"HEY! YOU!" The commander barked.
"Sir!" Armin slammed his right fist onto his chest in the salute.
"WHAT'D DO THEY CALL YOU, MAGGOT?"
"Armin Arlert from Shiganshina sir!"
"Wow, seriously? Why would your parents curse you with such a dumb name?"
"It was my grandfather sir!"
"Cadet Arlert, why is a runt like you here?" The commander leaned closer to Armin.
"To help humanity overcome the titans!" He replied, his voice growing squeaky.
"That is delightful to hear! You're going to be a great light snack for 'em!" He grabbed Armin's head roughly. "Row three about face, runt!" He spun Armin around and shoved him.
Hazel stared. Why was the commander being so cruel to his recruits? He had an example to set of course, but why insult them?
"What do you call yourself?" The commander said to his next victim.
"Sir! My name is Thomas Vanga from the Trost District!" The boy replied.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" The commander yelled.
Thomas repeated himself, louder this time. Hazel grimaced.
"Nobody here gives a dam!" The man moved on. "HEY YOU!"
"Sir! I'm Mina Carolina!" The girl exclaimed.
"Is a worm like you the best there is to offer?!"
"Sir! I'm afraid that's the case sir!" The girl squeezed her eyes shut.
Annabeth tensed. She was next in the crazed man's line of fire.
"OI! BLONDIE? WHAT DO YOU CALL YOURSELF?" He barked, getting very close to her face. She quickly put on the most intimidating face she could muster.
"SIR, ANNABETH CHASE FROM TROST DISTRICT SIR!" She barked.
"WHY'S A PETTY GIRL LIKE YOU HERE? YOU'RE A WASTE OF MY TIME!" The commander roared. Annabeth flinched when a droplet of saliva hit her cheek.
"I'M HERE TO ASSIST HUMANITY IN GETTING RID OF THE TITANS SIR!" Annabeth replied. She wanted to say all sorts of nasty things, but she knew better.
"GREAT! THEY'LL CHEW ON YOU AND GIVES US TIME TO ESCAPE!" The commander moved on.
Annabeth wiped the spit off her face as the commander continued down the line. She noticed that he didn't speak to Eren, Mikasa, Annie, or a couple other people. What separated them?
"YOU!" The man had found Jason. "WHAT'S YOUR NAME?"
"JASON GRACE SIR!"
"WHY ARE YOU HERE, YOU COCKROACH?"
"TO HELP HUMANITY PROGRESS AGAINST THE TITANS SIR!"
"YOU'RE ABOUT AS HELPFUL AS A TWIG!"
Annabeth grit her teeth. One more person until he reached Nico. Next to Nico was Hazel, one more person, Frank, another person, Piper, and Leo, and Percy.
"WHAT DO WE HAVE OVER HERE?" He had reached a taller boy.
"Jean Kirstein sir, from the Trost District!"
"And why are you here, cadet?"
The boy seemed a bit surprised at the question at first, then he smiled. "To join the Military Police sir, the best of the best."
Annabeth noticed many eyes shift towards Jean, hers included.
"That's nice." The commander remarked. Jean looked nervous. "You wanna live in the interior, do 'ya?"
"Yes." Jean grinned. The commander suddenly slammed against the boy, causing him to sink to the ground, clutching his stomach in pain. Annabeth flinched.
"No one told you to sit recruit! If you can't handle this Kirstein, then forget about joining the Military Police!" He moved on. Annabeth kept her eyes fixed on Jean as he staggered to his feet.
"What the heck is wrong with your face you smiling idiot?" The commander said to the next in line.
"Marco Bodt at your service sir from Gene south side of Wall Rose!" The smiling boy looked the commander straight in the eyes. "I aim to join the Military Police and give life and limb at service to the king!"
"Well then," The commander said, his volume noticeably lowered. "That makes you an idealistic fool. You want the truth?" He suddenly leaned in very close to poor Marco. "The only use the king has for your life and limbs are as titan food."
Annabeth could barely contain her rage. These people had signed up to give their lives to humanity, and this man had the nerve to walk around accusing them of their faults! That was not a sound battle strategy to say the least.
Surprisingly, the commander skipped Nico and went straight to Hazel. "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR SKIN CADET?"
"Sir! I am Hazel Levesque from Trost! My father and mother are dark skinned people, whose traits I inherited through genetics sir!" Hazel barked.
"ARE YOU SASSING ME WIMP?" The man roared.
"NO SIR!" Hazel replied.
When it was Frank's turn, the man struggled. Frank was a perfect soldier, being the son of a war god and all.
Then it was Piper.
"You should skip me and the next two people." She whispered before the commander could start yelling. He blinked, confused, but moved on.
