A/N: Evening everyone, just wanted to give another shoutout to both SilverWolf227 and TheMist33 for being kind enough to review since the last chapter. Also wanted to add that I just hit 150 views for this story. Now I don't know what qualifies as a lot of views here but I am definitely humbled and grateful for all those reading. You guys are all awesome and I hope you all enjoy this next chapter. ~SCIPIAS
CHAPTER 4 - THE 104TH TRAINING CORPS: FEELING
The cool wind flew past his face, and the smell of pine was ever present in the air, even at this speed. The final obstacle ahead, three staggered walls suspended above the forest floor had proved a challenge for many of his fellow cadets so far, but Lukas felt a sense of focus. Ever since the 104th had been introduced to the use of ODM gear, the teen had found that all the activities surrounding the main tool of their trade to be almost calming to him. Approaching the walls ahead, the black-haired boy angled up, immediately detaching his cables; something most of his fellow cadets had done much closer to the obstacle. As his cables returned to their housings at his side, Lukas felt the momentum from his last swing arc him over the top of the first wall, gravity taking over as his body fell below the second wall in one fluid motion. As if in slow motion he saw the cable launchers attached to his waist clear the bottom of the second wall and immediately he shot out his cables once more hearing them hit the nearby trees as the rest of his body cleared the bottom of the second wall. His cables quickly propelled him over the third and final wall and before long he was back in open air.
Wasn't expecting that to go as smoothly as it did.
As Lukas whipped through the trees in route to the finishing point, he was hit by an odd feeling. It felt like his whole body was humming, but as the teen looked to his hands they weren't shaking, the feeling was coming from beneath his skin. As that thought went through his head, the feeling was compounded by his vision growing fuzzy. Originally feeling concern over this as he was pretty high up in the air and traveling rather fast, he then had the realization that even though his vision was blurred, somehow, he could still see perfectly fine. The boy swung as normally as usual and he even noticed one of his comrades pass him beginning the course. Confusion struck the black-haired boys face as he quickly whipped his eyes mid swing, and as he opened his eyes once more, the feeling had suddenly disappeared. Lukas's body had returned to normal, no buzzing, and no blurred vision.
What just happened?
A few moments later, still confused but resolved to figure out this out later, Lukas landed on the platform where he had started the course, followed closely by the other members of the group that had run the course with him which in this case was Eren, Marco, Krista, and naturally Ymir. The group went to attention as Commandant Shadis came to grade them. The hardened military man looked at each individual recruit, stating their time then checking their tanks with a tap of his fist to determine how much gas each teen had left.
"Recruit Ymir" the Commandant droned, "5 minutes 38 seconds, 50% gas remaining."
The freckled teen content that she passed, the requirement being 6 minutes, nodded slightly before the Commandant moved on.
"Recruit Lenz, 5 minutes 25 seconds, 70% gas remaining. Good work on conserving your gas."
"Thank you, sir." The small blonde said saluting as the man moved on.
"Recruit Bodt, 5 minutes 13 seconds, 60% gas remaining. Excellent management between your speed and gas."
"Sir" Marco saluted, a trace of a smile on his face.
"Recruit Yeager, 5 minutes 6 seconds, 40% gas remaining. Impressive speed, but too eager on using gas."
Eren saluted, looking defeated but hopefully, and not saying a word.
"Recruit Schmidt" Lukas saluted, "4 minutes 55 seconds, 60% gas remaining, exemplary work." Shadis paused before continuing, "You have overtaken Recruit Kirschtein's spot in second by 3 seconds and are only 10 seconds off Recruit Ackerman's time in first."
"Thank you, sir." Lukas smiled internally, having bested his friend by such a slim margin.
The Commandant took a step back looking to address the group again, "Recruits you're dismissed." He spoke before walking off to evaluate the next group. The five relaxed and started walking to the armory to deposit their ODM gear. Lukas had only walked a few steps, Marco at his side, before Eren caught up to the two.
"Hey Lukas" the boy started.
