A little One on One

"Alright," Levi began, his voice a sharp cut through the afternoon air, "let's start with something simple to get the blood flowing. How's your footwork?"

Crystal swallowed, her nerves fluttering in her stomach. Footwork was one of her weakest areas, and she knew that Levi would be expect the best. But she wouldn't let him see her hesitation.

"It's... passable, sir," she replied, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

Levi raised an eyebrow, his gaze unwavering. "Passable won't cut it in the battlegrounds," he said curtly, "We're not out here to play nice. We're training to kill, and if you can't move with the speed and agility of a predator, you'll be dead meat."

"Understood, I'll do my best."

"That's more like it. Do as many as you can before the timer runs out," Levi pulls out his watch, "High Knees first, Start in a standing position with your feet hip-width apart. Quickly raise your knees towards your chest, alternating legs with each step." Crystal prepared herself, keeping feet hip-width apart, "And... Start."

Crystal started to perform the exercise, but for some reason her mind became acutely aware that Levi would be watching her closely, and suddenly she wasn't just nervous about performing good.

"Alright, stop." Levi says sharply and Crystal plants both her feet on the ground, looking at him trying to hide the fact she was a bit out of breath, "280 High Knees in 5 minutes, good job." Writing it down on his clipboard, Crystal felt a sense of pride wash over her, "Now we'll have you go down the obstacle course. Please start at the hurdle jumps, average time among the scouts is one and a half minutes."

"Okay." Crystal lines up at the hurdles, and she finds herself slipping into her mind a little, it helped her to focus. 

"And... Start."

Crystal starts to jump over the hurdles, the last one she did a longer jump and managed to latch onto the wall that she needed to climb up. As she reaches the top of the wall, she slams down onto her belly and starts to go through the low crawl, the barb wire above her as a warning against lifting up further. Escaping the low crawl, she gets faced with a balancing beam, and she jumps up, one step at a time but she sped herself up, she wanted to meet the average time. But the beam ended and Crystal spots a rope, backing up on the beam she runs at the rope, jumping to swing from it, as she released from the rope, she grabs onto the net wall. 

Climbing down it, she spots the next obstacle behind her, the rope maze. She remembered something from her talking to Armin.

--(Flashback)--

"Yeah the Rope maze was confusing until you realize they rotated the rope for the correct path, I just followed it."

"That sounds so weird, how did you notice it quickly?"

"I just observed."

--(End)--

"I got this." Crystal jumps down and her eyes scan over the ropes before she seen the correct one, walking alone the ropes that made up the floor of the maze, she found it hard to keep her balance on them, but her boots made up for any swaying she made. Once she made it out of the maze, she saw the wall jumps, and just sprinted at it. Jumping across the 5 walls, she sees the poles that mark out the last zigzag run, and starts to full on sprint down it.

She digs her heels into the dirt as she slides over the line Levi had temporarily put in the dirt, and she looks at him, for a moment she thought she saw his expression was different, maybe one of surprise, but it disappeared with the dust behind her.

"Not bad, you finished in a minute and 10 seconds." Levi scribbles some things down on his clipboard, "Now on to weapon training, you showed that you had the prowess to shoot properly, now you must show your ability with a blade. We'll use the old Titan dummies for this, but we both know you won't be fighting Titans in the future."

"That's alright," Crystal nods, "It'll still show my skill with the blade." 

"And with ODM Gear. Go ahead and get geared up while I prepare the dummies." Crystal nods and goes towards the equipment shack, grabbing the gear that had her name on it, she smiles.

She wondered who put that there, and if it was Armin who assigned her the gear. Strapping it on like she did her old training gear, she enjoyed a moment of looking at herself, she was a bona fide soldier now, she wouldn't be the girl she used to be. 

"Alright, I will follow you with my own gear." Levi says, standing with the gear on him, and Crystal had to stop herself from staring a little too long, "Ready?"

"Ready sir." 

"And... go." Crystal latches high onto the tree in front of her and takes off, for a moment, she held her arms out like a bird, enjoying the wind blowing through her hair, before latching onto the next set of trees, spinning in the sky she spots her first Titan dummy. Going in, she spins and slices the Titan's nape in an "X" shape. She looks up to see Levi attached to a tree, taking notes, and she felt determination rise in her, she takes off, using the momentum from her first to find the next titan, before slicing that ones nape the same way.

Soon she came to stop after the last titan Dummy, and she could see Levi catching up to her through the trees, he comes to stop above her as she was latched to the side of a tree.

"You took out all the dummies I had set up, how are you on gas?"

"No more than a quarter low." Crystal responds up to him.

"Hm... Good at conserving gas as well. That'll be useful in battle, lets head back for a sparring match." Levi took off and Crystal follows him, she finds herself staring up at him from behind.

"Captain Levi is so strong and collected. I hope one day I can fight beside him, and that he can trust me like a comrade." 

They come to a stop and in silence they remove their gear, Crystal returns hers to the equipment shack. She pauses as she looks at one of the blades, one day she will have to kill someone, or else she or one of her comrades will die.

She was willing to do that, she wanted to take back the world from any oppressors who thought they were better simply based on blood or gender. Walking back outside her eyes widen in surprise to see Levi had stripped of his jacket and unbuttoned his sleeves to roll them up.

"Alright, show me what you got." Levi comes at Crystal with a left hook, and Crystal blocks it, trying to hit him with an undercut. They continue to trade blows, but both were pretty evenly matched for blocking, with Crystal managing to land a hit, knocking his legs out from under him.

As he hits the ground, he hooks both of his feet around of hers and spins his body, swiftly pulling her down to the ground and putting himself in a push-up position. Where he pushes himself onto his feet, and peers down at Crystal who coughs a little to get the dirt out of her throat.

"Here." Levi offers her his hand, his expression unreadable to her and she accepts it, looking at him with admiration, that was one of the best sparring matches she had ever had, "You did good, Crystal."

The name fell off his lips so easily to Crystal, and yet those 7 letters coming from him made her world feel like it was spinning. Not only that, he complimented her, a rarity from him.

Her heart thumped inside her chest as Levi let go of her hand and started to head inside. She ran to follow after him, desperate for her heart to stop beating so fast.