Hey, TheAnimeAsylum here! Just wanted to say thank you to all who have reviewed, the more reviews I get the more I'll write . Yes, I know my chapters are short, sorry, but I have a shit ton of homework at the moment, so to make up for that I'm trying to post a new (short) one whenever I have the time to write. If you want me just to make longer chapters and post them less frequently, I'm happy with that, just message me! Enjoy the longer-than-usual chapter…
CHAPTER 4
Eren woke up in his and Armin's dormitory room, after being discharged from the medical room the previous night. He rubbed his eyes and got out of bed, decided he couldn't be bothered to go and actually wake Armin up himself, so just chucked a pillow into the top bunk.
"MMPHHH!"
"There ya go. Wake up sleeping beauty, we have practise with Levi today."
Gasping, Armin threw off Eren's pillow and shook his messy blonde hair out of his eyes.
"Why cant you just wake me up like normal people do…" he complained, before climbing down from the bunk to get dressed.
A few minutes later Eren and Armin emerged fro their room, to join the crowd of noisy soldiers heading down the stairs to the mess hall.
"HOW'S IT GOING, BONFIRE BOY?" came a certain, snarky voice from the top of the stairs.
"JUST FINE, HORSEFACE." shouted back Eren, not even needing to turn around to know that jean's eyes had narrowed and that he had started pushing his way through the crowd to get to him.
"Walk faster," Eren whispered to Armin, "Jean's heading this way…"
They emerged into the mess hall, loud chatter reaching their ears as they joined the rest of the survey corps for breakfast.
Spotting Mikasa, Eren headed towards her, Armin walking off to join the queue and get him and Eren some breakfast.
"Woah… what happened to you guys?" Eren said, sliding into a space next to Mikasa.
The girls round the table all looked like they hadn't caught a wink of sleep, their faces haggard and weary.
Connie, who was the grinning widely, chose to answer Eren's question.
"Well, Eren, according to Sasha here, the girl you brought back caused just a teeny bit of trouble…"
Sasha, whose head had been lying on the table, looked up and scowled.
"Yeah Eren, we didn't sleep at all last night thanks to your shifter girl. She kept banging on the door, trying to get out, and she moved all the furniture about and trashed the entire room! She wouldn't shut up, kept banging around in there, even Krista couldn't sleep and she was all the way at the end of the corridor! And to top it all," Sasha said, banging her forehead down on the table, " there isn't any bread left at the serving hatch! Worst morning ever…."
Eren looked down, guilty. A bowl thumped down in front of him as Armin sat down next to him.
"Sorry, there was only porridge left…"
Eren looked down at the bowl of grey slop and slowly pushed it over to Sasha, who accepted it joyfully and dug in.
"Eren, that's not good for you, you know. You need to eat..." said Mikasa disapprovingly.
"Yeah bonfire boy, eat your breakfast. Perhaps if you get your strength up you can have a go at actually beating me in training."
Jean sat down beside Connie, smirking like always.
Eren ignored him, instead looked over to the captain's table. Erwin sat at the head of the table, looking bored as Hanji sat gesturing and talking animatedly to him and Mike, obviously explaining to him the events that had happened yesterday. Strangely enough, Levi was nowhere to be seen. I wonder what he has in store for us in training today, Eren thought to himself.
"Well," Connie stood up, breaking the silence, "me and Sasha are going, we don't wanna be late for Levi's lesson again… c'mon, Sasha, wake up…"
Sasha took her head off the table and followed Connie out.
"We should be going as well." said Eren to Armin and Mikasa, and the three stood up to follow Connie and Sasha out into the training grounds.
Levi stood, waiting for them in the middle of the field, Hanji by his side. It was a cold but sunny day, and the snow from yesterday had melted, leaving the grass underfoot slightly damp and covered in dew.
Behind him Eren could make out a large, cornered off rectangle.
"What d'you think that's for?" he whispered to Armin, pointing at the rectangle.
"No idea. It's probably for the lesson, but I can't imagine what it will be used for…" he answered back, looking puzzled. "Uh oh, Hanji's with him… that can't mean anything good." Armin added.
By now the rest of the 104th squad had filtered out, and they stood in line on the field, waiting for Levi to start the training.
As Eren looked around more, he realised there were more than just the 104th squad arriving, as other survey corps soldiers were slowly joining them.
Levi's expression did not change; obviously this was to be a group lesson.
He folded his arms and inspected them, then spoke.
"Well, you're actually on time today. That's an improvement." He said, looking straight at Sasha and Connie.
"You may have notice the squared off area of the field behind me. This will be used for todays lesson, so pay attention. What we're doing today is a little bit unorthodox, so we're going to have some other soldiers standing by, just in case. Also, Squad Leader Hanji will be assisting me today. " Hanji waved, and stepped forward to speak.
"Good morning, soldiers. Today's lesson has been arranged by Commander Erwin, who has asked me to explain it to you. Let me call your attention to this speci-… err, girl. As you may have heard, yesterday there was an accident in which we captured a titan shifter that had appeared in the woods. This girl is that shifter."
Mutters ran through the group, people staring uneasily at the small girl who was being led on to the field by a soldier, her hands bound and her head held high. She stared right back at the crowd, not scared or intimidated in any way.
"As many of you know, or don't in fact, shifters are humans who can turn into titans at will, and control them. It has come to our attention that some of you have never actually seen a shifter titan, or know how to identify one. The purpose of today's lesson is to teach you exactly that."
Whispers ran like wildfire round the group, and many people began to fidget uneasily. What exactly was going to happen? Was the girl going to turn into a titan?
