Renny: Right so, basically this fic started off completely differently. But my laptop apparently decided to screw with me and basically just shut down on me after freezing while I was looking at a comic.

Marco: I do seem to remember being here before . . .

Renny: Yup. I'm changing the first chapter, mostly because I can't remember exactly what was in it, but everything else is gonna remain the same- you know, the other chapters?

Marco: You . . . haven't even written them yet.

Renny: Exactly! Disclaimer please!

Marco: Okay? Uh, Renny doesn't own Attack on Titan, but she does own Tori.

Renny: On with the show!

OOOOOO

Hi there, my name's Tori. I'm currently about sixteen years old, but I'm also twelve as well.

And I still don't know how it happened.

I'm mentally sixteen, but my body is twelve years old. I'm not saying that I'm just really mature for a twelve year old, I mean this literally. I used to be sixteen, but then something weird happened- and now I'm in my twelve year old body.

What was the weird thing that happened?

Well . . .

This is the sort of thing that normally happens in, I dunno, movies or TV shows or bad fanfiction.

I'm stuck in Attack on Titan. That one damn show where there's at least three deaths or maulings once a fucking episode.

I've been here for a couple of months already, and being the kind of obsessed fan that I am, I was able to tell instantly where I was.

Trost.

Of all.

The fucking.

Places.

To wake up in.

Mostly because of the famine thing that Armin was on about, but it's also kind of because of the Titan attack that'll happen in three or four years.

The good news is I've actually seen Eren, Mikasa and Armin. Like for real. That's basically every single fan's biggest dream, to meet the characters from their favourite anime or whatever in real life. Though I didn't meet them, I just more or less stood a few feet away and observed while pretending to not give a crap about them (that's one of my Stupid Skills).

I heard them talking about joining up with the Cadets a lot.

They're going to go and sign up for boot camp in the HQ- you know, the one that Titans swarm in the anime/manga (okay, for future reference, I'm just calling it the anime since that's the thing most people use for the designs of the characters and stuff)- in about a week.

And, for some damn reason, I've decided to go as well.

I'm actually not entirely sure why, but I'm sure I'll figure out some weird reason for doing it in a few days or something (hey lookie here, another Stupid Skill- I should probably make a list of these, actually . . .).

And so I'm basically signing up for the Cadets.

Even if it is a death sentence. I've never been known to care about my own life, anyway.

oooo

"Name, age and district of birth." the bored Garrison soldier said.

Tori pursed her lips and tried to think- what the hell should she say? It wasn't like she'd considered what would happen when she signed up, and it's not like the anime ever showed what happened when anyone actually signed up for the Cadets.

It just showed them being drilled and terrified by Shadis, which, yeah sure, it was hilarious, but it didn't help much in this moment.

The man looked up and stared at her, well, more like glared.

"Look kid, you can make some crap up for all I care, just don't hold up the damn line." he snapped.

He probably shouldn't swear in front of twelve to fourteen year olds, Tori thought.

Wait, did he say she could make some crap up?

Well then.

"Tori Lithium, si- twelve, from Shiganshina." Tori said. Why not? She'd been with the refugees for a couple of months already.

The Garrison soldier blinked at her, surprised. "You're not the first recruit from Shiganshina, or Wall Maria for that matter . . . no clue why you'd want to train to become a soldier, after what happened a couple of years back . . . But whatever, you're in- go on to the medical examination rooms and then you can get into the carriages. They'll take you to the Southern Cadet boot camp. Understood?"

"Yep."

Oh great, a medical examination. Tori couldn't even remember the last one she'd had, but she could just somehow see that this was gonna suck ass like hell.

And it kinda did, though the doctor wasn't a total dick about her nervousness.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to take off your shirt." the doctor told her kindly. Technically it was a dark blue hoodie, but she didn't correct him- that word probably hadn't been invented yet. Or something. "Just pull up a sleeve and I'll do the usual tests. You don't even need to pay attention."

Tori got the feeling that not paying attention was something that everyone did during medical examinations.

So she took his advice- despite somewhat paying attention- and just drifted off into her own little world.

When the doctor called for her attention and said the medical examination was over, Tori was surprised- and slightly disappointed, because she'd been daydreaming about having a husky puppy called Paul. She loved huskies.

"Off you go, Tori." the doctor said, gesturing to the other door that probably led to outside where the horses and carriages were waiting for the recruits.

