WhIP

by footfungus

nederlands verhalen over mijn otp

1. Chapter 1

p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.15pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;" align="center"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 24.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Green Wings/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;" align="center"a href=" /users/slowdog/pseuds/slowdog"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #111111; font-size: 14.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"slowdog/span/a/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6.45pt; margin-bottom: 6.45pt; border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 15.0000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Summary:/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 7.7pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"For the six whole months since it's creation, the Special Operations Squad has been functioning at a sub-par level and the Commander is not happy. There's a missing piece to their four-man squad.../span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6.45pt; margin-bottom: 6.45pt; border-bottom: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 15.0000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Notes:/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 72pt; text-indent: -18pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"!- [if !supportLists]-span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 10.0000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"· /span!-[endif]-span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Translation into /spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Français/spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" available: /spana href=" /works/35542693"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #111111; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Green Wings- [FR]/span/aspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" by /spana href=" /users/dandelionscat/pseuds/dandelionscat"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #111111; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"dandelionscat/span/a/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"I decided to write this because I'd read so many incredible rivetra fics and I was just feeling completely inspired! Also I love the original special ops squad so much and really wanted to selfishly spend some more time with them - as much as this is a romance, it is almost more about the developing friendships within the scout regiment...what bunch of perfect weirdos./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"I'm not really a writer but I am a fan of silly jokes and friendship groups that resemble families - I had a lot of fun doing this, so I guess hope you enjoy x/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;" align="center"a href=" /works/28219395/chapters/69150225"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #111111; font-size: 14.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Chapter 1/span/aspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 15.0000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;": The Static Training Zone/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; border-bottom: 1pt double #333333; padding: 0pt 0pt 2pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 1.0000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Chapter Text/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;" align="center"strongspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"Monday/span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld stood quietly in the kitchenette hovering over a questionable cup of black coffee. The sun danced in lazily from the autumn window and he looked down into the swirling liquid. Disgusting. Maybe the new addition to the squad would be able to brew it better than this shocking attempt. He really hoped so./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Everyone had known for a while that the dynamic wasn't working. For six months the four of them relentlessly drilled: waking early, going for four mile runs, sparring and practising different formations with ODM gear, but the atmosphere was constantly tense and confrontations were occurring almost daily./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"It wasn't that he didn't/spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;" like/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" his squad mates per se; Gunther especially was pleasant enough after a tankard of ale, when he actually said anything at all. He supposed Oruo /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"could /span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"be fun sometimes…but he was usually such an arrogant dill-hole that that basically became a moot point. Then there was the squad's captain, Levi. He was sullen and distant, but occasionally mustered a sarcastic comment so out of place that it shocked Eld into laughing./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The issue was that they were also all assholes./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"None of them appreciated Eld's spark and humour. It was a perpetual struggle to try and raise the collective spirit, only for his efforts to be at best completely ignored and at worst actively discouraged, earning him a clout on the head plus toilet duty. Recently he'd stopped trying altogether./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He dipped a finger into his grainy coffee and stirred it, lifting his hand and watching the liquid run down it with mild disdain. Shit coffee was better than no coffee…right?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld, Gunther and Oruo had been selected for the Captain's "Special Operations Squad" for their superior skills and stats, but mainly because they were some of the few soldiers who had actually survived going beyond the wall over several years. They also benefitted from being a bit older than the average scout, which granted them a level of 'wisdom' and 'maturity' necessary to be on such an elite squad…supposedly./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Lately however; with assistance from the ever watchful eye of Commander Erwin, they had come to the conclusion that - though they had made it through all their expeditions as a squad largely unscathed - a rethink was in order. Their survival thus far was due to luck and individual skill, /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"not/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" because they resembled a team in any way; and they were failing spectacularly to accomplish any of the 'special operations' goals set out by the Commander./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He was suddenly haunted by a memory from a recent expedition: he had been /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"pushed/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" out of the way as he was about to kill a titan by Oruo, pulling a muscle in his arm while fumbling to right his fall. All this because Oruo