The Anime World

Expeditions

     The Attack on Titan world is honestly a really weird place. Once you're in the double digits, people just don't care about your birthday anymore. And since they have this weird wall religion, they don't even have a Christmas! Now that's just sad. 

     So, in the spirit of holidays that these people are missing out on, I would always try to make holidays a big deal between my friends. For Nanaba's birthday, we'd have a girls only day of goofing off, pulling pranks, and training. We'd race on the obstacle course, dump water down a dirt hill and slide across the mud on sheet metal, and just simply have fun. We were all very fortunate for us to have all 3 of our birthdays on free days during training. 

     For Gelgar's birthday, we'd mess around and steal drinks from the commander's office. It was Gelgar who introduced me to this weird drink called Limeade. It's basically sour, caffeinated, alcoholic lemonade. We didn't want to train so we never did that. At the end of the day, I'd surprise them both with a cake that I made in the real world and presents. One year, Nanaba wanted a new hairstyle, so I had her sketch what she wanted and then had Marvin teach me how to restyle it. I practiced on wigs and once I had it down, I brought some scissors and bleach to the camp and redid Nanaba's hair. I was so worried that I'd mess it up, but I didn't. It turned out perfect and Nanaba seemed to really like it. Infact, she kept it that way for the rest of her life. 

     I started to ship Nanaba and Gelgar, especially when he calls her Nanabannana. 

     Once we got to the scout's headquarters, we got settled in our beds. The 3 boys were cooped up together and I got to share a room with Nanaba. We were both relieved to have our own beds, and not have to share a bunk like in boot camp. We got to goof off all night and gossip. We told secrets and talked about all of the cute, muscular boys of the scouts. It was like having a sleepover every night. Every day, my friendship with Nanaba started to become more and more like that of a modern day teenager. 

     We also got introduced to our horses. I got a pretty brown one named Charlotte. She seems to really like apples. She eats the hay, but she always expects an apple as a reward every single time I come home from an expedition. I consider it a treat, especially if it means that she will get me back home alive. She also has a strange habit of biting my hair when she wants attention. In a way, she's a lot like Ness's horse Cherette. Maybe they are related. They do have similar names after all. We also got to brand our horse with whatever symbol we wanted. They kept a handbook of the brands of every scout's horse. The horses are trained to return back to either the formation or the base when they lose their rider. So if a horse comes trotting back, they can assume that their rider got killed. I drew a picture of Capricorn. I know that zodiac signs are nonexistent here, and since it is my sign, it should be original. So I know it is my horse if it has a Capricorn sign on it's behind. I will always hate having to brand a horse, but there isn't much I can do about it. 

     On our first expedition, we were with our squad leader Mike Zacharias as we traveled out to take back land from the titans. Commander Eyebro- Erwin planned to cover a few acres of ground on horseback and kill every titan that we see. After that, we would return back, recuperate for a few days, and then set back out, this time going even farther and covering every more ground outside of the areas we've already been. This process repeated itself 9 times, before Erwin decided on a new strategy and had many of us relocate to another part of the walls. There were always new strategies and we learned more and more about titans every day. The outside world was actually quite nice. That is, if you ignore all of the death and the giant nude zombies walking around. It's hard to do, but nothing can change it and I can't risk changing the story no matter how minor the change is. 

     We usually didn't do much but expeditions and killing titans. This went on for 5 years, and yet nobody from Squad Mike died. I don't know why, but I always get excited to hear that we are going on another expedition. It doesn't matter how many times I have to do it. It still excites me every time. I suppose it's far more interesting than whatever the real world has in store for me. 

     Towards the beginning of my career as a scout, we began our 49th expedition beyond the walls. I remember that one very clearly because Commander Hange kept pressuring us to help her capture a titan. Seeing her burst with excitement whenever the countdown to the gate's opening starts is quite entertaining. 

Hange: Hey Levi!

Levi: No.

Hange: I haven't even said anything yet.

Levi: Let me guess. "Help me capture a titan." You'd be stupid to think that I'd help you with something like that. 

Hange: Awwww. How about you Mike?

     Mike just shook his head. 

Hange: As always, boring answers from boring men. 

The gates slowly opened up and my heart began to race. I doubt Hange could be any more excited than I was. Killing titans was an excuse to use ODM Gear. It was like riding a dangerous roller coaster, only you control where it goes and there is no seatbelts. I rode Charlotte following close behind Mike with the rest of my squad and watched as Hange pushed pass everybody on her horse and ahead of Commander Erwin. Typical Hange. 

     After a long ride, we finally reached some abandoned buildings outside of Wall Maria. From there, we tied our horses to posts or shut them away in old stables. Some of us were given look out duty while the rest of us helped unload the wagons and set up some tents. I had to share a tent with the rest of Squad Mike while lucky ducky Mike got to stay in a private tent like all of the other squad leaders. 

     After our tent got set up, Mike had us replenish our blades and gas tanks before meeting him on the roof to help with lookout duty. I could see his nose twitch like crazy while he carefully studied the forest edge. His sniffing thing was a little weird, but we got used to it quickly. 

     It was quiet. Too quiet. I saw Mike's expression change as he walked towards the edge of the roof. Eventually, I saw him reach into his utility belt and pull out his flare gun which already had a red locked and loaded and ready to fire. Suddenly, he shot it.

Mike: The forest! They're here! All hands, on alert! 

     Before anybody else could react, Hange ran off towards her horse with Moblit on her tail. She hopped on and hurried off in the direction Mike said the scent was coming from. Erwin tried, but there was no stopping her, so instead, he sent Levi and his squad after her. 

     Mike told us not to interfere, so we stayed and waited. Hange returned with Levi Squad half an hour later. They claimed to have recovered a notebook belonging to a soldier from the 34th expedition named Ilse Langnar. That was an expedition where nobody made it back. They said that it held key information about the soldiers from the 34th expedition's disappearance, titan behavior that surpasses an abnormal, and a few clues to help humanity. 

     Mike didn't give us much information, but I didn't need it. Once I connected the dots, I realized that this was in an OVA called Ilse's Journal. 

     Squad Mike was then combined to create Levi's Special Operations Squad. 8 days later, we set out and the 35th expedition to go help Hange capture a titan for research purposes. We ended up succeeding in the first titan capture in 15 years. This was the first titan capture since the fall of Wall Maria. We used a new method created by Hange herself. We actually managed to capture 2 of them and bring them into custody without a single casualty. These particular titans were the very ones that Hange would later name Sawney and Bean. From there, we only continued to learn more and more about titans and more weaknesses were exploited. I was proud of Hange for coming up with such a foolproof strategy that gave us just the results we were homing for. 

     We hadn't had excitement like that in forever and we wouldn't ever again until many, many years later.