"Bye." Tori said as she went out. The doctor seemed surprised (what, did no one say 'bye' to him, like, ever?) but he returned the word nonetheless.

She was about to walk out of the door, but then a sudden and kind of worrying thought stopped her. Tori frowned and turned around, much to the confusion of the doctor, and picked up the paper that he was using to write down her medical examination stuff.

Tori looked at the paper blankly for a few seconds, scanning it- and then she put it down and gave the doctor a shaky smile.

" . . . What is it?" the doctor asked, almost warily.

"Nothing, I just wanted to check something, that's all." Tori reassured him.

"Right . . . You'd best get going." Poor man still looked confused as Tori actually did walk out of the room this time.

It was only when she was out of anyone's sight that she let herself sink to the floor in complete shock.

She could read perfectly fine, she knew this- Tori even took English Language at Sixth Form, it was basically required that she should know how to read incredibly well. It was also required that she should know how to write as well, which, admittedly, she couldn't do as well as reading. But here? In this world specifically?

She couldn't read the writing.

It was all just random symbols to her.

Well shit.

oooo

Tori had never been in a horse carriage before. She'd ridden a horse, but that had been in some dumb fairground at her old primary school when she was like seven or something, and some guy had been holding the reins so it didn't try and kick her off or something.

Riding in a carriage was different.

She didn't particularly like cars, mostly because the doors were too fucking fiddly for her liking, but Tori could compare this to riding in a car- only a lot more bumpy and somehow more comfortable.

Probably because she'd been sleeping on a hard, cold floor for the past two or three months, but whatever.

There were several other people in the carriage with her, but Tori just basically ignored them all, even the boy that was sitting across from her. She ignored their conversations and just thought (worried) to herself about what she was gonna do about the reading thing.

She could still read and write in her own damn language, so it's not like she became illiterate when she woke up in this crapsack world. It's just that she never noticed that she couldn't read this world's writing, which would make the lessons in boot camp a hell of a lot more difficult.

"- okay?"

Tori blinked. Someone had just poked her in the shoulder.

She looked up from staring at the floor of the carriage (now that she noticed it, there were some pretty cool designs carved into it- sweet) and looked at the boy across from her.

"Are you okay?" Marco asked again.

Holy shit, Marco, was all Tori could think. Her voice decided to work on its own though.

"Uh, yeah, why?" she asked.

"It's just that you were staring . . . and you weren't really blinking." Marco said, smiling slightly. He looked a bit worried. "You looked really scared too- is everything okay?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't it be?" Tori raised an eyebrow.

Other than the fact that she couldn't read, Tori was basically fine. Well, now that she thought about it, she'd probably wash out the minute she got onto the aptitude tests- she did, after all, have absolutely shit balance.

And you needed good balance to even operate an ODM gear.

Fingers snapped in front of her face, and she jumped, slamming her back kind-of painfully into the carriage's side.

"Sorry, you were doing that staring thing again." Marco laughed a little bit. "I didn't mean to startle you."

Just like Marco. Wow, Tori had basically forgotten how nice the dude even was. He'd become a martyr or something for Jean when he'd been killed, and he was only in the first half of the season (technically). He never went halfway with the kindness thingy.

. . . Did she just unitentionally make a dead Marco joke? Dammit.

"My name's Marco Bott, what's your name?" Marco asked.

Of course, she already knew his name- besides Levi, Jean and Marco were her two favourite characters. And like the rest of the fandom, Tori shipped Jean and Marco- or she just did the whole 'we're like fucking brothers yay' thing with them. She wasn't fussed either way, because both sides of the coin were adorable and fluffy and-

She was getting off track. Stop fangirling.

"Tori Lithium." she answered, grinning at him. Hey maybe she could make friends with the dude. Tori'd have to be careful about what she said though.

"Strange name." Marco commented. "Then again, I've heard stranger- there was this one guy in Jinae who was called Twinge."

" . . . What." Tori said.

"I know!" Marco laughed. "Even he thought it was a weird name, so he told everyone to just call him Twin. Which was a huge improvement."

"Is twinge even a word?" Tori wondered.

"I think so."

God, this place was so fucking weird with the names. You had unusual and awesome-sounding ones like Eren or Eld or something, and then you got the normal ones like Sasha and Annie and Krista (who was actually called Historia, but she'd been Krista for, like, ever so Tori was calling her that until otherwise).

