Blue and White - Levi Fanfiction

Ch. 88 - Haunted

Year 854:

Another year came and went, bringing with it many cherished memories, perfect moments, and equal parts hope and trepidation for the future. Part of that hope was founded from the advancements that Paradis had made as a whole, recently.

It was hard not to hold some hope for what was to come when work with the volunteers was going so smoothly, and when our technology was improving in leaps and bounds both with and without the help of the volunteers.

The face and purpose of the Survey Corps had shifted. Not only were we meant to survey the land, making more detailed records of our own small island for example, and to research the geography and status of nations beyond our borders, but also to maintain the standard set by the Heroes of Shiganshina.

The scouts were Paradis' very first line of defense. Levi, me, and our few chosen lieutenants worked our recruits through intense gear training and intensified the hand-to-hand combat regimes to account for the incoming war.

And guess who got to take the reins on that front? Me, of course. Obviously. The new training regimes came with a near-total upheaval of our current systems, and Hange had entrusted it to me. Such was the case earlier today with a batch of recruits fresh this year, ready at long last to start firearms training. I took everything Onyankopon and experience had taught me, lined the recruits up, and:

I walked before the line of recruits, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and I was envious of that. I was still struggling to wake up.

Anyway.

"The size of a bullet compared to a Titan renders it completely useless," I said, examining the handgun in my hands with incredible focus. "Compare that to a human skull, and..."

At the end of the line of recruits I slowed to a stop, flipped the safety off, then turned. Lifting my arm in one smooth motion, I aimed for the mannequin on the far end of the line and fired. 

Its head was blown right off, and in my hand was the smoking gun. All was still and all was quiet as the mannequin's head rolled to a stop in front of one of the recruits. I nearly smiled at the awestruck looks in their eyes, the way their eyes glittered by what I had done.

"As scouts, you must now be able to do both. Strike with speed and precision with a blade longer than your arm, and then turn around and shoot a man between the eyes. That is your job."

"Wow!"

"So cool!"

"We've got a lot of work to do," I said, ignoring their praise. "Let's get started."

That had been the trend of recent weeks, and with each passing day it felt more and more like stolen time. The world right now was a pot of water, the tensions between nations being the flame. The more the tensions grew, and the more the flames were fanned, the closer the conflict grew to boiling over into full-blown war.

No one was looking forward to it, but it was inevitable. That was for certain, as awful as it was to admit it. The world was, after all, as cruel as it was beautiful. That had been said once or twice or a million times by now.

But along with the scouts' role on the island evolving, so too did that of the Military Police and Garrison as they shifted to accommodate the island's changing needs. Engineers were hard at work using the new technology and resources presented to us, drawing inspiration from other nations.

In this way, our gear was improved. It was lighter and more streamlined, and the blades became sharper and more durable. The citizens of Wall Maria had reclaimed the farmlands that had grown wild from lack of upkeep, and finally, the food crisis between the walls wasn't on the forefront of everyone's minds and our reserves were built up. More and more people enlisted in the military, and some of the most talented crops of soldiers joined our ranks.