The taller teen turned his head, "Oh, hey Eren, what's up?"
The boy formerly of Shiganshina slowed his pace to match the two boys, "How'd you do it?"
Lukas furrowed his brow, "What do you mean?"
"Your ODM skills." Eren looked intently at him.
Lukas scratched the back of his head, "I mean I appreciate the compliment, but Mikasa beat me by 10 seconds. Wouldn't you be better off asking her?"
Marco patted his friend on the shoulder, "Don't sell yourself short Lukas, yours and Jean's ODM scores have been consistently better than a lot of ours."
Eren scoffed at the sound of his rival's name but then smiled at Lukas, "Yeah but I've seen Mikasa's scores too, she's faster but you use less gas." The boy paused before continuing. "And the way you go about it, it's…different."
Lukas looked down thinking about the question. As he thought, a flurry of emotions came over him. Happiness, then regret, sadness, then guilt, and finally pain.
…I'm sorry…
"Lukas are you alright?" the boy broke from his trance to see Marco look at him with concern.
"Yeah…. I'm fine…just zoned out there for a second." He responded turning back to Eren.
"You depend on the equipment too much." Lukas stated. "and you're too tense while you use it."
The boy expected Eren to kickback at his criticism, but the teen looked at him, intently waiting for him to continue.
"You don't need to use the equipment for every movement. If you need to fall, let gravity help you do it, and if you need to ascend or drift in a direction, let the momentum from your last swing take some of the burden."
Eren nodded, "And how do I know when to do that?"
Lukas wringed his hands, "It's a feeling." The boy smirked a little bit, "If you're tense, your body isn't going to read what your mind wants to do fast enough." He put his hand on Eren's shoulder, "After that, it's just practice."
Eren smiled, confidence renewed, "You've must get a lot of practice then." He joked.
"No" Lukas shrugged, "Nothing like that."
Liar.
"Just fortunate I guess."
…
The three boys deposited their equipment back with the quartermaster and exited the armory. Eren, more than likely intending to meet back up with Armin and Mikasa veered off towards the mess hall while Marco headed in the direction of the boy's barracks. Lukas stood there for a moment when he saw a familiar brunette-haired girl walk up on her way to the armory.
"Hey Sasha" he friendly greeted the teen.
The brunette froze for a second having not seen him and seemed to stumble out her words, "Oh…hey…uh…uh…"
Before the girl from Dauper could finish the sentence, she rushed through the open door of the armory, passing an exiting Krista and Ymir.
"Well, that was odd?" Lukas stated out loud.
"Isn't it obvious?" the freckled teen responded, as the two girls walked up.
"No" the boy rolled his eyes, "I did just say it was odd." He said sarcastically.
Ymir shook her head, as the shorter girl responded this time. "Ymir, be nice."
Pinching the temple of her nose, the freckled girl looked back up, "I don't understand how you can get the ice queen to talk to you, but not understand why someone as blatantly outward as potato girl barely speaks to you."
Lukas shrugged, "Annie throws a lot more punches at me than words, and to be frank I'm only there because she doesn't want to deal with Mikasa to be dotting over Eren if they were to fight."
I swear Eren owes me big for that.
Ymir sighed, shaking her head in annoyance was going to respond but was cut off by Krista.
"I may know why Sasha isn't talking to you."
Lukas turned his head to the blonde, eyebrow raised, "Why?"
"Well because…" she shuttered for a moment, "she's embarrassed. Sasha told me she started speaking to you in her hometown accent by accident."
Not a complete lie, as Sasha had told the blonde of that night, but the brunette had also told her of some other things too. Things, that while Sasha couldn't interpret herself, as the brunette wasn't completely understanding what she was feeling, Krista could she clear as day. She liked him; she just didn't quite figure out that she liked him in "that" way. Of course, Sasha swore the blonde to silence, and if anything, Krista knew she was good at keeping secrets.
"Oh!" a look of realization took Lukas's face, as Ymir facepalmed. "That's nothing to be embarrassed about. To be honest I barely even recognized it." The boy smiled.
