Chapter 38: Finally

Moblit had a question, but it was anticipated by captain Hange who saw the confusion in her subordinate's eyes.

"Had they been spies then they wouldn't have suggested that we wait and create a better weapon to destroy the armored, they don't know that we're already developing something similar since the disaster of Stohess, they would have hidden the existence of the monkey titan and probably only told us about the quadrupedal titan, so the moment we get there we would be annihilated"

Moblit finally understood everything, now it was time for all of them to think about the proposition Klemens made.

"About Klemens' proposition" started the commander "I think that it would be for the best to do as he said, if that about the long range attack with large area of effect is true we'll probably be annihilated before we even reach Shiganshina, we should do as they did and stealth it in small groups until we get to near Shiganshina, at the last part of the journey we should pour into the city as fast as possible, that would make evading those projectiles much easier thanks to the tridimensional movement.

After that, Levi the mission of killing the Monkey titan is yours, the moment the armored comes into the battlefield we need our men to attack it with out new weapon to kill it, as far as the Colossal titan goes, we don't have enough information about it's abilities to create a functional attack plan, we'll either need more intel or figure something out at the moment"

At that moment most of the people in the room felt lucky to have a commander able to analyze the new information and formulate a new plan in such a short time, there certainly were a few places were it needed to be reviewed, but the skeleton of the plan was ready.

"So, do we still suspect those two or is everything resolved?" asked Levi, he wanted to know if he could trust two of the people in his team, if he had to keep an eye open at night everything would be more tiring.

"I believe that they're not spies, but we need more certainty, tomorrow I'll call them to have breakfast with me as soon as they wake up, I'll need you to be there with me and armed guards all around us in full alert at the first sign of conflict, now, about that new weapon..."

The conversation continued longer into the evening and by the end of it, many things were made certain and new plans formulated, some of them still being only in the commander's mind.

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A loud yawning noise could be heard in a certain room, the room had a tall ceiling and was really large, inside of it many people could be seen eating the first meal of the day and among them, the two who had just returned from a solo mission outside the walls into enemy territory were eating at the same table as the commander.

"So, commander, is there a reason you wanted us to eat with you?"

"Not at all Liesl, I just desired knowing more about our stars, you're becoming even more famous than you already were, you know that right?"

"Famous?" Klemens asked as he arched his eyebrow in confusion, it wasn't news, but recently they hadn't done much to deserve more fame.

"Obviously, the news about a newly recruited power couple surviving a solo mission outside the walls is already in the mouths of many soldiers in this place and soon enough it will spread to other corps, we could always use some more publicity so we didn't restrict it" admitted the commander offhandedly.

Liesl was pissed off, obviously, at being used without her consent by anyone "We're going to receive a raise then, right?" she said while smiling ominously, emitting a natural pressure which Erwin shook off without a problem, he had seen far worse in his life than a scheming teen.

"Sure" but he still accepted with no problem, the two would receive a raise with any promotion anyway, giving it to them now was not a problem at all with their achievements, the only reason he still didn't promote them was that they still hadn't proved their leadership abilities in the battlefield, something that would probably change in the near future.

Klemens, on the other hand, accepted his new fame without a care, but it did answer the question of why the other people eating around them were looking at him and Liesl weirdly, it was admiration, he assumed.

But it still didn't answer why many wore combat gear.

"Why are some of the people here fully geared, is there going to be a mission?" he asked.

"No, if everything goes well there won't be any for some time, some of the veteran soldiers are going to do a demonstration for the newer recruits, there have been a lot of cadets who chose us this time around" replied the blonde commander.

"But let me ask you a question I've always been curious about since meeting you two" he said after swallowing a bite "How did you two become so strong? If we could produce more people like you the war against the titans would end in just a few years at most"

"We trained since very young, we were around five year old if I remember correctly, when I decided that we would become the strongest and convinced him to train with me" replied the fiery haired young woman.

"Why would you want to do that and who trained you two? From what I've seen about you two it couldn't have been a normal routine training.

Oh, excuse me if I sound out of place, you can not answer if you don't want to" he said with a slight smile on his face.

'This is definitely an interrogation' thought Liesl.

'This food is great, I was tired of that damned jerky' though Klemens, who didn't care in the slightest about what the commander wanted and thought of those as question purely out of the man's curiosity.

"It was my father, he was trained in the army and we asked him to teach us, as for why..." explained Klemens, who was interrupted before being able to finish the sentence.

"It's because I wanted our people to live a free live without fear, no longer needing to hide inside some puny walls, nothing more, nothing less" completed Liesl, with the same, if not even superior, amount of conviction that she always had in her eyes when telling her dream.

