A/N: Hey guys, just wanted to give a big shoutout to densi2402 and SilverWolf227 for being the first 2 folks to review my story, and too the other few folks who were kind enough to follow and favorite it. It is good to know that even at this early stage my writing is at least somewhat decent lol. Going to try and be publishing twice a week for this, but as time goes on we'll see how it goes. Hope everyone enjoys this next chapter. ~Scipias
Chapter 2 – The 104th Training Corps: Instinct
It was a clear day, and the sun beat down on the dry cracked patch of earth that served as the parade ground of the 104th training corps. On this particular day the recruits, paired off into duos were in the thick of practicing mock knife fights with one another. This was all except one, his black mop of hair fashioned into what barely resembled a crew cut, his eyes scanning the throngs of his comrades searching for who was supposed to be his partner that day.
Lukas Schmidt was never quick to annoyance, that was always a trait of his friend Jean, but given the prowling eyes of Commandant Shadis looking for any reason to ream someone, it could be said he was a little ticked off. Hurriedly drifting through the lines of his fellow cadets, the teen felt a combination of minor relief, and moderate anxiety when he saw the ghoulish form of the Commandant some distance away. Relief that the hardened military man was distracted, anxious because he had come upon the duo consisting of his newly made friend, Connie Springer, and the girl he had the acquaintance to meet via the absolute torture of his first day here, Sasha Braus. Lukas continued on, his mind having drifted to the important questions of, how strong someone had to be to lift another individual by their head, and how to use that as a joke against the bald-headed boy.
The teens train of thought was stopped by a louder than usual thud coming from a row over from his position. Looking to the source of noise, he found the form of the "intense" boy formerly from Shiganshina, Eren Yeager, splayed out on the dirt, legs hanging over his head. Flanking the teen, were the larger form of the boy who had seemed to become somewhat of a bigger brother figure to a lot of the recruits, Reiner Braun, and the smaller blonde form of who Lukas had recently found out was a girl by the name of Annie Leonhart. Approaching the trio, finding some relief in the fact that one of the teens had to be his sparring partner, he saw the girl push a strand of hair out of her face and behind her ear, then speaking in a nonchalant tone.
"Now it's your turn to attack me." the phrase aimed at the bigger boy still on his feet.
It was plain as day that Reiner was hesitant, and Lukas thought he could almost hear a pang of fear in the teens voice as he muttered a refusal. This was quickly added on to by the words of Eren, who was surprisingly still conscious but splayed in the position that the blonde had left him in.
"You're gonna teach her the responsibility of being a soldier, right?" the dark-haired boy muttered.
"Yeah Reiner" Schmidt added, garnering the attention of the group, "What's the worst thing that can happen?"
At this, the larger boy seemed to have a change of heart and put on a determined look.
"Yeah" Braun sighed, "There are times a soldier can never back down."
He charged at the girl, "And this is one of them."
THUD!
"You know, scratch that." Lukas winced. "That was pretty bad."
It had all happened lightning quick. Annie, using Reiner's momentum from charging towards her, sidestepped, and swept his legs, sending the much larger boy barreling to the earth, landing in much the same position Eren had just recovered from.
Lukas squinted at the display.
He swore he had seen his mother do something similar to that to someone before. His mother, a remarkable woman, known all across Trost for having owned, operated, bartended, and more specifically bounced one of the best pubs in the district at the same time, was known to have mopped the floor with many a patron that caught her bad side. Of course, he wasn't exempt from his mother's rage from time to time, even though he knew nearly all the cases were caused by his lack of attention, or stupidity. Jean, who bore witness to many of these cases, even becoming an additional victim of them occasionally, though always warranted, often joked with his friend how no fight the duo got into, with each other or otherwise could compared to the absolute reaming Lukas's mother could give them if she saw fit.
It was maybe this familiarity with kissing the dirt, or more than likely just plain stupidity on his part that led the boy from Trost to open his mouth.
"I guess it's my turn then?"
"No" the blonde girl said flatly before turning away to walk off.
"Well, I'm just going to keep following you then." The boy blurted out, stopping Annie dead in her tracks. "Better than getting chewed out by Shadis, and I think you were supposed to be my training partner in the first place."
The small blonde girl slowly turned around, and the look on her face was enough to send a chill colder enough to freeze the walls many times over. As he looked too the two other boys, he could see a look of dread also plastered their faces, the larger of the two even still laid out in the position the girl had left him in. As Lukas turned back to face Annie, he had only a second to register that she had closed the distance between them.
