AN: Thank you for the ongoing positivity! I truly appreciate every favourite/follow/review I get. Sorry I haven't updated for a week or so, college is a bitch and I've had a shit ton of essays to write instead. Also, I wanted to write a brand new scene that wasn't in my original story, and this is what I came up with. This segment of plot will be over a few chapters, I think, so it can flow a bit better. Plus, this chapter's twice as long as the other ones ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ On with the story then?

During my last few months of training, myself and several others started to count down the days until we finally became soldiers. It was partly out of excitement that the past few years had actually meant something, but partly out of fear of responsibility. It's the same as when you leave school, you've got to find a job to do so you can feed your family except instead we had all of humanity to look after.

We were called out onto the training grounds early in the morning by Keith Shadis, who looked like he could really use a few more hours sleep. Once everyone had assembled, he began to speak to us.

"Today you will be taking part in an activity to test your team-working abilities, among other things. Capture the flag," he stated, causing a stir in the trainee soldiers around me at the fact that he was letting us play a game. "You will be randomly placed into either the blue team or red team, then you will hide your flag in the forest, and you will work together to seize the opposite team's flag. You will all carry your 3D Manoeuvre Gear and a piece material bearing your team's colour. If an opponent takes your colour from you, you are out. There will be no weapons involved, because this is all about your teamwork and tactics. Now, you will be put into your teams!"

The group was unanimously excited about the game. Finally, we had been given something fun to do rather than the endless training with weapons, technology and written work. I was very enthusiastic about going out into the forest and playing this game, because teamwork tasks usually were quite entertaining.

Keith walked from person to person, carrying a bucket that had inside small coloured balls for us to pick. He came closer to me and I watched Vlad pick out a red ball. Then my brother put his hand into the bucket and removed a blue ball. He smiled to me as I reached in, feeling the smooth balls in there. I grabbed one, and pulled it out. It was also blue.

"Al, we're on the same team!" Mattie mused, still smiling. I gave him a smile back, because nothing was better than spending time with my brother.

Once everyone had been placed in a team we split into the teams and stood before Keith, waiting for further instructions.

"Right! Now you know who you are working with, but not who will command your actions. I have chosen two people from each team: one two lead, and one to be second-in-command. You will answer to their commands, because as you all know listening to your commander is the route to success.

For the Red Team! Natalya will lead you, because if her siblings are anything to go off she will be level-headed and know how to organise you tactically."

Natalya nodded in acknowledgement. Her older sister, Katyusha Braginskaya, lead the Garrison and her brother Ivan Braginski lead the Scouting Legion. She really had a lot to live up to.

"And the vice leader will be Roderich." There was a murmur in the Red Team. "Because, why not?" Keith said with a scary grin present on his face.

Roderich had not improved as a fighter since the beginning of training, but was still strategically-minded. He was empathetic, so would probably do well in that role.

"Now the Blue Team! Antonio will lead you."

Antonio Fernández Carriedo was a very interesting person. He was slightly older than me, and much better than me in fighting. He was a natural in fighting exercises and his charismatic personality helped him be just as strong in teamwork.

"And your vice leader will be Alfred."

My brother gave me a proud pat on the back. I was a little overwhelmed with the responsibility of being second-in-command. I hadn't really seen myself as the leading type, but I didn't intend to give up my title for the task.

We were dismissed and headed out into opposite sides of the forest with our leaders carrying our flag. I was a little concerned about our chances of winning purely because the Red Team had Natalya leading them and several of our other strongest fighters with her. Without being rude, we had more of the weaker trainees who often made me question how they hadn't been kicked out (or dropped out) earlier. Namely, the Vargas twins.

Feliciano and Lovino Vargas were complete opposites of each other, yet equally as hopeless. Feliciano was a bright and bubbly character, often distracted by the smallest things; Lovino was much more of an introverted character, who was often cold and blunt when people did speak to him. He did have a better attention span than his brother, but both of them were spooked by the smallest of things.

"So are we going to win or not?" shouted Gilbert to our team.

"We're not going to win if you keep shouting when we're hiding our flag," Vash snapped at him.

Vash Zwingli was equally as cold, blunt and introverted as Lovino but surpassed him in everything. Vash was one of our strongest fighters in our ranks and excelled in written tasks also. His sister, Lili, was also on our team.

"My brother's right: we've got to keep quiet until we've hidden the flag," she said.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Am I being too loud for you?" Gilbert said dryly.

"Yes." Elizaveta responded immediately. "And don't even tell me your question was rhetorical because I actually couldn't care less about you."

"Wooooow. As soon as Rod leaves, she gets all aggressive! I like my girls to fight back," he grinned.

She lunged for him but was grabbed by Emil, who was stood next to her.

"He's not worth the effort, Eliza," he muttered.

Emil was very quiet, but a valuable soldier. He also had a lot of pressure on him to succeed like Natalya, as his older brother Lukas Bondevik was a very high-ranking member of the Scouting Legion.

Eliza sighed and Emil let go of her. We continued to walk deeper into the forest with Antonio leading us.

"We need to work together, as a team. We can't fight each other right now!" he exclaimed.

"Can you honestly blame me for wanting to punch him?" Eliza replied.

"'Him' has a name!" Gilbert shouted.

"None of us do. But right now we need to forget any disagreements between us if we want to win," said Antonio cheerily.

"Who cares about winning?" muttered Lovino.

"We're treating this like it's a game," I said. "It's not. Well I mean, Capture the Flag is a game, but it's part of our training too! It's to test how we work together in a team. Anyone can play this game and tell the team to split up in an attempt to win, but you're more likely to be taken out that way.

