"WE'RE NOT GONNA MAKE IT!"

"KEEP FIRING!" Explosions. The sounds of bullets whizzing overhead. Fires raging across the city.

Thunderous stomps. The Locust were converging, with three brumaks closing in on the hospital. Ammo low. No back-up. A dead end.

The lead brumak roared and fired a volley of rockets, one of them careening straight towards her...

"ASHLEY!"

...

The Onyx Guard opened her eyes. The morning sun glowed orange in the sky, a fine layer of dew coating the land. She reached up to put a hand on her face, feeling the sweat dripping down her skin. It was just a memory. Nothing too bad. Ashley could deal with the occasional nightmare about the Locust War. She'd had far worse than waking up to a horrible dream, if the scars on her face were any testament. Still the memories of defending Jacinto hospital haunted her, because it was her home. When it sank, it might as well have taken the last strip of her heart that wasn't hardened. Funny how it worked out, she lost her home and so did the Locust.

But now, apparently, they found another here. Ashley had to scramble her memory remembering where she was. Somewhere not on Sera. A cadet training ground against titans. That was it. By the looks of things, she had slept in. The rest of the cadets were busy training. Ashley could hear them outside, talking like normal people.

Deciding that an introduction was due, she got out of her small bed and donned her black armor. Her breastplate locked on and helmet equipped, she knelt down to pick up the two weapons she brought with her; her lancer, the same one that she had been using for years, and the sawed-off that she had found in the corpse of a titan. Sliding the sawed-off on her back for safety (she really didn't want the cadets to use it), she reached over to the dresser for her lancer.

Only to feel open air.

Thinking she missed, she turned her head. The rifle wasn't there. She leaned over, seeing if she had knocked it down in her sleep, but didn't find anything. Getting a little desperate and slightly fearful that something had happened to her gun, she looked underneath her bed. Still nothing.

Where the hell is it?

...

-Half an hour ago...-

"Rise and shine, ladies!" Krista yelled out, happy as can be with the gentle rising of the sun behind her. Everyone else groaned or either slid out of bed like zombies. Mina bumped her head on the roof, and Sasha promptly rolled out of bed and on to the floor. The rest of the cadets slowly woke up, still wishing that they had several more hours of sleep before training began.

Krista was always first up. No matter what. She probably didn't want anyone to get punished by Shadis, bless her gentle soul.

"Krista, c'mon babe, five more minutes..." Ymir mumbled into her pillow.

"Ymir, if you don't get up, you're gonna miss breakfast! And you know how much Sasha eats!"

"HEY!"

Ymir turned over to see the pouting, far-too-cute-to-be-threatening face of Krista boring holes into her eyes. She sighed. Her future wife really was a worrywart. With a mighty sigh, Ymir tossed herself out of bed and onto the floor, landing with the grace of a drunk monkey. It was totally on purpose. She just wanted to feel Krista's smooth skin when the smaller girl caught her. "Ymir, quit doing that!"

"Sorry girl, too tired to care." Ymir smirked, and turned her head to the newest member of the female dorm. "You gonna wake her up as well?"

Krista eyed the slumbering Onyx Guard. "N-No. To be honest, she scares me. All those scars make her look so mean."

"She's not that bad." The two of them turned their heads to see Sasha putting on a relatively clean pair of pants. "True, she punched Connie in the face and killed a bunch of little monsters and nearly wrecked the dining hall, but other than that she's pretty normal. For an outsider." Sasha smiled at the duo and turned her head to O'Malley's body. She could only see her back, she had turned to the wall in her sleep, hiding her face. Her tattered blonde hair still uneven, almost like a crazy bush. The rest of the cadets stared on at Ashley, some of them realizing that she had stayed overnight in their dorm. A good amount had left to the training grounds, like Annie, who didn't really care about the mysterious woman in their midst.

And then Ymir noticed the two guns at the base of Ashley's bed. She'd heard one of them in action, the one with teeth, but the other, smaller one she hadn't. Truth be told, Ashley fascinated Ymir. Her armor and her personality was something that Ymir found attractive. Those guns, however...

Ymir walked over to the weapon, the one with the teeth beneath the holster, and picked it up.

"YMIR!" Krista harshly whispered at her friend. "What are you doing?! That's not yours, put it down!"

