Libertas ↠ AOT

II

After her laughter had calmed down, Antheia spent most of the night catching up with Shadis on everything that they had missed in each other's lives. The moon had been high in the sky when Antheia had decided to retreat to her temporary lodgings and the sun had only just begun to rise when she woke up for the start of the day. It wasn't unnatural for her to get minimal sleep, the countless lives that were stolen on expeditions tended to have that effect on veteran soldiers.

A few minutes later and she had fully equipped her uniform and made her way to the training grounds where the aptitude test was taking place, pausing to stand beside the contraption that would hold up the recruits and test whether or not they were capable to continue on to ODM gear training. The recruits soon followed behind and filed in to form a group in front of their instructor.

"It's aptitude test time so listen up! There's no place for you here if you cannot perform! Fail and be shipped to the fields!" Shadis bellowed to the recruits before compartmentalising them into different groups, assigning each group to one of the many tests that sat in a line.

Antheia was currently helping strap in one of the recruits, ensuring that the equipment was strapped in correctly so that nothing went wrong on her behalf.

"Is it true that you're the instructor's daughter?" The cadet asked her.

One of her eyebrows raised at his curiosity while she removed her gaze from the straps and looked up at his face. She recognised him, the buzz cut on his head jogging her memory of yesterday when he was lifted into the air by Shadis after getting the salute wrong.

"Word travels quickly I see. I've got no idea how you even found that out but no, I'm not his biological daughter. He is a sort of guardian to me though I suppose," she answered, clicking the wire onto his harness on his left side before moving over to his right. "What regiment do you plan on joining?"

"Probably the Military Police but if I don't get into the top ten then I'll go for the Garrison," he responded. "Why did you join the Survey Corps?" Connie asked after noticing the wings of freedom on her jacket, silently wondering how he hadn't noticed it before.

"Because I wanted to," she replied, clicking in the second and final wire before sending a nod to one of the training instructors that stood a few feet away at the lever.

"But why did you wan—" his words were cut off when he let out a sound of surprise as his feet left the ground.

Antheia took a step backwards while Connie was lifted fully into the air, trying to keep his balance. He stretched out one arm in front of him and one to his side, shakily managing to stay upright and only occasionally losing his stability. There was certainly room for improvement but he showed promise.

"What is your major malfunction Jaeger?! Straighten yourself up!" Shadis' loud yell caught Antheia's attention and she turned her head to see Eren undergoing his own aptitude test; however, he was hanging upside down instead of hovering in the air like everyone else.

A gentle sigh slipped from her lips before she turned her head back to Connie when hearing his feet hit the ground, moving forwards to unattach his wires and set him free.

"Has anybody ever told you that you're really nosy?" She asked him rhetorically.

He raised his hand and sheepishly rubbed the back of his head before stepping away from the contraption and allowing Antheia to continue on the test with the other cadets that were waiting in a semicircle.

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After a long day of watching the recruits train all Antheia wanted to do was curl up in bed but it seemed that the universe had other plans for her. Her arms were raised in the air as she straightened out her back, stepping through the moonlit training grounds on her way to her barracks when she was startled by a voice calling out to her.