wanted to improve his 'solo kill count'. That guy was such a selfish jackass. Furthermore Gunther had disappeared for the best part of twenty minutes while the Captain shouted for him, and when they returned to the barracks it came to light that he had in fact been assisting an entirely different squad for reasons which remained, to this day, completely unclear./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"A clattering in the hallway stirred him from his thoughts and he looked up to a very dishevelled Oruo barreling into the room./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Hmph. Didn't think to knock on my door then?" he grumbled./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld shrugged and returned to his horrible drink. He wondered if his own bitterness had somehow crept into the coffee as he'd made it./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He flinched, becoming aware of a dark shadow at the edge of his vision and span to see Gunther leaning against the wall./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"What the - how long had he been there? There was no way he could have gotten there without walking /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"directly/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" past Eld. It was highly likely that Gunther was some kind of night…bandit…before joining the military. He narrowed his eyes. Were there /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"day /span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"bandits? He wasn't sure./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Great. You're all up."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The Captain's voice grated through the morning air in its classic low and grumbling way./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""You're running laps of the second ODM run this morning, so go and get your gear now. Eld's in charge. I have a meeting with Erwin followed by surveying other squads. I'll join you in the afternoon."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He turned back towards the doorway, freezing in step;/spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Oh and Eld?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Yes Captain?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Clean that shit up." He gestured to the single drip of coffee that had run off of Eld's hand onto the kitchen counter./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"…/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Right."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"But he was already gone. The three remaining men stood in silence for forty-five years…though in reality it was about eight seconds./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Come on then." Eld mustered, dutifully wiping up the drip and rinsing his cup./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Whatever." Said Oruo, huffily moving towards the door and straightening his jacket. Gunther wordlessly followed him out./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Cool." Eld sighed and trundled after them./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;" align="center"strongspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"****************/span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Levi neared the end of the long corridor and stopped, looking directly at the heavy door to Commander Erwin's office. If he had to listen to Erwin even begin to utter the phrase 'team-building exercise' again he was going to break a chair, and they were already in short supply due to the regiment's tight budget./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Not that he cared about that particularly. Tch, pathetic. Sitting down for long periods of time was for the weak./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He continued and firmly rapped on the door./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Come in."/spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The Commander didn't look up from his laden desk,/spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Ah, Levi - please, take a seat."/spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Levi's eyes narrowed towards Erwin, who was rearranging a stack of reports intently. Classic, the paper shuffle; a move Erwin used to seem busier and smarter than anyone he spoke to in his office. Except…he /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"was/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" busier and smarter than anyone he spoke to, office or otherwise, and Levi was in a predictably pissy mood and needing to dig at anyone or anything that dared appear in his field of vision./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""I'll stand." He stated shortly./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Hmm…one of these days Captain."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Levi looked blank./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""…What?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Never mind. Ignore me." Erwin smiled and looked up, having gotten his affairs in order. "So I presume you'll want the other squads' schedules this morning?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Levi gave a barely perceptible nod./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""If you're taking the mornings for observation you could probably get around about two squads a day; that should give you enough time to assess the key candidates. I thought it would be best for you to start off with Anna's squad and observe them on the ODM runs - they will be on the fifth run. Then head over with them to the sparring grounds, that way you'll get a clearer idea of overall skillsets. You can continue on this way cycling through squads for the rest of the week. I look forward to you reporting to me on Friday afternoon with your recommendation."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Erwin nonchalantly held out a single sheet of paper and Levi snatched it./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Anything else?" Levi asked, tilting his head to one side, his unshifting eyes set in a bored glaze./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Yes, actually."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Erwin stared at him for a moment, furrowing his large brows. Levi blinked./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Well spit it out. These brats aren't gonna assess themselves."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""What will you do if this doesn't go the way you want it to?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""What's that supposed to mean?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Only that I already gave you the opportunity to select a squad, and you seem to have struggled to pick in the first instance."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""…"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Right. Then I'll rephrase. What makes you think adding another soldier will improve the performance of the team?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Gut feeling."