The gun was heavy, made entirely of metal. Ymir noticed that there was a crank at the side of the gun, where she guessed was the mechanism for the teeth on the underbarrel. If she had noticed, there were small tally marks on the grip of the rifle, numbering to nearly sixty.

"This is cool." Ymir said, toting the gun. Krista was too busy panicking to say anything. If Ashley woke up to see her friend playing with her gun there was no telling what the outsider would do. "Hey Krista, what would the guys say about this?" Ymir smirked to her smaller friend as she put the gun on her shoulder.

"No, Ymir! You're not taking it!" Krista said, putting her foot down. Ymir, however, was already out the door. Krista's eyes widened with terror. "YMIR! This is a really bad idea!" She cried out, chasing her friend down who had decided to do something really dumb.

...Objective: Find your Lancer...

Ashley rubbed her helmeted head in confusion. She had clearly remembered putting her lancer down on the foot of her bed right next to the sawed off. There weren't any other places besides her own borrowed bunk that she might have placed her rifle. She'd checked under her bed, done that. Under the dresser next to her bed, done that. Other than that, there seemed like no other possibility for her lancer to have been missing.

Unless it wasn't missing.

Ashley suddenly felt cold fear ping inside her stomach. One of the cadets must have either known where it went, or they took it. Immediately she rushed out of the female dorm as fast as she could, hoping that she had enough time to avert a tragedy. The moment she opened the doors, she saw several groups of trainees either running along the course in a rectangular pattern, practicing hand-to-hand combat, or testing the ODM gear. Scanning the scene, she still didn't find her lancer.

"Dammit." Her voice, strained with phlegm, croaked out in frustration. "How the hell am I supposed to find it when-?"

"Can I see it?" Ashley perked at the sound of a familiar voice coming from the male dorm, right next to where she was. Jogging her memory, she realized that it was Connie who was talking, and the it that he was talking about might be her lancer. There seemed to be a whole myriad of voices coming from the male dorm, each trying to talk over the other. Quickly she walked to the male dorm and knocked on it twice. It took a couple moments before someone opened the door.

"Hey Ashley." Armin said, opening the male dorm to her. "What are you doing here?"

"Where is it." Ashley said plainly, not in the mood for games. Armin paled, the little beads of sweat giving Ashley all the indication that he knew what she was talking about. It was hard to see through her helmet, but Armin knew that she was scowling. The young lad certainly didn't want any trouble, so he opened the door and let her in. And lo and behold, there it was. Her lancer was currently on Connie's lap as he sat down on his bed, a lower bunk. His deer-in-headlights look was almost enough for her to break out in laughter. The rest of the cadets eagerly backed off from her, and to her right she saw there were girls in here as well, three of them. She remembered Ymir and Mikasa, and it took a while before she remembered Krista's name.

"Oh boy." Reiner muttered, readying himself for the inevitable shitstorm coming their way. Bertoldt was close by, sweating like crazy.

Ashley simply walked over to Connie and struck out an open palm.

"Connie." She said, like an annoyed parent. He quickly gave her the rifle, not wanting to piss her off. Ashley slung the rifle on her back, thankful that it was returned to its rightful place. After a couple seconds of silence, she looked around the cadets, looking for the guilty party. It was then Connie, as if knowing what she was looking for, pointed right at Ymir. The taller woman instantly saw this.

"Connie Springer, you limp-dicked-!" She began, but not before Ashley coughed and got her attention.

"Normally I'd let my superiors deal with stuff like this," She said, "but right now I'm just gonna warn you to not do that again. Is that clear?"

"Yeah, sure." Ymir shrugged, and Ashley thought it was enough. She'd be putting these kids through hell later. Her ears picked up the ringing of bells.

"Good. Now c'mon, your training's about to begin."

As she left, they all wondered just what she meant.

...

"EYES UP TRAINEES!" Shadis roared over the poor saps in front of him. The 104th had eaten breakfast and gotten dressed in their attire, and now it was time for their daily chew-out thanks to their instructor, who many guessed had colluded with the devil at some point in his life. Nobody could be this cruel. Curiously enough, most of the trainees weren't paying attention to Shadis. Rather they were eyeing up the woman next to him, the outsider, who stood about a meter to his right standing attention. This got many trainees confused to why Ashley was standing next to Shadis.