Strategically, we have to work with at least one other person to find their flag. We all have our own individual talents, and working with someone else means you can rely on their talents too. Like, Eliza, you're a strong fighter but you might work with someone who's more strategic, like Lovino, and you'd be an unstoppable team. It all applies when we become soldiers, so we have to treat this seriously."

There was silence for a few moments after my speech.

"Al's right. We may be playing a game, but the skills we're learning here will come in when we become soldiers. So just ease up a little for the sake of our graduation ranks," Matt added.

We walked for a little longer before Antonio stopped, looked around and planted the flag into the ground. The area he'd chosen had tall and twisting trees around it so would be difficult to see from a distance.

"With my vice leader's words in mind, we're going to leave four people here to guard it. You'll stay up in the trees so you can see if anyone's coming near it and so you can't be seen." He glanced at his team. "I want Lovino, Feliciano, Emil and Gilbert to stay here. As Alfred said, we need people with different talents to work together so we can be more effective. Lovino and Emil are strategists, Feliciano is our team worker and Gilbert has quick reactions. You four will work together well."

The four looked at each other before firing their 3DMG hooks at the trees and going within the leaves to wait.

"Now the rest of us need to split up. I don't think you should stay with me, Al. Having our leaders in separate teams would benefit us, I think. We'll mix this up a little: Vash and Raivis, Jan and Lili, me and Matt, Al and Eliza. Let's work with people we don't normally work with, eh?"

Working with Eliza was definitely going to be interesting. I'd seen her fighting before, but never actually seen how she does it. I thought it would have been good to learn her technique before graduation.

"Let's go then!" Antonio commanded, and we walked in separate directions.

Eliza led the way, pushing away stray branches that would have inconvenienced us. She remained quiet, which seemed a little strange after hearing her snapping at Gilbert on the way into the forest.

Once we'd walked for a good few minutes I asked her, "So why does Gil always wind you up?" She sighed audibly.

"Because he's learnt that I get annoyed at his jokes so he thinks it's funny to continue bugging me."

"Yeah, but why did he start in the first place?"

"He was from my town. I didn't really know him, but he used to make vaguely sexist remarks at me whenever he saw me doing something he considered to be a man's job."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"My house is on the edge of a forest that's full of game. Me and my father often went hunting for food together because it was much cheaper than buying it."

"Did Gil hurt there too?"

"Sometimes. He used to play on the edge of the forest. Lots of kids did, because their parents always told them that there were animals deep within the forest that would eat them if they went inside. My dad told me that Gil grew up surrounded by men, no mother around, so he didn't really understand women. I still don't think he does."

"You're from Wall Rose, right?"

"Born and bred. And you were from Wall Maria, weren't you?"

"Sadly, yes."

"Can I ask, what are the Titans like? Are they like the stories tell them? Or are they just like us?"

"The stories make them out to be fantastical monsters that look much scarier than they are. You don't realise how scary Titans are until you see what they can do. I saw the Wall torn apart in one blow and all the smaller Titans dash in, crushing everything in their path. They have no humanity, and just eat anything they find desirable. I know all kids are taught that in school, but it's so much scarier seeing people being torn apart, people you know too!"

"Did you… lose anyone?"

"My mother. Watched a Titan crush her and eat her."

"Shit. You know, you're right. You hear all the stories but don't really consider that it's all true. I can't even imagine that happening to the people I love, but you've seen it happen to all those people. And you were so young!"

I heard a noise in the distance, so I threw my arm in front of her to stop her walking.

"What?" she asked.

"I think there's someone near us," I whispered.

She nodded in response, and we walked slowly and quietly onwards. Surely enough, we watched Bella Morgens run straight past us, not even noticing us. Eliza responded quickly, dashing after her and I followed. Bella glanced behind her and saw us. She tried to speed up, but Eliza was faster and reached for the red cloth hanging loosely from her belt, pulling it out swiftly. Bella must have realised because she stopped dead in her tracks and turned around to us, sighing.

"Damn, didn't think there was anyone nearby."

Bella was a charismatic person, very friendly and a team worker. She was the kind of person you wanted to be friends with. Eliza was.

"You ran straight past us, you dummy," she teased, waving the red cloth at Bella. "Fancy telling us where you're flag is?"

"Not a chance. I'm not even sure I remember where Nat hid it."

"Evidently, somewhere in that direction," I said, pointing to where she had ran from.

"Come on, Al. It's more than 'evidently' in that direction. You came the opposite direction from me, so it clearly is that way."

"Alright, alright. Don't patronise me," I joked, before me and Eliza continued walking in the direction the flag 'clearly' was. Eliza gave Bella a little salute before following.

AN: I used a random name picker for the teams, so none of this is intentional. Also, my dad picked a number corresponding with the names so I could have the leaders and vice leaders, so again I didn't intend Al to be vice but it fell quite nicely.

Just the human name haul now:

"Vash Zwingli was equally as cold...": I prefer using Vash for Switzerland's first name instead of Basch, because it's easier to say and looks better.

"but was grabbed by Emil...": My boy Iceland! Emil Steilsson is the human name I use (and I think a majority of the fans do?)

"his older brother Lukas Bondevik...": Norway's human name. I think this is the most popular fan name for him? I've been calling him that for so long now it's not like I'm going to change it.

"Jan and Lili": I've discussed Lili already, but Jan is Netherlands. Jan Morgens is his full name, which links to...

"we watched Bella Morgens run straight past us": Bella Morgens is Belgium, Jan/Netherlands' sister.

That's all the names out of the way, but I should also note that I do shorten the longer names because it's not like every time anyone is referring to Hungary they're going to call her Elizaveta. I originally called her Liz/Lizzy, but it's too Anglicised to fit her, so Eliza stuck. Gil is Gilbert, Al/Alfie is Alfred, Rod is Roderich, Vlad is Vladimir and Nat is Natalya. I think that's all of the names I've referred to so far?