AN: Thank you for the positivity on my first two chapters! Honestly didn't expect it since I thought the crossover category was rarely visited. I've definitely gotten more reads than on Tumblr *sigh*. Many thanks for the follows/faves and the review from Death by Nosebleed. I don't tend to get reviews or any fic traffic, so thank you so much!

Ahh, this took me a little longer than the last two chapters to fix just because I had to search for some tips on how to introduce characters. What can I say, past me wasn't great at introducing new characters. This chapter is two mashed into one as well, because the first part is far too short to put up alone.

Notes about characters etc. are at the bottom of the chapter!

A few weeks into our training and we were all starting to get along with each other. I had made myself a few friends, and realised who I should keep a distance from. Others had done the same, so it seemed, apart from the odd few.

One lad sat alone on his bed, staring at the palm of his hand with concentrating red eyes. His name was Vlad, and he'd kept to himself since becoming a trainee soldier. He didn't seem shy, but even I didn't talk to many people in the first few days after enrolling.

He sat slightly slouched upon the top bunk, wriggling his bare feet as if he had nothing better to do. I wandered over to the bed and looked up to see him.

"What're you doing up there?" I asked him with a gentle smile.

He turned to me, and signalled for me to join him on his bed. I climbed up the ladder and sat facing him.

"Just thinking."

"About what?"

"That day."

His silence suddenly made sense to me. We made eye contact, his solemn look meeting mine of query.

"You were there as well?" He nodded. "What's your story?"

Shifting uncomfortably, he grimaced.

"I lived in a small hunting village on the outer rims of Wall Maria. Every day was the same: wake up at dawn, hunt, bring in the prey, give it to the women to prepare for food, hunt again, have it prepared again, eat, sleep. It was rather repetitive, especially when that is all you do for the first nine years of your life. That day was no different except I went to hunt with two people my age from nearby hunting villages. They weren't really my friends, but they were the closest thing I'd had to one.

We went out and heard a loud banging noise. Naturally, we thought it was just an animal. But the noise grew gradually louder. That wasn't any kind of animal. It wasn't prey waiting for us to kill it. We were the prey. As soon as we saw the Titan we ran and ran. I swear it followed us into Shiganshina. We got to one of the refugee ships and were taken aboard because we were more than a little beaten up from our Titan escape. I had to start a new life because of that day. I feel guilty for all those who lost their lives."

"Why do you feel guilty?" I asked him, puzzled. "It wasn't your fault."

He sighed, and I thought I heard him mutter something. I wish I'd heard whatever he said.

"What?" I asked.

"No, no. Never mind."

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Those who were not strong enough to be soldiers had been eradicated by that point. I guess I could argue that some of those who were left who eventually did become soldiers weren't exactly strong enough to cope either, or so it seemed. Back when we were training, they were even worse. Those who showed strength back then are much more stronger now. I guess it proves that your attitude in earlier life is still relevant once you've grown up.

About five months into our training, the jokers of the group were starting to appear. In a sense, they were great to make us all feel good when we were going through the more stressful parts of training, but they sure as hell could be annoying.

One of these jokers was Gilbert Beilschmidt. I respected him as I grew up as a strong man and fighter, but he could definitely be an asshole when he tried.

The centre of Gilbert's torment was Roderich Edelstein, a complete contrast to him. Roderich was quiet and thoughtful, more of a strategist than fighter. Gilbert was loud and unafraid to speak his mind. No one was surprised that they found many an opportunity to bicker.

"Hey Roderich, do you ever get tired of being a weak idiot?" Gilbert started with a large smirk present on his face.

"Gilbert, do you ever get tired of being a pointless waste of space?" he countered.

"I'm a pointless waste of space? Perhaps you should take a look in the mirror? Oh wait! You spend most of your day doing that!"

Roderich turned away from him, shaking his head.

"You are far too immature for my attention."

Gilbert only laughed. He didn't immediately notice the girl glaring at him across the room. She sat with a few other trainees, who had continued their conversations. She struck me as having natural beauty with her flowing chestnut hair and rosy lips. Her green glare was soon met with a red return from Gilbert, with a small smirk upon his lips.

"Look at your girlfriend, Roderich, and who she can't take her eyes off me," he mocked.