And then you had Marco, who was basically the butt off many, many Marco Polo and half jokes.

The entire fandom needed therapy, seriously.

They both seemed to hit it off almost instantly. Which was weird, because normally Tori became fast friends with people who were just as coarse and sarcastic as she was. And they happened to always be at least an inch taller than her too. She seemed to have a thing for taller friends.

At least Marco fit the tall thing, what with Tori being like five foot three or some shit, and him being . . . well, fucking tall.

But maybe he was secretly a sassy bastard, like basically everyone thought he was. He had to be, to put up with Jean all the time, right?

Oh wait, if Tori was friends with Marco now, did that mean she'd have to deal with Jean as well? Sure, he was one of her favourite characters, but even Tori couldn't handle dickheads like him twenty-four-seven. She'd had enough of them to last her an entire lifetime. Dickheads had pretty much fucked up her life and mental health status, basically.

Meh, maybe she could just be Marco's friend and ignore Jean while secretly fangirling from a distance.

Or something.

When the carriage eventually got to the boot camp, Tori wasn't really as surprised as everyone else when she saw the desert it was in. Or whatever the word for it was. But there was also a forest nearby too, so at least there was that.

"Oh man, I was hoping for something more . . ." Marco frowned as he tried to find the word for it. " . . . better." he finished lamely.

"Well it's not like we're gonna be coddled or anything." Tori shrugged. She already knew how this place worked, so it didn't matter much to her- hopefully Marco would just pin her lack-of-giving-a-shit down as her living as a refugee or something. "May as well get used to the bullshit early on, am I right?"

"I suppose so . . . Well, so long as they don't starve us or anything, I guess this is okay." Marco was grinning now.

Tori almost made a comment about Sasha, but then she stopped herself just in time- they hadn't met Sasha yet, dammit.

Be. Careful. Tori.

oooo

As Tori guessed before when she'd been watching the anime, the way the Cadets were positioned in the induction was basically random. Or actually, it was more or less a case of 'stand wherever the fuck you want you little shitheads, you're still gonna go through hell anyway' according to Shadis.

Man, what a bald-headed dickface.

So, because she and Marco had somehow become friends on the way to the boot camp, they stood next to each other. Tori only had to lean forward a little bit to see Jean standing next to Marco, looking incredibly bored. Tori wasn't really ashamed to admit that she was looking forward to seeing him get head butted by Shadis.

Speaking of, the bald dude himself was currently on the row in front of them, and was drilling some poor kid who looked just about ready to piss and shit himself in a few seconds.

"You think he'll pass us over too?" Marco whispered. He was shaking slightly, watching Shadis with wide eyes.

"Nope." Tori told him honestly. "He'll scare the fuck out of you. Or us. Whichever."

"Why is it one or the other?" Marco asked her, tearing his eyes away from Shadis's latest victim.

Tori shrugged, but actually she did know. Those two instructors that were walking around the Cadets talked about Shadis passing over those who had been through the hell of a Titan attack two years ago- or in Mikasa's case, gone through the murder of her parents- as shown in the anime purely for the benefit of the audience. Probably.

Though Tori had no clue why Shadis hadn't passed over Armin. Maybe he didn't look as traumatised.

It was a damn good thing Tori could just basically switch off any outward emotions (Stupid Skill number three), you know, like keeping her face blank and her body posture pretty damn relaxed. Maybe she'd get lucky and Shadis would be fooled by her emotionless act.

"Row five, about face!" Shadis snapped.

The Cadets in front of them spun around, and most of them looked completely terrified- which only made the ones on Tori and Marco's row- row six- even more nervous about being drilled by Shadis.

"Oh man I'm gonna throw up . . ." Marco whimpered.

"Dude, just force a smile and pretend you're totally fine." Tori whispered back. That's what he'd done in the anime after all.

"Hey if you do throw up, can I draw it so I never forget the kid who vomited in the induction?" Jean whispered.

Tori gave him a flat glare, to which Jean just responded with a smirk.

And then Shadis was about four of five people away, and the three of them shut up and kept their backs straight (or as straight as Tori could get, she could never do the straight-back thing for that long) and eyes in front of themselves in case he heard or saw them.

If the dude doesn't pass me over, he's gonna shout at me, Tori thought. That wouldn't do much good.

