|𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠e𝐥𝐲 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞| ᵃʳᵐⁱⁿ ᵃˡᵉʳᵗ

|3| Guns and Fire

*Warnings: Violence, Death, Language*

-MARLEY, LIBERIO-

Annie swung open Y/n's bedroom door, making sure it didn't slam against the wall. It was four-thirty and the sun had yet to rise. As she walked inside, she rolled her eyes at the realisation that Y/n was not the only person in that bed. "Ugh gross," she muttered to herself as she quickly pulled the curtains open loudly, hoping that would wake them. When it didn't, she resorted to the next best thing.

"Rise and shine!" she shouted in a very reluctant tone. Marcel shot up from the bed, waking Y/n with him.

"Oh, Annie," he huffed, thankful it wasn't a higher up that was waking them.

"Meet in the courtyard in thirty minutes," she told them as she walked out of the room. She was already dressed, so she would probably be going around waking everyone up.

They quickly got dressed, Marcel wearing his uniform from yesterday since he didn't feel like getting a new one from his room. "Okay, welcome to the first day of hell. Any last words?" Y/n asked him sarcastically as they walked out and down the hall towards the stairs.

"Don't do anything dumb and get a beating," he told her. Y/n nodded.

"Yeah, I'll try but it's usually an accident," she replied with a small chuckle. Marcel didn't chuckle with her, he just slung his arm lazily around her shoulders.

The walk to the courtyard was quiet, but the chatter grew as they neared the large group of kids. They joined them, realising they were waiting on two people Bertholdt and Annie. She was obviously hunting him down, but the time was four-fifty-eight, and god only knows what the punishment is for being late on the first day of training.

Within the minute, they both rushed out of the building and joined the group, Bertholdt looking like he was just dragged out of bed and forced to put his clothes on. "Good! Now that we're all here, get into your lines!" Magath shouted to them. He pulled out a paper file, and began reading from it. "Our weekly schedule: Today, weapons and hand to hand combat training. Tuesday, hand to hand combat and strength training. Wednesday, strength training and weapons. Thursdays and Fridays are Titan training, except for Bertholdt unless we can find a remote enough place. You're stuck on theory work for now." Bertholdt nodded, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "As for you two," Magath said, referring to Y/n and Melvin. "Thursdays and Fridays are free training for you. Choose what you want, but I encourage you work on your abilities."

Once the introduction finished, they were all handed their rifles to begin shooting practice. Y/n and Zeke were always the tied for the best when they did rifle training. Some days Y/n would shoot straighter, other days it was Zeke. There was no way to tell who it would be either.

They began doing general target practice, all of them shooting on or near the bullseye. This went on for a while until Magath called Zeke and Y/n for the long distance targets. Bertholdt came close to hitting one once, but never got the chance to try again. Everyone followed the two of them to the long distance targets, crowding around in anticipation. Zeke and Y/n stood beside each other as he sent her a cocky face.

"Shoot straight," he told her mockingly. He always had this playful mocking attitude when they trained, he was the comedic relief.

"Yeah, straight at your face," Y/n jeered as they got their guns ready.

"In your dreams, little sister," he huffed as his focus shifted from mockery to his gun. He had the habit of calling all the girls 'little sister'. The only person to mind it was Annie, so she just avoided conversation with him entirely.

The crowd of children and officers were quiet behind them as they aimed. "Fire!" Magath yelled, both of them firing at the same time. There was an officer down at the targets, who relayed the message of who won. They held their arm out on the side of the target that got the closest, Y/n's.