Taming the Titan {for Yoshii}

[CleverFox]

Stay close and stay out of the way...

They were pretty straight forward instructions and yet at the same time seemed to almost contradict one another. Stay close but don't do anything stupid that makes you a liability, that was what the youth sitting astride the horse was thinking should have been said. Probably the words that were going through the mind of his commanding officer at any rate. Fifteen year old Eren Jaeger hadn't been a member of the scout regiment for very long but he had already learned pretty much the way that things were going to work.

He was either going to be the bait or else he was going to be dragged along because the captain of their squad was his assigned babysitter.

That was something that still didn't sit very well with Eren but unfortunately it was something that he had to put up with in order to fulfill his goal of destroying the titans. Well that and the fact that it beat the alternative of ending up executed for powers that he hadn't asked for and didn't even fully understand himself.

Those thoughts went through his mind briefly but he was distracted when he heard the sound of someone screaming off in the distance, it was one of the members of their team, it had to be. Without really even giving a second thought to the orders that he had been given Eren activated his 3D maneuvering device and took to the trees, leaving the horse to run along with the others riderless but that wasn't an issue as all the horses for the scout regiment were well trained. Not that he would have really given much thought to that in the moment even were the horse not likely to end up lost after he abandoned it. No, he was more of an 'act in the moment and think later' kind of guy, for better of worse, so when he head the scream he leapt into action.

Once he was in the air Eren used his skills to maneuver himself through the trees, grateful for the small grove since it made it easier to use the 3D maneuvering device, but unfortunately around the same time that he found the titans he also ran out of trees.

“Damn it,” he growled to himself as he landed on the ground and stood looking at the titan that was about to devour one of the other scouts. And while he didn't know them personally he couldn't allow that to happen so he decided to use the only option left to him, Eren raising his had to his mouth and biting hard enough to draw blood. Self harm was apparently how he managed to use those titan powers and that was the method he usually employed but as he stood there with his hand in his mouth and blood dripping from it Eren came to a blood chilling realization.

It wasn't going to work this time.

[Yoshii]

It has been a pretty exhausting day for Levi. Killing titans and riding the whole day made even humanitys strongest soldier tired. Apart from that, he was the one selected for looking after Eren Jaeger, one of the new cadets who happend to be a titan shifter, which wasn't always that easy but the boy and his special abilitys had to be protected at all costs. Not that there would be anyone who could do that properly, beside of Levi, because he was the only one able to kill Eren, or more likely Eren's titan if he go t out of control. Until now, everything went normal, a few dead soldiers as always, and Levi had to part his squad to get through the forest without drawing too much attention from the titans. He told the boy before, he should only concentrate on riding until the captain gave him another order, and he actually thought that would involve not playing the hero or something like that. And he thought Eren would obey him until he heard the familiar clicking of the 3D-Maneuver gear and finding the boys horse riding alone behind him.

There was no titan really near them, or they would have received a sign from the squad riding next to them, but whatever Eren tried to do here, it wasn't really clever. Fighting titans in the forest was very dangerous becausr you couldn't see more coming and if Eren was honestly planning to switch into his titan form, he'd only attract more titans. And as always, Levi had to take care of it. He told the other two riding with them what he was upto and started swinging through the branches as silently as possible. Finding Eren was not as hard as Levi thought it would be, beacuse he could see a lot of broken branches and found Eren standing directly in front of a 5-meter class titan. //What the fuck is he doing on the ground ??// he said to himself resting on a tree as the titan bend to the floor trying to grab Eren. Levi managed to cling himself into the titans back an quickly killed him to prevent a much bigger damage. The pile of meat fell to the floor and Levi jumped offfacing the boy. “Hey !! What do you think you are doing ?“ he asked.

[CleverFox]

This wasn't exactly the first time that Eren had faced off against a titan and so he was familiar with that fear but there was also a hatred that boiled up inside of him, these things were the cause of all the bad things that had happened to him and for that he would never forgive them. Of course he didn't want to end up getting eaten by one, he'd been own that road already and it hadn't exactly been pleasant. So he was trying to wrack his brain to come up with a plan of action.

