A Choice with No Regrets (attack on titan)

[Hitomi Forsyth]

Arius is one of the few left at the Survey Corps who wasn't shaking. She had already decided on this and as she listened to Erwin her gaze never faltered for a moment, she didn't even look at everyone else or break her salute until Erwin gave the go ahead. Her mind couldn't rest though, she would soon enough be out and with the Survey Corps exploring the outside, and she would have a chance to help humanity gain ground back. Inside she was excited, on the surface, she seemed as calm and snobish as every, sneering at anyone who would even dare talk to her.

 

[Aschu]

Andrea was shaking, she thought shed been stronger, but in truth she was terrified. This was how her father had died, her step-father. Probably alone, but did he have any regrets for joining? Leaving her and her mom? When she broke stance, she looked to up to see Erwin address them to a man, who led them to the Scouting Legion's headquarters. A few minutes later, they gave out their uniforms.

"Here you go meat"

Andrea's eyes widened, she turned to the nearest person, who happened to be Claire.

"Did he just call us meat?"

Claire only shrugged, and just seemed content about getting her uniform. Andrea sighed, and looked around. Jax had already put his on, Jesus Christ! Arius was just standing in the shadow of the building, uniform in hand. She saw the other recruits laughing and talking, but it sure sounded a whole more like reassuring themselves they wouldn't die.

"Maybe Shadis was right, we're not soldiers yet, just naive kids"​

 

[Minx]

Claire took the uniform and threw it on. The cape and good made her feel like she was apart of something. Then Andrea made her comment once more "we aren't naive, if we were naive, why would we be here. People who are naive stay behind the walls and watch as everything becomes worse, while we get to prevent that" she said with a smile. She ran her hand over the cloth of the uniform. It felt soft and comfortable, as if it was accepting her

 

[Braxnond]

"Some of us are naive." Jax spoke, fixing his collar before he began attaching his maneuver gear. "Nothing can be guaranteed these days. It's just the way that it is." He looked between the two, those light hues bouncing back and forth as he spoke. "All we can do is try to look out for each other, and kill some titans in the process. As for Shadis, who cares at this point." He winked, shaking his head slightly as he turned from the two, walking away.

The survey corps are always on the front lines of battle. With such a low success rate and high fatality rate, it wasn't hard to see why usually only 10% of all training squads decided to join. However, those who served within this branch of the military know they're the best. They're the most dedicated to humanity, and their pride is justified based on their actions.​

 

[Minx]

Claire strapped on her maneuver gear as well. Even though she was now part of the servey corps she still had to owe a favor. The night before she almost got caught sneaking out by the garrison. So it was her turn to fill in for a "sick" member of the garrison for the day. Keeping the wall well guarded. And that's where she would spend the rest of her day. But the view was spectacular to say the least. So she couldn't complain. She waved to her friends goodbye and started to head out for her little job.

 

[Hitomi Forsyth]

Arius; in her dark corner by a wall, puts on her 3D Manuver Gear then covers up with the cloak she had been handed. She was happy and proud but still didn't feel like she would be willing to die for these people if it came down to it, she would always look out for number one before she would look out for people she didn't trust. With a dark glare Arius scans the other recruits quietly scoffing at their cheeriness and she watched Claire walk off remaining in her quiet corner. When one of the other recruits actually dared to speak to her she glares at them darkly and tells them to back off before storming off to a more private location.

 

[Minx]

As Claire walked by arius, questions boggled her mind. She had seen her several times before, always so quiet and distant. Giving criticizing glares at others if they had the guts to talk to her. But why? What made her be like this. Questions like these made Claire wake up in the morning.

She instantly turned around in mid walk, and changed her direction for arius. And it didn't take long before she was a foot away from her. And then she opened her lips "why is it that your so quiet? You got to talk eventually, don't you?" Claire began her process.

 

[Yuuki_Tatsunohi]

Joel could feel his stomach churning even long after the recruitment process for the Scouting Legion ended. He walked with his fellow classmates to gather their gear, tightening the straps around his waist and legs, familiar with the weight of the maneuvering gear. He loaded up on gas and blades, busying himself with prepping for his new membership in the Scouts. As he put on his new Scouts jacket, he heard a voice a few feet away:

"Why is it that your so quiet? You got to talk eventually, don't you?"

