First off, I would like to inform you that Attack on Titan: Evolved has reached over 1,000 views. All I have to say is thank you all so much! I would have never made it this far without you all! Hopefully you all have enjoyed reading this story, and once again, thank you all!
Beeping began coming from a red colored device on a flat desk. The desk was in the center of a small, renovated prison cell. Alongside the red device, gears, pistons and other pieces of 3D-Maneuvering Gear cluttered the surface, along with head and drool from the engineering brunette. The device, acting as an alarm clock, became tired to being ignored, gave out one massive final beep, causing the boy to awaken in panic, feet kicking off the ground, propelling himself and his chair backwards into the stone floor.
"SON OF A BITCH!" Ian shouted in pain, grabbing the back of his skull.
Meanwhile, upstairs where everyone else was beginning to gather, only the final beep and the son of a bitch where heard. Thankfully Ren wasn't in the area, if she was, Jane would have made sure whatever had happened would be the least of his worries. Lilith, who was just in the middle of standing up to wake up the male that insisted on making his workshop in the basement jail.
"He'll be up soon enough," She said, sitting back down, taking a bit out of her stale bread, quickly swallowing so the taste didn't stay on her tongue for too long. Her brother made the mistake of chewing some, causing him almost start choking. Thankfully, besides a sleep deprived Eren and a fully awake but distracted Hanji, their was nobody there to take notice. Thank goodness for getting up early for sparring practice. Getting up at dawn let them surprisingly enough, left the two with a half hour of practice before they decided to get breakfast. It was going to be a day or two more before they received the incoming members of the 104th, which they had all learned only yesterday that there was more than one division and that they had fought alongside the Southern division. On one end, it meant more people would be joining Recon Corps, but on the other, it meant most of those people would be unfamiliar faces. Beggars couldn't be choosers, but most of them would much rather have a small group of survivors than a large group of cannon fodder. Still, it was fresh blood that was very desperately needed. Her thoughts were cut off as a mumbling Ian entering the room, still rubbing the back of his head.
"Good, you're still alive," Luke said, already finishing his meal. Ian proceed to shoot him the evil eye, before flopping down on the table.
"What did you do, spent the entire night up?" Petra asked, slight concern in her voice. One of the members of Levi's handpicked squad, the girl was not only skilled, but seemed to act more or else as the mother of the group. While Petra seemed to be slightly distrustful of them, something that surprised nobody, she treated them quite well, and had taken a liking to Ren.
"Pretty much," Ian mumbled, getting up to pick up some rations.
"Why? You know exactly what we are going to be doing today," Eld questioned. Eld is what many considered the old veteran within Levi's Squad, despite his actual young age. He was second in command, something that clearly showed in both personality and kill count.
"You gave him a new toy to play with," Luke smirked, "We all saw it coming." Ian shot him another death glare, taking a bite out of his bread, still not awake enough to taste the staleness.
"So how's the gear?" Jane asked, sitting down next Ian.
"Complex. Complex and good. Whoever made it was something akin to a genius," he said with a yawn. "Interesting how it runs on pressurized gas."
"Then what would you use, smart guy," quipped Oluo. The man with light-brown hair was clearly trying to mimic Levi, in both appearance and speech. He was good, that there was no denying, but he was also cocky. Most found it at the very least slightly annoying, excluding Ian, who frankly didn't seemed to care, and Ren, who thought it was funny watching him try an imitate daddy. Yes, Ren was calling Levi daddy, and nobody knew why. This and the fact the Wraith child pretty much went full stalker mode not long after arrival annoyed Levi to no end, and confused almost everyone else. While she did refer to Ian and Luke as her brothers, while Jane and Lilith she called her sisters, nobody was ever at any point given a parental title.
"Who said anything about changing it? It's certainly an easier to obtain and a far safer option than gasoline. I mean, one thing goes wrong, then BOOM!" Ian throw out his hand for dramatic effect, "You're dead or missing most of your waist. So yeah, I wouldn't change it." Oluo was about say something back as Levi entered the room, holding Ren by the back of her neck, much like how a mother cat carried it's young.
