Chapter 20: How?!

'Right hand there, left foot there, left hand here and... oh no, where do I put my right foot? Meh, I'll just push further and put it there after I go up a bit more...'

Klemens was having genuine fun climbing the rocky wall of the hill, he had even forgotten why he was doing it.

'Maybe Lie was right, I do need a hobby' he thought 'and climbing might be that hobby'

He could feel his blood pump through his veins filled with adrenaline, a single error and he might fall to his death, no matter how much stronger than a normal person he is, if he falls badly he would die.

He even took off his movement gear and strapped them on his back for the added danger, but as he climbed he realized something that he didn't like.

'Oh no, I'm just like Lie with the mountain, she corrupted me!'

He finally reached the top, which wasn't impossibly difficult considering his body that was trained to the extreme, but not that easy either considering that his technique for climbing left much to be desired, he usually used the ODM gear to move from one place to another so the army training never put any consideration in climbing rocky walls.

He took around twenty minutes to climb the twenty meters tall wall, he took a rest during the rise to calculate the best trajectory to follow and to regain his forces.

'This is really strenuous on the body' he thought, but he really enjoyed this short climb, he felt freer and accomplished at having done something so challenging even for him.

He looked down from the top, having already put on the movement gear back on as he never new when he might need them, and looked at where his new teammates where currently setting up their things in the few barracks that they had.

He saw Liesl and she saw him, therefore he knew that only one thing could be done.

So he raised his middle finger at her, proudly displaying it to the world.

She narrowed her eyes, to see what he was doing better as she couldn't see very well from the distance, but once she realized she mimicked his action with a wide grin on her face and shouted "Fuck you Kle!"

"No, fuck you!" replied the boy immaturely, but she started so it was fine, he thought.

After a few more rounds of insults Petra finally grew annoyed by their antics and pulled Liesl ears until she begged to stop.

"Please no, stop stop stop, Petra it hurts, stop pulling my ear!" shouted the girl while the boy released a sonorous "Ahah!" done loud enough to be heard by them, specifically to piss his friend off.

And piss her of he did, unfortunately he also managed to piss off the short woman who had now released his friend's ear from her clutches "Get down so I'll pull your ears too!" she shouted.

"No!" he answered, why should he go just to be scolded?

The rest of the team and Eren were currently scattered to search the perimeter, just like Klemens was doing before concentrating on what he had decided was his new hobby and fool around with Liesl.

They were still young after all, no matter how trained they were and how many responsibilities they carried on their shoulder, as heroes and as survivors, they still had to just have a bit of fun every now and then.

"Come on Eren, you're young, you should be a bit more like them and have a bit of fun instead of sulking all the time" said Captain Hange patting Eren's shoulder as she did so.

Since the first time she had seen the boy he did nothing more than sulking, shout angrily or brooding 'I get that he just discovered he's a titan and everything, but he almost seems like a more emotional Levi with how much he keeps brooding'

"They are the exception, miss Hange, among all those that survived the fall of Wall Maria they are the probably the happiest" replied the green eyed brooding boy while looking in the distance at the one with his same eye color.

"Oh, right..." she remembered that detail she had once read in the report about the two she had read after the breach in the Wall of Trost, she didn't pay too much attention to it before, but only now she realized how unusual they were in character too, other than their monstrous abilities "Did they see them?"

She didn't need to say who 'them' were, Eren could understand she was talking about the titans, he didn't know if he should answer or not, because it might not be his place to tell.

Eventually he came to the conclusion that if she really wanted to know, she would have no problem finding the answer in other ways, so he relented "From what Klemens told me, yes, they entered Wall Rose alone, why do you ask, captain?" asked the boy,

He didn't understand why Miss Hange would ask about their past, but the answer came soon enough "I've seen different children who had seen the disaster form five years ago with their own eyes, most of them don't have any motivation to confront the titans again in their lives.

A few of them are like you, they join the military to avenge their fallen family members or for similar reasons, they often join the Scouts too, some even ended up taking their own lives or falling in despair never to come out again.

But these two are different, I've never seen someone like them, still so full of life, innocence and hope, who join the Survey Corp while knowing full well the danger that the titans pose to humanity, the despair that they create deep into our hearts" she explained with a soft tone, during the years after the fall of Wall Maria she had seen many awful things she'd rather forget.

But she wouldn't, forgetting them would make it no different than if it never happened after all.