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Erwin sniffed./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""I hope you realise that if this doesn't go well you will have wasted a lot of people's time. Not to mention the regiment /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"still /span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"won't have a functioning Special Operations squad."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Then let's hope the gamble pays off." Levi raised his eyebrows a touch./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Something flashed across Erwin's eyes and he slowly smiled, returning his attention to his work./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;" align="center"strongspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"****************/span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Oruo! Fall back - ORUO! Damn it- " /spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld was shouting across the run but the daft prick continued on his downward trajectory towards the dummy titan's neck at the same time as Gunther pulled up from underneath it, having disarmed its 'legs'…/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""NO DON'T- "/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The two men collided with some force just above the kill point on the nape, falling back in both directions like rag-dolls and coming to hang down either side of the dummy with a slight jolt, still somehow hooked in with their gear. Through the commotion Eld swore he could see a tiny spurt of blood from Oruo's almost certainly bitten tongue./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""For fuck's sake."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He zoomed towards them, landing on the fake titan's head, eyes to the ground. For a moment there was total stillness, then he sliced the material from the neck in a swift and even motion - almost casually. A perfect cut. The two invalids began to groan and shift from their positions./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Hey - uh, sir - you really shouldn't - I mean…we're low on materials and - er - it's not like the titan would have just stayed still while- "/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld turned and stared daggers at the cadet located on the ground below, who, if he were being honest, was just doing his job./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Cadets and lower ranking soldiers were sometimes stationed to move parts of the dummy titans 'realistically' so that the ODM runs had at level of unpredictability resembling expeditions. In reality the movements were nowhere near the real thing, but some movement was better than no movement at all and the constant improvements meant fewer and fewer young scouts were dying on their first expedition…though the number was still too high for comfort…any number was too high…/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He relaxed his gaze./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Sorry. Force of habit I guess."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The cadet smiled nervously back at him./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Are they…uh…are they alright?" The young lad gestured towards the two hanging scouts, who were in the slow and dizzy process of winding themselves down to the forest floor./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""They'll be fine. They're /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"supposed /span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"to be pros, though I suppose you wouldn't know after /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"that /span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"performance. It's their pride that'll take the most damage."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Shall I call a medic sir?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""No…leave it to me. They don't deserve a medic. You might as well get everyone on duty on this run to take a break. It's close to lunch anyway and I doubt we'll be running it again before then."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Oh wow - thank you sir!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The cadet skipped off into the fallen leaves. Eld shook his head and descended to the forest floor./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Urghhh" Oruo groaned, dusting himself down. A tiny splodge of blood decorated his shirt collar./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld Smirked./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""I think I have a concussion…" Gunther was rubbing his temples with small pressured circles./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld turned and started walking back towards the main site./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Let's get lunch." He muttered, deflated./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Wait - you don't want to discuss what just happened?" Gunther asked, tailing him. Oruo followed, his hands in his pockets./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""I'll write it up in the report for the Captain."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Just make sure you include that Gunther has no spatial awareness." Oruo grunted./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""-And that Oruo is a fucking loose cannon." Gunther retorted./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Thank you for your…frankly extremely observant suggestions. Now why was it you couldn't be so observant in the field? You know, where it actually /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"mattered/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Look, it isn't my fault that Gunther is so damn slow. I had already dispatched my own target, I was doing him a favour by getting his as well."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Gunther exhaled aggressively through his nose. "Fuck you."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""That isn't very grateful, Gunther. Had this been an expedition I would have just saved your life."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld stopped in his tracks./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Had this been an expedition we'd all be /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"dead./span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" You know what? I can't be bothered. Gunther, take everyone's gear and get it oiled. Oruo, go and sort out the squad's laundry. Eat whenever and wherever the hell you want. I'll see you at two thirty for knife skills with the Captain."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""…You'd make me carry all this equipment with a concussion?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld inhaled deeply./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Fine. If you're going to be a little bitch about it give me the equipment and head over to medical."