"Ok, so, if you could all step back a bit. Don't worry, we have some survey corps veterans on hand, just in case anything goes wrong… but of course, it's all going to be fine!" Hanji said optimistically, though her words seemed to agitate the soldiers even more.
The girls hands were untied, and she walked into the middle of the cordoned off square. The soldiers held their breath, wondering what was going to happen next.
The child smiled at their anxiety, and accepted a small pocketknife from Hanji. She crossed her left hand over to her right side and promptly stabbed the knife into her shoulder. She did all this smoothly, not even wincing as the knife sunk into her flesh, as if she had gone through it a million times.
Bright light spiralled into the air, and the sound of the explosion caused the crowd to cover their ears. Wind whipped across their faces, and some of the soldiers were looking positively terrified by now.
At last it subsided, and there stood the titan, taller than it had been in the forest, about 13 or so meters this time. The crowd gasped, and people began to back away.
"Leave if you want," said Levi, stepping forwards. "But I will personally make sure that all those who refuse to take this lesson will be in the front scouting position on the next mission, as close to the titans as you can get."
Those who had been backing away stopped instantly, and decided that between the two choices, the lesson had the least risk of 'death by titan'.
The girl's titan stood up straight, and held out its arms so that Hanji could point out everything.
"So, as you can see, this titan is the ideal specimen for this lesson, as it is almost completely transparent. Now, this is because of a particular ability, which we call 'hardening'. As you can see, this crystal like substance cannot be broken by flesh-paring blades…" here she nodded to Levi, who deployed his ODM gear hooks into the titan's flesh, and swung towards its torso, swinging his blades towards it. The soldiers watched as the blades snapped, while the crystal was left without even a scratch.
"Ok, you may have notice that the girl is situated in the titan's neck area which…"
Hanji continued going over stuff that Eren and the rest of the 104th squad already knew, and the girl's titan complied to all of her requests to reposition itself in particular ways, so that the soldiers could properly see how a shifter titan's anatomy worked.
Eren's mind began to wander, and he found himself thinking about how on earth Hanji had got the girl to consent to having her titan examined and shown to the soldiers. I mean, Eren thought to himself, she wouldn't even tell us her name when we got her, let alone tell us how she ended up in the middle of the forest inside the wall…
At last, the lesson was over, and they were dismissed until after lunchtime, when they was supposed to be more training with Levi, this time being an advanced ODM gear manoeuvre lesson.
Levi came over to the 104th squad and said quietly,
"This squad is to wait behind, Hanji has a task for you."
The crowd began slowly dispersing, until only the 104th squad was left behind. Connie and Sasha were fooling around, kicking each other's legs and trying to make the other fall out of line.
Another large BOOM came from the cordoned off square, as the girl's titan exploded and left the girl sitting on the grass, a cloud of titan smoke coiling around her. Hanji went over to help her stand up, as she seemed quite tired by the length of time she had spent in her titan.
She refused Hanji's outstretched hand, and got up by herself shakily. Hanji accompanied her over to the squad, where Levi was still standing. The girl stood in front of them, next to Hanji, looking straight at the group with unblinking, honey-coloured eyes.
"Ok," Hanji spoke, rubbing her hands together. " So, this squad is the one that knows the most about titan shifters and so on, thanks to Eren here! So I'm entrusting you with a job. As you know, the survey corps is a little short staffed at the moment, and everyone has something to do, so there's no one left to look after her," she said, gesturing to the little girl. " So I'm afraid, what with you being the squad we can trust most, you're going to have to look after her.
"Only for the week, mind you. I'm sure we'll find someone else to look after her for you; it might take some time though. Also, this means that if you look after her well, you get certain privileges, such as time off, less lessons, first pick at the mess hall hatch," (Sasha looked up at this) "and so on. Of course, me, Levi and the commander will be watching to make sure any mishaps don't occur. All clear?"
Eren raised his hand.
"What is it, Eren?"
"Umm, I was wondering, how did you get her to cooperate?"
"It was the strangest thing. We asked her, 'what can we give you to make you work with us?' and all she wanted was paper, a few pencils, and a rubber. I guess she just really likes drawing. Remember, she's only a little child. She just wants to keep herself alive. And anyway, so far, she seems to be behaving."
The girl frowned, obviously annoyed at being talked about as if she wasn't there.
Krista bent down, and looked the girl in the eyes.
"Well, if we're going to look after you, we're going to need to know your name, aren't we? Would you mind telling me what it is?"
The girl looked up at Krista with her wide, innocent eyes.
"Fae… that's what I'm called." She said it strangely, as if she had only just remembered her name.
Krista smiled. "It's nice to meet you, Fae. Don't worry; we'll look after you. Would you like to come with me and the rest of the girls, and we can give you a tour of the dormitories?"
"Y-yeah. I would." Fae said, in a small, soft voice.
Krista held out her hand. Fae took it, and began walking with Krista, back inside. Ymir, Sasha and Mikasa followed.
Eren watched the small child's white-blond hair disappear inside the castle.
Fae… he thought to himself.
What a strange name.
A strange name, for an even stranger child…
Well, there ya go. I'm tired as hell now, so I'm gonna post this and then go to sleep. Hopefully another chapter tomorrow thanks for reading this one! (Eren sounds like such a pedo at the end, oh well XD…) p.s. please tell me in the reveiws section if there are any mistakes in my work, as im a grammar freak when writing and i HAVE TO GET IT RIGHT.
p.p.s, just so u know im definitley not gonna turn this entire story into "lets make eren and friends look after small children because fuck actual storylines its cute" kinda fanfiction...
well, see ya next chapter. thanks for reading :)