The wooden gates leading to the Legion's main headquarters thundered open with a slam.

Huffing and grumbling, Military Police Commander Nile Dawk stormed through the Legion's headquarters while clenching a tightly rolled-up newspaper. His darkened expression sent many of the recruits shuffling and hobbling away while the older soldiers could only look on, bewildered by his fury. He ignored them, however. There was only one person he felt deserved a stern talking to.

Once he reached the door of that person's office, Nile shoved the door open, slamming it into the wall and nearly shattering the door hinges. "Erwin!" he shouted and stomped towards the desk.

The Legionnaire captain raised his head from the pile of papers he dropped in the "outgoing" box. "Nile, how can I —"

Nile cut him off by slapping the newspaper on the table. "What the hell is this?"

At the top of the page, the newspaper's headlines screamed in big, bold letters: "BLOODY MASSACRE AT THE WAREHOUSE!? MURDERER ON THE LOOSE?"

Erwin didn't seem fazed by his yelling, however. "It seems like your soldiers are not doing their job," he quipped.

Nile's face turned red as he slammed the table, causing a few papers to jump. "Don't play coy with me, Erwin," he hissed, "those boys used you!"

"Do you have anything that corroborates that?"

Nile's fury fizzled out at Erwin's pointed question. All the reports told him was that there was blood on the floor. Nobody mentioned anything incriminating or specific. No foreign weapons, bullets, or even substances were found on the scene. Even the people on the wall during the nightly patrols couldn't tell him anything. What would the Garrison know, he mused in frustration. Annoyance soon bubbled up again when there was nothing to connect the boys to the incident. All he had was a suspicion they did. After all, nobody would be skilled enough to infiltrate Wall Shina and leave without a trace.

"Are you saying that whoever died just spontaneously exploded?" Nile roared.

He knew it was a feeble counterargument but, there was nothing to prove that the boys were in Wall Shina last night.

Erwin shrugged. "Were there any casualties?"

He shook his head. "None that were reported."

"Then, perhaps it was an animal."

"An animal randomly burst into blood?"

"For all you know, it's just the media sensationalizing what they saw. The massacre may even just be a puddle."

Nile clenched his fists until his knuckles paled, averting his eyes away from Erwin's dead stare. How could a man be so apathetic at the sight of blood? The veins on Nile's hand pulsed a bit and his nails dug deep into the wooden desk. The Legionnaire's commander remained still with a fixated look, slowly raising an eyebrow at him.

"It's rare for you to be overwhelmed like this, Nile," he remarked offhandedly before rising from his desk. "Perhaps you should consider taking a leave?"

"That doesn't change anything!" Nile snapped. "Why are you shielding them?"

Because these boys hold the answers to my questions.

Remembering the image of their empty bunkers from last night vexed him. Although he allowed them to complete their missions, that didn't mean for them to go around killing things or people. Erwin fought the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and sigh. Any form of frustration would give Nile a reason to prosecute the boys for something they may or may not have done. However, he wanted answers from them. What did they kill yesterday? Would they be willing to give him information about that?

"Before you start accusing people, Nile." Erwin pushed away from his desk and raised an eyebrow at the Military Police's commanding officer. "Make sure you have evidence that actually places them in the scene."

Nile clucked his tongue. "You bet I will."

"For your sake, I hope not. Or is the Military Police willing to risk their reputation?"

Nile glared for a few moments before letting out a disgruntled snort and flouncing away. Although the woolly carpet muffled his stomping, it couldn't suppress Nile's slamming of Erwin's wooden office door that nearly rattled off the rusted brass hinges.

Once the silence and the splinters and dust settled down, Erwin sighed and shook his head. Had he overestimated their ability as covert operatives? He gnashed his teeth a bit and curled his toes. What on earth would leave a mess like that? According to Hange, Titans couldn't move in the night and they wouldn't have been to reach Wall Shina. If they did then, Commander Dot Pixis would be getting an earful from him and Nile.

"Hold on," he suddenly realized. "They did agree to share what they found with me."

Erwin flung the door behind him with his brisk footsteps echoing throughout the stone halls of the Legion's headquarters. His mind raced with many questions. What did they find? Did they find anything that proved that there was a world beyond theirs? His heart raced and his lips twitched slowly into a huge smile. He couldn't wait to find out what the boys had found!

But that all changed when he suddenly heard loud crashing and banging from another room in the hall.

"Don't fucking touch us with that thing!" roared a very familiar voice.

