Chapter 13: Special Operations Squad
Heidi nervously drummed her fingers on the first-aid box while she waited in an empty office in the courthouse for Eren's trial to finish. She had been told they would be leaving to start training as soon as everything was settled.
'I hope this works... and I really hope Mikasa doesn't lose it and complicate things...!' she thought anxiously, worried about her friends. After what felt like an eternity, the door finally opened.
"Success!" Hange announced, earning a relieved smile, as the others filed into the room with Eren in tow.
"Eh? Heidi!?" he exclaimed in surprise when he saw her there. "You're okay!? W-What are you doing in here!?"
"Waiting for you, obviously. I'll explain the rest later," she replied, holding up the first-aid kit. "Now, sit down so I can clean your wounds." Captain Levi certainly hadn't held back. Eren's face was a mess.
"Ouch!" Eren winced as she gently dabbed one of the cuts on his face with antiseptic.
"Sorry about that..." Erwin apologized to Eren. "You really did speak up your mind in front of the Commander-In-Chief and other big shots unrestrainedly, after all."
"Right..." Eren said, sounding unusually meek.
'Just what did they do to him in there...?' Heidi wondered, furrowing her brow slightly.
"That gave us the perfect chance to play the card we had up our sleeve," Erwin continued to explain. "The pain you're in was also necessary to achieve our goal. You have my respect," he told Eren, extending his hand. "I look forward to working with you," he finished with a smile. The two kids sitting in front of him were truly amazing.
"Yes, sir!" Eren answered quickly, looking a little star-struck as he shook the commander's hand. "Thank you for having me."
"Tell me, Eren," Levi said as he abruptly plopped himself down on the sofa in the empty spot next to him, causing Eren to flinch big time.
"Y-Yes, sir!?" Eren asked, sweating nervously.
"Do you resent me?" Levi finished asking calmly.
"N-No, Sir... I understand the act you put on needed to look believable," Eren replied seriously, though the memory of the pain was still too fresh to allow him to relax just yet.
'H-He's clearly traumatized...!' Heidi thought, stunned. That Eren was actually flinching away from someone! She had never once seen him do that before, no matter what the circumstances... Seriously, what did Captain Levi do to him!?
"You look like you want to say something," Levi remarked, seeing the look on her face.
"Ah, no..." Heidi said a bit apprehensively. "I also understand that this was a necessary evil, so if Eren forgives you... I don't see any reason to hold it against you."
"Good, then," Levi said, seemingly satisfied with their answers. It would be troublesome if they held a grudge and tried to rebel. But to hear the words 'necessary evil' come out of that vomit girl's mouth... maybe she wasn't as naïve as she appeared.
"But still, there's certain limits... You knocked out his tooth, for crying out loud!" Hange chided him. "See?" said his fellow squad leader, unwrapping the tooth that had been saved in a handkerchief to show them.
"I'd say that beats getting dissected any day," Levi retorted pragmatically, though he thought it was disgusting that Hange would pick something like that up, even if it was an important sample for scientific study.
'Well, I'd have to agree with him there...' Heidi thought as she stared at the tooth, wondering just how much trouble she was going to be in with Mikasa once she found out she had been in on this.
"Eren, open your mouth and let me see," Hange said. Eren did as he was told, wondering how bad the damage was. Heidi leaned in to have a look too.
"...!" Heidi and Hange both gasped at what they saw. No way...
"Huh...?" Hange said, causing Levi and the others to all look at them, as they continued to stare into Eren's mouth, stunned. "It's... growing back." Heidi could feel a sense of unease rising in the room.
"... For a guy who almost died because he did a complete flip and banged his head on the ground during basic training for maneuvering, you're healing remarkably well," she remarked with a straight face. "Too bad you couldn't do this back then."
"!" Eren gasped, pulling his head back to stare at her incredulously. "D-Don't bring something like that up now!!" he shouted, extremely embarrassed. Miche and Hange looked like they were trying not to laugh, and Levi was staring rather doubtfully at him.
'She's definitely inherited her father's talent for diffusing tension,' Erwin thought.
"W-Why are you even here, anyway!?" Eren demanded sharply when he couldn't think of anything embarrassing to use against her.
"Well, let's just say you're not the only freak around here..." Heidi answered with a wry smile.
"No way... You can turn into a titan too!!?" he asked, shocked.
"Haha, don't be ridiculous. It's nothing that extreme... It just turns out that I happen to be the latest in a long line of 'ultimate' warriors who are able to fight evenly with titans using only their bare hands when they go berserk," she said carelessly with a wave of her hand.
"..." Eren stared at her, stunned. "... You're joking."
"Nope. So don't tell anyone, or we might end up back here for my trial, because it's complicated... and I'm not sure the same trick will work twice," she added a lot more seriously.
"O-Oh..." Eren said awkwardly. That actually raised more questions than it answered...
"Officially, Heidi has been recruited as part of a special squad being assembled to watch over you," Erwin explained. "But this is really just an excuse so she can go with you to a remote location in order to train and learn how to better control her abilities. If she can master them, then it may be possible for her to help us subdue you without killing you."
"I see..." Eren said, glancing surreptitiously between Heidi and Levi. He found it a little hard to believe that Heidi had something so amazing up her sleeve this whole time, but then again, he hadn't known he could shift into a titan until just recently, either... And not being killed would definitely be a good option to have.
—∞—
After a brief introduction to the rest of the members chosen to form the Special Operations Squad, Eren and Heidi soon found themselves embarking on a journey to the location chosen for their training. Erd and Gunther rode in front, followed by Eren and Oruo. Behind them were Petra and Heidi, with Captain Levi picking up the rear, observing them all from behind.