You know. Considering that last time someone shouted at her, Tori basically tried to saw their limbs off with a tenon saw she just happened to have in her hands (it was at school and she was in Design Tech, okay) at the time. It didn't really help that the idiot girl had tried to wrap her arms around Tori and basically rape her in the middle of the fucking classroom.

In other words, Shadis shouting at her might not go down all too well- for either of them.

The dude might end up with a missing arm if he was lucky, and she might end up with no food for a few days (unless she begged Marco or something) and she'd have to do a few hundred laps like Sasha did when Shadis caught her eating a fucking potato of all things in the middle of the induction.

A glance to her right told Tori that, yeah, Sasha was still eating the damn thing.

Well, at least she'd get to witness it firsthand.

And then Shadis got to Jean.

"And who the hell do you think you are, you little runt?" Shadis snapped, looking down at Jean with a glare that would freeze even the most defiant person.

And of course Jean was probably just dense.

"Jean Kirstein, from the Trost district, sir!" Jean shouted, saluting.

The good thing about Shadis possibly shouting at Tori was that she'd get to do the salute for real instead of as a farewell to a fellow fan of Attack on Titan at the end of secondary school.

"And what the hell do you think you're doing here, Kirstein?" Shadis snapped.

"I aim to join the Military Police, sir, the best of the best!" Jean answered.

Shadis narrowed his eyes and leaned down to stare Jean in the eyes. Tori secretly grinned when she saw Jean take a nervous step back.

"You wanna live in the interior, huh?" Shadis muttered.

"Uh- y-yes?"

Wait, this hadn't happened. Jean hadn't been this freaking nervous.

Shadis leaned in even further, and Jean took another step back. If anyone couldn't see that he was shaking, they were clearly blind. Or just stupid.

" . . . And what makes you think they'll even consider taking a scrawny runt like you, Kirstein?" Shadis asked, almost casually.

Wait, he never said that before either.

"If I . . . train-"

"I DIDN'T ASK FOR YOUR OPINION, RECRUIT!" Shadis suddenly bellowed.

Jean jerked back and stumbled, looking almost ill, and then-

He threw up.

Yeah, this definitely hadn't happened in the anime.

Shadis leaned back with a look of pure disgust on his face. Jean coughed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and Tori just about noticed that his shaking was even worse now. Well, that at least was normal- after someone vomited, you did normally shake a lot.

Tori sort of knew that from . . . way too much experience.

"The MPs won't take on someone who vomits all over his boots when he's scared, runt!" Shadis snapped.

Despite Jean being a complete dick, Tori felt kind of pissed on his behalf. Shadis could have at least given the dude some time before drilling him again, sheesh.

And she could see several of the other Cadets snickering at Jean, too. Assholes, they were just about ready to shit themselves a few minutes ago. And those who hadn't gone through Shadis's drill yet clearly had no idea how terrifying the dude could be.

Wait, was she actually defending Jean? Huh. And just a few minutes ago Jean had been the one taking the piss out of Marco for wanting to vomit.

Shadis moved onto Marco, who jumped and tore his worried eyes away from Jean (looked like Tori wasn't the only one who was kind of concerned) and quickly saluted.

"What the hell is wrong with your face, you smiling idiot!?" Shadis yelled.

Marco gave Tori a side-eyed glare, and she shrugged as subtly as she could with Shadis literally right next to her.

"Marco Bott, sir, from Jinae, near the South side of Wall Rose!" Marco cried. "I aim to join the Military Police and give life and limb in service of the king!"

That is, if he didn't die in three or four years.

"Well then, that makes you an idealistic fool." Shadis said softly. Yeah, this happened- but Tori couldn't understand why the hell Jean vomited. "And a rube."

Also Tori still wasn't sure what the fuck a rube was.

Shadis leaned in to whisper to Marco, but since she already knew what the bastard was gonna say, Tori leaned back to see (as best as she could) around Marco, checking on Jean in case he actually fell down or something.

Luckily it seemed that these instructors weren't completely heartless, because a couple of people from what Tori assumed was the medical place for this shithole had come over and were gently leading the dude away from the snickering of the other Cadets- although, Tori could see a couple of them looking just as concerned as Marco and Tori probably were (Armin mostly, what a fucking saint, seriously).

Shadis had finished with Marco, and before he could even consider looking over at Tori, she quickly shut off any and all emotion filters for her face and stood with her back as straight as her fucked up balance and back muscles would allow her (at the moment).