Blinking, Erwin walked towards the room where he heard the hullabaloo from. "What's going on?"

The sight he laid his eyes on was quite far from his expectations.

There stood a maniacally grinning Hange with a syringe while Spencer held back a flailing and howling Bryan. Tala and Ian clung to Kai's cropped jacket, shivering. Although he had known Hange for being quite — quirky — when it involved medical check-ups and experiments, he didn't expect five elite soldiers to stare at her with the same paled expression newbies had when facing titans.

They're scared of needles? Erwin cleared his throat. "Ahem."

All of them froze and it took a few minutes before they realized what a strange predicament they were all in, immediately settling themselves down and standing at attention.

Erwin folded his arms. "Do I want to know why these boys are freaking out" — he raised an eyebrow at his second-in-command — "Hange?"

Hange raised her arms in surrender. "I was just going to take their blood for records and they all just started freaking out!"

"That's after she told us she wanted to dig a fucking hack us up like a pig carcass!" Bryan snarled.

Tala shivered. "W-we d-don't like doctors."

Ian could only violently shake his head and blubbered gibberish.

Erwin turned to Kai and Spencer. "You two seem relatively calm."

Kai and Spencer exchanged looks with one another and then shrugged at Erwin. "We scream on the inside," they deadpanned.

Now it was Erwin's turn to scream internally. They had him in the first half, not going to lie. But the moment Hange brought out syringes and got carried away, they all panicked as if they had seen a horde of Aberrant Titans. So it's not Titans they're afraid of, Erwin noted mentally. However, Hange didn't mean any actual harm. Her words — he knew — needed a lot more clarification. Even the most hardened soldiers scurried away from her the moment she finished her business with them. What did she do to them?

"Hange." He folded his arms with a stern glare.

Hange shrugged. "I am not trying to hurt them, commander. I swear!"

"Then I suggest you watch your words a little more carefully and be more" — he wondered how she became a medic, to begin with — "compassionate."

"Fiiiine."

He smirked at Hange's pouting expression, shaking his head. "And if you boys" — he shot a concerned look in their direction — "need any assistance, let me know."

The boys nodded stiffly at him but shot daggers at Hange. Erwin suppressed a chuckle before leaving the room. If Nile wanted to punish the boys for disturbing the peace of the city behind Wall Shina then, the boys got it. Once the door softly clicked behind him, Erwin couldn't help but wonder what kind of people did the boys deal with for them to be so deathly afraid of his second-in-command? He knew Hange often overwhelmed people with her morbid fascination with Titans and her passionate enumeration of how she sliced and diced every Titan to find out what they were made of. But, what she said was no different from the boys' one-sided massacre of Titans.

For now, whatever questions he had for them would have to wait.

The boys had too many questions for Hange but so long as she held that syringe with a large maniacal grin; they refused to go near her. They all clumped together with Ian, Bryan, and Tala hiding right behind Spencer. Tala clung onto Kai's jacket, Ian dove behind Spencer's and Kai's legs, and Bryan snarled and glared at Hange while hiding behind Spencer, digging his fingers into the big blonde's shoulders.

"Relax!" Hange flicked the syringe and waved it around like a toy. "It'll only hurt for a short while."

Tala shook his head vehemently. "Over my dead body!"

Ian jumped behind Spencer and Bryan let out a feral growl, shoving Kai and Spencer up front to negotiate with her.

"Umm, maybe drop the syringe?" Spencer chuckled sheepishly.

Kai nodded. "Do what he says."

Hange blinked and tilted her head to the side. "But you boys had broken bones before. What's a little pin prick going to do?"

The five boys exchanged glances with one another and then hung their heads with dark looks. Tala actually whimpered and tightened his grip on Kai's shoulders, causing the latter to put his arm in front of the former slowly. Bryan's legs twitched while Spencer patted the younger boy's thigh and Ian's hair, noticing how the smaller boy's grip on his pants leg tightened into a vice grip. She was right however but, their bodies and minds screamed: run. The air in the room seemingly thickened, as if strangling the five of them for trying to resist her.

But then, Hange softly smiled before putting down the syringe. "Alright."

They stared at her, puzzled when she also shed off her jacket and rolled away the tray filled with medical tools towards the corner. She then plucked out a notebook and pen, plopped down on the bed, and then smiled kindly.

"Why don't you boys tell me about yourselves instead?" Hange asked.