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"For a split second Gunther seemed almost guilty, but as quickly as it appeared the guilt dissipated and he stalked off, having dumped his equipment at Eld's feet./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Great." He mumbled to no-one, quickly realising that Oruo had separately paced off towards the barracks./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"At some point on the slow and laden walk to the equipment sheds he realised he was humming. Briefly caught off guard that he could be humming without realising, he recognised the jaunty kind of tune as that his mother would sing while cooking. Ah…home…he missed it. It was warm and jolly and full of laughter. There was never an awkward moment and the conversation zipped between him, his parents and his two brothers as freely and easily as gliding through the trees with ODM gear./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"As the eldest and (they often joked) the /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"Eld/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"est, he was constantly finding new and creative ways to pull pranks on his siblings; sometimes enlisting their help to get each other. Once he even teamed up with the pair of them to throw a bucket of molasses and a sack of feathers over their father…who had taken the whole incident surprisingly well, not even blaming them for his sudden fear of chickens, or the bald patches that appeared on his arms afterwards and were still there to this day./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He rounded the corner towards the sheds and halted, almost ramming into another soldier and losing his grip of Oruo's equipment, which clattered to the floor./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Moblit?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Oh, Eld! Hello!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The sandy haired scout smiled widely and nodded towards him, and Eld noted the small bundle of flyers he was hampered with./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Sorry - let me help you with that…"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Moblit began to awkwardly move as though to help Eld pick up the dropped equipment but seemed to simultaneously realise that picking things up when his hands were full of flyers was not going to be easy./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""No problem - I've got it. What brings you down to the equipment shed? Shouldn't you be chasing Hange around with a bunsen burner or something?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Actually I - Ha! Well Nifa should be doing that right now. With any luck she'll have remembered the delivery of safety goggles that - you don't need to know that. I'm er - on a quick break to distribute these…"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He vaguely waved the flyers and they flopped about weakly./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""What's this?" Eld peered over the pile to try and get a clearer view of the text and what appeared to be a rather hilarious drawing of…was that meant to be a trumpet?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""It's the um- " he cleared his throat, "We're looking for anyone who wants to join the new Scout band."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld couldn't contain the laugh that erupted from him, but his levity was quickly quelled when he saw Moblit's lame smile, and immediately backtracked -/spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Oh, uh sorry. I didn't mean…you just surprised me that's all."/spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Don't worry about it. You aren't the first person to react like that to be honest." Moblit looked a little red and shaken up./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Is this a new…undertaking?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Well…yes it's a recent thing…a few of us realised that we liked to play music while at the pub a couple of weeks ago and we put in a request to Commander Erwin. We've fixed up the old mill building at the edge of the base and we're gonna start er - jamming - together on some of our free evenings, before curfew of course! The Commander was surprisingly enthusiastic and he even asked me to make and distribute these; he said something about using free time wisely and how music is a 'team-building' activity, it was all a little odd. Anyway…uh…it's gonna be Wednesdays and Fridays if you're ever interested…"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld thought of his jaunty humming./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""I'll pass. But, I mean, good for you! Maybe I'll come drink and hear you guys play sometime."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Moblit smiled widely,/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""I'll have to let you know if we're any good first."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;" align="center"strongspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"****************/span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully. Levi didn't even bother asking his squad how the morning training had gone after seeing the looks on their faces when they showed up for the afternoon. He didn't question the bandage around Gunther's head, or the fact that, despite being sent to do laundry, Oruo was /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"still/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" wearing a shirt with a blood-stained collar. Tch./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"They, in turn, didn't ask how his assessments had gone, which ended up being somewhat of a blessing, as he hadn't had gained /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"any/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" clarity from overseeing the morning drills. There was always tomorrow. And the rest of the week. To make this pretty substantial decision. Damn, it wasn't long. Surely he was due a bit of luck?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The group dragged their feet back to the Special Ops barracks./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Each of the elite squads had their own small section of the barracks, separate from the men's and women's standard barracks - a perk, if you liked your squad. The main benefit was one shower between one squad, rather than having to queue at the shower points with everyone else, and the kitchenette that provided the capacity for tea and coffee, as well as basic meals if anyone could be bothered to cook. There was also a compact yet comfy area for 'socialising' next to the kitchenette./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Levi recalled Eld's first day on the squad, kitting out a corner with board games and carting in a crate of beer he had swiped from somewhere or other, a look of pure excitement slapped across his big dumb blonde face. Yeah, like they were gonna play games in their free time. Needless to say, his joy had been short lived as he was frequently the/spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;" only/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" member of the squad sat on the threadbare couch