Imelda walked out towards the training ground a few yards from the headquarters; she was wearing her gear and boots. Levi was already there, waiting and impatiently tapping his foot on the dusty ground. Quickening her step Imelda made it to his side before he could give the order to hurry up. Everything seemed to be back to normal between them but Imelda could tell Levi was becoming harsher with his criticisms, his patience was thinner and his fuse was shorter.
"Well" he clipped, "are you going to show me or are we going to stand here like idiots?" Imelda shook her brown hair out of her eyes in reply before shakily walking to the first tree. She let out a shaky breath before jumping and releasing the hooks and flying up into the air. He ears caught a second shot and hiss as Levi began to follow, lazily swinging to side to side like it was second nature. With her papa's eyes boring into her progress Imelda was finding it even harder to keep concentration. She felt a branch smack her cheek as she wobbled before she fell into the sickening spinning like she had done before back at the training corps.
Levi watched with some surprise as his child began to spin faster and faster; was she just messing around or was she struggling? The latter was confirmed when she landed head first into a bush. Landing beside it he pulled her out and roughly dusted her shoulders before saying, "again" and flew upwards to a tree.
Wiping her face Imelda did just that…and promptly smack into one of the trees as her left hook shot failed to bury itself in opposite tree. Sliding down the tree Imelda groaned as she hit the floor. Levi didn't move from his perch as he watched in slight disappointment. What was making it so hard to master? Sure, he had been self-taught and that hadn't been easy at first but after a few hours he had managed it.
On the ground, Imelda furiously wiped the tears that were making their way down her face as she took a running jump and flew low to the ground. If Levi could note anything, it was that Imelda never gave up. After several more falls, more silent tears and choice swearwords; Levi called it a day.
"Don't cry Imelda, tears won't get you anywhere outside the walls" he tried to sooth; in reply Imelda punched a tree causing the whole thing to bend with a groan. He wasn't very good at the comfort stuff was he? Before he could rephrase his statement Imelda was storming away.
"Imelda" he warned but she just wiped her face roughly, ignoring him. "Imelda Smith you will obey your captain, stop acting like the brat people think you are and face your problems!"
Levi yelled in his hardest voice, causing Imelda to stop, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. The raven haired man marched over at took Imelda by the shoulders, forcing her to look up at him as he continued,
"Just because you can't do it today, doesn't mean you can't do it tomorrow, getting stressed and angry is in no shitting way to cope with it. Now pull yourself together before I put you over my knee and give you something to cry about."
As the last comment left his lips, Imelda's entire body seized up, her ears went red and she covered her face.
"Why would you mention that!" she practically squeaked, clearly highly embarrassed at his statement. Levi rolled his eyes as he began to walk with Imelda toward the headquarters. He could still easily give this child a spanking.
Imelda looked firmly at her shoes, her mind completely forgetting her 3D Gear fail. It was true that Levi had spanked her more than once; when she had been 7 he'd spanked her for breaking a pile of the kitchens bowls, when she was 8 he had done it again when she'd snuck into his office and, shall we say, explored in, leaving a mess of books, papers and ink all over the floor. There had been other times but those two had been the worst. Erwin had spanked her a few times to but Levi's were a lot more painful despite the massive different in hand size.
Shaking her mind out of the corporal punishment she noticed Levi had let her go to remove his own gear. He glanced at her and she hurriedly began to unbuckle the straps of her gear. They left the store room together and then separated to do their duties; Levi went off to supervise the newest recruits and give them a scare factor, while Imelda headed for her workshop.
Entering she shut the doors, kicked off her boots and flopped onto her chair, looking at all her old blueprints; okay, they weren't technically old, they were just forgotten. There were plans for new cannon designs, rifles, even her old hand bombs; which still needed plenty of work. Trying to think about what to do Imelda failed to hear the thundering feet of a certain, bespectacled scientist. It was only when she crashed through the door, startling the poor 12 year old.
"Imelda, there you are, I have a task for you" she panted slamming a gun like mechanism onto the table. Blinking, Imelda tilled her head before taking the pistol like object and recognised it to be the flares they used in outside missions.
"This mechanism has been nothing but faulty since we bought them, can you improve it?" Hanji beamed as Moblit finally caught up to her, panting violently. Imelda had to feel sorry for the man, Hanji was a handful at the best of times and never seemed to understand the word danger; no wonder the man's past time was drinking.
Looking back down at the flare Imelda clicked her tongue, "Yeah I can try, it'll give me something to do after all." Hanji whooped, squeezing her tightly before running back out, with Moblit staggering after her. What an adorable couple, Imelda smiled before fiddling with the flair.
It was a gun like object with a large barrel; usually the user would put a pellet of whatever signal colour they required and then fire it. But the pellets had to be put in precisely or they wouldn't work, and with the stress of titans, riding your horse or just pure exhaustion, they were considered hard to use. Tying her brown hair behind her head she grabbed a pencil and started scribbling different blue prints, mathematics and possible replacements. She loved loosing herself in the world of engineering and mechanics, it made her forget all the other stuff that would worry her constantly.
Two hours later the bell was sounded for supper and all the troops who had been training looked up gratefully from their exercise.
"Don't get your hopes up, keep going, can't you count to 50? As far as I can see you've all only done 10." Levi growled as the newbies went back glumly to their press-ups. He was in a foul mood now after a stressful afternoon and was in no mood for slackers.
Finally the new troop finished and they all staggered to dinner. Levi entered and sat next to Erwin and Hanji.
"They that bad?" Hanji grinned through her glass and Levi glared at her, "Shut it shitty glasses, I've had a shit afternoon and I don't want you dragging it down any further."
Erwin raised an eyebrow at Levi before taking another bite of his dinner and asking, "How did Imelda's 3DM Gear training go?"
Levi didn't answer straight away, he obviously wouldn't lie to Erwin, that would be ridicules but he knew Erwin would be disappointed with his answer.
"Not as you hoped, she has very little balance in the air and her anger levels aren't helping her either." Erwin sighed, nodding, he'd hoped to take Imelda on a training mission but with the situation as it was now, it wasn't going to happen. Without a reply he nodded, and they spoke no more on the subject.
Levi breathed in deeply before his note caught the scent of the flair pellets. Turning he saw people look at the door just as Imelda entered. She looked terrible, her face was covered in different colours of yellow, black, green and red, she had several burns and her hair was smocking. As gracefully as one could in that state, Imelda came towards the table where Levi, Hanji and Erwin sat, and placed a flare on the table.
"I think" Imelda coughed out a couple of smoke rings, "that should do the trick Hanji; oh hello Commander, Captain." She acknowledge before turning and heading for the door.
"Smith" Erwin sighed, Imelda turned, "go to the medical room and treat those burns; and next time when your testing flares, don't look down the barrel, even if you can survive the blast."