"Is this part of the process?" Connie leaned over to Jean, who wiped his eyes to keep them open.

"I dunno. Maybe they're gonna give us something new." He reasoned, mumbling his sentences. Thankfully the two were outside of Shadis' peripheral vision.

"As I know many of you are wondering, this is Ashley O'Malley!" Shadis yelled out, giving a hand to said Onyx Guard. "She is from the outside world, where titans do not exist!" The murmurs that were once near silent were now deafening. "As of today, she is my assistant instructor, and you will listen to everything she says! She will be teaching you the combat techniques and strategies of her world, and you will participate! You will respect her decisions and follow her lead! Failure to do so will relinquish your lunch privileges!" If he was paying attention, Sasha's eyes widened with fear. Everyone else was too busy wondering just what Ashley was going to teach them, or how she got to be assistant instructor in the first place. That wasn't a position for free.

"Um, sir?" A timid voice called out.

"What is it Armin?!" Shadis thundered, and the blond quivered under his instructor's gaze. "Were my instructions not clear enough?!"

"N-No sir, they were!" Armin replied, fearing that he would lose control of his bowels. "I'm just w-wondering... if Ashley's from the outside world, how can anything she teach be helpful to us!" Shadis was slightly taken back by the backbone of one of his weakest cadets, but he was not alone in his questioning.

"That's right! An outsider doesn't deserve to teach us on this stuff!" Another trainee yelled out, and Shadis didn't know who it was.

"Yeah! As if she has anything to offer!" Someone else said.

"She's useless for us!"

"We can't anything useful from an outsider!"

"Yeah, she'll get us all killed!"

Shadis was about unleash his almighty wrath on the now loudmouthed trainees. The tick mark on his head was built to burst, how dare these insolent trainees question his judgment. And as he opened his mouth, Shadis was beaten to the punch by someone else.

"BE QUIET!"

The whole camp, and those around it, suddenly became dead quiet after hearing the sheer volume behind Ashley's voice. Even Shadis seemed impressed with how Ashley was able to completely silence the rambunctious trainees from talking without any use of anger, and simply being loud. Those who were about to speak wisely chose to keep their mouths shut, not wanting to evoke the outsider's anger. Ashley turned to Shadis and nodded, allowing him to speak again.

"Right. As of now, the 104th squad will participate in Ashley's training starting today!" Shadis thundered, and stalked off back to his cot, probably to go get a drink. And as he left, many of the trainees then focused their attention on the Onyx Guard, who stood strong in front of them all.

"First I'm gonna answer some questions." Ashley pondered over the many heads of the trainees and saw a hand raised. "Yes, cadet! Name and question, first!"

"Reiner Braun, ma'am!" The bulky blond replied. "I wish no disrespect, but I might speak for all of us when we wonder how an outsider can train us to kill titans!"

Ashley stood there for a moment. At first, Reiner thought that she was gonna go ballistic, and so did many others, but to their surprise she simply chuckled.

"To answer your question cadet, I'll give you a little information. As all of you know, there are three branches of your army that you can join, the Garrison, the Survey Corps and the Military Police! I will not be training you to simply fight titans, I and Shadis will be testing your fighting prowess to see who is able to fight both titan and human enemies of your state! Those who make top marks will be allowed entry into the Military Police, and the rest will either choose the Garrison or the Corps." Ashley answered, and many of the cadets were shocked. To say that they would be fighting humans, their own kind, was troubling. Then again, they were soldiers. Unless told, they would do what they were trained to do; protect humanity from all threats, inside and out.

To Jean, this presented more trouble than it was worth. To be fair, he was deeply humbled by Ashley ever since the time where she saved his life from the little monsters and when she diffused the fight between him and Eren. However, he didn't know how she would play out the squad and how she would train them. He wanted to be in the interior, where he could keep an eye out on his mother and not have to deal with the titan threat.

"I advise you to not panic." She began. "Despite that I am Shadis's assistant, there are only two added classes to your schedule. Those given to you beforehand by Shadis will remain, and I will be there for assistance if need be." She noticed another hand up. "Yes, cadet!"

"Mina Carolina, ma'am! What classes will you be teaching?" She asked.