"Hey cueball," he began walking towards a bald boy. "You're up next."
"Ohh, me?" He slammed his left fist against the right side of his chest. Frank visibly paled. His salute's wrong. "SIR! Connie Springer from Ragaku Village sir!"
The commander noticed his salute, and in a split second, had the boy hovering in midair, his bald head locked in his hands. "You have it backwards, Connie Springer. That was the first thing you were taught. This salute represents the resolve in your heart to fight those bent on the systematic destruction of our people." Connie's face was beginning to stretch awkwardly. "IS YOUR HEART ON YOUR RIGHT SIDE?"
Percy spotted a red haired girl eating a potato a couple rows back, and barely managed to hold in a giggle. She took another bite, and suddenly everyone's eyes were on her, the commander's included. She stared straight forward and continued to chew.
The commander dropped Connie. "Hey, you there. What do you think you're doing?"
The girl glanced around, obviously ignorant of the fact that the commander was looking at her. She took another bite, and suddenly the commander was in her face.
"YOU ARE OFFICIALLY ON MY BAD LIST! WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?!" He screamed. The girl swallowed quickly and saluted, potato still in hand.
"Sasha Brouse from Dopper Village at your service! Reporting for duty sir!" She exclaimed.
"Sasha Brouse huh? And what is that you're clutching in your right hand?"
Percy and Leo avoided eye contact with each other, knowing very well if they so much as looked at each other they would burst out laughing.
"A steamed potato. It sat there in the Mess Hall begging to be eaten sir!" Sasha replied.
"A theft. I understand." The commander said icily. "But here, why eat it here of all places?"
"It looked quite delicious, and it was getting cold, so I gave it shelter in my stomach sir." Sasha said shamelessly. Percy silently fell to the ground, biting his fist to keep from howling with laughter.
"Why? I can't comprehend." The man was growing less tolerant by the second. "Why would you eat that potato?"
Sasha looked confused, and Hazel prayed to the gods she wouldn't say anything stupid.
"Are you, asking me why people eat potatoes? I'm surprised you don't know sir." Sasha said innocently.
Percy and Leo were silently dying of laughter, while the rest of the cadets looked at Sasha, clearly mortified. There was a stunned silence for a couple seconds, before Sasha broke about an eighth of the potato off. She extended the small bit to the commander. "Here sir, have half."
Frank had to fight his own giggles down now, and even Nico had cracked an amused smile.
"Have half? Really?" The commander's expression became so shocked Annabeth would think Sasha had just grown three heads.
Sasha grinned like she had just solved the problem.
~:~
"Man, I thought chief was going to kill Potato Girl." Connie remarked, watching Sasha run.
"I know. What a first day." Eren added. "It's funny, being told to run until the sun sets didn't seem to bother her nearly as much as losing meal privileges for the next five days."
Hazel smirked and exchanged an amused glance with Annabeth.
"I think she said that she's from Dopper. If I remember right that's a small hunting village up in the mountains." Connie said.
Something caught Eren's eye, and he turned to look at it. "Hey, what's that?"
Everyone followed his gaze to see a dull white wagon being pulled by a horse up the hill leading out of the academy.
"They're dropouts." Mina said. "They prefer to work in the fields."
"But, it's only the first day."
"That's the way it is. If you can't handle the pressure, you gotta leave." Eren said grimly. Annabeth fixed her gaze on the boy.
"I can't believe anyone would rather pull plants than fight." He added.
Marco stood, turning to face Eren. "I know about some of us, but you never mentioned where you were from Eren."
Eren smiled lightly. "The same as Armin," He rested a hand on his buddy's shoulder. "From Shiganshina."
Everyone looked surprised at this. "Oh, wow, that means-"
"You saw it, you were there that day." Connie cut Marco off.
Annabeth perked up. What were they talking about?
"Huh? Quiet!" Marco hissed, looking at Connie.
"The colossal one! Did you see him?" Connie asked excitedly.
Colossal? Annabeth thought. Perhaps a type of titan? Maybe it's related to this Wall Maria I keep hearing about.
Eren frowned. "Yeah. Yeah I did." His voice grew quieter, sadder even.
~:~
"They keep talking about this colossal titan." Annabeth said. She jerked her head towards Eren, who was surrounded by people questioning him. "I think it might have something to do with Wall Maria."
"Maybe we should listen to Eren's conversation. It could help us understand more." Jason suggested.
"Yeah, you do it." Percy shoved Jason out of his seat.
"Why me?" Jason whined.
"Just do it Grace." Leo smirked. Jason frowned and moped over to the crowd around Eren's table.
"Okay, exactly how tall was he?" A boy asked.