Shadis just looked at her for a second, and then moved on to Connie- who, as usual, got the salute the wrong way around and promptly got held by his fucking head what the hell Shadis seriously are you trying to kill him.

"You think that Jean kid's okay?" Marco whispered while Shadis was shouting at Connie with the usual bullshit about hearts being on the left side and not the right.

"You think it's a good idea to even consider opening your mouth with him like right there?" Tori fired back.

" . . . Good point, I'll talk later."

And then everything moved onto Sasha otherwise-known-as-Potato-Girl Braus. Which was funny to watch, and funny to see everyone's generally horrified reaction to her apparent stupidity, but for some reason Tori felt slightly detached from it all in terms of being bothered about it.

Probably because of Jean.

Dammit.

Why in the hell did he throw up? Did Tori being present change the whole thing, or something? Or, well, was this a kind-of different world she'd landed in?

If it was the last one, Tori might not be able to know everything about this place. Or at least not as much as she originally thought, that is. Thankfully it seemed that Titans were still the cannibalistic giants they always were, but she wasn't entirely sure that that was a good thing or not yet.

oooo

Jean turned up in the- what did they call it here? Mess hall? Fuck it, yeah, mess hall. Let's call it that.

Anyway, Jean turned up a couple of hours later. Sasha was outside doing her rounds (yes, those rounds) and Eren, Connie, Mina, Armin and Marco had stayed out to watch her in case she actually literally fell over (ohmygod no one can run for that long and not die, okay).

Though of course Tori knew exactly what they were talking about instead. And what Eren was blabbing about. Ish. Kind of. Okay not really, she didn't particularly give a crap about that damn scene- Tori was more interested in Jean picking a fight with Eren.

Jean came in quietly, which was unusual- but since he'd vomited in front of literally everyone, Tori supposed being quiet was something that anyone would do, even Eren.

And Tori only noticed because she'd been watching the door in complete boredom, having finished the weird-ass soup these idiots called food. It was better than bread and water though.

She raised an eyebrow and watched him sit down in the middle of the dinner hall. No food was put in front of him, so Tori assumed that whoever was making the food right now (because it wasn't any of the Cadets, she could assure anyone of that) were told that he probably shouldn't have anything to eat until his stomach decided to settle the fuck down.

Marco and the others came in, possibly reassured that Sasha wasn't gonna fall flat on her ass after two hours of running, and sat down- and then Connie shouted something about the Colossal Titan and how Eren had seen the fucking thing, which kind of made Tori confused because hadn't Armin and Mikasa seen the exact same thing?

So why was everyone always going after Eren like he'd been the only one there?

And again she was surprised, because instead of standing next to whoever the fuck that dude even was, Marco pretty much ignored the lot of them and wandered over to Tori's little corner of get-the-fuck-away-from-me-or-die-bitches.

"Hi, Tori." Marco said, as he slid into the seat. One of the people cooking (an instructor, judging by his beard or whatever it was he called that pathetic bit of hair on his face) set down some food for him, and left after Marco thanked him.

"Yo." Tori waved her spoon thing at him lazily. "Shouldn't you be listening to Eren speech-making Jeager over there?"

"I'm not like the others, I don't think- I didn't want to hear about the Colossal Titan." Marco shrugged. " . . . Or the Armoured, since Connie's moved on from the Colossal now."

"Far as I can tell, he's a complete moron." Tori told him.

Marco choked on his soup and quickly drank the water from the- cup? fuck it- from the cup next to his soup bowl thingy.

"Sorry." Tori said, not even bothering to sound sorry at all.

"You're awfully cynical for a twelve year old, you know that?" Marco smiled, shaking his head.

"I try."

"Are you trying to pick a fight!?"

They both glanced over at where Eren was now standing up, and Jean was just giving him a flat look.

" . . . Should he even be talking at all?" Marco murmured. "I mean . . . my grandma used to say that after throwing up you shouldn't open your mouth for a few hours until the sickness passed."

"That was nerve-sickness, not random oh-god-I'm-fucking-dying sickness." Tori shrugged. "S' probably different or something."

"Probably . . . I should go and break them up before it gets out of hand." Marco sighed. He stood up, just as Jean decided he was gonna be an idiot and stand to square up to Eren.

And then the bell rang.

Tori hadn't been that arsed about the fight's end overall, but Marco not being there to 'soothe things over' was another inconsistency she didn't know how to deal with.