"Marksmanship and weapons testing. This includes your ODM gears." Ashley answered, hopefully satisfying the trainees from any further questions. "Is that it? Dismissed cadets, your training starts now!"

...

"So she's gonna teach us how to kill people." Armin mused, and very uncomfortable with the statement he just made. It was some time after Ashley's initiative, and the trainees were going about their business inside the training grounds. Armin and a couple other cadets, which included Thomas, Reiner, Jean and Eren, were walking towards the hand-to-hand combat ring near the lake. Midday, and the sun was beating down on their heads.

"Soldiers shouldn't be afraid to make the call, Armin." Reiner said behind him. "We don't get to say who or what we fight, it's what we do."

"Well, yeah. But it's just so confusing. The ODM gear wasn't designed to kill people, just titans." He replied.

"Remember what Ashley said, Armin? One of the classes she'll be teaching is marksmanship, so that means guns." Thomas said, looking over his shoulder to see Ashley behind them, walking a slow pace towards the rings. "Guns aren't really good against titans, but humans are a different story."

"Jeez Thomas, you're sounding like a serial killer when you say that stuff." Jean spoke up, wrapping an arm around Thomas' shoulders. "Trust me, I don't think shooting a musket's too hard, unless we're gonna use those big guns on Ashley's back." He said, eyeing the two weapons on the woman. "I can only imagine what those things could do to you." Memories of her killing the little creatures inside the mess hall burned in his head.

"Weren't you there when Ymir stole the one with teeth on it?" Thomas asked.

"Yeah, I was there. I have to admit, that girl's got some serious balls stealing one of the outsider's weapons."

Their conversation departed as they entered the rings, preparing for their daily hand to hand techniques. Eren and Reiner instantly paired up, finding a small spot to practice on. They noticed that many of the other trainees they knew were here too; Sasha and Connie goofing off of course, and Bertoldt and Annie sticking together in their own ring, Armin watching nearby. By the looks of things, Bertoldt was getting his ass handed to him on a silver platter. Ashley entered last, getting a position to where she could see the entire place with her own eyes.

The hand to hand combat techniques of the training came were simple; disarm the rogue attacker's knife, and the duel is won. There were many cadets who were taking this with stride, and others who made this serious. Ashley didn't exactly know just how Shadis would grade something like this, but she wondered if it was based on both skillful tact and a bit of ruthlessness. She watched Eren and Reiner fight, and how the smaller lad was unable to hold back and slam the blond into the ground.

"Sorry. I'm not really good at holding back." Eren apologized and offered a hand for Reiner.

"It's alright. Now, let's see how you do as the attacker." Reiner stuck out the knife's hilt for Eren to take, but the boy took some time looking at it. "What are you waiting for?"

"This training makes no sense." Eren admitted. "Even with Ashley beginning to train us, we're not exactly gonna pick a fight with someone our own size."

"Something tells me that Ashley's doing this for something else." Reiner said, and Eren looked up in surprise.

"What do you mean?"

"Remember those little monsters that attacked us when Ashley first arrived here? What did she call them, tickers?" Reiner began to explain. "Last night, while you were asleep, Armin talked about how whatever enemy of Ashley's people were had used the little monsters as fodder, easy victims for her. And now she's going to train us to kill people, and yet, here she is, watching us train with knifes and close quarter combat. You know what I think? I think she's training us for something bigger." Reiner finished, and Eren was staring up at him with wide eyes.

"You mean, fighting whatever killed her people?" Eren said.

"Exactly. Whatever's out there ain't through with her yet, and whatever might come, we oughta be prepared. We have no idea just what her enemies actually are." Reiner reasoned, taking a look at the watchful Onyx Guard. "If they do decide to show their faces, it'd be better off if we knew how to fight them than to not."

Eren furrowed his brow. If he had been watching his feet, then he would have seen the ground rumbling and pebbles dancing, but only for a fraction.

"And that gets me thinking..." Reiner mused, rubbing a hand on his chin and grinning mischievously, "If she's supposed to be the best of the best from her land, just how good is she?" Reiner chuckled. "C'mon, I have an idea."

