear for the better part of six months. I knew it would be difficult to get, but it would make surviving in this hell hole easier if I can master the gear. Living in the Underground City is hell. There is hardly any food to go around, barely any clean water, and terrible diseases. The most dangerous part of the Underground is the people. Some are prostitutes and even less merchants, but the majority are criminals. Not anything like the surface criminals either, these guys are ten times worse. They are brutal and deadly, like me.

At the age of seven I was abandoned by my parents as they were unable to support themselves along with me. I have learned to trust nobody but myself, and that's how I survived fourteen years on my own. Now at the age of twenty-one, I have no real friends, but that's fine with me. Friends can stab you in the back. I had to become cold and ruthless to survive here.

Now finished looking at the gear, I walk down the narrow hallway of my home. I have lived in this house for the past four years. I have had to move around a lot, sometimes not even being able to afford a house. Sleeping on the streets is a common thing in this place. I open the door at the end of the hall and enter the bathroom. I turn on the faucet, being thankful for working plumbing (even though the water is never heated) and splash my face with cool water.

I look at the mirror through my short, messy black locks that have fallen over my face. I tuck my hair behind my ears but a few strands of hair refuse to obey and continue to frame my face and fall in between my eyes. At least I can see.

Cold and calculating brown eyes stare back at me as I look over the woman in front of me. Smooth round face hardened by my time in the underground, but still considered pretty by many. Fit body caused by years of fighting and survival.

I scowl as I look at my average sized breasts and remember all the wandering hands trying to sneak in a quick feel. I feel better knowing that most of them are now missing a few fingers. However, there is one problem.

"Still only five foot three. I thought for sure I would grow some since last month," I think bitterly. "Whatever, such is life in the underground, fairness isn't really welcome here."

After drying my face, I walk out into the hall and go to the door on the right. I open the door and walk in to the room. Closing the door behind me, I scan the room. The only thing in the small room is a mattress on the floor with a few thin blankets and a nightstand with a lantern and a standard kitchen knife I keep in pristine condition lying on top. I go to the bed and lay down with a sigh.

"I'm too tired to try and learn the gear tonight," I thought. "Trying to learn and use the gear on my own will be tough enough as it is, I should at least try it when my body is well and rested."

I don't know exactly when I fell asleep, but I find myself now awake and staring at the slightly moldy ceiling. I get up and realize I did not change out of my clothes from the day before. I mentally berate myself for forgetting and walk back to the room with the ODM gear in it. Spread out across a wooden chair is a somewhat cleaner shirt than what I had on.

"It's not like I have a lot of clothes anyway," I think to myself while taking off the black long-sleeved shirt I was wearing. I take the dark blue button up shirt, slip my arms in and button it up, save for the top button. I roll up the sleeves to my elbows and decide to keep the black pants I was wearing already on.

Satisfied with what I am wearing, I walk over to a cupboard at the other side of the room. I reach up and open it and I immediately scowl at the sight before me.

"Short on food again," I grumble as I take an apple and a stale piece of bread out of the cupboard leaving only one more piece of bread in it. "At least it'll be easier to get food once I get the hang of the ODM gear," I say as I sit down and begin to eat my meager breakfast.

"It's better than most others down here though," I think as I toss the core away in to the trash bin and walk over to the gear still lying on the table where I left it the previous night.

I stare hard at the gear, going over every detail, engraving it in to my mind because this gear, will help me be free of this hell. The stairway toll had gone up again, and even though I have the money for it, I won't last long on the surface without citizenship. Even with my burning hatred of the Military Police (or MP for short), I still envied their ability to use the ODM gear to fly around like birds. I wished to do the same, only better.

"Let's get this shit over with," I say grabbing the many leather straps off the table and taking with me a Soldier Handbook on how to work the gear.

Even with the help of the book, it still took me a little more than an hour to put on the straps and gear.

"Whoever designed these straps is an idiot," I growl out as I finally get everything on me. "These were definitely not designed to be used by females," I think bitterly as I walk around my house getting used to having the gear on.

I walk to the back of my house and open the back door which leads to my "backyard". It was more like a small rocky alleyway that only I had access to. My fence you could say went up all the way to the underground ceiling and was made entirely of rock. Lucky me, perfect for trying out my new ODM gear.

I take a few steps forward and take out the gear's handles from their holsters at my upper ribs. After reading the handbook, I had a basic idea of how the gear works. I would have to learn most of the stuff on my own. I ready myself and take a deep breath.

"Here we go," I press the triggers on the handles after aiming the gear, and two wires quickly shoot out of the gear on my hips. The two wires go in opposite direction on my right and left, and latch in to the rock walls about fifteen feet above me, I grin, "Perfect."

I ready myself, preparing to lift myself off the ground. I narrow my eyes in focus.

"Time for the hard part," I mutter as I work the gear to slowly lift myself off the ground.

I shout as I am suddenly pulled into the air, much too fast for what I had been aiming for. The anchors were still latched in the wall, but my quick ascent made me lose my balance as I started tilting backwards.

"Shit," I thought. If I don't steady myself soon, I'll be taking a twenty-foot drop, most likely landing head first.

Instinct screamed at me and without thinking, I went with my momentum and completed a quick mid-air backflip righting myself when I was once again vertical to the ground. Still wobbling a bit, I calmed myself down and let all of my weight center in my hips.

I was slightly shocked to see how easily I was now hanging. Barely moving, I was calmly swaying in my spot suspended in the air. I allow my face to break out in to a huge grin, the first real smile I have had in a long time.

I hung there for ten more minutes hardly moving an inch, before letting myself down slowly this time. I look down at my gear, that stupid grin still on my face. Only two words come to mind.

"Holy Shit."