"What is this brat doing in my room?" He snapped, having just about enough with Ren and her antics. He was a soldier, not a glorified babysitter, despite the fact he was beginning to feel like one. First the Titan brat, the brat that he had just meet that decided to cling to him like some type of puppy, and Hanji was going to spent more time focusing on Eren than her own charge, so he was going to have to cover for that too. Lastly, he wanted to keep an eye on Luke, Lilith, Jane, Ian and Ren. Where they allies? Yes, that much was certain. But could they be trusted? The answer was maybe. They were outsiders, and could have any number of goals during the conflict. He doubted that they were simply here to help. He placed the girl on the ground, only for her to teleport upwards, grabbing his face in a hug. Lilith walked forward, pulling Ren off his face.
"Ren, enough!" She scolded the child, only for the girl teleported to the ground before biting her hand. She brought the struggling girl to her eye level. "You know that doesn't hurt right?" The child pouted as she was placed back on the ground.
"Apologize, then we'll get you something to eat," Luke said, staring down at the girl.
"Sorry," Ren said, looking down at her feet. The girl wasn't all that sorry. This just a reminder that she needed to be more careful in the future.
"This better not happen again," Levi stated, before grabbing a cup of tea off the counter.
"It won't," Luke and Lilith both stared down at Ren, "Right?" Despite the two's difference's, at that moment they looked identical pillars of anger and disappointment.
"Right!" Ren said gleefully, attempting to hide her fear of the massive buildup of disappointment surrounding her brother and sister. It would be best to lay low for a bit before continuing her stalking. With that, Lilith picked up the small child, placing her down at the table, before getting her a piece of bread. Ren's noise picked up on the smell of bread in front of her, and grinned.
"Sister, the plate!" Luke practically shouted, but it was already too late. Ren's mouth opened, letting out beam of energy, liquefying both the bread and the plate it was on, then was quite literally inhaled. Everyone exact for the outsiders looked at the young girl in shock, from looks of I've seen some shit. Even the stoic Levi had paused mid tea sip, eyebrow raised slightly.
"Hopefully that's the craziest thing we'll see today," Oluo muttered, despite the silence allowing his voice to be heard.
"If that's the strangest thing you see today, then these four aren't doing their jobs," Ian chuckled.
The first order of the day was sparring practice, something that was going to bring mixed results. Ian and Jane were certainly not on par with any member of the Special Operations Squad, the two being defeated quite easily. However, both Eren and Alexander performed better than some of the chosen members of the squad at hand to hand combat, while Luke and Lilith crushed all opposition outside of Levi. Ren was left to her own devices, due to her age preventing her from taking part in training. Petra had already voiced concerns about Ren even being in combat at all, and she wasn't the only one. Despite her power, the girl was still a child, and that was cause for concern. Why keep a child on the front lines? She had already proven to be hard to control, something that would be made multiple times worse in the heat of combat. Still, her outright strength alone made her a valuable asset, but hopefully she could be disciplined before the 57th expedition.
Ian winced in pain as Eren brought him down for the third time. Eren was good, much stronger than Ian, and clearly more skilled. His leg sweep slash body flip combination didn't help matters. It was painfully obvious that fighting in a four ton suit of armor left Ian's actual hand to hand skills in a dismal state of affairs. At this point, Ian was pretty much a glorified punching bag. He was going to have to pretty far before he was going to get on even the other trainees level, let alone any member of the Recon Corps.
Ian wasn't alone in the unprepared boat. Jane was also very far behind, even farther than Ian in terms of actual skill, despite the fact that she was stronger than he was. Even in her human form, she used lightning and her wings to defend herself. She actually had to be taught how to throw a proper punch, simply because she was so used to clawing everything.
On the other end of the scale was Luke and Lilith. Because of the fact they were a Goliath and a Behemoth, the two grew up learning how to fight hand to hand, both by the same person. Their mother taught them everything they knew, and it was clear they knew a lot, more than handly defeated the member's of the Special Operations Squad as they sparred. All except for Levi. Lilith actually decided against fighting him, which she was thankful for as she watched Luke fight Levi five times in a row, each time getting his face placed in the dirt. It was a necessary lesson in humility for him, one that had been sorely needed. Even if he couldn't use his armor, the fact Luke lost not only showed Levi's own strength, but also the fact the short man was to be respected. Even though it made him curious about what would happen if Levi and his mom fought. Luke had to resist the urge to shudder at the thought. The day this man and his mother fought would be the end of the world.
