IMPORANT A/N: I'm late~ *sobs quietly* Hope this was worth the wait.
Not so important A/N: Follow me on tumblr if you want to see some updates I'll be posting during the progress of the next chapter (link is on my page). And thank you for so many reviews and favs last chapter! Every review made my day ^_^ even if I did ruin yours... Let me know what you thought of this chapter!
Inside the Red Zone
Enjoy this Mikasa x Armin story - wait, no... something isn't right here by: Euregatto
.
.
.
"You've been dating Eren for a while now, Annie. When are you going to tell him you love him?"
"That's not something I can just say so easily."
"But you do love him."
"I didn't say that either, Mina."
"We're constantly at war with Titans and any of us can die at any moment."
"So?"
"So, you should tell him, before it's too late."
.
.
.
Annie Leonhardt has never been fond of running away from her issues.
She is the only one of her classes' top ten to join the Military Police, given that they are down to nine and the even Reiner and Bertholdt hightailed it into the Scouting Legion to keep a closer eye on Eren, but she wants no part of it anymore, and she could feel Bertholdt's eyes on her back as she followed behind the rest of the surviving trainees off the grounds when they gladly accepted Erwin Smith's offer to leave while they still could.
But as she makes her immediate decision to pursue the path in the Name of the King, or rather, in the Name of Herself, because she can't help but feel, somewhere in the pit of her gut, that she is running away from her issues by avoiding Reiner, Bertholdt, and subsequently, Eren. No, no more of that. Now she should only focus on making herself happy, forget about Trost and Reiner and Bertholdt and her father – make a new name for herself, be selfish, as she used to be,
This would be happiness, right?
Annie wasn't sure however, not by this point, if running was going to do her any good.
.
.
.
The headquarters she is assigned to is in Stohess, the palace constructed of concrete floors and cobblestone walls, the rooms layered with wood to absorb sunlight and reject heat to keep the temperature at a consistent tepid norm.
The boy walking two paces in front of her is only about Sasha's height and his platinum hair reflects silver in the morning light as they pass down the corridor. She keeps her gaze on the depression of his back to avoid meeting the quizzical glances of the passing soldiers, sometimes glimpsing over the rest of his features and noting that he is one year ahead of her group, but still probably her age. His name is Boris Feulner as he had introduced himself to her only ten minutes prior at the front gate.
"Here's your room," he remarks to break the quiet as they approach a wooden door at the end of the hall. "You'll have a roommate from now on, so try and get along with her. It's best to just ignore her though." Annie wordlessly enters and Boris turns to continue on elsewhere. "I'll be around if need something!"
She shuts the door, gazing around at her new surroundings. Two dressers, two closets, bunk beds. Simple and quiet, she tells herself, I like that. She approaches the bottom bed, seemingly untouched so she concludes that it is unused, drops her bag on the mattress and proceeds to unpack.
"Haha~! Now who might you be?"
Annie glances up at the upper bunk as a set of olive eyes stare back down, ash-blond hair curled like waves fluttering around like a thick curtain in the breeze. The girl is bent over the railing of her suspended bed, leaning dangerously far out, but she doesn't make a move to readjust into a less perilous position.
It takes a moment for Annie to study her to know exactly what kind of person she is – not physically adept for someone who supposedly graduated in the top ten, according to the Marlo guy (she met with Boris back in the front gate) didn't earn her place through the same methods as anyone else either, and judging by the scars running the lengths of her underarms she, just like him, doesn't agree with her own actions.
"Hey, heeeey, what're you, deaf? Answer my question!"
"Annie Leonhardt," she replies finally, turning her attention back to her bag to finish unpacking.
"I'm Hitch Austerlitz!" The opposing girl chirps and offers out her hand. Annie divides her gaze between her gesture and her new roommate, but doesn't accept it, and Hitch notices because she immediately withdraws her arm. "Well, nice to meet ya! We're gonna be roomies from now on… but, uh, I already got the top. Hope you don't mind~"
"It's fine," Annie mutters and soothes out the wrinkles in her shirts, folding them expertly against the mattress.
Hitch disappears hastily over the top and clambers down the ladder a split second later. "You don't seem like you talk much," she notes aloud, "but it's okay, I like talking better than I do listening, so you don't have to say a word!" Rather obnoxiously she plops down on the bed, knocking the stack of clothes to the side. "However, there are some things we need to clear up during this initiation! Like… uhm… oh, I heard you were from those trainees who were sent into Trost!"
Annie visibly stiffens at the mention of the place but doesn't respond. She merely picks up her shirts and delicately folds them again.
"What was it like?"
"I thought you said you preferred talking over listening," she deadpans.
"Yeah, well, I changed my mind!" Hitch swings up to her feet, brushing invisible dust from her exposed knees. "It's not every day you become roommates with one of the few survivors of such a tragic event. I want to hear your war stories! I heard it was really awful and you guys lost half your graduating class~ I hope I never have to see a battle! That's why you joined the Military Police, right, to get away from partaking in something like that again?"