They all exchanged glances again but Tala, Bryan, and Ian slowly loosened their grips and Kai and Spencer suddenly dropped onto the chairs. At least the syringe was no longer within her arm's reach. But that still didn't stop them from entertaining the possibility of her doing something else that was just as bad as what they'd gone through.

"I guess I'll start," Spencer volunteered with a raise of his hand. "But the first question is — what do you know about us?"

Hange shrugged. "Honestly? Virtually nothing. I have a few files that talk about how you guys fight in the forest but nothing else."

"Fair. Well, for starters, we're not from this island."

Her eyes widened and she jumped up to her feet. "Wait! You're outsiders from beyond the island?"

Spencer blinked. "Yeah?"

Bryan sighed and poked the bigger boy's cheek. "Dude, you forgot they're kind of backward here."

Backward? Hange blinked while Spencer sheepishly chuckled. "Right" — he scratched the back of his head — "We came here via a... water carriage?"

Kai let out a defeated groan. "You're really pushing it."

"You have any better ideas?"

There was a pause. "Fair point."

Hange's eyes lit up like a kid's on Christmas Day after finding out they received the latest and most wanted game console. "Water carriages? Like it's a boat but bigger?"

Hearing how quickly she caught on, the boys exhaled sharply. Maybe explaining to her wasn't going to be so bad.

Hours passed and Hange refused to budge from her chair. From what was once one notebook in hand, her bedside now had five notebooks compiling all sorts of information and next to that bedside, there was a bin now filled with at least twenty different pens of 3 colors. Although the sun had already gone down, her eyes had not drooped if not only to blink and her mind raced with a whole new list of questions with her neurons firing at alarmingly fast rates. Ships, cars, the internet, cell phones — there were so many things she wanted to ask about! Even medicine had advanced with new things like Electroencephalograms (EEG), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines, and new methods of understanding substances like centrifugal separation, and flame tests — she clung her toes onto the bar of the chair to desperately fight the urge to leap out of her chair and scream with joy. These boys were a walking gold mine of information!

"But have you seen Titans before?" She then asked.

Spencer nodded. "Sort of but at the same time, they're not as common as the other things we've seen."

Bryan scoffed and flicked away imaginary dirt from his fingernails. "They look like people so it's obvious you kill them like people."

"That's not what you said when you tried stabbing it in the heart and then it slapped you into the lake," Kai smirked.

"Fuck you. It's freakin' trial and error, you walking x-ray."

Hange blinked in confusion. "X-Ray?"

Kai groaned. "Now you've gone and done it" — he shot a withering glare at Bryan before sighing at Hange — "I can... see blind spots."

She shook her head. "It must go deeper than that."

"It does. But, it's not easy to explain without a demonstration."

Hange, nodding, turned to the others. "During the fights, you all seemed to fight differently. Do you all have your own signature skills?"

Tala grinned. "Yeap! Wanna see?" only for him to get smacked at the back of the head by Spencer. "Ow! What?"

"We might end up breaking something if we demonstrate it in here," Spencer admitted. "Maybe some other time?"

Bryan nudged Spencer. "Yours, Kai's, and Ian's are more small-scale. Why can't you guys do yours instead?"

Spencer raised an eyebrow. "Bryan, no."

"What? If this will spare us from getting poked by needles, at least show her!"

While the two boys bickered with one another, Hange had already taken notes about their dispositions. Bryan often growled when he spoke while narrowing his silver eyes. When his lips would twitch into a smile, his eyes would widen and would send her stomach twisting into knots. Spencer, despite his large, muscular, and squared appearance, had a soft look whenever he would speak to people. But when he would coax or discuss things with his brothers, his softened look would become more dynamic with slight eyebrow raises and sometimes, a bit of puckering of his lips. Kai's slightly curled eyebrows, tight-lipped smirk, and averted gaze reminded her of an angsty younger brother who seemed disinterested in everything. Tala's wide and bright ice-blue eyes along with his draping his arms on Kai's shoulders made her smile. Although Kai's snarky and hardened look sent everybody running, his softened look and acceptance of Tala's physical contact warmed her heart.

It's rare to see boys be so open with each other.

"Although, boys, there's something I need to ask you." Hange reached over to her desk drawers, plucking out a newspaper and showing them today's headlines. "What happened here?"

Bryan shook his head. "You don't wanna know what we killed that night, lady."

Hange nodded. "Was it human?"

Ian shook his head. "Definitely not!"

"Not even a human wearing a beast's skin?"