Ashley was busy rubbing the optic covers of her helmet when she saw two of the cadets walk up to her. One of them was smiling, and the other was trailing him and looked confused. She recognized them as Reiner and Eren, respectively. As they neared, she put her helmet back on her head, hiding her face.

"You need something, cadet?" She asked.

"Yeah, actually. I wanna ask you something." Reiner said mockingly, trying to rouse her up. "How does some second-rate cannon fodder like you wind up as assistant instructor? Smells like bullshit to me. Makes me wonder if you and Shadis are a little closer than expected, if you catch my meaning." Reiner chuckled, and Eren seemed horrified that his friend would say something like that to her. He stared in wonder at Reiner, and then turned his attention to Ashley.

He wished he didn't.

The sheer volume of rage pouring out of that black armor would have made even the most bloodthirsty titan back off. Her fists were clenched into furious balls, tightening so hard that Eren swore he could hear the fabric between her armor stretch itself. He knew her helmet did no justice in hiding whatever enraged facial expressions that were behind it, as he could see the front of her helmet darken, the glowing blue optics shrouded in shadow.

If any of them had been paying attention, the rest of the training had stopped dead silent. Everyone was watching the spectacle.

Good god, she's mad. You wouldn't pay me enough to get between her and Reiner. Eren said internally, and failed to notice that Reiner snuck up behind him and pushed forward.

"Alright Eren time to shine!" Reiner said, putting his hands on Eren's shoulders. "Go show Ashley what you're made of!"

"W-Wait a minute! I don't want to fight her! REINER!" His cries were unaided as he was shoved forward into the ring, him standing on one side and the Onyx Guard on the other. His grip on the knife was half hand and half sweat as he noticed that Ashley slowly took her weapons off her spine. One in each hand, the rifle and the sawed-off. She spied Armin and Annie standing in the growing crowd.

"Hold these. Drop them and you're dead men walking." Ashley warned, and gave her weapons to the two cadets. Armin was trembling underneath Ashley's shadow and Annie still seemed indifferent to the whole scenario, but still held tight to the sawed-off. She looked over to see Armin struggling to hold the hefty lancer. The scrawny lad was heaving under the weight of the gun, and it would have been hilarious were it not rather sad to see him try and hold it straight.

"Want to trade?" She asked, and he gladly took the smaller weapon. Thankfully for Armin, the sawed-off was much lighter than the lancer.

...Objective: Defeat Cadet Eren...

The two combatants evened themselves on different sides, Ashley on one and Eren on the other. Eren clutched the knife like a lifeline. Ashley simply turned her body slightly to the right, not even bothering to put up her fists. At first, her intimidation alone was almost enough to make Eren consider a forfeit. However, if he lost his nerve in front of her, what chance did he have fighting titans? He couldn't let his fear take control of him. A part of his mind reasoned to why Reiner got Ashley so mad in the first place, for if her enemy was as terrifying as titans were, then he would need to steel his nerves. This would also help him fight his own enemies as well.

"Alright, I hope you're ready. Heads up!" Eren shouted, and charged at Ashley like he usually did. The strategy remained the same; aim for the neck. Mid-lunge, Eren's arm plunged for the "kill" and aimed to hit Ashley in the jugular. The Onyx Guard simply did nothing, almost tauntingly. Eren grit his teeth as his strike missed as Ashley stepped back a single foot, and made him fumble. He regained his footing and went for the attack again, raising his knife to hit the Onyx Guard.

Halfway his strike was intercepted by Ashley backhanding his arm, causing the knife to fumble out of his hand.

Eren barely had time register what had happened before her right hand, now a fist, collided with his jawline. The impact was powerful enough to send the boy sprawling across the ground some distance away from Ashley. Everyone ushered a collective gasp at the sight of Yaeger getting his ass flattened, but there a few who were hiding their laughter in. Like Jean. Seeing him eat dirt was too funny.

"Target subdued." She announced, and picked up the knife and tossed it to Reiner. "Your go."

Reiner had paled during Ashley's fight with Eren. The fact that she had sent him flying was no hiding the fact that she was strong. Ridiculously so.

"Err..." He gulped. He took a second to reconsider the offer.

"Do it, Reiner." Eren said, turning his head. Though it sounded more like "Ooh et Ayner." with the bruise he was sporting on his jaw, he made it clear that it was his turn. The cadets turned to the big man, whispering to see if he would put up more of a fight than Eren.

