Sign of the Times

Year 849 - Trost attack simulation

"That was playing dirty, you bastards!"

"Huh?"

"Don't play dumb, you know what I'm talking about!"

The cadets were training in Trost. Since the Garrison wanted to prepare them for a possible attack to the district, the regiment decided to place some titan dummies for them to slay around a certain area, and simulate a real situation. They were divided in groups of four people, and the superiors graded them for this exercise and teamwork, so they had to find and 'kill' as many dummies as possible.

When the training ended, Jean was yelling at Sasha and Connie for 'stealing' his target. "That titan was mine!" He pointed at the duo with furrowed brows. Even if his team got a lot of points, he couldn't allow himself to lose some of them, since he was aiming for the MPs. His squad was formed by Armin, Annie and Viktor, although he didn't have the best relationship with the dirty blonde guy, they managed to work like a team and stay on top of the list.

"Playing dirty? Jean, you're always coming with something new every day, huh?" Sasha smiled, taking a bite of the potato in her hand. "You think hunting has an etiquette?"

"Don't try to give me some hunting lessons, potato girl." He spat, and Sasha's eyes widened.

"Potato girl!? I thought everyone forgot about that..." she murmured the last part. "Don't call me like that!" She stood up abruptly, followed by Connie, who was beside her.

"Yeah! Apologise to her!" He was about to say something when he got interrupted by the brunette.

"Uhm, actually Jean..." she scratched the back of her head. "That whole area was in our zone..." She smiled a little. While Viktor was part of Jean's team, Paloma was with Reiner, Sasha and Connie. Jean stopped arguing and looked at her without saying anything. He knew she was right, but he didn't want to admit it, his pride wouldn't let him.

"She's right!" Everyone found his behaviour a little weird. They knew that they were in his hometown, but it didn't make sense why he was so angry for being there. His bad attitude surprised everyone as soon as they entered the district, when Marco and Armin asked him if he was going to visit his mom. He only shouted at them to quit it and didn't say anything until they started with the training. The boy didn't want to talk about his relationship with his mom...

It also didn't help that Connie was teasing him about it.

"You know Jean, you've been acting kinda weird the whole day man, getting mad for everything," suddenly, Connie smiled mischievously. "Wait... You're mad because you want to go and see mommy?"

"Is that true!?" Sasha looked at him surprised, and Jean's cheeks turned red, that was the last straw.

"As if!" He lifted his fist, and the duo did their characteristic pose, ready to counterattack.

"Hey, stop!"

"You two, quit it. And you," Reiner pointed to Jean. "You're not going to make it into the MPs like this." Jean only huffed.

"We'll see who can take more targets tomorrow." The tension was in the air, and both Reiner and Paloma were ready to stop them if they were really going to fight.

"Interesting." The group froze at the voice's power.

The Commander himself appeared in the street, walking in the middle of the cadets saluting him, and looking straight to the chaotic group. Jean and the others saluted too, with faces of surprise and fear.

"Your fighting spirit is admirable, however, I'll not tolerate the use of training to win an argument." Pixis took a sip of his hip flask and closed his eyes, thinking. "You'll fight in a cooking contest."