Chapter 10- A new beginning (P.S. Spoiler Alert! Please watch the last episode of season one of this anime, if not seen yet.)

Months after Keith's funeral, Pixis called on all the squad leaders and military officers of the scouting regiment to help in the 64th expedition. His original plan was to take back wall Maria. There was too much land to cover so he decided to ask Erwin, the king, and a few other head officers. They devised a plan to take back a sector of the wall and slowly take back little by little of the territory at a time. The chief of military police was not too concerned nor cared much for this plan. Erwin decided to take the survey corps and join Pixis with this proposal and team up with the garrison regiment, who didn't do much, and hopefully have enough cadets to fulfill this scheme. The king granted them permission to take his land and to proceed with caution. Erwin and Pixis wasted no time with gathering all of the fresh cadets, squad leaders, and other soldiers. They quickly set up a date in which the 64th expedition will take place. Before arranging their desired date, Erwin calls in Levi to see why his thoughts were of this plan. Levi sits down at the desk to discuss the expedition and set up a formation for each individual squad. Five squads of survey corps, scouting each corner of the territory for titans. Two squads of the garrison would be guarding the headquarters and building sectors within the wall to make a piece of Wall Maria secure. The expedition may take months but hopefully it will result in getting our land back and not having to shrink in fear of the titans again and again.

As everyone got ready at the gates after their little farewell parade through the streets, the squad leaders gathered at the front and decided on who would be leading this expedition. Erwin or Pixis, one person alone could not make the choice? After a quick vote, Erwin was decided to be the commander. After the gates opened, everyone charged through them and could smell the adventure waiting for them. Erwin was placed in the front, Pixis to his left, and Levi to his right. The formation began to take shape like diamond, everyone just hoping to make it to a secure base before sunset. They set up a similar system they had with the smoke guns when they tried to capture the female titan. Everyone could only hope that they would not come into contact with any titans. Of course, they had little luck and within the hour of riding their horses, they were attacked by a vigorous, abnormal titan.

The left corner of the formation were the closest to the huge monster. Many of the garrison's regiment were scared shitless and almost rode out of formation. Erwin took notice of their lack of experience with these kinds of situations and tried his best to swerve all of the formation to the right to avoid the titan. The titan started to run toward them as it took notice of its prey trying to escape. Erwin quickly switched one of the left garrison squads with the closest survey corps squad to take care of the 4-meter class titan. No lives were lost as they approached the headquarters for their expedition. There were only a few titans along the way but the garrison squad weren't used to the titans and had to rely on the scouting region many times. Erwin and Levi decided to train the garrison squads and the newly graduated trainees some more during this extensive voyage. There were almost 900 people on this trip, making sleeping arrangements difficult with only one base. There were about 15 people to a room and the rest had to find comfort in the dining area or stables. There were only two buildings of three stories each for everyone to sleep securely. Girls were able to fit within one story of one building while the men took up the rest of the space. Some preferred to sleep in the halls rather than sleep with snoring roommates. Armin, John, Levi, Erwin, Peter, you, and Pixis all stayed up through the night, trying to formulate a plan on how to scout each section of the territory and set up the battle plans for titans. Tomorrow, Erwin would fill in the garrison squad leaders on their plans and see if they had anything (useful) to add.

The first priority was to find at least two bases and hopefully find them suitable against a titan attack. The leaders split everyone into their original seven squad and placed the newbies equally into each one. The two garrison squads had to reach a certain point of Wall Maria and fix the hole that the armored titan created, many years ago. After the main hole was fixed, that being the second priority, they would begin creating wall sectors within the wall to get started on the slow process of taking back Wall Maria, one section at a time. This process could take months since wall don't build themselves and could take even longer since titans could come out of nowhere and lessen the number of the builders. The main leaders tried not to think of who would not survive and tried to think of the positive being that they haven't had too much trouble with titans so far. Levi, Armin, and Eren tried to get Annie to cooperate with us and partake in the expedition in hopes of making the wall-building faster with her crystal power. After waking up and breaking out of her own shell, she still kept quiet about her past and her knowledge of titans, which upset Hanji very much. Annie refused to trust anyone and denied our offer of letting her be granted freedom if she could help save humanity. After giving up, Levi and Hanji asked Eren if he was willing to take part of the expedition and of course with no hesitation he gratefully accepts. This time you get to be his titan guardian and make sure he doesn't go berserk. With Armin and John being the main strategist leaders, they were offered (mostly ordered) to stay at base and devise plans and strategies for all kinds of situations all day, every day.

Day 1

Hanji begged Levi to try bring back some captured titans. He glanced at you, his eyes seeking help from the titan-crazed researcher. I smile and step past them, the rest of the squad leaders already taking off after seeing Hanji. All of them heading toward the dining hall for breakfast. With so many soldiers, the food had to be rationed until someone discovered a forest filled with game and bushes or trees filled with fruit. For breakfast were rationed eggs and pieces of bread. Water from a nearby river was the only beverage for now. Jean kept complaining about how the water was dirty but Eren smacked his head, which caused me to choke on my water, and told him to shut up and eat. After coughing for a bit, I laughed and Armin laughed along as he noticed the scene as well. Levi wasn't very happy with me getting along so well with the other male. He already had John and Peter to take care of but Armin was young, attractive, (to women, apparently) and was very intelligent. Levi scoffed at the idea of me actually falling of Armin, he could practically be your son. What if I was into him though? What if I wanted someone else than Levi? He abruptly stood up after finishing his meal and headed straight for the stables. I barely took notice because I was really hungry and the eggs looked really good.

Armin hung out with me for the day while everyone else was busy for preparing for tomorrow and riding out into titan territory but mostly training the fresh cadets and garrison squad. I tried to find something that we could both enjoy talking about but not much came to mind. He was like my little brother and I didn't want drift apart from him or any of the other soldiers that were my dear friends. He tried talking me into a private tour of the library but I only laughed, taking it as a joke. I tried to look around for Levi as we walked through the buildings and finding the soldiers doing all sorts of things. Some brought playing cards, some were laughing and chatting, some were training tirelessly outside, and some were taking naps to restore their energy and be ready for tomorrow. I saw the captains of tomorrow in the old library, discussing routes for expedition, and trying to find the most efficient ways to check the entire territory without wasting time or getting cornered by titans. I saluted Mikasa, Eren, two of the garrison captains, and Levi. I almost walked up to him but thought he might just to focus on work so I turned and followed Armin to dining hall once again for dinner. Sasha ran past us and accidentally bumped into me as she made a beeline towards the smell of food. I would have fell if it weren't for Armin catching in his arms. I looked up and realized he has grown taller and his arms felt stronger than from when he first joined the military. After a good thirty-seconds of staring into each others' eyes, I could hear a loud cough behind me. John and Peter were behind the person who made the loud interruption. Levi glared at Armin but soon looked to me and then walked past us. Peter was holding a pencil but it was snapped in half as the whole scene took place. John tried to find something interesting to look at while me and Armin released each other. Peter shoved Armin into the wall while he grabbed my shoulder and led me to the dining hall. Armin was about to say something but John stopped him before he pissed off any more of my fanboys.

To be continued~