Reiner sighed, seeing no way out other than fighting her. "Guess it's a soldier's duty to uphold the command."

"Get ready, here I-!"

WHAP!

And flat on his face he went.

...

"Ow. Ow. Ow." Eren muttered as Mikasa continued to dab his bruise with water. After Reiner and Eren's little scuffle with the Onyx Guard, Mikasa had taken the liberty of retrieving a wet towel to sooth the swelling bruise on Eren's jaw. For the boy, it felt like Ashley's fist had tried to rearrange his teeth. He would have continued to touch his new injury but Mikasa was adamant about keeping his hands off of his face. Reiner hadn't faired much better, as he was last seen walking off to Annie and Bertoldt with a large blue mark across his forehead.

"Eren, keep still." Mikasa chided her "brother" as she tried to soothe his jaw.

"I can't, Mikasa. Marksmanship class is soon and I don't want to be late." Eren responded and took Mikasa's hand, and failing to notice her blush, so that she could keep up when he began to sprint towards the open area where their outdoor classes took part. Coincidentally the area where the firing range was, it was at the back of the cabins, and the two of them could see the roofs of their dorms from above.

"Hurry up guys, you're gonna be late!" Connie yelled as he and Sasha ran beside them.

"I told you." Eren looked back and saw that Mikasa was hiding her face in her scarf. Taking no part of it, Eren continued to run where he could see the large line of cadets formed in front of a square. Eren and Mikasa joined the group at the end of the line, noticing that Ashley was standing by as she noticed that everyone that is accounted for.

"Listen up recruits!" Ashley said loudly, getting everyone's attention. "Today you'll be learning how to shoot! But this isn't just about you putting a bullet between your enemy's eyes. This is about learning to care and clean your weapons." Ashley then walked over to a stack of crates and kicked them open with a thrust of her foot, revealing that there were muskets inside. She leaned down to pick one up and show her class.

"This is your weapon, a flintlock musket! Your appropriate range is fifty yards. You will learn the basics of cleaning, reloading, and proper shooting positions in this class! Any questions?" Ashley said, and saw a hand in the back fly up. "Yes, you in the back!"

"Krista Lenz, ma'am! Will you assist us if we need help? None of us have ever shot before." Krista said nervously.

"I understand that, cadet. Yes, if there is any issues on your posture or weapon, I will gladly assist." The Onyx Guard responded gracefully. "The rifle handed to you today will be the one you keep. They are yours, and so you must take care of them." Ashley said as she gave the musket in her hand to Krista, and the young girl took it with slight trepidation.

"An important lesson cadet." Ashley began as Krista inspected her new rifle. "Guns are not evil, nor are they cruel. They are tools. Those who use them for such purposes are the cruel ones." She talked as she gave out a musket to each trainee, and by the time she was done each cadet was going over their rifle. Connie had stuck a finger down the barrel and felt the ridges inside. "Connie, when I said to care for it, I didn't mean for you to get your finger stuck."

"What are you talking about, my finger ain't stuck." Connie smirked and tried to pull his finger out, and found that he was indeed stuck. "Okay, it is."

"Sasha, be a dear and help your boyfriend." Ashley rubbed her temples. Sasha and Connie both blushed bright red and many of the other trainees couldn't help but laugh.

"Alright, who thinks they can shoot that tree?" Ashley pointed towards the forest, where she had put up an array of targets hanging on the sides of trees. There was about half a dozen of them, all colored white with a single black dot in the center. Planted about a hundred feet away, it was just in range of the gun.

"Eh, I'll try." Jean shrugged and aimed for the tree. He put his shoulder on the stock and his grip on the barrel was sturdy enough for a clear shot. He noticed at the corner of his eye that Ashley was standing there, watching him as he lined up a shot. He fired, and thankfully his grip was indeed strong enough for the recoil to be minimal, and his shot cleared the distance and was about five inches to the left of the small black dot.

