Jean didn't know what to think. He had begrudgingly taken Marco's advice and decided to watch Eren during their ODM gear training today to see whether Eren was actually as skilled with the gear as he claimed to be the other day. Hell, Jean had even spent a few hours the previous day trying to figure out how he could follow Eren around without drawing any attention to himself, he hadn't expected the perfect opportunity to land in his lap in the form of Shadis literally telling Eren to demonstrate a new maneuver they had been learning in their ODM Lectures.
Eren glided gracefully from one tree to the next before demonstrating the maneuver on the titan dummy by slicing the titan's right leg flying underneath its right arm and cutting its leg arm before stopping mid-air allowing himself to free fall until he was low enough to shoot out his cable cutting its left leg followed by its right arm before aiming and slicing it napes. Then Eren dropped next to Shadis without a care in the world, like he hadn't just demonstrated one of the most difficult ODM maneuvers with ease.
Jean hated to admit it but even he was impressed let alone the rest of the cadets who watched with their mouths hanging open, doing what Jean could only really describe as a fish impression. Not that he could really blame any of them, hell if Jean didn't have more self-control over his facial expressions, he would probably do the same impression. Marco on the other hand just looked pleased with himself as he turned to look at Jean.
Crap, he still had to say sorry after this. He had made that deal and he didn't want to let anyone else down like he seemed to do a lot lately. So, when the other cadets had piled out and Eren had finished talking to Shadis, Jean slowly approached him.
"Eren," he said, not sure how he should start this, does he go straight into the apology or just make small talk first.
"Oh Jean, is there something I can do for you?" Eren asked, his eyebrows frowned as he looked at Jean.
"I wanted to say…" Jean trailed off. He wasn't really a person to apologise and to be honest, he wasn't sure how to. Most of the time whenever he had picked a fight he knew what he was talking about and nine times out of ten he had been right and it was the person who he picked a fight with apologising to him but this time he couldn't have been more wrong. Eren could use the ODM gear exceptionally well, and if Jean didn't know better, he would have believed that Eren was a senior veteran and not a cadet. Now he had seen all of that, he wasn't surprised why the Scouting Regiment had snatched Eren up at the first chance they got, "I'm sorry for what I said the other day, it was wrong of me".
"I forgive you, few people believe I know how to use the gear, and mostly I kept it to myself because of that. I'm sorry if I offended you when I called you horse face" Eren said and Jean nodded. There! Apology over and now they could move on and he didn't have to deal with Marco pestering. Jean turned to walk away. It was lunchtime, and he knew the other cadets would have already headed to the mess hall.
"Um... Jean," Eren said, Jean turned around, "How about we put this all behind us and be friends instead,".
Jean started at Eren, then looked down at his outstretched hand, then he looked back up at Eren. Friends, he could do that, "Sure we're friends now".
It was pathetic, really! How these devils had spent years trying to keep the titans out yet there were so many faults in their walls as it was that if the mindless or abnormal titans had even a speck of intelligence left over from their previous human life, then it would have been easy for the titans to break into the walls, hell, it would've made the job for himself and his warriors much easier had the devils died out years ago. Escaping the wall had been too easy, slipping away unnoticed from the sleeping cadets and then to slip past the Garrisons Soldiers on duty before transforming into his titan form. It felt odd being in it after years, being trapped in his human form behind these walls.
It felt like he was finally coming home after such a long time. Being in his titan form made him remember the honour and vow he made to his country when he had been chosen to inherit one of the nine titans from the traitor Eren Kruger.
He hadn't travelled far from Wall Rose when nightfall fell; he had got little sleep the night before as he spent most of his time thinking and changing his plan before settling with his old plan once more. He sometimes hated being appointed the Vice-Captain role of the warrior unit, it put far too much more pressure on him and if he was being honest Gemini believed that Marcel was more suited to the role but Marcel didn't inherit the Jaws Titan like everyone was expecting, instead, he was being forced to wait thirteen years until their titans were passed down to the new warriors. He didn't regret capping his life expectancy; it wasn't like he had much to live for once his brother's titan was passed down three years before his own, he could only hope that when his thirteen years are up, he could prove that the Eldians forced to live in Libero weren't anything like the devils on this island but it wasn't something he could worry about now, the titans had finally stopped moving and Gemini felt safe enough to climb out his titan and set up camp, starting a fire from bits of rubble he had scavenged from the houses in the village he had taken camp in.
He still needed to finish writing his update for General Magath before he could even think about settling down for the night. He couldn't spend long sleeping anyway, it would be easier to cover more ground during the dark and earlier hours of the morning before the titans start moving, he needed to reach the docks by the next night if he was going to make it back to the training camp before anyone got suspicious of his disappearance, Reiner and Bertholdt could only lie for him for so long.