Annie presses her lips into a taught line. Yes, but that among many other reasons that have dictated my cruel, merciless life. "Kind of," she admits quietly after a beat.
Hitch snorts rather unattractively. "Ha! I can't imagine why else. All your buddies probably high-tailed it into the Garrison!"
"Everyone I care about went outside the Walls."
The taller soldier leans against the ladder, winging her arm against the step to support her balance. "Pfft, why the hell would the retards do that? They'll get eaten in a day. In fact, I'll give 'em three hours tops."
Annie slides open the dresser's top drawer with a wooden hiss and tucks her shirts away. "There are things you wouldn't understand – their resolve, their hopes, their dreams, are all so far out of my own understanding I couldn't even begin to describe them. I only know what I want – which is this – what I can do – which is help society – and I won't let their decisions affect me, nor mine theirs."
Hitch presses her tongue to the inside of her cheek. "Huh… well I think you made the better choice."
Annie shrugs passively and her fingers curl around the familiar shape of the crystal around her neck – which isn't there. She forgot she had thrown it at the Jaeger bastard back on top of the plateau. She finds nothing to seek comfort in. She finds nothing to keep her from seeping into sorrow. So she resorts to sub-consciously thumbing at the silver ring on her forefinger, stepping back over to her bag to unpack the rest of her material items.
No, she hisses in the back of her mind, don't think about him now. You're both over with. Done. You won't deviate from the plan any longer. You won't have to be hurt again…
Something abruptly pounds on the door. "Must be Marlowe," Hitch muses.
"Breakfast!" Marlowe Freudenberg calls out as he pops the latch and swings the division open. "Move your ass, Hitch, you're already late! And no flirting with your damned roommate. We don't need you scaring another one off."
"You're just jealous I can get with someone! Even a blind chick would be turned off by that haircut." She presses her fingertips to the rim of her lips, taunting him with her Cheshire smirk (which is blatantly affecting him. Annie hasn't seen someone scowl with such murderous intent since the day she and Eren pranked Reiner). "Oops, I'm sorry Marlie, what a silly mistake~ my vague terms probably don't exist in the Virgin Dictionary."
"And every night a man's crotch exists in your mouth. Now shove it down your throat and shut the fuck up."
She scoffs under her breath. "Oh, aren't you snarky today? You must've been kissing ass again and gotten nothing but scraps."
Marlowe rolls his eyes skyward and storms out into the hall. "Being loyal doesn't make me an automatic kiss-ass! Just come down to breakfast already!"
Hitch immediately tails after him with every intention to make some more prods at his untouched being, but she comes back only a brief moment later, wrangling Annie by her arm and dragging her out the door.
For a brief moment Annie can see a flash of onyx hair filtering like obsidian jewels in the sunlight, smile wide and gaze brighter than the stars, so full of life and a brave ambition that sparks a familiar sense of remorse within her. She could reject Mina's memory – forget everything about the regimen days, the camp outs, the games in the forest – but she doesn't want to remember the headless corpse in the middle of the road, the faceless soldier left to be burned in the bonfires and uniform jacket shipped to the family (sorry your daughter was killed defending humanity, just like all the other soldiers we've lost to the cruel world outside the walls).
So she does the only thing she can –
And she replaces the thoughts with the present, with the girl in her lead and the emptiness in her wake.
.
.
.
Annie enters the training room just as Marlowe slams Dennis into the floor with a passive grunt, his legs locked around the younger boy's head and thick muscles eroded along the exposed skin of his sides as his undershirt rides up. Their flesh slaps almost painfully against the hardwood and sends pulses of sound through the room, the barely audible underlying sound of popping bones reverberating from the sunbaked walls.
Hitch is sitting on her heels with her back against the wall and Boris on one side with the rim of his canteen pressed against his lips, the other ten recruits of her station's new soldiers – from the other Wall districts with names that slip Annie's mind (not that she cares to remember, even though she's been here for a month now) – scattered around at random, all studying the brawl like it's the most interesting thing in Sina.
"Tap!" Dennis chokes out, insistently patting Marlowe's thigh. The taller soldier immediately releases him and Dennis rubs at his throbbing neck where Annie can see a light bruise forming around his windpipe. "Dammit, you really need to learn to hold back!"
"I take my training seriously," Marlowe replies, ascending to his feet and adjusting his shirt, not even bothering to help the other boy up. He catches Annie watching them in his peripheral vision. "Oh look, Miss Anti-Social actually showed up to a group activity."
Annie decides to let his jeering remark slide and leans against the door, sliding off her boots and stripping her jacket. "I was looking for something to do," she says finally, lifting her hoodie up over her head so she's in her white muscle shirt, and letting it drop on her jacket. She shoves her clothes back against the wall. "Didn't know you guys had a training room. I understand the trainee regimens don't enforce sparring like they should."
"We aren't trainees anymore," Boris responds matter-of-factly. "Besides, in Sina we deal with people, not Titans."