drinking./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"emspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;""Chess is a one man game anyway!" /span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He huffed on one occasion./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The moment they set foot in the door, the squad wordlessly dissipated to their separate rooms (another perk of their barracks, not having to bunk together) and that was that. Another day done./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Predictably unable to sleep, Levi slowly paced his dorm, his mind flitting through possible selections from the day./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Marlene had certainly shown potential: she was fast and had an aptitude for decking a full grown man, but she was too indecisive in the field. A liability./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Lucas was easily the best combatant of the sparring matches he'd seen. But sparring was one of the least important of a soldier's skills when It came to killing titans. Could Lucas really be the /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"glue/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" to bring the team together and get them working as one? Not likely./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Dirk's ODM skills were the envy of his unit, but he was a write off. There was no way the squad could take an Oruo 2.0. /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"And/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" he had an even shittier beard than Eld (it turned out it was possible!) which Levi was sure would distract him to the point of endangering his life on an expedition. No; one shitty beard was enough for one squad./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He sighed, pushing through his door and heading towards the common room. His eyes widened a touch as he saw Eld sat at the table, the embers of a fire dying out in the hearth and a cup of tea steaming in front of him. He was writing, but looked up on hearing the floorboards creak./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Oh, Captain. Hi."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Levi stood for a moment and considered dissolving back to his room without a word./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""There's still tea in the pot if you want, sir."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Tea was the reason he made his way to the kitchen in the first place; it wasn't something Levi liked to to pass up. And he liked to pass up most things. Even Eld's inconsistently brewed tea was worth a try./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He fetched a cup and poured, coming to lean on the kitchen counter, his brow fixed in a frown./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Writing…at this hour?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld cleared his throat and held up the sheet of paper:/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Once again Oruo didn't listen to instructions and went off on his own merry way doing whatever tasks he felt like doing. Gunther was too focused on himself and closed off to his surroundings to pay attention to what was happening, and so, despite my constantly shouting directions to the team, the morning's training was a complete and utter failure."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""…hm."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eld shrugged, and returned to writing./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Well if it's any consolation Eld; this tea is…fine." He nodded slowly, and took another large sip./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Did you find the new squad member yet sir?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""No. Not yet."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"A warm silence fell over the small room. Eventually Eld stood, draining his cup and going to rinse it off in the sink, holding out his report for the Captain to take on his way./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Well Captain - goodnight. I hope you have more luck tomorrow." And he swiftly exited./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Levi scanned the paper quickly, before folding it and stowing it in his coat. He washed his cup and departed into the night./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;" align="center"strongspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"****************/span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"A chill wind was punctuating what was otherwise an uncharacteristically warm evening. The moon was full in the clear sky, and pleasantly illuminating the sporadic trees and uneven ground of the static training zone; so called because the titan mannequins were far less sophisticated than on the ODM runs: they couldn't be manipulated and acted instead as big flat wooden targets./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The idea behind this zone was for squads to speed around it, eliminating the randomly placed dummies (which could be taken out with a simple strike of a blade) as quickly as possible. It was also different to a regular ODM run in that there were a lot more targets, fewer trees and other higher spots to hook onto when using the gear, and the main challenge was in the squad leader quickly knowing how to split the team to hit different points, and reconvening. The area was large and spread out, rather than contained into a shifting circuit as the ODM runs were, and as such there were several shacks for supplies stationed at random through it, which were lit with small oil lamps like small beacons in the dark./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"On clear nights squads could apply to train here after curfew, though this was limited to once every three months. This particular evening it was Squad Clara's turn./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Remember to count the number of targets you eliminate! And no lying. I'll find out."/spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Clara was a tall, stocky woman - hardy too, having survived a few years of expeditions: a real veteran. Despite this, she was only fairly recently appointed as a squad captain. At the heart of her intense gaze was a softness; she cared deeply for her team./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""If you mess up the counting we won't know our proper time or if we've fully completed the exercise, and this evening will have been wasted - you might as well have gone to the pub. So please for the love of god remember. Also! Make sure you keep your ears open, the whole point of this is to listen and intuit the movements of the whole squad; visibility is obviously down, and you won't be able to rely on flares. Is that understood?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Yes sir!" The squad chorused./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Good. Thats 32 targets to eliminate total. Now, on my signal!