Eren, while looking at his two friends who had wide grins on their face, he couldn't see Klemens' face from the distance, but he assumed it would be like that, thought about the words of his superior, but couldn't come to a conclusion.

'They saw the same that I did, then, how can they still be like that? Don't they hate titans for what they did to our families? Don't they want to kill them all? Like me?' he only had questions about the behavior of the two.

He had seen the two fight titans during the battle for the breach of Trost, now know as the Dawn of the Stars by the common populace, as it marked the birth of two new heroes for the populace inside the walls.

He had just come back from reporting everything that happened at the wall, from the appearance from out of nowhere of the colossal titan, to the flow of titans entering the territory inside of Trost, when he saw them.

He saw how Liesl was seemingly having fun creating a mountain of titan corpses, how Klemens was dealing with them with absolutely no problem at all, seemingly breezing through their necks while slashing them with no apparent effort.

They seemed to have no emotion for the titans, as if the monsters that plagued his nightmares were barely an inconvenience for them, something that would naturally just die if it stood in their way.

He had long since admired the two of them, for their strength more than anything else, but after that display his drive to reach their levels became higher than anything, he wanted to become like the two of them, free from fear and live he could enjoy.

He remembered Mikasa and Armin, how the both of them believed in him and always stood by his side no matter what and how he had always been too weak to protect them.

He started the military training as a boy full of anger that would throw himself head first into an horde of titans just to die a pointless death, changing nothing, but now he had the power.

The power to make a difference.

'But how? How?! I'm not strong like Klemens not do I have those insane instincts of Liesl, how can I reach them?' how thought, he thought as he subconsciously brought his hand to his mouth.

He opened his jaw.

And bit.

---------------------------

Klemens was enjoying the breeze at the top of the hill, he had stopped throwing insults at Liesl and had been threatened by his short teammate, so he decided to just sit there until things blew over.

He had seen Captain Hange and Eren seemingly talk about something, not that he could understand at the distance he was at, not even that he cared, it was just his observation.

But after that discussion Eren stood there, still like a rock, he then seemed to bring his hand to his mouth.

Klemens didn't care, his mission was to keep an eye on Eren and the things around the camp.

But then an explosion appeared where Eren was standing, with golden lightning coming from the sky and striking right where the boy previously was.

Klemens panicked, he stood up just in time to see something appear from the smoke screen that appeared at the striking point.

It was a titan, fifteen meters tall and it looked very different from the titans he was used to.

It looked much leaner and muscled than other titans, he thought that it's face looked a bit like Eren's, same hair and eye color and similar face composition.

This lead him to the conclusion that this was Eren's titan form.

'But why has he transformed right now?'

He jumped off the cliff to the void below, before suddenly shooting his harpoons anchoring one in the rocky wall and one in the ground.

The speed he was falling at plus the inclination he had anchored himself caused him to move in a parabolic pattern, shooting him at maximum velocity in the direction of the newly appeared titan.

He took around six seconds to reach his destination, he arrived right on time to hear the Eren Titan shout loudly to the sky.

At that point everyone had left their barracks in full attention, unfortunately he was the only one who currently had his gear on as the tests weren't scheduled until later that day.

He landed on Eren's shoulder and asked with his normal calm tone that he used in normal situations "Eren, are you alright? Can you hear me?"

To his relief he saw Eren slightly nodding his head, confirming that he herd him and was in control of his titan body.

'He can control it, this is good, now let's see what we can do'

"Now Eren, I want you to go a bit further away form our barracks, we don't want to brake them this soon, do we?" he used his neutral, soothing voice to not put Eren under more stress than he already was.

"Just like this, good boy, now try moving a little, throw some punches and kicks to get used to your new height"

He jumped off at this point, he didn't want to be on a roller coaster after all.

He saw Eren doing as he told, seemingly comfortable enough to throw punches at high speed, he could even see the stance he used usually in spars, the one Annie had taught him.

He waited until Eren stopped by himself and went back to his shoulder and said "Good job, get out now, the others are getting anxious, look at Oluo with his swords out, he should retire now that he's old" he chuckled.

The Titan body slumped and Eren came out of its neck, he was still awake, unlike the last time they took him outside of the titan, maybe it's because he didn't fight seriously or maybe it's because he's more used to it now, they'll now later.

But for now, his friend finally found out how to use his power and they were one more step closer to closing the breach.