Elizaveta, the 'girlfriend' in his comment, turned away quickly, her face glowing at her cheeks. Roderich gazed over to her, he too blushing slightly, and shook his head.

"She seems to have kept them well away from your common face until now," he replied.

"Common? You don't seem to have noticed that we grew up from the same background. If I am common, then what are you?"

Arguments between the two of them, and whoever else felt compelled to join in, were a regular occurrence during our training days. I tended to keep my head down during such times and let them fight their own battles. After all, I was here to destroy Titans, not to join in with petty arguments. Mattie always stayed by my side, no matter the situation, to keep me sane.

"Sometimes I wish they would shut up just for a week, no, a day."

"Like they'll do that, Matt."

"I have actually considered learning how to sew just so I could sew just so I could sew their mouths shut," he muttered.

"Bit morbid."

"Or I could sever their tongues," Mattie said, miming slicing something with his hands. "Either way would shut them up."

"Ew! Matt!" I laughed.

He returned my comment with a grin.

"You know I wouldn't actually do that, Alfie."

"Yeah, I know. We're as anti-gore as each other."

"Which is what makes us perfect people to join the arm."

"With all the blood and severed bodies out there in the open, I should be absolutely find as a member of the Scouting Legion."

We laughed together about our shared fear of gore. Mattie had always avoided anything vaguely disgusting, and soon I 'caught' his phobia. Seeing everything that happened when the Titans attacked definitely didn't help us overcome it.

Vlad approached us, giving me a smile when we made eye contact. He'd warmed up quite a bit since I first talked to him, making some friends and equally a rivalry with Elizaveta.

"Mind if I join in with your vaguely morbid conversation?" he inquired.

"Sure," Mattie replied. "Take a seat and join in."

He smiled a toothy grin, sitting beside me.

"In all honesty, I'm quite comfortable with being around blood. Not really sure why, maybe because hunting has conditioned me to being used to seeing graphic things."

"You're a little loopy, aren't you?" I asked him, smiling.

"'Loopy'? I don't understand," he asked, with a bewildered look on his face.

"You don't know?" Matthew replied, equally puzzled.

"I'm guessing you learnt what it meant at school. I've never been, and I spent two years after the Wall fell having words explained to me."

"Actually, you probably wouldn't learn that in school. It's slang: too informal for us to be taught."

"Huh. You're going to have to explain to me about 'slang' as well."

"Another lesson for another day, my friend," I told him.

He nodded in understanding. It confused me at the time that someone didn't go to school. Everyone had to go as far as I was aware. I couldn't figure out why he was different. Then I remember years later that he lived in the middle of a forest. There are no schools there. He had no way to be taught, which made me envy him for obvious reasons and also pity him that he had to ask each time someone uttered a word he didn't know.

I noticed as I looked around the room that the boy who stood beside me on our first day with those grim-looking emerald eyes was watching me with interest, as if I were an animal in a cage. His thick eyebrows furrowed as he saw me look at him, and our gazes met. His eyes looked so cold, yet felt so warm. I looked down, trying not to start anything weird from just looking into his eyes. He too looked away, averting his attention to those sat at his table. His eyes held such wisdom and knowledge behind them, and I could feel the pain they had seen. He was not too dissimilar to myself in that way.

Shaking my head, I looked back to my brother and Vlad, giving them a smile. It was at that moment when I felt those eyes staring at me once more. I did not turn, but I smiled at the fact someone was genuinely fascinated about me. It was either that, or he was staring at something on my back. The former seemed more logical to me.

AN: I completely re-wrote the conversation my lad Vlad has with Alfie and Matt because past me used 'fetish' as the word he didn't understand. While the end of the conversation was funnier (Alfred refusing to explain what it was until they went somewhere a little more private), it just seemed like a bit of an awkward moment. I think when I wrote it, I was channelling some of the naïvety I had into Vlad. I mean, I was fourteen/fifteen and went around asking people in school about similar words and they all refused to explain to me. Where was Urban Dictionary when I needed it, eh?

"Vlad had light brown hair…": Vlad, short for Vladimir, is Romania's human name. His full name is Vladimir Popescu.

"Elizaveta, the 'girlfriend' in his comment…": Himaruya gave us variations for Hungary's name, and I have chose Elizaveta to use.