He looked behind to see two girls talking to each other, he remembered one to be Claire and the other one Arius. The two were always on different energy levels and it look liked the two were finally confronting each other about it. He noticed a veteran passing by, coming closer to Claire and Arius

"Hey," he whispered, approaching the two girls. "If you're gonna fight, at least wait until our superior is gone. Especially you, Claire, wouldn't want to get caught again right?"

 

[heliacalRebirth]

[dash=red]

Months Earlier

"Please sir... heed me out. You and I both know where I belong."

"What you ask could be my head, girl. It's one thing to hide an orphan, but one with your standing-"

"Enough about my standing! You've seen what I can do... I want to fight for our people............. I trust you haven't forgotten what's right for humanity."

It was well into the night, long after the final drill. The two figures wore cloaks caked in sweat, but they had long since stopped running. It was not the first time they've talked, but the air had a sense of finality to it. It would be the last.

"You're a devil with words. Use that to your advantage... you'll need it. I'll see what I can do for you."

The larger of the two figures paused a moment longer, passing words only barely audible to the other. A blonde lock escaped the hood of the smaller, and a small smile graced the girl's lips.

Present

Liv Storstrand stood stick straight as her fellow students were called upon. She watched, nervous tension gripping her empty stomach while each name was called. Please.. don't say it... Her knuckles turned white as she clenched her fists. After what felt like forever, after roars of thunderous applauds, the ceremony was complete.

Her name wasn't called.

Her shoulders slumped along with the others, but instead of disappointment she only felt relief. He had followed through. She was skilled, and she trained rigorously. She was almost guaranteed to be ranked in the top. Had she of made, had Father known that she turned down working in the military police...

Liv shook her head, coming out of her daze. As for the Survey Corps introduction speech, she hadn't a clue. Promises had been kept, and she was safe-

"Omph!" A girl barreled into her at the back of the line, running the way they came. She had tears in her eyes. The group watched as she ran back, towards the new garrison recruits. The seriousness of the position fell on Liv, and the blonde felt a chill go down her spine. A drop-out already...? The conflict brought all the eyes to her, and a strange silence hung in the air.

She met the gaze of both Andrea and Jax, nodding at them. They were the people whom she trusted the most, so she was happy they too joined the survey corps. Quickly, she gathered her uniform and stood in attention for the next instructions.

[/dash]

 

[Aschu]

Andrea wasn't sure what she was supposed to take from that wink, she had never been one for hidden messages. Which was ironic really, her being in the scouting legion and all. She looked to Liz, who she was actually surprised she hadn't made I into the top ten. She turned back to Claire, who had all none surprising, run off. She looked to where she stood now, almost looking like she wanted to get in a confrontation with Arius.

"Watch each other's backs he said" Andrea mumbled. Then something she didn't see coming happened. Joel, a generally cheerful person thankfully stepped before a veteran had to get involved.

"Maybe we're not so hopeless after all"

She then turned to proceed to get some food, but then crashed into another person.

"Omfry! Ah di int ook ere ah as oing!"

Andrea rubbed her head as she looked up.

"N-no it's my fault. I should be apologizing-"

She stopped. The girl looked a little bit older than her, her auburn hair tied back into a high ponytail. Her mouth was stuffed with food! The other girl held out her hand. "Ames asha! Ice ooh eet ooh!"
​

 

[Minx]

@yuuki_tatsunohi

"I wasn't going to fight" she grumbled as her voice got embarrassingly lower when he said the word again "I-I was just trying to get her to open up, and maybe try to make a new friend in the process?" She said questioning if this girl would be willing to even try and talk. Claire had always been like that, trying to break people out of their shell so they could open up more. Sometimes she even did it unintentionally. She watched as the veteran was currently distracted. Then once he wasn't looking at them, and was talking to a recruit, She exploded "SO, you guys now in the survey corps huh, that means we can see titans outside of the wall! I've never really seen one before, but I bet they're pretty interesting huh" she said jittering from all the excitement. She just had to let it go and tell somebody.