Eren wasn't and had never been good at ignoring the screams, he had not yet developed that soldiers mentality that not everyone could be saved. He still had a very idealistic view of the situation and he thought that it was his job to make sure that he did what he could do in order to make sure that everyone returned from every mission. It wasn't something that was possible and a seasoned soldier would have known that even if they didn't like it however Eren was pretty much fresh out of the Academy and he had yet to come to terms with that. Because of those feelings he immediately leapt into action without thinking when he heard the screams coming from behind them, the boy activating his 3D device and going in pursuit of the Titan that he knew had to be attacking one of the members of their regiment.

That was exactly the scene that he came upon and since the terrain made the use of the 3D device more a liability than an asset he decided to use the Titan powers. To that end he bit down on his hand hard, causing it to bleed but that was the extent of it, there was no transformation.

Eren's eyes widened in horror as he realized that the transformation wasn't going to work this time around and there was nothing that he could do for the person that he had came her with the idealistic goal of rescuing. He was startled when someone else attacked the Titan and he blinked as he watched the creature fall but before he could really recover from that one Levi asked his question and that of course served to make him wary. It was hard to read the captain's emotions on any given day but right now it was easy enough to tell that he wasn't happy even if he still looked emotionless.

"I couldn't just keep going while someone was being killed by one of those damned Titans!" Eren said passionately, his gaze going up to Levi as he stood his ground despite the fact that the man definitely put him on edge.

[Yoshii]

The captain himself was aware that not every soldier would come back from every mission, especially the ones who were weak, not well trained or just to anxious. He got used to loosing a lot of people he knew, even though sometimes it was harder than usual, but that was nothing that counted right know.
Levi knew that Eren was able to kill a titan, he did that many times ago, but they were in a completely different situation now, because the trainees never learned how to kill a titan directly in the forest. That was no part of their education, it was something they got to learn in the scouting legion, but not today, and most importantly not alone.
He stepped a little bit closer to the boy and even though he was a little bit smaller, the captain sure was intimidating.

"I told you to stay with the group and not to go away all by yourself." he began lecturing the boy. "Did you really think you could just kill that fucking thing all alone in an environment you never trained in before ?" He saw Erens hand, bleeding on the brown forest floor. "Oh, that's what you were up to... Not really working this time, huh ? Didn't the commander tell you not to use this power until we knew your full force and the side effects ?" By now, Levi was really pissed of. Normally, the trainees learned to obey the soldiers above them in the trainee corps but Eren sure was still a little child.

[CleverFox]

Eren had known all along that Levi was going to be angry with him for what he had tried to do, he'd known when he had made the decision to do it, but all the same he couldn't really stop himself. He just had that mentality where he wanted to save everyone, even though rationally and realistically he knew that wasn't even possible.

This was a war and soldiers were going to die.

But Eren refused to just stand by and not at least try to help them, maybe he wouldn't be able to succeed but at least he'd know that he had tried. So that was wht he did and it directly lead to him facing off with his very irate captain, Eren gazing at the man whose expression was always so hard to read and trying to figure out just what was going through that mind of his. Granted he didn't have to wait long to find out since Levi started to lecture him and at the same time remind him of the orders that he had blatantly obeyed.

"Yea I know what you told me and I would have done it if someone didn't need help," Eren protested before shaking his head at the lack of training in this environment. "Only way to learn is to try," he pointed out before looking down at his hand and flinching, not because of the wound really, that'd be gone soon enough, but because the transformation had failed. "I thought it was the easiest way to get teh job done...I thought wrong," he conceded, knowing that Levi was pissed.

And worst of all knowing that he had a legitimate reason to be.

[Yoshii]

Levi sighed. He was obviously really annoyed “Eren. That's not the point.I know pretty well that every soldier has to protect his comerades any time, any place, but you are more than a soldier and we have to protct your power at all costs, even when it means that 100 or more people have to die. That's a sacrifice humanity has to make. The point is that you deliberately disobeyed the commander and me, understood ?“

Even though the captain had pretty much always the same expression, everyone could tell that he was angry right know. He hated nothung more than people who thought they'd knew everything better. He had to calm down a little bit now, so he took a little white tissue out of his pocket and wiped the little amount of titan blood from his sword. Cleaning always seemed to calm him down a little bit, and he didn't want to know what he would have done to Eren if he would'nt be able to do this little ritual. “You know what ? Let's go bacl to our horses, we wanted to be home before the sun goes down. I want to see you tonight in my office after dinner. And don't you dare disobey this order aswell.“ With his maneuver gear Levi jumped on a tree nearby, slow enough so that Eren would be able to follow him.