First it was Jean throwing up, and now it was Marco not being with the group hounding Eren for details about his mom's death. What next, Ymir admitting she had the hots for Krista?

Oh wait.

She'd basically already done that.

Haha nevermind then.

oooo

That night, sleeping in the girls' barracks . . . was weird. Tori had gotten used to sleeping with a bunch of random people because of the refugee thing, but somehow this- it just felt different. She felt disconnected to these people.

But there was one thing she noticed- the girls' beds weren't doubled up like the boys were. So there were no girls sleeping next to each other in seperate bunks or some shit.

There were also shelves where they could put there stuff next to the beds, too.

Which kind of sucked, because Tori didn't actually have any possessions besides her clothes, really. She decided to go with what she'd always wanted to do and chose a top bunk, just because why the fuck not, but even that didn't do much to keep away whatever was wrong with her.

Somehow she managed to get to sleep, but Tori did wake up like way earlier than anyone else.

And then a couple of hours later, sometime after breakfast, it was the aptitude test.

"I just know I'm gonna fail this . . ." Marco sighed, burying his face in his hands.

If anyone'll fail, it's me, Tori thought.

Tori'd had a fucked-up balance since the day she'd been born, apparently. And there hadn't even been an explanation for it until her Art teacher in Sixth Form- who she'd known for literally two or three months- had noticed what was wrong and had helped get a diagnosis.

And somehow the fuckers in primary and secondary school hadn't noticed. Even though she'd known those bitches for years.

Wasn't that their fucking job? To notice who had mental disorders and health disorders and shit?

Clearly the places she'd been at for the past several years of her life were completely and utterly shit.

"Nah, dude, you'll do fine." she said instead. "I know you will."

Marco gave her a shaky smile, and said nothing back to her. Probably because he was too worried about his own failure to see through Tori's emotionless mask, to see how she was having a mild panic attack over falling flat on her face.

The good news was that she would never screw up as badly as Eren would, even if his belt was broken and no one knew but her.

This should be entertaining.

"Next six, up!" Shadis shouted. The six currently trying to keep themselves upright in the mocks of the ODMs (no other words to discribe the damn pole thingies) were let down, much to their relief.

Turned out she and Marco were in the next six.

Shiiiiit.

She wasn't gonna get out of this, was she?

"Hey."

Tori glanced up at Marco- who was actually taller than she'd thought, who the fuck did he think he was, Bertholdt?- and saw him smiling like a saint at her.

"Don't worry, you'll do fine as well." he told her gently.

. . . This was maybe the first time someone had seen through the emotionless mask.

Tori wasn't sure if she should be impressed, flattered, worried or just plain pissed off. Or all four. Which wasn't actually that hard, to be honest.

"GET UP HERE YOU WORTHLESS MAGGOTS." Shadis bellowed.

Tori only just managed to not launch herself at him.

"You already know the basics from watching the instructors," the dude tightening her straps said, as he did just what he was supposed to. "And you've seen some of the other Cadets do it, so you should be fine."

"If I don't fall on my ass." Tori deadpanned.

"If you don't fall on your ass, yeah."

Tori decided she liked this dude- he wasn't gonna give her shit for saying she was gonna fail, he just casually brushed it aside and carried on. That's the sort of attitude that Tori thought most teachers should have, really.

But what did she know, her experience with teachers who weren't Sixth Form tutors was basically unapproachable cunts who couldn't tell the difference between a normal kid and a kid who had several mental disabilities/health issues.

Once the straps were done (and weren't those a bitch to even get on in the morning, a couple of the girls had to help her out) and Tori was, for lack of better terms, loaded into the mock ODM thing, the instuctor (whose name Tori didn't know but she resolved to learn it somehow) stepped back and took a hold of the wheel.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Who the hell's ready for this?" Tori shot back.

"Fair point, kiddo."

Tori glanced to her right- she was on the last one of the line- and saw Marco already being gently lifted into the air.

The anime hadn't actually shown his test, but since he got seventh place in the Top Ten, Tori assumed he was pretty good at this. And he was, too.

Dude was a little bit short of Mikasa-level in terms of keeping steady in the mock ODM straps. Even Jean, who had apparently been the top of the class for ODMs, hadn't been as steady as Mikasa or, indeed, Marco.

Maybe the dude was just better at the theory of ODMs, or something.