Krista smiled back at the teen. In her experience Lukas had always been one of the nicer boys, he made it blatantly obvious what he thought of everyone, yet never shirked off helping someone out. Albeit the boy had a tendency to get into stupid situations, often headfirst and willingly, he seemed to be loyal to a fault, and in this particular case, very, very thick-headed.
…
Lukas stood leaning against a post that supported the overhang leading to the mess hall. It was about 10 minutes before dinner, and he planned to force Sasha to talk to him by cutting the brunette off from entering the only place she was sure to go to at this time. Lukas chuckled and shook his head quietly.
Annie may be right. I might actually have a death wish.
Soon enough Lukas saw the brunette approach, eager to be one of the first to receive her food. As she closed in on the staircase leading up to the mess hall, the boy stepped out into to the way. The look off surprise on her face was combined with her drive to eat and then her apparent embarrassment quickly following.
"Hey Sasha." The boy said calmly.
The girl shuffled around trying to find a way around the teen but to no avail, "Uh….heyyyyy Lukas, nice to see you here…haha" she pointed behind him, "Do you mind….if I get around you?"
"We need to talk." Lukas said flatly.
Sasha was wringing her fingers now, "What…what about?"
The black-haired teen tilted his head knowingly," You've been avoiding me."
Lukas could see a shade of red gather on the brunette's face as one of her leg's started bobbing up and down, "I…uh…don't know what you mean?" she struggled to get out.
The boy sighed, "Krista told me…"
"WHAT!" the girl from Dauper jumped back in shock.
"…about how you were embarrassed about your accent." Lukas finished.
The brunette calmed down a touch, and still beet red, whimpered out a meek, "Oh."
"Yeah, you shouldn't be embarrassed about it." The boy smiled, "It sounded pretty nice and honestly it showed how passionate you were about where you grew up."
It took a moment for Sasha to respond, "You don't think it's weird?"
Lukas was almost taken aback by this, "Of course not!"
After a moment, the boy could see the brunette was still apprehensive, and he sighed, "If you want, I could show you something I'm self-conscious about."
The girl thought it over for a second and gave a quiet nod. Lukas smirked, "Just promise me…you won't get too grossed out?"
Sasha, admittedly confused, nodded her head a bit hesitantly this time. Registering her acceptance, the brunette saw the boy unbutton the top two buttons of his shirt, he pulled the shirt back revealing what looked like a large bruise running a portion of the way across his collar bone. Looking closer, Sasha could tell now that it wasn't a bruise as instead of it being all dark it consisted of some light but still noticeable yellow and greenish splotches.
"Birthmark?" she questioned, her voice calm again.
"Yeah." Lukas replied sheepishly, "It's…it's not too gross right?"
Sasha could tell that the boy was truly embarrassed about the spot. In truth, she didn't find anything off setting about the birthmark, honestly if he hadn't pointed it out, she would have figured it was a bruise anyway, but the gesture was not lost on her. Lukas had gone out of his way to prove that he didn't find her accent weird, even when she was determined to avoid the conversation all together, and that gave the girl from Dauper a warm feeling. Noting this, she also came to the realization that her eyes had drifted to the rest of what was his exposed chest. It was toned, and a little muscular, and she liked it, and then the realization hit her about the same time the flush did to her face. Sasha liked him, not only that, she "LIKED" him.
"Sasha…you ok?" Lukas said, totally oblivious to the girl's thoughts.
"Yeah…" the brunette recovered quickly. "Thank you."
The boy crooked his head as he buttoned back up his shirt, "For what?"
"For caring." She said, all nervousness gone from her voice.
He gave her another genuine smile, "No problem."
Lukas started up the steps before turning around again, "You're welcome to come sit with us. Marco's nice, Jean's…. tolerable, and Connie…well you know Connie."
Sasha smiled, food had all but been forgotten up until that point, "I'd like that", she said as she followed the boy into the mess hall.