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Clara fired a noise round signalling the start of the time./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Stefan, Peter and Hannah - veer left. Julia, Gerd, Petra, you take the right hand side. Whoever's left with me through the centre, everyone fan out and /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"pay attention!/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" Reassemble on the northern edge, then we'll return to the start as a group."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"They zipped off in their separate directions./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Petra had been looking forward to the evening training. It was so long since she was last out on the grounds past curfew and she loved the cool dusk air and the blue tinge the night gave the trees. Using the ODM gear was easily the best part of being in the military, and Petra was certainly no rookie. She glided, span and swept through the trees in a balletic fashion, hands down the fastest member of her squad./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"She dove, slashing a target clean in half and propelling herself back into the higher branches. She wasn't confident with solo kills beyond the walls, having only one to her name…at this kind of target practise though, she was a regular expert./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Nice hit!" Julia called out to her from a few trees away./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Thanks!"/spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Don't lose count now - how many's that, three?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Four actually. You?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Shit, only two… /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"ugh/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Petra laughed, "Looks like you have some catching up to do Jules."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Petra, Julia and Hannah all shared a dorm room since being thrown together in Clara's squad./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"They instantly became close, eventually returning from several expeditions as a unit. Their trio also attracted some attention for being an awkward looking combination of people; Commander Pixis, the head of the Garrison regiment, had once seen them in the mess hall and described the group as "physically interesting". None of them were sure if it was meant to be a compliment or not. Going by Pixis's track record…it wasn't. If anything, it was creepy./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Hannah was five foot eleven, taller even than a lot of the male scouts. She had dull blonde hair that she always wore pulled into a tight bun, and dark sparkling eyes that were hungry for gossip./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Julia or 'Jules' was around five foot six; she was broad shouldered and tenacious with a large amount of unruly curly brown hair that often fell into her face and caused her a number of troubles in the field./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Then there was Petra…a five foot two pasty elfin looking woman with giant pleading doe eyes and a shoulder length mop of ginger hair./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The rest of squad Clara called them 'the three bears' and had invented an in-game where they tried to make sure the three of them were always stood in a height descending line, and when they were successful someone shouted "Goldilocks!", and each member of the trio had to buy a round of drinks…not that they ever made good./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Since Petra's graduation from the cadets, Hannah and Julia had been indispensable to her. Most of her friends from those days had joined other regiments, or been placed in completely different squads so they didn't get to see each other too much. It was a tough, life-threatening job, so having close trustworthy companions to blow off steam was crucial to staying sane, and each of them had in turn helped the other two through the losses of dear friends./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"A bright determination spread through her chest. She cut down another target and breezed to the northern edge of the training area. This was important. What they were doing was important; it was fundamental to humanity's understanding of the world. How could she/spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;" not/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" be a part of that?/spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;" align="center"strongspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"****************/span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Levi started, hearing the familiar zip of ODM gear and distant shouts. He had ventured outside to axe firewood. It was either that or go for a run, and he wasn't going to blow off steam by going for a pissing /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"run/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;". No, he needed to smash things. Or at least hack them up roughly. That was a sure fire way to stop all this damned thinking he couldn't seem to stop doing. Ideally he would be speeding through the trees to clear his mind, but the squad's gear was locked away in the equipment stores in the evenings (curfew rules) so he would have to make do with obliterating some timber./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He turned toward the trees, painted in moonlight against the inky sky. He could just about make out the ropes which dictated the edges of the static training zone. Of course there was a squad practising this evening; it was a perfect night for it. He squinted into the expanse, trying to pick out any activity or any standing targets that would indicate how the squad was faring, when a shadow streamed through the branches./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"The figure hooked under a large low down branch and, after passing under it, allowed themselves to fall backwards, releasing the hooks and turning fully upside down, their blades smoothly dispatching a target in a strong sideways motion before twisting round and hooking back upwards in a full, perfect spiralling semicircle. The movement was positively acrobatic, perhaps a little showy, but they didn't seem to use too much gas in the undertaking either./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"It was impressive./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"In the time it took for him to consider what he'd seen, the shadow had melted away into the trees, continuing its nimble journey./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Well, he wasn't expecting that. For minutes he stood in contemplation. Should he go to the entrance to the zone and wait for the squad to leave? Then what? He supposed whoever it had been was a woman; for one thing the figure was pint-sized…though maybe that wasn't an accurate assessment - he was a runt himself after all. Would he have any way of knowing which member of the squad it was just by looking at them anyway? He hadn't seen nearly enough. It was better he find out whose squad was training this evening, then he could fast track them up his observation schedule. Yes. That could work./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Even if this graceful shadow was talented on ODM and swift at target dispatch, that still didn't mean they would be the right person for his squad. Maybe their field track record was bad. Maybe they had a shitty beard. Tch, here he was again thinking and thinking. He grabbed the axe and slammed it downwards, completely destroying whatever was left of the log that was there./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"He'd go in the morning and request the squad leader's name./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;" align="center"a href=" /works/28219395/chapters/69482856"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #111111; font-size: 14.