Whatever.

The instructor started to turn the wheel with a slow-sounding crank, and Tori saw and felt the wires on either side of her start to move upwards.

Okay, here we go . . . she thought.

Tori had an image of how this could go in her mind's very, very imaginative eye- she'd do well for three seconds or so, maybe less, and then she'd fall. Maybe not as bad as Eren did with his broken belt or clasp or whatever it was, but she'd still fall.

And Tori wouldn't have an excuse like he did.

Then she'd be shipped to the fields, and she'd be alone again. And possibly homeless, since most of the people in what she called the refugee camp of Trost were basically that anyway.

. . . You know what?

Fuck this, she was not gonna just give up because of her shitty balance. Marco said she could do it, so Tori was gonna damn well do it.

And it was lucky that most of the time whatever imaginary scenarios her mind's eye decided to think up next were basically complete bullshit.

Because she did it.

Tori managed to stay upright.

Sure, maybe she was a little bit wobbly, but who the fuck wasn't wobbly on their first ODM test? Not counting Mikasa and apparently Marco, who were probably gods or something, and also Sasha who'd basically just swung there like she was saying 'look at how many fucks I give' or something.

Actually, now that Tori thought about it, her balance- shitty as it was- did have some upsides.

She'd first discovered these so-called upsides when she'd been on her way home on the bus, from Sixth Form. Normally when stopping and starting, the buses tended to sort of throw you forwards or backwards if you happened to be standing up (or sometimes even if you were sitting down, there were no fucking seatbelts despite the whole 'wear seatbelts in a moving vehicle' bullshit).

Tori, at first, had tried to stand like everyone else did when they were waiting to get off the bus.

She quickly found out, even before she knew why she had bad balance to begin with, that Tori was even worse than most people when trying to stay upright on the bus.

So, a month or two after being diagnosed, Tori had decided to try purposefully unbalancing herself while waiting to get off the bus- and guess what? It had worked. She still stumbled, but that was besides the point, and she didn't almost fall on her ass when the bus stopped.

Point was, Tori had found out that by forcefully unbalancing herself, she could actually sort of gain a balance that would be considered normal for most people.

Maybe this was the same thing.

If so, then she was fucking lucky.

Hell. Bloody. Yes.

After her turn was over, and Tori discovered that she was actually pretty good at it, she and Marco watched another set of six Cadets try and stay upright. Some fell on their asses, and without the excuse of having a broken belt like Eren, they were obviously not gonna make it through the testing stages.

Tori had to remind herself that she was the only one who knew about Eren's broken clasp thingy.

"How many people do you think Shadis is gonna cut?" Marco asked, after about three more sets of six Cadets.

"Uh, depending on how well they do tomorrow . . ." Tori pursed her lips and tried to think. " . . . 'bout a third of us."

"The good news is, it won't be either of us- will it?" Marco looked down at her and grinned. "I can't say as much for me, but you did pretty well."

"Dude. No. You don't get to say that, you were basically Mikasa-level." Tori told him shamelessly.

Marco's cheeks went red. Awww. He was so fucking adorable, seriously.

"I'm actually serious, Polo-boy." Tori went on.

Marco looked confused, but he was still embarrassed as he opened his mouth to speak. "Polo-boy?" he asked.

"You know." Tori shrugged. "Like Marco Polo."

"I . . . don't know who that is."

"You what." Tori looked at him. "How can you not know who fucking-"

Then she stopped.

Because, well, let's face it, in Attack on Titan it wasn't like they had much oppertunity to even go anywhere but the places inside of the damn walls. And Tori wasn't really sure who the fuck Marco Polo was herself, but she knew the game pretty well.

Maybe she could explain the game and give Marco a chopped version of who she thought Marco Polo was without sounding like she was insane and possibly from god-knows how many years into the future.

Or from another reality.

Whatever.

Marco was watching her. Now he just looked concerned instead of confused or embarrassed.

"I'll explain later, dude." she said.

oooo

"Oh, I guess that kinda makes sense." Marco said, after supper was over. "So, lemme see if I got this right . . ." Tori nodded for him to continue. "You're in a pool or something, and you play a game called Marco Polo- one swimmer shouts 'Marco' while their eyes are shut, and everyone else shouts back 'Polo' so that person can try and find them. It's like water tag! With the person being 'it' being pretty much blind, anyway."