[CleverFox]

Eren really hated the way that he was being spoken to now but he tried to bite his tongue and keep himself from saying anything else stupid to make the situation worse. He had the feeling that he really couldn't afford to make things worse right now with the way that Levi was acting. So he just stood there and let the man lecture him about the sacrifice that humanity had to make.

"I understand completely sir," he said, knowing that was the answer that the man wanted to hear from him.

He went on to watch as Levi pulled out a little white cloth and started cleaning his weapon of all things, Eren still finding it weird that the captain was such a neat freak but he of course didn't say that out loud and instead just stood by and watched what the man was doing silently. When he was told that they were heading back to the horses he nodded but then looked a little surprised when ordered to report to the man's office after dinner. HE was pretty sure that he didn't want to do that but he just nodded and said, "Yes sir." He offered a salute with his hand on his heart as he did so and then activated his own 3D maneuver gear and followed along behind the captain.

All the while wondering just what Levi wanted with him.

Maybe to punch him or else beat the holy hell out of him again, wasn't as though the man hadn't already done that to him before after all.

[Yoshii]

Luckily, Levi knew that forest really good, they'd ride through it most of the time because the path leaded directly to the survey corps' camp, so he found his squad and the horses really quickly. He swung down and landed directly on his horse. The others were still silently riding next to him, because they knew they should better not talk to their captain right now. Levi looked back to see if had been able to follow him and sat on his horse aswell. Soon enough they left the forest and the black haired man was content that he and.Eren left soon enough, because they wouldn't be able to use their 3D maneuver gear in the open field, and the last thing he wanted right now was to walk through the scenery with Eren next to him.

You couldn't say Levi had a lot of fun killing those damn titans, he didnt't even really choose to join the military . If he had a chance to live in another world without those filthy titans, he probably would, but just now and here he didn't want to live inside wall Sina, just waiting there with those military police-morons until the titans finally reached them, and he was sure that day would probably come, if the survey corps didn't do anything about it.

Levi was glad when they finally reached their little castle, he had been craving for something warm to eat and a hot shower for hours. Well, the shower had to wait since he had something special in mimd for Eren, to remind him to follow all of his orders in the future. They came to the stables, and he got off his horse, lightly patting the animals neck. One of the good things of being the captain was that he never had to clean his horse, or bring it back to the stable, so he directly put off his maneuver gear and started cleaning it.

[CleverFox]

Eren managed to follow along behind Captain Levi and he did manage to reunite with his horse without ending up getting injured in the process. Looking at the others he saw that they were keeping their mouths shut and he figured that was probably a good lead for him to follow. After all Levi was pissed and he was the one that the man was pissed off at so all in all it was just a smart move to keep his mouth shut and just follow along.

It didn't take them long to reach the castle that was acting as their temporary base of operations, Eren hopping down from the saddle of his horse and moving to take care of the animal since that was part of his usual chores. He risked a glance over at Levi but looked away fairly quickly and just went back to what he was doing.

Once he had finished with the horse he made his way inside the castle, still wondering just what it was that Levi wanted with him and getting more nervous about that with every moment that passed. Because of that he just skipped the evening meal entirely, debating skipping out on the meeting that Levi had ordered him to report for but in the end he decided that was a bad idea so at the appointed time he just made his way to Levi's office, pausing outside the door and knocking lightly to announce his arrival.

[Yoshii]

As soon as his gear was properly cleaned and stored next to the others, Levi made his way to the dining room. Dry bread and water all day had not really been satisfying for him, so the not really appetizing looking soup wasn't an excuse for all the shit he had to deal with. At least it was warm.

He sat on a table with the other higher ranked soldiers, but passed off any conversation, by looking around the room. He couldn't see Eren anywhere so he thought he might have been to dumb to clean his gear or put it off or something like that. He slurped down his soup quickly, it wasn't too hot anyway, and without another word he carried away his plate and made his way to his little apartment. After the long day it really was a pleasure for Levi to but of his boots and change into more comfortable shoes before he made his way to his office.

He only had time to reorganize some of the maps on his desk until someone knocked on the door “ Come in.“ he said in a neutral voice.