Dear General Magath,
The warriors and I have successfully infiltrated the devils' military and we will continue our search for the founder. In a previous letter, I mentioned that the government and royal family are fake, a puppet for the real royal family who has seemed to make it their mission to remain hidden. We expect that the higher ups of the Military are responsible for this and I hope when we spilt and join the three military factions we can uncover who in either the Military Police, Garrisons or Scouting Regiment is in cahoots with the royal family and the founder.
During our days off we will still search but we expect nothing to come from it, we still have over two years left of this pathetic excuse for military training before we can properly discover where the founder is hiding, we expect it to be in Wall Sina because that is where the false royal family is located and it is doubtful the founder would risk the titans getting hold of them. Armoured believes that we might need to force the founder out by destroying Wall Rose and make Wall Sina these devils last barrier, Female and Jaws suggest we should do it at the end of the training.
The altered memories have also removed these devil's understanding of the enemies that lurk outside the walls. They do not know what the titans truly are or do they know what lives inside their walls. They would not handle a full-scale attack from all the warriors or the powerful military. Their only chance to fight is the ODM gear they used to fight titans, their other weapons are useless and sorely outdated, their technology is backward, and they would not stand to survive an attack from Marley's powerful military.
I will update you on any plan changes or breakthroughs whenever they occur.
Your faithful warrior
Gemini
Gemini got up at the crack of dawn before the titans started stirring from their comatose state and shifted into his titan form. The wind had blown the fire out halfway through the night, and irritatingly Gemini couldn't find his letter for General Magath in his things. He could only assume the wind blew it away, and he didn't have time to go looking for it. He still had a lot of ground to cover in an insufficient space of time.
The steamboat was in when he finally arrived at the docks late that night. They knelt four Eldian prisoners on the thirty-foot wall, ready to be turned into titans.
"Vice-Captain, we weren't expecting to see you here," General Calvi said glaring at Gemini as he approached, walking around the back of the wall after shedding his titan form. General Calvi didn't like any of the warriors, he had been adamant that Gemini shouldn't have inherited his titan and instead, it should have gone to Porco but General Magath had the final say since he worked with the warrior unit whilst General Calvi only interacted with them if he had to.
"I have an update for General Magath about our mission," Gemini said pulling the re-written letter from his pocket and passed it over to the General who begrudgingly took it, "I better be off, it's a long trek back to wall rose if you excuse me, Sir,".
Gemini bowed before walking to the end of the wall, hand in his mouth, ready to transform when General Calvi spoke up.
"General Magath believes that you and the other warriors are failing your mission, you devil knows that transforming into titans is the only thing you are good at. If we don't get any results from you in the next few months, they are planning to send the Beast and Cartman titan here to do your job,".
"Then we will look forward to working with them. My letter explains everything. Goodbye General" Gemini didn't waste any longer before biting down on his hand and jumped off the wall. He briefly saw the other humans being pushed off after being injected with the titan serum. His large titan feet landed on the ground, he could only be lucky that in a few hours the titans would once again become inactive but unlike the previous day, he didn't have the luxury to sleep, he had already lost plenty of time talking to General Calvi and re-writing that letter, he now had a small window to return to Wall Rose and sneak back into the training camp for supper before anyone noticed he hadn't shown up, the last thing he needed was the instructors and fellow cadets badgering him constantly about where he's been. Gemini didn't look back at the small glimpse of Marley as he started running towards the wall.
Mikasa started off simple. She knew she couldn't rush this; she needed to plant seeds of doubt in the instructors' minds without drawing too much attention to herself, she couldn't risk Eren or the others discovering what she was doing, it wasn't like she was in Eren's good books at the moment or some of the other for a matter of fact. She had nearly broken Reiner's arm, hit Christa, and picked a fight with Ymir and that had happened in the last week, by trying to protect Eren she was only driving him away. She didn't blame herself though, if Eren's so-called friends didn't get in her way then she couldn't need to resort to violence. Though now she thought about it, she probably shouldn't have targeted Christa because now the entire training camp hated her and even Armin refused to speak with her unless he had to.