"He stuck his head over the outer wall." Eren replied grimly.
So this colossal titan is pretty big, Jason thought. These walls are ginormous.
"Woah wait, I thought he stepped over the wall completely!" One boy chimed in/
"So did I!" A girl added.
"That was the rumor in my village too!"
"Nah, he was big but not that big." Eren said.
The colossal titan did something to the wall. Jason concurred. He must have busted it down.
"So what did it look like?" A girl asked.
"It had a mouth like a corpse, and no skin. Just muscles." Eren replied. Jason shuddered at the thought.
"And the armored titan? The one that broke through Wall Maria?"
Wait, the colossal titan didn't bust down Wall Maria? And who's this "Armored Titan"?
"Is that what they're calling it?" Eren said. "In all the panic it was just another titan to me."
"No way. So what were they like?"
Eren froze, his eyes wide, spoon in front of his mouth. He paled.
Oh no, he shouldn't have asked that. Jason thought. They're dredging up bad memories for him.
Eren dropped his spoon suddenly and covered his mouth, trembling, his eyes full of fear and sadness. The crowd watched him expectantly.
"Come on, that's enough questions all right?" Marco said. "I'm sure h'd rather not relive everything he went through."
"Sorry, we didn't mean to-"
"It's not like that." Eren cut Connie off. He ripped off a bite of bread. "Those stupid titans. They're really not that big a deal. If we focus on mastering the omnidirectional mobility gear they give us, then it's titan pay back time."
ODM gear...omnidirectional mobility gear! I bet Leo knows what that is.
"I've waited years to be trained as a soldier." Eren continued. "And all of a sudden the reality is sinking in. I'm joining the Scout Regiment, and I'm sending the titans back where they came from. I'm gonna butcher them all."
Jason blinked, surprised at the boy's ambition.
"Hey, are you crazy or something?" A voice called. Jason glanced over his shoulder to see the boy the commander had kneed in the gut talking. The one with the Military Police dreams, Jean.
"Not that it's my business, but signing up for recognizance is like a death sentence." He said smugly. Eren shifted to face him.
"I guess we'll see. Or at least I will. You seem content hiding in the interior with the MPs." Eren growled.
"Look I'm just speaking honestly here, kid. I think it's better than being some loud mouth bragger, tough guy wanna-be pretending he's not as scared as the rest of us." Jean smirked. The tension in the room shot up, and so did Eren. Jason shoved his way to the front, ready to tear the two apart if a fight broke out.
"Are you trying to pick a fight?" Eren asked.
"Stop it you guys." Marco urged.
"Alright sure." Jean stood. "Makes no difference to me." He and Eren approached each other, Jean being a good amount taller.
Jason tensed, about to insert himself into the situation, but a bell began ringing. The boys glanced toward the source of the sound, before returning to look at each other.
Jean sighed and cracked a grin. "Hey, I apologize. Sorry for calling you names and dismissing your choice of career." He extended a hand. "Put 'er there kid, what do you say?"
Eren kept his serious expression, but much to Jason's relief, he said, "Right. I'm sorry as well. He smacked Jean's hand with his own, then walked off. Mikasa followed him, and Jason saw the moment Jean fell in love as she walked by. Mikasa was a very pretty girl.
"Uhh, excuse me!" Jean stammered.
Mikasa halted, and turned to face a furiously blushing Jean.
"I- uh- I just wanted- I mean- I've never seen anyone like you before. I mean uh-" Jean tensed, glancing to the ground. "I-I'm sorry. You have really beautiful black hair."
"Thank you." Mikasa said politely. And with that, she turned and walked away.
Jason felt his heart pang in sympathy for Jean as he ran after her. He shook his head and returned to his group.
"Jason, did you start that?" Leo said playfully.
"What! NO!" Jason exclaimed, taking a seat.
"Well, what did you find out?" Annabeth asked.
"The colossal titan didn't break down Wall Maria, the armored titan did." Jason said. "Apparently this colossal titan was big enough to stick it's head over the wall, but I don't know what it did."
"Oh, I should probably mention the walls aren't built like we think. I talked to Mikasa and Tanya about it, and they have four smaller villages that extend from the actual wall also surrounded by the wall." Annabeth explained. "I bet the colossal titan busted down the outermost wall and the armored found it's way into the main wall. We're in one of those outermost villages by the way."
Leo yawned loudly. "Well, today was fun, but let's go to bed. I'm a sleepy demigod."
"Wait, Leo." Jason grabbed his friend's wrist as he walked away. "I know what ODM stands for. It's omnidirectional mobility gear. What does that mean?"
There was a spark in Leo's eye. "If it is what I'm thinking about, you should be good at it." With that, he left.