A few weeks had passed and everyone had passed basic training. Sakura fainted from exhaustion the first time around but once she got used to it she was able to do it and stay on her feet afterwards. William completed the basic training with not much trouble at all, nothing special but nothing terrible about his times either. Lastly, Sam had also completed basic training but, in the process, she had injured her knee. This worried the three about if she would be able to work the maneuver gear or not consider you need a decent amount of balance to work it. Finally, the day had come for them to start their maneuver gear training and hone their skills as soldiers in the hand-to-hand training as well.

William looked back at Sakura who was standing behind him in line and gave her a reassuring smile. "Come on, everything is going to be fine." Sakura sighed and whispered to herself. "Yeah, I hope so…" Sam stood behind them in the same line and had a very angry look on her face. She had not gotten much sleep since she injured her leg and she was not looking forward to having to strain it in practice. Not to mention the fact that they really didn't have pain medicine so she just had to tough it out. Finally, it was William's turn to try the maneuver gear.

Shadis stood there next to the maneuver gear. "Well, look who it is. I hope for your sake your skills with the gear are better than your skills at fighting, you sorry excuse for a soldier." William scowled at him as he walked up to the gear and un-buckled it. He then fastened it around himself as they started to lift him up. He wobbled as soon as he left the ground but then steadied himself. He did so for about five minutes then they let him down. "I'm impressed." Shadis said with the same hate-filled look. William saluted, "Thank you sir. I've always had good balance." Shadis kept scowling. "Well now, isn't that fucking fantastic for you? Why don't you unfasten your tootoo and let the next person try you fuckin ballerina!" William quickly unfastened the harness and stepped out, once again scowling.

Sakura stepped up and Shadis gave his usual expression. "Alright egg role, let's see what you got." Sakura did the salute and shouted "Yes sir!" as she walked up to the harness. William was watching her from the side and smiled at her as he mouthed "You'll do fine." She smiled back and put the harness on. However as soon as they lifted her up it was quite obvious that she was not doing fine. As soon as her feet were off the ground she fell face first. Luckily she wasn't far off of the ground yet so it didn't hurt all that much. Shadis walked up to her, "Well, if this is your way of killing titans you mind as well kiss those tits of yours goodbye you fucking yellow dairy cow! Get off your ass and move it, now!" She started crying a bit as she unfastened the harness and walked into Williams arms. She started crying full out now. William stroked her hair to try to calm her down. "Shhh it's okay. You'll get it next time." He smiled down at her

Sam's eyes yet again turned slightly darker than usual. She stepped up and didn't even wait to be addressed before putting on the gear. Shadis looked at her. "Well Garrett, you look pretty goddamn confident. Let's hope you can do better than that egg roll over there." Sam looked at him with an expression that could only be described as "it is fucking on". They lifted her up and she wobbled for a couple seconds then evened herself out as she cringed in pain. Shadis was determined to break her so he let it go on for about 20 minutes, then they let her down. She unfastened herself and once again gave Shadis a look as she walked past that said "don't fuck with my friends". Shadis knew what it meant but also knew one of his students just proved him wrong, so he had to fix that. "Hey, Garrett," he said as she was walking away, "why don't you strengthen up that leg by running laps until everyone is finished with their training?" She didn't look back only give a complete face of hatred to the ground as she started running, stepping on numerous anthills on her run to try to hold back her frustration and anger.

Finally, after a few hours, everyone had finished and it was now getting towards dinner time. William and Sakura had finished their run and were waiting for Sam to come back from her run. Well, she came back, but there were two other people with her. "Hey!" The taller boy yelled out. "Long time no see!" Sakura's face brightened. "Hey, I'd know that accent anywhere! It's Tom!" She ran towards him and Sam and hugged him. Sam, meanwhile, was still ranting about what and asshole and a dickhead Shadis was. Tom ruffled Sakura's hair and smiled down. "Hey how've things been going?" Tom Finch. He was six foot one inches and weighed about 160 pounds. He was more muscular than William was and had more combat training and was only sixteen years old. He also had a very clear British accent, but not too strong. William walked up and gave him a one armed hug and a handshake. "Hey man," William said, "it's been way too long." The other person that was with Sam while she was on her rant spoke up. "Oh, sure, just forget about me then." She said with a smile and a kiddingly tone in her voice.

William walked over with a smile and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, shush your face I was getting' to ya." He gave her a hug as she hugged back. Cynthia Stryder. She was 16 and she was already part of the Garrison. She had been for a year now. She was of Chinese decent and was 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed 125 pounds. She had black hair that went down to her elbows. "So," she spoke as her and William parted from the hug, "how's Sakura holding up?" Sakura was telling Tom about everything Shadis had said to her and Tom was getting pretty furious. William responded with a sigh, "It could be going better… but it's nice to know she's not the only one who got those racist comments from him. Oh, that reminds me, hey Tom!" Tom turned his head. "Yeah man, what's up?" William walked over to him.

"Hey so how'd you do on the maneuver gear training?" Tom looked proud of himself. "I was the best in my line of trainees, why?" He asked curiously. William put his arm around Sakura's shoulder. "Do you mind helping this one out? She kinda messed up on her first day." He laughed a little and Sakura blushed and looked down. Tom responded as his cheerful self, "Yeah, sure thing. I'll work on it with her all throughout this week. By this time next week she'll be good and ready to fly." He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up, but then looked more serious. "Oh and, did you here? They found out that Titans are actually INSIDE the wall. They suspect the people obsessed with the wall know something, but they're not saying a damn thing." They all took the information to heart and everyone looked at Cynthia with a concerned look. "Oh don't worry." She said to all of them. "Even if the titans escape the wall there's still no way they'd climb it. And remember, I graduated the academy in a year, so I know how to handle myself!" She said in reassurance. With that, they all decided it was a good idea to get some sleep and turn in for the night. They said their goodbyes and left for their separate cabins.

Tom was right. After the next week Sakura was ready and able to use the maneuver gear. A few more weeks after practicing in the forest with fake titans, they started their combat training, and they all managed to pass, some more easily than others. In that period of training, it was said that Wall Rose, the wall Cynthia had guarded, had gotten swarmed with titans. There was no hole in the wall yet titans somehow got into the city. Cynthia hadn't of visited the rest of the time they were in training… The next few years were indeed hard on them all but eventually they all graduated. The only one out of the four of them that had made it into the top ten was Tom, at number ten.

William approached Tom after the graduation ceremony. "So, will you be joining the Military Police than?" he asked. Tom smiled slightly and replied. "Yeah, sorry to disappoint you but I'm not joining the Survey Corps. It's not because I'm afraid of going out and helping humanity or anything, it's just that… well… Let me put it this way for you. You guys need to go out there and give it your all to protect your squad mates and humanity in the way of gathering information. I need to go inside the walls and protect humanity from itself. For a while now I've heard that it's gotten pretty bad inside the walls so, I'm gonna do my best to try and fix it. I hope you understand. I don't want you to think I'm a coward or anything." William put his hand on Tom's shoulder and smiled. "You go in there and straighten things up man. I'm gonna miss ya while I'm out there." They both nodded and hugged each other. "Tell Sakura and Sam that I said goodbye, alright? I have to leave now because they're taking everyone who wants to who got in the top ten to the inner city. I'll see you guys there someday!" And with that he ran off, and Sam, Sakura, and William all started traveling towards the Survey Corps headquarters.