After shoving the small medicine pouches in to my cloak pocket, I fire the anchors of my ODM gear at the buildings in front of me and launch myself in to the air. I quickly fly through the air and hope that no MPs are nearby.

It's been almost a year since I obtained the ODM gear the Military Police kindly supplied me with and I can say without a doubt that I am more skilled than any of the MPs tenfold. Constant usage and practice of the gear have made it second nature to wield. Over the course of the past year, I have built quite the reputation amongst the people and soldiers of the Underground.

With the ODM gear, my life has been much easier. Unfortunately, it appears that I am not so lucky today.

The plan I had was simple: Bust the medicine crates and come back around to collect some of the valuable pouches before anyone knew what was happening. However, as I look over my shoulder, I see four MPs chasing me down, trying their hardest to keep up. I look back ahead of me and I remember that the street I am currently flying in, is a dead end.

I angle my body forward and use a little more gas to speed up, way faster than what the MPs are capable of. I narrow my eyes in extreme focus. Right before I crash into the building in front of me. I flip forward so my feet now face the wall and slow down so that my legs don't break when I make contact with the building.

After my feet land on the face of the building, I flip back off the building in to the open window of an adjacent building. I run through the building vaulting quickly over furniture and even flipping over a person that came out of his room at the wrong time. I fire my anchors out another window at the other side of the building and launch myself out.

Speedily turning to the right, I feel my gear scrape against the ground as I slide against the floor. I fire my anchors again and pull myself up so that I now glide at a constant fast pace above the shorter buildings of the Underground.

"And these are the fools that serve and protect the king? I think to myself. "What a joke the MP are."

However, I hear the sounds of more ODM pistons firing. I look over my shoulder again mildly surprised that the MP could keep up with me for once. I laugh as I see only two of them.

"Guess they're not slacking today, tch, what a nuisance."

I see a building a few hundred feet in front of me with a tall spire built in to it. As I approach the spire from the left, I fire my right anchor, latching on to the spire, and use my momentum and swing back around the way I came, right under my pursuers. My eyes widen a fraction when I notice their green cloaks, and the white and blue emblem on their tan jackets.

"The wings of freedom!" I think in disbelief. "It's the Survey Corp!"

Swifter than any MP, they quickly double back and continue to tail me, with their cloaks flowing behind them.

"I should expect nothing less from the Survey Corp." I think impressed while coming up with a plan. "Fighting the titans must be better than any training the MPs, or anyone can receive."

I smirk a little at the prospect of a challenge. "It's time to see how good the Survey Corp is."

I fire my anchors in to a low bridge and fly under it and then raise myself to meet a balcony which I use to jump off of using my momentum to clear the house with a single jump. After clearing the house, I use some gas to rapidly descend in to a large broken sewage pipe. I continuously fire my anchors to avoid the rusty jagged edges of the old pipe.

After passing all the way through, I fly in to an extremely narrow space between two buildings that make ODM use nearly impossible, but not for me. I wall jump between the two buildings and vault over clothe lines and mini balconies before firing my anchors out of the tight space and I fly back into the street.

I do a quick scan of the street, not finding anything out of the ordinary when all of a sudden, I hear the sound of zipping wires. I notice the two scouts have me flanked on either side of me, with their razor-sharp swords at the ready. I manage to flip over the first swing from the scout on my right and land a kick to the back of his head, but the scout on my left manages to sever one of my wire and I start to fall to the rough pavement below.

I steady myself and slide a few feet across the ground on my feet. Seconds after coming to a stop, I draw my kitchen knife from its place in my boot and slash out and cut the cheek of the scout that cut my wire.

The scout grits his teeth and swings a sword at my leg. I jump over it and flip back, when I see the scout prepare another strike. He was too slow as I was able to kick out his legs from under him. I am about to turn to escape when I see the blade of a third scout rest against me neck.

"Drop it," commanded the scout that I now identified as male. I clench my jaw in repressed anger as I let go of my knife. I lost.

My gear was confiscated and I was handcuffed. They escorted me back to a group of four scouts in the middle of an abandoned street. I also see two guys and a girl handcuffed as well. The man in blonde hair along with the red-haired girl seemed to be pissed and worried for the black-haired man who I now realize, has his face being held in to a dirty puddle of sewage water.

The tall blonde scout with cold blue eyes kneeled in front of the black-haired man. Another scout raised the man's head to look at the blonde scout.

"My name is Erwin Smith," He said with emotionlessly. "What is yours?"

The man hesitates before finally answering with obvious hatred for the man, "Levi."

"Hey, squad leader," The scout holding me said to the scout I now know to be named Erwin. Erwin looked over at us, then focused on me.

Both of us staring each other down not even blinking when the scout holding me continued to talk to Erwin.

"We found another one, I guess they had more than three gang members."

I was brought to my knees in front of Erwin and I felt the gazes of the three thugs looking at me, but I refused to acknowledge them.

"We saw her evading the Military Police and decided to pursue her with the belief she was a part of this group of thugs here. She is extremely skilled in Omni-Directional Mobility and hand to hand combat," the scout that I had cut in the cheek said.

I turned to see the surprised looks of the group of thugs and I greeted them back with a bored glance before turning back to glare at Erwin.

"I see," is all that he said. He then walked over and kneeled in front of me, as I continued to glare at him.

"My name is Erwin Smith, what is yours."

"...Mikari Snow."

A/N: There we go, first chapter is over. I have a new-found respect for writers that can do this and reach over 50k words. Anyway, how did you guys like the first chapter? I hoped the action scenes weren't too bad. Please give me suggestions because I really want you guys to be happy with my story. I'm hoping to update at least once a month and I have all the intentions in the world not to suddenly cancel the story, because that would be rude of me. Please leave a review, ask questions, help me out some, and you might even get mentioned in the next chapter. Until next time my fantastic readers!

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