The remainder of the day was split. After setting up a training harness, much like one of the ones that Eren had used training, each of the outsiders got a turn of training for 3D Maneuvering Gear. Oluo and Gunder, of all people, started taking bets about how many times each of the outsiders would be eating the dirt. Only to be surprised as it only took Jane all of thirty minutes before she was hanging like a professional, keeping her body as still as it could, using her powers to keep her balanced.
Ian was another story. The boy was not used to keeping still, let alone simply hanging, placing him at a slight disadvantage.
"Keep still!" Petra shouted, watching the boy wiggle around like a fly stuck in a spider's web.
"That's easier said than done! How do you guys do this?" Ian shouted back, struggling to keep upright. After around two hours, he was finally beginning to get it. Still, he was going to need at least a week until he was ready to use the 3D Maneuvering Gear. He was also covered in sweat, which meant he was going to have bath, even if Levi forced him to. Thankfully, it didn't come to that, with Ian stating he was planning on it anyway.
Then came the disaster of Luke and Lilith. While the two were monsters in hand to hand combat, the ability to hang was humorous at best. Lilith simply couldn't keep upright, regardless of the advice thrown her way. Which lead to two hours of Lilith simply faceplanting. While disappointing, it wasn't like Erwin or Levi expected the need to them to learn to be that great. Afterall, they were to help with expeditions, not internal affairs. Luke was better, if only by a tiny marrgine. However, his temper quickly got the better of him, which caused him to end up doing nothing productive.
"Fuck you, ground!" Luke snarled, letting out a burst of flame from his mouth. It was closing in on nightfall by the tip Levi decided to call it quits on Luke's training for the day, before the he started to damage the equipment.
While they weren't busy trying to not to die at the hands of the the harness, they were helping Hanji with her experiments with two captured Titan's, Sonny and Bean. Besides the pain experiments, which ended up with each titan showing different reactions, much like humans, she also decided to expose them directly to each of the Evolved. Jane, Alexander, and Ren seemed to give the Titan's no reaction whatsoever. But when exposed to Luke and Lilith, they seemed to squirm around, almost like they were trying to get away. Maybe the smell of certain groups of Evolved warded off Titans? Or maybe enough of a tier? She had heard the word thrown a lot. Alexander was a tier one, Ren and Jane are tier two's, while Lilith and Luke are tier three. Maybe it was some type of size based hierarchy? She finally got tired of speculation, and decided to ask.
"So what does tier mean, anyway? I sometimes hear you bring it up," She asked, getting Jane's attention as she tested how quickly could a Titan heal from an electric based wound.
"Tier's are kind of like power classifications. Tier one's are the base, how powerful someone is at birth. To become stronger and evolve to the next tier, one needs to consume a certain amount of biological mass. Once that threshold is reached or surpassed, one can evolve to next tier, increasing our true forms height, power, and abilities," Jane said, not looking up from her work. Hanji nodded. That made sense. It explained why Ren seemed to have gained a new set of abilities between their first encounter and the reports from Trost. But that opened another bottle of questions. Do they choose which abilities they want? Is it genetic? Or is it random? The genetic made sense, but odds are, much like Titan's, they didn't make sense. It terms of weight and maybe things like appetite and starving to death, the Evolved made perfect biological sense. Everything else could be considered out the window. When the babies of your species were the size of small Titan's, and simply grew to what she had to assume where larger than most Titan's. Ren was somehow able to double her size in a minutes time. You can't call that making biological sense. But the sun was rapidly falling, and the fact Hanji didn't have a night's sleep was already beginning to have an effect on her. After a quick dinner from all exhausted parties, everyone called it a night. But not before forcing Ian and Hanji into actual beds for the night.
A bit of a shorter chapter, sadly. The next will be more focused on the incoming recruits, involving a brand new class and a few other surprises. Hopefully you all enjoyed, and I hope to see you all next update. Once again, thank you for allowing this story to break 1000 views.