Annie steps up to Marlowe. He's somewhere between Reiner and Bertholdt's height and has a significant amount of muscle; even though she's never had to flip someone like Bertholdt into submission, he's not the biggest opponent she's ever had. "Come on then," she coaxes, raising her fists, drawing her leg back – her signature fighting stance.
Marlowe snorts in failed attempt not to laugh. "Annie, please be serious. I really don't want to hurt you."
"I'm just about as serious as you had to be to get that haircut."
In the background Hitch laughs and Marlowe's jaw clenches shut. "Fine," he hisses, shuffling back so he's out of her reach. "Don't say I didn't warn you, half-pint." A split second later his fist is charging for her head –
And suddenly he's impacting the floor on the back of his neck, the imperative sound of stunned silence overlapping Marlowe's pained shout. Annie sweeps her bangs behind her ear, turning to face him as he rolls over onto his knees and massages his throbbing shoulder. He's nothing like Eren, she tells herself dismally, the familiar ache of desolate pain jabbing at her chest. No, don't think about him now.
"What the hell kid of technique is that?"
"I'm a small person," she replies tonelessly, "so my father taught me how to take down any attacker larger than myself. If you don't adapt to this world it will break you down and eat what's left. I have no intention of letting that happen." That's why I couldn't let my friends drag me down with them. "Now I suggest you pick yourself up and try again." This time, when she takes a fighting stance, so does Marlowe.
He is clearly irked by her jibe and wastes no time in rushing forward. She slams her shin into his, hoping to kick him down, but he's unaffected and wraps his arm around her neck, pulling her around into a headlock. Her throat constricts in the crook of her elbow, any attempts to catch her breath rendered useless when he binds tighter.
"Tap and I'll let go."
She grits her teeth at that.
Her fingers find the junction between his thigh and hip, and she pinches down on the bundle of nerves, twisting up and sending his body's nerves haywire. He cries out, releasing her so he can grab for his throbbing leg. She balls her fist in the front of his shirt, sweeping out his knees and slamming him down into the floor with the motion of his weight. His skull connects with the floor.
The next thing he knows she's locking his head and arm, pinning him in place, hands connected to brace herself against his superlative strength. He thrashes in her grasp. She holds tighter.
"Fuck!" He snaps, slapping the floor with his free hand. "Alright I tap! I said tap! Let me go!"
"Don't think I will," she whispers into his ear. "Do you really believe in a real fight your opponent would release you? Figure a way out or let yourself choke. It's your choice."
Marlowe seethes another curse through his teeth, grappling the joint of her elbow and yanking hard. Her leverage keeps her firmly in place. "I'm serious! I can't breathe!"
"Annie," Boris remarks, but he seems less concerned than he clearly is, "enough already. I think he's learned his lesson."
The girl weighs her decisions quickly before finally releasing the suffocating boy. Marlowe rolls over onto his knees so he can breathe, massaging his tender throat as it bruises similarly to Dennis's own wound, and Annie gradually compels herself to stand, passively brushing invisible dust from her shirt – an old habit from when she had a thin layer of dirt on her uniform after wrestling Eren to the ground.
Will you please stop thinking about him?
The door swings open and their commanding officer, a disgruntled drunk named Lou Hawthorne, enters. Immediately the soldiers snap into attention. He pauses momentarily, casting his gaze from Annie to Marlowe to the others and back around again, noting that Marlowe looked like he had been hit by a train, but Annie didn't have a single scratch on her. "At ease." They all, except for Marlowe, relax on cue. "You kids have an important assignment."
He steps closer to them so he's only several paces away from Annie and Marlowe, wafting around the marked up papers in his grip.
"It seems the Scouting Legion is coming in to have a meeting with Commander Nile Dawk, so that means our Stohess Police Station is in charge of taking care of them. This includes"—don't say it, Annie thinks pleadingly—"that we'll also have to watch that Titan-shifting brat."
Fuck.
"Why are they bringing him here?" Marlowe questions. "He's dangerous. We don't know what he's capable of."
"It's not up to me. We have our orders." Hawthorne brings the papers up. "With that being said, I've been tasked with choosing which three of you get to be Eren Jaeger's guards. However, there was a request put in by the Legion itself for his direct escort to be Annie Leonhardt."
Double fuck. "Can't I pass?" she asks, but it comes out more exasperated than intended.
"What, afraid he'll eat you?"
"I'm sure he's already done that," Hitch remarks snidely. She's been making crude comments since Annie let her relationship status slip passed her lips two days prior.
In response, Annie throws a middle finger over her shoulder.
"The request was put in because you're the only one in our station who actually knows the bastard," the man continues undeterred, "so I'll assign you with good ol' Marlowe here, and…" He scans the group quizzically, balancing out their scores from the trainee days that he read in their files. "…Hitch Austerlitz."
Should have just chosen the Garrison.
After several prolonged minutes of assigning other tasks to the rest of the group, Hawthorne instructs them to be in the main court immediately after breakfast the next morning to meet with the Scouting Legion group, and without so much as a farewell, takes his leave.
Annie awkwardly thumbs at her ring, sighs gently.
There goes running away from my problems again…