"Not bad, cadet. You've got a good eye." Ashley said, and Jean beamed with appreciation. "Alright cadets, form groups of three and take turns with a target. One at a time please, we don't need any unnecessary injuries here." Ashley went down on her knees and put the two weapons that she had on the ground. As she watched the groups, she noticed that some were definitely better than others at shooting. Jean seemed to a natural behind a barrel, leaving her to wonder what might have happened if he had grown up on Sera. Sasha was pretty damn good as well, though something at the back of Ashley's mind told her that she's using the wrong type of weapon for marksmanship.

Others were not doing so well. Krista and Armin, being the frailest of the bunch, were having trouble trying to aim properly due to the weight of the musket. Thankfully Ymir and Mikasa respectively went to their aid. Neither of them were bad shots, but Ashley made a mental note to try and find a smaller gun for them to use. Maybe this world had some sort of pistol for them to use rather than rifles. At least they could actually have a sense of potential. Connie fired once and scuffed the ground ten feet in front of him, making Jean laugh. Eren fired his as well, and his went into the tree itself. She could tell that it got on his nerves.

"Hey Ashley." She turned her head to see Reiner standing there, the bruise on his forehead still fresh. "Mind showing us how you shoot?"

Ashley thought about it for a minute. What the hell, I've got plenty of ammo.

"Sure." Ashley shrugged and hefted her lancer up, aligning her eyes with the neon blue sights. She squeezed the trigger and the lancer fired a stream of bullets at the small black dot. It hadn't just nailed the target, it had completely shredded it. The cadets watched in complete awe as Ashley stopped and turned to Reiner. "Does that satisfy your request, cadet?"

"Er, yeah." Reiner mumbled, still in mild shock at Ashley's gun ripping the target apart. He'd expected it to be smooth and precise with whatever image that he and many others had crafted about her. She was supposed to be a no-miss no-mistakes woman, but here it was shown that her lancer could simply reduce things to ribbons, and that she was good at it. Reiner looked back on his simple musket and frowned.

"Better than nothing."

"What about the other one? The two barreled thing?" Another trainee asked, and Ashley turned her head.

"Pardon? Oh, the shotgun." Ashley pulled the double-barreled out. "This doesn't have much range. Its meant for close quarters, like a sword."

"So you can't hit it from here?" Someone else asked.

"No." Ashley shook her head. "I'd have to be right in front of it for any sort of damage inflicted."

"Can you show us?" Another asked, and Ashley smiled behind her helmet. She couldn't help it. Plus, if her own sawed-off was any sort of connection to her own world, there was bound to be more than just what she had on her. The Locust weren't picky with weapons and often used the COG's own weapons against them. And so she walked towards one of the targets, sawed-off in hand. She missed her gnasher. That was the quintessential COG soldier's gun. Sawed off was nice, but just didn't compare to the gnasher's power.

She pointed the sawed-off about two feet in front of the tree.

"Seriously?" Eren whispered to Armin. "That's the range on that thing? What's the point of having something like that?"

"Ashley said it was close-quarters. It must be her backup if the rifle fails or runs out of ammunition." Armin reasoned, rubbing his chin in thought. "Though it doesn't look militaristic in nature. It looks more like an heirloom, to be honest. Her rifle seems to be more outfitted for a soldier."

Ashley clicked the safety off the sawed-off, which she had thankfully kept on the whole time, and fired.

Her lancer had torn the target apart.

The sawed-off, however, completely obliterated the target and knocked a decent-sized hole in the tree itself. There wasn't much left except for white tatters and splintered wood. The trainees were utterly stunned by the power behind that small weapon in Ashley's hands.

"Half expected it to blow up in my hands." She mumbled and put away her shotgun, keeping a reminder to reload it later.

"Holy shit." Jean said silently, with Marco close enough to hear him and nod in agreement. He didn't want to see what might happen if that little gun was fired at a person.

"Class dismissed cadets." Ashley said, and walked off. "See you tomorrow."

As the crowd dispersed and left the area, none of them had failed to notice that in the forest behind the target boards, a single ticker with a camera attached to its body scurried off.

...

The taste of what was to come that left itself in Ashley's mouth for the training classes was a good one. The trainees were good at their weapons and some of them were already considered to be proteges in her eyes. Jean and Mikasa were two excellent shooters and she could count on them to be prepared in case anything went wrong already. Many if not all of them were willing to learn her ways, and she felt good on that. As she sat on her bed with her helmet in her lap and her guns at the foot of her bed, she couldn't help but stare at the sawed-off.