OH SHIT!
If he were honest, Lukas would have expected himself to be eating the dry crusted ground below him at the moment. Instead, the moment had passed, and he had glanced down to see his leg wedged in between hers. While it hadn't knocked Annie off balance, it had shifted his weight enough to where she couldn't provide enough momentum to sweep him to the ground.
In that moment, it may have been adrenaline, but in addition to the shocked expression the two other boys carried on their faces he saw from the corner of his eye, the teen swore he saw the girls normally lifeless unchanging eyes dilate in surprise, maybe even shock. Lukas's head felt like it was about to burst out of his skull, and when he thought about it, the same could be said of all of his appendages.
Think this must be the biggest rush of adrenaline I've ever had.
Remembering to thank his mother the next time he saw her, the boy decided not to let the pause go to waste. Shifting his weight, Lukas sought to use the girl's technique against her but seconds later looked to see the blonde had instead used his counter against him. Not wanting to lose the initiative, he instead shifted his stance once more, now hoping to sweep her forward, over his back and onto the ground. This instead proved to be a fatal mistake as Annie took the minor amount of motion he made to counter conclusively, sweeping both of his legs, and sending him flying forward, the last thing him seeing being the ground rushing up to meet him.
Lukas felt his body be flipped onto his back and as he reopened his eyes the rush of sunlight filled his view. The hulking figure of Reiner Braun stood over him, a hint of concern in his eyes.
"Schmidt, you okay buddy?" the teen offered his hand, which Lukas took. "Pretty sure you blacked out for a second there."
The messy-haired boy nodded in agreement, looking to see his previous combatant now occupied with pinning Eren to the ground with the dummy knife. After another few seconds to get his head on straight, Lukas heard the one-way conversation the two were having. The cynic in him almost believed her, the exercise in itself wasn't all that useful militarily speaking given the advent of ODM gear, although in day-to-day use, especially in Trost nowadays might be useful. He couldn't discount the fact that only the cream of the crop were the only ones allowed the privilege of joining the Military Police, and while he knew that was a lot of the reason his friend Jean pushed so hard to excel here, Lukas knew he himself didn't share that drive. While he did have a good work ethic, drive was something he had struggled with for a while now, something the boy had tried to ignore, and when the blonde mentioned her distrust of idealism, the boy seemed to remember things he really didn't want too.
Lukas was broken from this line of thought as Annie released Eren, dropping the dummy knife at his side. Walking past him and Reiner towards the crowd, they could be forgiven for barely being able to hear the blonde mutter something to the shorter of them.
"You didn't put enough momentum in your swing." Lukas hadn't even registered the context of what she had said before she continued, "Remember that for next time."
Not breaking her stride, Annie disappeared into the next row of recruits. Rising from the ground, Eren turned to him.
"I think that was a compliment."
Lukas scratched his head in confusion, before a look of realization graced his face.
"WAIT…WHAT DOES SHE MEAN NEXT TIME!"
…
Sasha Braus could confidently say that she had pretty darn good instincts. Whether it was picking up on people, food, animals, food, weather, or food, the girl from the village of Dauper felt she could read a room pretty well. This all became evident during dinner, in which she had barley soup, which was delicious, and a loaf of bread, which was also really good, but her meal was interrupted by the loud boasting coming from the table beside them. Jean, the source of the commotion, who had already gathered the reputation of being unusually cocky, was spouting to anyone and everyone around him, which included one black-haired teen that particularly stood out to the brunette, about his apparent skill with ODM gear.
The situation quickly escalated as Jean began to exchange words with Eren, who had been seated at her own table. The boys both stood up with a jolt garnering the attention of the whole room, while Sasha noticed the black-haired teen, Lukas, a look of annoyance on his face, rub his temples before standing up to confront the two. The girl honestly didn't know what lead her to pay attention to the exchange, she still had food on her plate and if anything, she knew not to waste food, but as soon as that third boy stood up, the events seemed to garner her attention more.
Sasha watched as Lukas tried to force his way in between the two, seeing him mouth words akin to "stop", "idiot", and "horse-face", which kinda made her smile. She didn't know what to think of the boy frankly, he had suffered the same punishment she had on that first day, which had been her fault entirely, but saw it necessary to not to just leave her out there but offer her some of his entirely deserved bread. Yet when she saw his expression, there was no sense of pity for the brunette, or even anger directed at her, just a smile. Just a genuine smile.