"That's the former headquarters of the Survey Corps," Oruo informed the two rookies as they reached their destination, a castle covered in overgrowth with various vines creeping up the sides.
"It looks kind of like Dornröschen's castle..." Heidi remarked quietly, thinking out loud. The old building had a kind of sad and forlorn look of abandonment about it, like it hadn't seen any visitors in years.
"Hmm... I suppose it does," Petra agreed. The tale about the sleeping princess had been one of her favorite fairy tales as a child, too.
"It might appear stately, given that it's an old converted castle..." Oruo continued. "... but an HQ located so far from the wall and river, was worse than useless to the Survey Corps. Back then the Corps had just been formed, and the soldiers were still full of ambition... Who would've figured that this oversized decoration would be the best place to keep you locked up?" Eren cast a surreptitious glance back at Heidi and then Levi but quickly turned back around when his eyes met with their imposing squad leader's. "Don't get cocky, rookies," Oruo said high-handedly, doing his best to look intimidating as he addressed Eren and Heidi.
"Huh!?" Eren said, taken aback.
"Titan power or whatever..." Oruo grumbled. "I don't know what he sees in you, but just because Captain Levi was put in charge of supervising a couple of piss-poor brats like yo—!!"
"!!" both kids gasped in alarm as their eyes widened, startled when his tongue got caught between his teeth, and he bit it almost completely in half, sending a spray of blood into the air.
—∞—
"Jabbering away like that on a horse... of course you're going to bite your tongue," Petra chided Oruo, taking care of him while the others put the horses in the stables.
"First impressions make it or break it, baby," Oruo replied. Heidi was surprised he could still talk. It must not be as bad as it looked. "Those rookies were shaking in their boots."
"I think they were just shocked to see how much of a dumbass you are, Oruo," Petra deadpanned.
"... Whatever. It's going just as I planned," Oruo said as he wiped his chin, trying to play it off.
"You know, you never used to talk like this. If... If you adopted that manner of speech in your attempt to imitate Captain Levi..." Petra told him, looking incredibly uneasy and disturbed at the thought. "Then please, just stop, seriously... You're nothing alike. Nothing at all."
'Ah, so that's why he's wearing that cravat...' Heidi thought as she poured some water in her horse's trough.
"Heh... What, are you trying to rein me in, Petra? If you wanna act like my wife, there are a couple of steps you skipped," he retorted.
"Don't you think you're getting a little too carried away just because Captain chose you?" Petra asked, chagrined. "You should have just bitten your tongue off and died..." Heidi's eyes widened slightly in surprise, a bit startled by how much Petra had sounded like her mother just then. Eren felt like he was watching an older version of Peter and Heidi.
"Even as a joke, it's not funny to wish death on your brother-in-arms, baby..." Oruo answered, a little mortified that she would say something so horrible to him so easily.
'So Captain Levi hand-picked everyone here?' Eren thought, glancing around at the other soldiers. 'The unit we were assigned to is this Special Operations Squad, also known as 'Squad Levi'. Obviously, these people are under orders to keep me in check when I use my 'titan power'... and finish me off if I lose control.' He glanced back at Heidi, wondering if it was the same way for her. She didn't seem too worried, because she was happily petting her horse, which she appeared to have grown very attached to during the trip there. "... How can you be so relaxed?" he asked her, furrowing his brow slightly. "Aren't you worried about what will happen to us?"
"Hm? Well, it's not that I'm not worried..." Heidi said tentatively. "I just thought I'd try to enjoy the peace while it lasted..." After all, from here on out, they were going to be risking their lives for this training.
"It hasn't been used in a long time, so it's kind of fallen into disrepair," Gunther said as he, Erd, and Levi stared up at the grimy castle from the weed-ridden courtyard.
"That's a serious problem..." Levi said darkly, imagining all the filth that must be waiting for them inside. "Fix it up immediately," he ordered. "Vomit Girl, you and Eren go get started on the top floor," he told Heidi, causing her to flinch and blush in embarrassment at having that incident brought up again. Hey, he said she didn't have to pay for the boots... He never said he wasn't going to give her a hard time about it.
"V-Vomit Girl...?" Eren asked, bewildered.
"Heh. You didn't hear, rookie? This brat had enough guts to puke on the Captain when they first met!" Oruo explained with a snicker at Heidi's expense, earning himself a sharp elbow in the side from Petra. Eren whipped his head around and stared at Heidi with a horrified expression on his face that clearly said he thought she should run away as fast and far as humanly possible.
"It was an accident...!!" Heidi said defensively. Her face was almost as red as her hair now.
'I should hope so,' Levi thought. If he had suspected for one second that she had done that on purpose, she wouldn't still be around to have this conversation.
"Th-That's right... You really can't blame her, after what she'd been through..." Petra said, feeling a little nauseous just remembering it.
"Yeah, I'm not sure I could have handled that, either..." Gunther said honestly. "... being vomited up by a titan..."
"E-Ehhh!?" Eren exclaimed, shocked. "H-Heidi... you were eaten by a titan too!?"
"Uh, not quite... I just sort of ended up in its mouth for a little while. I got out before it could actually swallow," she explained, rubbing the back of her neck. "But, what you said just now... does that mean you were eaten? How are you still okay? ... Is that what made you turn into a titan?"
"Hey, swap stories while you work. I want this place clean, ASAP," Levi said sternly, shooting them all sharp look.
"Yes, sir!" they all answered, immediately scrambling to carry out his order before they made him mad.