What was something from my world doing here? Ashley didn't get it. She'd read the report that there were multiple portal devices on Sera, but she had no idea what they did until now. For some reason, the Locust had somehow arrived here as well. She knew they were here. The tickers sure as hell couldn't have gotten here by accident, so there must be a Locust stronghold, like Nexus, here on the world. So why did she find her new weapon in the stomach of a titan?

"Do titans eat Locust?" She wondered. Only a select few Locust would wield the sawed-off. It was far too cumbersome and with the awful range that it had, the weapon was better off collecting dust on a memorial shelf. So how could a sawed-off find itself in the belly of a titan?

Ashley hated the waiting game. As an Onyx Guard, she was supposed to know anything before anyone else in the COG's army, like Azura and Prescott. Her patience would only last so long before she completely left the camp and struck out on her own. But she had agreed to Erwin to train the cadets in case the Locust do indeed make a strike on this world. The only thing was when. The Locust were masters of surprise attacks and the waiting game was never in their mindset. She knew they preferred to strike fast and hard, catching their enemies off guard and obliterating them. Where would they strike first?

Or have they already?

Ashley rubber her hands through her tattered hair. She felt so damn useless. She was already trained in warfare and she could easily take on a titan, but waiting for the locust to make a move was nerve-wracking at best.

She simply had to accept the fact that the only way to know how bad the situation was is to simply hold her breath. Deciding that worrying would only hurt her, she climbed into bed and went to sleep.

...

The soft wind sang a sad tune as people had learned what happened to the Underground. The whole city had been ruthlessly slaughtered, leading many people to believe that titans were the cause. Many said that the hole in the ground where the military base was had opened up a titan cell, leading the city to slaughter before the titans escaped into the wild. The fear of similar attacks across the walls were spreading as many feared that the things that had defended them for so long were not as impervious as previously thought. As the Military Police continued to clean up the mess of the former city, Darius Zackley looked on with sadness.

For too long he had been appointed his job as Generalissimo Zackley, and for too long he had known what it was like to lose entire regions of land. Wall Maria, humanity's greatest loss, was an eternal reminder that the titan threat was ever changing and ever growing, ceaseless in the bloody devouring of all humankind. Standing next to him was Nile Dok, who was busy blanching at the sight of the slaughter. There were no survivors inside the city, the titans, if there had been any, were thorough in their hunger.

"What do we do, Zackley?" Dok asked, realizing the severity of the situation.

"We move on, Nile. We rebuilt and repopulate as best we can. There isn't any time to mourn no longer." Zackley said, knowing full well just how it made him sound.

As Nile Dok left with a shadow on his face, Zackley could only help but remember the letter that Shadis sent him about a week ago on some sort of woman that came to the walls. An outsider. He'd sent the letter to both him and Erwin, who had the time to meet with the outsider and talk with her. Zackley had not, and had decided to fully introduce her into their society when the time came.

If the titans could have somehow popped up and killed the entire Underground, something completely unheard of, then maybe this outsider knew a little more than he did.

Nile Dok was busy readying his horse when a soldier came up to him.

"Commander!" He turned his head to the soldier, who was wearing a bandanna on her head. "We found something!"

The soldier opened her hand to reveal a pendant of some sort, an emblem with four pointed sides with a chain. Nile had never seen anything like it.

"What is that?"

"I have no idea, we found it in the rubble of one of the houses." The soldier responded. "Commander, as strange as this will sound, I don't think titans did this."

Nile raised an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?"

The soldier answered him with her own question.

"Since when did titans use guns?"


Hello. I didn't like the path the story went so I edited a part of it to go another way. This will allow me to bring more characterization and more in-depth plot rather than fill it out as a total gorefest. I want to bring something totally new to the table of this sort of fanfiction and I felt that editing the confrontation out between Levi, Hanji, Erwin and Ashley about the Underground would have rushed the story and not let it settle as something bigger. There are plenty of questions that need answering but I don't want them to suddenly come into the light with no buildup. That would be lame. So I'm planning something else, but still going on the same path, but a tad bit different. Don't worry, the Locust will eventually make their mark for their planned conquest and Ashley's gonna show how to be a Gear.

See you all soon!