It was easy at first, gaining points was important to completing their training, they were scoured on everything they did, and those who kept getting low scores were deemed unfit for duty. It worked for the most part Eren was getting lower points and scores however, after a while it stopped. Behind her back, Eren started training more with the other cadets and Shadis started marking him on those extra training sessions than the actual ones. Mikasa changed her tactics. She knew how serious cheating was and how it will get people killed if a soldier doesn't know his stuff; it was the only way to get someone kicked out of the Corps without their performance taken into review, it also helped that Eren was the only person who got one hundred percent on their titan knowledge exam, the only person who was close enough to Eren's score was Armin with ninety-four percent, so it wasn't hard to convince one of their instructors that perhaps Eren had cheated, Mikasa wasn't sure why this hadn't worked, she watched Shadis take Eren into his office where they remained for nearly an hour before Eren resurfaced whispered something to Ymir and that was it. He wasn't kicked out; he wasn't humiliated in front of everyone for potentially cheating on an exam. When she tried to bring it up again to another instructor, she was dismissed and told to stop feeling jealous of her fellow cadet.
She knew that she had her work cut out for her when she tried again a few months later; they had been at the training corps for seven months now and so far Eren was the prodigy soldier who had a bright career in the military and everyone seemed to respect him; he was notoriously good at hand-to-hand combat, which he proved early on after kicking Jean's ass a few months back. So this time she went after his hand-to-hand combat skills. Whenever she was partnered with him, she tried to knock him down; she tried to show everyone that Eren wasn't that good, but each and every time he threw her off and knock her off her feet. Each and every time he proved to everyone why he was first in hand to hand combat.
She had to change her tactics again; she returned to her only sabotaging attempt, which worked the first time around stealing points and lowering his scores, but somehow Ymir, Reiner, and Christa figured out what she was doing and intervened, blocking off any opening for her to strike. Mikasa tried to sabotage Eren's important tests but because she only had a small opportunity to grab Eren's and change some answers, she wasn't paying attention to which one she picked out and discovered the following day when Eren once again got one hundred percent that she had grabbed Connie's instead by mistake.
One whole year later and she was desperate, Mikasa was trying anything and everything she could think of to make Eren look bad or incompetent but now he seemed like he had his own bodyguard in the form of Reiner and Ymir it was practically impossible, hell, she was accidentally making him look good. She had tried everything, and nothing was working. She even tried to start a rumour on Eren, but this was days after she punched Christa and no one was giving her the time of day.
Mikasa had been so sure that her plan would work, she should be back in the fields with a grumpy yet alive Eren but no she was still here with Eren getting further and further away from her. A whole year had passed since they joined the cadet corps and each and every day Eren proved himself to be more of a dedicated and skilled soldier, at this rate if Eren ever did something wrong Shadis and their other instructors were going to give him a pass because Eren was worth a few hiccups when they could produce a soldier who may even rival Humanities Strongest. And Mikasa couldn't let that happen. She would sell her soul to the Earth Devil if that meant Eren would quit the military.
She was getting desperate now, Armin had all but accepted that Eren was becoming a soldier and was now going to him to get help with his ODM gear or physical training. Armin had even dared to tell her to give up on Eren! That was the last thing that was going to happen. She would save Eren if it were the last thing she did, and she still had one more trick up her sleeve. His gear, Eren could only enter the scouting regiment if he could use his gear so, if his gear were to miraculously stop working during the test next week then Eren would be seen as incompetent and Shadis wouldn't have the choice but to get rid of him. Yes, if Eren's gear suddenly stopped working whilst airborne, Eren would come out of it with a broken arm or leg, but that would heal over time and Eren would be safe. A broken bone was worth Eren's life.
Eren couldn't believe his eyes. He'd been planning to do some extra training with Reiner, Bertholdt, Ymir and Christa before their next lecture on Titans. The others had already grabbed their gear with Reiner helping Bertholdt and Ymir helping Christa with their gear straps, the scene with the two couples was making Eren feel incredible single so he shuffled away from the group to put his gear on in peace when he realised something wasn't right. The one side of his gear felt lighter than the other, he knew what his gear felt like, this was a part of him, he knew every nook and cranny, every scratch and dent. Eren knew how heavy the gear was meant to feel on each hip, and something wasn't right.
He took the gear off immediately. If he tried to use it without rectifying whatever was wrong, it could cause an accident. He was not raised by the scouting regiment for a few months and trained under its old commander to make mistakes and crashing in this gear. Eren checked the cables, nothing. He looked at the turbine which powers the winch to the cables, but everything was still in working order. Eren then looked at the straps attached to his legs to see whether the buckle was coming loose, but still nothing. It made little sense. His whole gear was in working order, yet he knew something was wrong, he could feel it in his bones, something wasn't right with his gear. Then he saw it, a small puncture in the gas cylinders, small enough for someone not to instantly notice and completely impossible to accidentally cause. Eren gasped in realisation – someone had tampered with his gear.