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Chapter 2/span/aspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 15.0000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;": Sabotage/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; border-bottom: 1pt double #333333; padding: 0pt 0pt 2pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 1.0000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Chapter Text/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;" align="center"strongspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"Tuesday/span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Hey! Hey - wake up! Dude!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Petra sleepily opened her eyes to a frizz of dark locks and two judging eyes. Julia had part climbed the ladder to her bunk and was violently shaking her./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Despite her sunny outlook, she wasn't /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"really/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" a morning person. It didn't help that none of them had gotten back to the barracks until the early hours./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Pfft /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"Petra -/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" you're gonna get us all in trouble again."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Again?" She mustered, "Can't remember doing that before." She sat up with a smile and drowsily rubbed her eyes./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Here." Julia threw an undershirt and bra at her and turned to leave. "It's amazing to me that you can sleep through that bell. Quick, get ready. And quit your yawning, breakfast'll be done soon. Actually, why don't you head straight outside, I'll grab you some bread if there's any left."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Oh, thanks!" She beamed gratefully, throwing off her night clothes and pulling her bra and top over herself. Darn it all, she really didn't want to get fifty push ups for oversleeping./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"She climbed down from the bunk, pulled open the chest of drawers and threw out items seemingly at random. She still had to go and pick up her gear. No wait; wasn't it circuit training this morning? Where? Boy was she groggy. She raced to pull on her underwear and trousers, then fumbled with her boots, but found her rushing hands actually slowed down the process as her fingers were tripping over the buckles in their impatience. Ugh./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Eventually fully dressed, she slammed into the tiny bathroom and flung cold water into her face./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Wake up! Wake up dammit!/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Her toothbrush thrashed about her mouth and she deliberately avoided looking directly at herself in the small mirror; seeing her dishevelled reflection would only serve to tumble her into nervous flustering, and she didn't have time for that./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"She raced down the halls and out into the courtyard, frantically turning her head in search of any members of her squad./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Hey Ral!"/spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"She sighed and then giggled in mild relief as she saw Hannah pacing towards her, shaking her head./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Classic Petra." She smirked, taking a bite out of a small round of bread./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""I don't understand why everyone is giving me that this morning?!" Petra stated incredulously, her eyes widening. "This isn't a regular thing!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Sure thing short-stuff. Let's head, we're in the gym on hand to hand combat."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Wow. She really didn't remember their schedule at /spanemspan style="font-family: inherit; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5pt;"all/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;". Maybe she wasn't as cut out for night training as she'd thought, it had done a number on her today./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"They turned and began making their way towards the gym./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Didn't manage to find a hairbrush then?" Hannah quirked an eyebrow./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Oh flip. She hadn't even thought about it./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Oh…oh god does it look that bad?" She stammered, her cheeks flushing crimson./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Let's just pray that no birds fly past looking for a new nest." Hannah laughed. "Oh, actually," She pulled something out of her pocket; "I found this in the mess hall, thought you might be interested."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Petra was desperately smoothing her tousled mane, and didn't immediately see Hannah hold out a small piece of paper with a drawing of…was that supposed to be a trumpet?/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""What's this?" She peered at the strange design intently, "A Scouts Band?"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Yeah; I dunno, I just saw it - seemed like your cup of tea. You're always banging on about that old guitar your dad fixed up for you."/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"Petra stared down at the flyer. If the design was anything to go by this band would be truly terrible./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""Heads up!"/span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;"A small and rock hard round of bread hurled through the air and absolutely pelted Petra in the chest. All the wind was knocked from her body as she rigidly caught the tiny loaf in her free hand./spanspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 15.45pt; margin-bottom: 15.45pt; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: inherit; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'; color: #2a2a2a; font-size: 11.5000pt; mso-font-kerning: 0.0000pt;""What the - Jules!"/span/p