 

[Braxnond]

Jax brought two fingers of his right hand, both his index and middle fingers, up to the corner of his forehead when Liv nodded toward him. There were some people who were simply just a delight to get along with, and she happened to be one of them. It was almost immediately after this action that he brought his hand back down to it's appropriate side and heard yelling coming from behind him, the familiar voice floating through the air having belonged to Claire. She exclaimed how excited she was to see any sort of titan beyond the wall, and this genuinely made Jax upset. If she simply came along, got through the entire training process and to this point to only see titans, she would inevitably die. It wasn't something that Jax wanted to see or even think about, but with how things normally go, it wasn't a stretch to say. In fact, most would probably agree and say he's simply thinking of a truthful consequence to such a way of thinking. The young man took a deep breath, air filling his lungs at a slow pace through his nose. He calmed himself down over a short amount of time and let it go. After all, Claire wasn't unintelligent.

'I should probably stop assuming the worst in people. If i'm ever going to trust any of them...'

Light hues turned from the three who were speaking a ways from him, to the ground after he turned around one hundred and eighty degrees. One of Jax's hands eventually found it's way into his pocket, grasping a pack of cigarettes. As he dug his hand in, though, his fingernails would slide against a miniscule medal box. The young man had almost forgot about it - his trump card. Something that for sure, no one was going to enjoy seeing if he had to utilize it. Pulling the small pack of cigarettes from his pocket, he dragged one out and placed it behind his ear before returning it to it's original spot. Eyes looked back up to Liv, who had been standing in attention - and the people next to her, all down a row...

"...F**k.".

Jax immediately brought himself into that ever-so-common-around-these-parts salute, standing at attention in hopes that he wasn't about to get bitched out. ​

 

[Hitomi Forsyth]

As Claire came up to Arius she earned another dark glare from the loner, almost literally turning her nose up at the other recruit, she was seriously debating on if she should even answer this girl. With a deep breath and her eyes closed Arius turns to Claire for only long enough to respond, lightly, sounding pretty angry. "Look I don't have to talk to any of you. We aren't here to make friends, we aren't here to be 'nice' we're here to bring some hope back to humanity." That actually revealed quite a bit about her; she didn't really care for only one person, she cared for many. "I don't need any distractions. If I bite the bait and actually try to be 'nice' I will inevitably doom myself, and I don't want to die." With that she turns away from Claire; but she was shaking, just a little, you had to look really close to see. Inside of her rib cage her heart beat like a drum, she really hadn't decided on this to be the best way for her to help, but she couldn't risk making a 'friend', that's how she felt.

 

[heliacalRebirth]

[dash=red]Liv quickly beckoned Jax over, making room for him in the uniform line that they were supposed to be in. The blonde watched the drama ensue, keeping a neutral stance. She stood beside a slightly frustrated Joel, who's eyes switched between their superiors back to the wild display on hand. It was not the first time such outbursts had occurred, nor will it be the last. "There's almost more conflict in our squad than with the Titans," she whispered jokingly to the boy, giving him a reassuring smile before turning to address the girls.

"I think Titans are interesting too, Claire. Are you planning on joining the research team?" her question was meant to distract. She had no intentions of being punished their first day of being an official member of the survey corps. She also waved the girl over, trying to at least seem a tad bit professional. Once everyone was geared up and in line, Liv added a quick few words of advice, looking in front of herself but indirectly responding to Arius, "We don't have to be friends, nor do we have to like each other. But we have to work as a team, no matter what. We can't kill these Titans on our own, you know?"[/dash]

 