Erwin was stunned, but not for long, because of what he just heard, her goal was surely a noble one, and if the enemy could create such an actor that could lie to such a level, then the war was already lost.

He believed her, from the beginning the suspects against them were shaky and circumstantial at best, but still too big to be ignored, but now they were gone almost completely.

Sure, the story about their origins could be forged as could be their identities, after all there was nobody alive from their original village, but that was the case with many people, not all of them could be enemy spies.

These two just happened to have received training from an ex soldier, which was weird in and of itself, but not really a problem, there were plenty of weird people in the world and the two in front of the blonde man could not be considered as anything else.

But it was the look in her eyes that sealed the deal, while Klemens remained mostly expressionless and with a neutral face, Liesl seemed to find hiding her emotions worthless, at least in his opinion.

"That's really a great dream" mumbled the commander and finally Liesl's weird feeling about this conversation disappeared, only to remain in the girl's memory.

The conversation finished quickly, the commander had other and more important things to do than spending breakfast without doing anything productive, so he left right after he finished eating.

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"What do you think?" asked the girl.

The two had left the room where they had had breakfast and had now left the army's building and were going around the city by foot in civilian clothing.

"About what?"

"That interrogation, you might have not noticed, but Erwin seemed to be probing us with his questions and the armed people around us were on alert, they definitely were ready to attack at any moment"

"So... the guy suspects us of something? What?"

"I have no idea, maybe we're just too outstanding and they think that we're too good to be true" replied the girl with a cocky grin on her face.

"Anyway, we don't have anything to worry about, we haven't done anything wrong until now"

"What about Annie?"

"Acquiring a tactical weapon of the proportion of a titan shifter seems like a merit to me" said the young man offhandedly while looking around them and seeing that nobody was listening in on their conversation.

"But we hid her"

"We were justifiably afraid that the Military Police would pull something off to take her away, but now we have a source of inside info about our enemy, double merit"

The two walked a bit farther when Klemens said "Oh yeah, about Annie, why don't we find her, I've got a couple of things to ask her"

"Like?"

"For example why did she hide that the monkey titan and the quadrupedal titan would be coming too, we almost died, two times, and also how did they know that we would be coming?"

At that Liesl's expression darkened considerably, those were questions that were clouding her mind too, as much as she wanted to believe in her friend, at this point they needed answers, they needed a reason to trust her and her words.

"Yeah, let's go..."

'She didn't even try to protect her, seems like she also wants answers' thought the young man to himself.

"Any idea where we could find her?"

"No clue, is she even in this city in the first place?"

Klemens pondered for a second and replied "I don't know, shouldn't she be with Eren? She was assigned to the team protecting him if I remember correctly"

"No, she was there only to escort us to him, the team Levi is only for the most elite and trustworthy of the corps, she would still need to show her abilities more if she wants to join, I have no idea in which team she's in though"

"We should have asked the commander, or the captain, or whoever is in charge of these things"

"Yeah" replied the girl.

"Wait... isn't that, fuck" said the boy

"Now?" teased the girl before looking in the direction he was looking at, and what she saw made a weird expression surface on her face "We forgot about her again, didn't we?"

"Stupid Ymir and her forgettable existence" mumbled the green eyes one in annoyance.

"Oh well, she isn't escaping anymore, let's take her"

"Same way?" he asked with grin that mirrored hers, the more he did that, the more he enjoyed it, he found it somewhat cathartic.

"The one and only"

Fortunately, Ymir was only walking together with the nice small blond girl, Krista Lenz, and nobody else.

As long as there was only one witness there would be no problem.

Liesl walked up to them and waved "Hey guys, how is it going?" with as much ease as possible, looking no different than any other day.

"Oh, hello Liesl, I heard that you and Klemens went on a mission outside Wall Rose, how did it go? I hope you haven't been injured" replied the nice small girl with a beautiful smile on her face.

Meanwhile, the taller brown haired girl at her side simply waved back, showing no interest in the topic.

"Oh, all is good, just a couple of titans, nothing to worry about, by the way, we'll be taking your friend here to ask a couple of questions, I hope you don't mind" replied the beautiful fiery haired girl.

Hearing such words made the poor Krista turn her head in her friend's direction, only to see her already knocked out in Klemens' arms like a bag of potatoes.

"Hey Krista" he waved at the distraught girl.

"Was this necessary?" asked the small blonde.

"No, but it's funnier this way, we'll bring her back later, see you later Krista"

"No need to worry Krista, we'll bring her back in a piece, maybe" winked Liesl.

Krista, who knew about Liesl's penchant for kidnapping people, but had no idea about Klemens' liking to do so too, remained there as the two took her best friend away.

'Not like I can stop them even if I wanted to'