The girl looked back up at the trio, the look of futility now plastered on Lukas's face he backed off the quarreling duo looking unusually uncomfortable as he sat back down, not seconds before Eren took Jean down to the ground. The girl ignored the commotion of that, instead noticing the now seated Lukas rubbing the temples of his head even more vigorously now. Sasha felt the pang of something hit her before it was immediately interrupted by the sudden appearance of Commandant Shadis, who questioned the cause of the commotion. The brunette was put into a state of shock and near-death embarrassment when Mikasa who had been sitting next to her, suddenly convicted Sasha of farting. The look of disgust graced the Commandants face as he exited, but the brunette was spared further embarrassment as the black-haired girl stuck an already prepared loaf of bread into Sasha's mouth. A more than adequate peace offering or rather bribe.
As the girl from Dauper contently snacked on her edible bribe, that panging feeling returned to her as she saw the teen, black mop of short hair upon his head, walk out of the building. Sasha felt conflicted, usually her instincts told her what to do, but for some reason they felt…fuzzy. She remembered something the smaller blonde, Krista, had told her. She said that the taller girl should go and talk to Lukas. The brunette had noted that when she had mentioned this, that the smaller girl had this knowing look about her, like she saw something Sasha didn't. The Dauper native didn't have a clue what that meant but figured she could go and talk to the boy, at least to apologize for that first day.
The brunette took a step outside, the loaf of Mikasa's bribing bread still in hand because honestly, she was still hungry. She didn't have to look far as the boy was seated on the stairs leading up to the mess hall. Sasha felt a sudden wave of apprehension, and half considered turning back into the building before Lukas craned his head back, having heard the opening of the door.
"Oh, hey Sasha." He spoke softly but clearly.
There was a pause before she found herself able to respond, "Oh, hi Lukas." The brunette responded talking a few steps closer to him. "I just saw you walk out here all in a rush, and wanted to see if you were, ok?"
A small look of surprise lit up his face, and the girl noticed he had a dullish green eye color, which she thought contrasted with his hair quite well. "Oh thanks, I appreciate the concern…" he started with a small smile present, "but you really didn't have too. Just got a small headache is all. Side effect of being friends with Jean I guess." He joked, getting a chuckle from the both of them.
"You can sit down if you want?" he motioned to the open space on the step beside him.
Sasha found herself unconsciously sitting down next to the boy, after a moment she spoke up, "I'm sorry Shadis dragged you into that punishment with me the first day."
A bit nervous as she looked over at him, he just shrugged, "It's no big deal, not like anyone expected that."
The brunette nodded in agreement, feeling a bit less anxious now. The two sat there, a couple of more minutes passing under a clear star lit sky.
"So, you said you're from a village called Dauper right?" Lukas questioned, the context almost surprising the girl, "What's that like?"
Sasha fumbled, honestly surprised the boy had remembered her mentioning where she came from,"Oh, I doubt it would be all that interesting to hear."
"Try me." The boy answered, the same genuine smile that he carried that first night. No one had ever tried to talk this in-depth with the brunette before, even Krista, arguably the nicest person she had met here if not anywhere hadn't really asked her too much of her origins.
The teens smile, paired with his eyes, which attentively waited for her to respond had had the effect of melting any anxiety she had and seemingly made her words flow out easier than it had been the entire time she had been there. Sasha talked about her town, her pa, the forest she hunted in, the stream she had played in as a child, all that and anything that came to mind. Whenever she doubted that the boy had been paying attention, he had reassured her by having continued to ask questions, and even having told her some stories of his own. The brunette didn't know how much time had passed before she caught something that she had been doing.
"And then mah pa and I, unlike y'all city folk…" the girl cut herself off mid-sentence realizing she had been speaking like she had never left Dauper.
Lukas who had never stopped listening, and had not even shown any recognition or care of her change in accent furrowed his brow in confusion to why the girl had stopped so suddenly, "You ok Sasha?"
Quickly standing up, and with a face more beet red than a ripe apple only hidden from the boy through the sheer fact that it had been dark outside, the girl blurted out a haste fully made excuse.
"Oh…I forgot something in the mess hall. I…uh…uhhh…I'll see you later."
Lukas sat there confused, in the spot where he had spent the last hour talking with the girl, wondering what had caused her to up and leave so quickly.
Well, that was odd…