"Yeah, we just need to find a pool so we can play it." Tori replied. "And more people. And someone who's willing to teach me how to swim."

Marco laughed.

They hadn't been the first out of the mess hall, more or less they were kind of some of the last to get out, but even so most people were still hanging around the barracks and the dinner hall until the bell went. Or until Shadis decided he'd had enough of the kids (though some of them were fourteen, so Tori wasn't sure if 'kids' was the right word when there were so many age variations) randomly hanging about in the middle of the camp.

She noticed Jean coming out of the boy's barracks, smirking to himself. Tori could probably guess, judging by his expression, that Eren had just tried to beg him and Connie for help in the aptitude tests- or, well, posture control . . . whichever.

"You know, you should cut your hair." Marco suddenly told her, while they were on their way over to the barracks.

"Huh?" Tori replied smartly.

What was this, some sort of expy of the conversation Mikasa and Eren had last night or some shit?

"It's really long, and you do have it tied up, but still." Marco went on. "You could cut it to-" He made a vague gesture towards her shoulders. "-about there, maybe?"

Tori grabbed a few of her dark red strands (yes, actual dark red, not ginger-red or whatever). True, her hair was fairly long, coming down just above her hips. But she'd assumed that it'd be fine in just being tied up, so Tori had left it.

Unfortunately, tying up her hair with two bands like she normally did (one to keep it in a ponytail and the other one further down said ponytail to stop it from getting literally everywhere) wasn't an option anymore since one of her bands had broken a couple of weeks ago.

"Yeah sure, sounds like a plan." she said, shrugging. "Does this dump have any scissors?"

"Most likely, but would you know what to do with them?" Marco asked her.

" . . . If I get lucky I might end up with some skin missing." Tori admitted.

Marco laughed. "Right, that settles it, I'll cut your hair for you. Don't gimme that look, my dad's a barber- he taught me some stuff."

Huh. That was unexpected. Oh well, good news for her, it meant that she didn't need to worry about Marco being a total amateur about cutting hair.

By the time they managed to find an instructor who actually knew where the fuck to find scissors in the damn boot camp, it was pretty much almost time to get back into the barracks. Which sucked, because it might have been a good idea to sort out her hair as soon as possible.

You know, since no one was actually sure when the hell they were starting on the real ODMs.

Despite what Eren had implied in the anime, the instructors didn't actually assign them ODM gear the second they got to the damn camp- which sucked, because Tori had been kind of looking forward to handling real ODM gear instead of the cosplay set she had.

But whatever, she'd get there at some point.

"Why are the instructors' offices so fucking far away from the barracks!" Tori exclaimed, several minutes of walking later.

"I dunno, maybe they didn't want to hear kids in the middle of the night." Marco shrugged.

"They need to get their fucking priorities straight."

Marco's only reply was a loud bark of laughter.

Yep, he was definitely a sassy bastard. Well, he had to be- if he wanted to keep up with her, that is. Tori was kinda looking forward to see how he handled her bantering/happily-arguing skills.

The conversation about cutting her hair started up as they finally rounded the corner of the dinner hall.

"So, you want it to your shoulders?" Marco was asking.

"Yup- maybe a little bit under, though, I still want it long enough to at least put tie up or something." Tori told him.

"Sure, I can do that. Straight cut, or . . .?"

"Who the fuck even wants straight, that's boring."

"Uneven it is." he grinned. "I'll just have to make sure I don't cut your neck open or something."

"You do know I'm not a Titan, yeah?"

"I dunno, you look like one." Marco retorted with a snigger.

"Oh it is fucking on, Polo-boy!"

OOOOOO

Renny: So yeah, original plan was to sort of get Jean into the trio in this chapter, but the whole thing seemed like way too forced- plus I wanna give the impression of actual time passing, not just like a single fucking day. Occasionally, due to the nature of the show (meaning the ton of shit that happens in like a single damn episode) some of the chapters might have way too much crap in them.

Marco: What she means to say is that if it feels like she's forcing stuff on you, let her know without being a flamer about it.

Renny: My version of you in this fic swears, why the hell don't you.

Marco: Because I'm polite. And I don't have to deal with Tori and Jean's . . . randomness.

Renny: Bullshit.

Marco: Randomness.

Renny: BULLSHIIIIIIT SAY IT.

Marco: Goodbye for now everyone!

Renny: Oh hell naw you don't get to pull that on me of all people!