[Aschu]

~~~~~~~~

"So you were part of the 104th? The one with that Jeager guy?" Sasha nodded. It has been a few minutes since they'd bumped into each other, and Andrea thought she was actually nice, after Sasha had told her the reason for stealing food.

"It makes me feel calmer, so I don't really have a panic attack from thinking about," she paused, as if the very memory frightened her," titans" Andrea had known the titans were scary as f*ck, but not enough to make someone actually shudder speaking the name. "Anyway, aren't you with the new recruit? They must have dismissed you early today. They took at least ten more minutes to dismiss us" Andrea froze. Had they been dismissed? Her eyes widened.

"F*ck," she said, and started running back toward the others. Then she remembered Sasha. "Sorry Sasha!" she called over her shoulder.

When she finally reached the others, she saw that they were all lined up in salute. F*ck, f*ck, f*ck! she thought as she scrambled next to Jax and Liz, who gave her a look. "What? I was talking to a person from 104th. What do you expect?" And she turned back to the stage, where she found three people. One was Erwin (she could tell by the eyebrows), but the other people were unfamiliar to her. One had brownish blondish hair with a mustache, and the other one looked scarily a lot like Sasha, only she had glasses.

"Yahoo, my names Hanji Zoe, and you already know Erwin here," she said. She pointed to mustache and said," and this here's Mike. Now, I'm sure you're all aware of our latest discovery: titan shifters. And I'm sure you all know that at least two of them were in the 104th training corp" She said they all knew this already, but she sounded like she thought they didn't. "We want to make sure no fiascos like Stohess happen again, so we, and be we I mean me, are going to perform a test to make sure you aren't a titan shifter. We're not saying you are, but we just want to make sure. So, if anyone is aware they have this ability, please come out now"

And she said that if it was the most normal thing in the world.

​

 

[Minx]

"W-wait there can be titan shifters among us?" She called out to hanji. She had heard stories of this captains obsession with titans, about how she experiments with them. A role model in her mind. Though to think that there might be a Titan shifter amongst the group, was frightening and...intriguing. She was now hoping someone would come out and say something...maybe she hoped, her and hanji can see what makes a Titan shifter, if there is one though.

 

[Braxnond]

When Andrea rationalized why she wasn't in line earlier, Jax could only shrug and chuckle a bit. He had recognized the girl who she bumped into due to her notorious, well-known epithet of 'potato girl'. She loved to eat, she loved potatoes, people knew her as potato girl. It was just the fact of the matter, not a debateable topic.

There was silence. For a couple of moments, no one said a thing at all. Jax looked to see if anything would rise from the troop they are were lined up with, and no one said a thing. Was it a possibility that no shifters stood alongside him? His eyes turned from the rest of the group up to Hanji and Erwin with a slight anxiety-filled expression across his face, telling the tale of his story. What was next for him to do? He could give himself up, and be subject to whatever the Survey Corps said, or he could wait... And eventually be discovered. Ultimately, there was absolutely no way out of his dilemma and that's where the initial problem arose.

No way out. He would have to hope that the two commanding officers believed him when he stated his case of not being another Eren Jaeger; Jax knew how to control himself when he was in his Titan form. The only way that the young man would be able to prove it included physically show them, which they would undoubtedly ask to do - probably immediately. Taking a deep breath, Jax stood forward.

"Jax Betancourt." His hands at his sides in fists, he looked forward into the eyes of Erwin.​

 

[Minx]

Claire's jaw dropped when Jax called out his name. He was a Titan shifter all along. She looked around as everyone else had the same expression she did. Questions began to build up, not of how a Titan shifter worked and what to ask. But how did he hide it for so long, he was a well trained fighter in the recruitment system. All of this was shocking for her. Now she waited to see what hanji was going to do with Jax... Claire wanted to say something. But she knew she would be stepping out of her boundaries. So she stood there, shocked.

 

[Aschu]

If Andrea had been drinking a glass of water, she would have done a spit-take. What the actual f*ck was going on. Jax a titan shifter? What the hell!!!!!!!! She had trained with him, eaten with him. Was the whole things lie? No, if he hadn't come out now, it would have been, but he willingly joined the survey corp knowing of his abilities, not knowing what the hell kind of experiments were done to the Jeager guy?! She watched the gaze of Erwin, burning down on Jax like he was hell on earth. Mike didn't look surprised, but Andrea could tell due to his back suddenly straightening. Hanji looked like a mix between confusion, curiosity, and excitement. Which was kind of scary.

"If you would please come with us Betancourt, we would like to ask you some questions" Erwin said, no demanded. In a very scarily calm way. Jax obeyed, there was nothing he really he could do. If he didn't, they most likely would use force. "The rest of you are dismissed" As soon as they left with Jax, the whole area was buzzing, even the esteemed veterans. How could he just have given himself up so easily?! Andrea turned to Liv.

"Is this some kind of joke?!"​

 

[Hitomi Forsyth]

Hearing about a Titan shifter made Arius nervous, even though she hadn't really spoken to anyone this was startling to her and she actually felt a bit of concern. She acts cool and calm and steps forward, it was a little strange but when she looked up at the leaders of the Survey Corps her eyes were quite cold and she spoke calmly, "If you need some back up...in case something bad happens. I would be willing to come with you. I am at least skilled enough for that." She wasn't sure how they would take this but she had a concern and curiousity about Jax even though she had just yelled at him the night before about smoking. Arius knew no one else would most likely make an offer to go with them and perhaps keep an eye on Jax; recruit or no she had obviously proven her skills by landing in the top ten of the whole group.