The boys' stoic expressions quickly albeit slightly changed into startled ones. Tala had already become paler than he already was and all their eyes had widened. Ian bit his lower lip and Spencer threw a worried glance at Bryan who shrugged with a violent but short shake of his head.

"Definitely sure it wasn't human," Kai broke the silence. "It didn't understand human speech. None of its behaviors appeared human."

Hange nodded. That's probably how they decide whether to kill or not kill.

"But it definitely had a pack mentality," he added.

That had all four boys and her looking at him. "It did?"

Kai nodded and turned to Bryan. "Why did you shoot its mouth shut then?"

Bryan shrugged. "It'll wake up the whole damn city!"

"Other than that, what were we taught when a creature screams like that?"

The realization sunk into Tala's mind. "It's either intimidating us or calling for help."

"Either way, it's a way of summoning numbers. The creature we killed last night hadn't taken that much damage yet but even an abomination like that would know how to gauge the combat ability of its opponents. Considering it had a scorpion for a tail, it probably already decided to give us the full venom treatment."

Ian pondered for a moment. "Oh right, chimeras take on some of the traits of their amalgamations."

Hange gawked. "A chimera? What's that?"

"One of the most common creatures we kill. They're a combination of several animals and are bred to be weapons. Some specialize but most of the time, they overwhelm their victims by numbers."

Hange shivered. There were more monsters out there! She thought that humanity only needed to deal with Titans. Now, there's something called "chimeras!" Would the city be prepared to deal with those monsters? She glanced at her OMD gear sitting at the corner of the room with a shake of her head. They only had the technology and knowledge to kill Titans; they had no information on how to deal with something small and fast that can dart through the city's alleyways and sewer passages.

"Will you be willing to share that information with us?" she wrung her fingers together, shivering with clammy palms.

Tala nodded. "Definitely. We're not going to let people die because of our problems."

"I do have a feeling though that whatever we find from our current mission, it'll also help you in dealing with titans," Spencer added.

Hange beamed, relief filling her. "Thank you!"

The boys nodded with a more softened look but Hange knew there was one more thing that had to be done. She slid on her surgical gloves with their expressions immediately changing into ones of complete discomfort.

"Sorry but, it's the procedure before we send you out into the field."

The five boys exchanged glances and then shook their heads as if resigning in defeat.

The Legion's main courtyard buzzed to life the next morning, with horses neighing and people running around with boxes.

Legionnaires rolled barrels and tanks of gas into the different carts while the trainees began reining in the whinnying horses. Other soldiers fumbled and loaded what looked like stacks of rifles and arquebuses into crates in the caravans that were tied to several horses. Once loaded, some began tying them down with industrial-grade ropes after covering them with a large blanket.

Tala and the boys gathered outside, each of them having their horses sans Ian.

"Ugh, why don't they have ponies?" Ian pouted while climbing into Spencer's caravan.

"Ponies don't run fast enough. That's why," Bryan snickered. "That's what you get for playing DOTA2 all night. You're short."

"Oh screw off, at least I didn't shoot my liver to oblivion."

"Hey! I needed those!"

"You nearly got kicked out of AA. Thrice!"

Spencer whistled. "Hey! That's enough out of both of you."

Ian and Bryan pouted, begrudgingly muttering "Sorry."

"Anyway, did you get our earpieces to work, Ian?"

Ian nodded. "Yeah but don't expect audio in 4K. This place has shitty signal."

"Fine with us. Better to respond in code words if necessary." Spencer turned to Tala, Bryan, Ian, and Kai. "Where are you guys stationed?"

Bryan shrugged. "Inner right."

"Outskirts far left." Kai hiked his thumb over his shoulder. "They mixed me with the crazy girl."

"Up front," Tala said.

Ian raised an eyebrow. "Wait, you're with Erwin?"

Tala nodded with a shrug. "Don't ask me. I just found out this morning."

Kai shook his head. "Didn't we tell the man not to separate us?"

Spencer sighed. "He's got to have a good reason if he did. It doesn't seem like a pointless distribution considering Ian and I are bringing up the rear, Bryan's somewhat in the middle, Kai's on the far left, and Tala's up front."

"Well, whatever it is, keep all comms open," Tala said while mounting his horse. "We don't know what's out there. But whatever it is" — he raised an eyebrow at Spencer — "
"we're prepared?"

Spencer nodded. "We are so long as we're not mauling a sentient monster. Then, we'll get out with minimal damage."

That's Chapter 11! Enjoy and hopefully leave a review?