Chapter 29: Meeting and Anger

"Hello! We're finally back, it's great to see that all of you are fine!" said the sapphire eyed young woman enthusiastically.

It was the first time for the other three newbies meeting Petra so they had to be introduced.

"These three are Armin Arlet, the blond smart one, Mikasa Ackerman, the strong one with my same hair color and Annie Leonhart, the blond and strong one, you three, this shorty is our senior Petra Ral" introduced Klemens, who the others now understood sucked at introducing people.

"I'm not short" replied Petra annoyedly "Nice to meet you three, I hope you'll be easier to manage than these two"

"You're not setting the bar that high, it's difficult to be more difficult than us!" said Liesl with her modest chest puffed up in pride.

"That was not a compliment" replied Petra at the shameless girl.

Klemens' holiday lasted way less than he hoped for, but at least he had all the time in the world to unwind while in the hospital.

Petra was happy that her two new teammates were back in the team, she had been informed of their stunt and about what happened in Stohess and was anxious about the existence of more titan shifters that they did not know about and were hostile.

The presence of four of the strongest people in the whole survey corp in the same team used as a spearhead in the reconquest of Shiganshina was a relief for different reasons.

The first was that, while she was ready to die to protect humanity, not dying was a far better option.

The second was that with Mikasa, Levi, Klemens and Liesl in the same task force the chances of protecting Eren successfully and using his powers to conquer Shiganshina increased by a lot.

What they now needed was to create a plan to close the hole as the chances of having something as convenient as the big boulder in Trost were slim.

"Come inside, the captain is about to leave for a meeting with Erwin, if you need to tell him anything now is the moment"

They were currently just outside of the house were they will be leaving for a while and were about to enter, when a short raven haired man walked through the door.

"No need, I'm here and they're coming with me" said the the short man with a voice that expressed that it was a command.

"Sure captain" replied Klemens even though he was pretty annoyed at having to go right back to traveling after having just finished one, the good thing was that this trip was not a long one.

"We're leaving now, get on your horses" said the captain as he approached his own horse, they complied and left with the man.

After a bit on horse Liesl decided to ask "Captain, why are me and Klemens going to be meeting the commander too?"

The captain looked at her annoyed and replied "Because the two of you were present as major components during all of the recent problems, like the breach of Trost or the disaster of Stohess.

And the two of you have showed good ability and instincts while being in charge during the breach of Trost, so, even if you are not the most reliable of people, you could have some useful input with the current situation"

Even if he was pissed off at the two of them, he couldn't permit himself to give up on two very capable people like them and even if he really wanted to ignore them, having them ignorant was more deleterious than otherwise.

"We're currently preparing the expedition to Shiganshina to reconquer Wall Maria, we need to decide the details"

"Great, finally some action, I was worried about getting rusty after so long away from action" replied the young woman.

"Don't worry about that, we'll use you at the head of the expedition, you'll have plenty of action" the short captain smirked as he said so.

"Great!" replied enthusiastically the girl, seemingly not getting that usually nobody would want to be in such a position, but she didn't care about what was normal.

It didn't take long before they reached the place were they had to meet with the commander, after all they had to be ready to reach to any danger in time.

They walked in the meeting room and were greeted by the presence of the commander together with two other people who they knew and a few others, the first was one that they had already met but hadn't interacted much with, Hange Zoe, while the other was one they were meeting with for the first time, but was equally important, squad leader Mike Zacharias, who was considered humanity's second strongest soldier after Levi, at least before Klemens and Liesl's appearance.

The two recruits saluted to their superiors and sat down.

"Good, now that we're all here it's time to talk about this expedition, the appearance of two hostile titan shifter has made it imperative that we conquer Wall Maria as soon as possible and take down the two shifters as top priorities.

The existence of enemies who could infiltrate our cities and kill everyone after transforming is something that we cannot allow, especially as long as we don't know about their motive.

Another priority is that we need to enter Eren Yeager's house's cellar, from what we know, inside that cellar is the secret about his ability to transform into a titan, this will give us knowledge about the true nature of titans and about our other behind the two shifters"

Erwin's speech made everyone present in the room think deeply about his words.

To the other people the informations were nothing new, but for Klemens and Liesl the existence of the cellar was new, it seemed like they lost a great deal of info by staying away for a month.

But they both decided not to ask as the complete information was given from which they could infer the full truth, they knew about the key Eren always carried on his neck after all and his ability to shift indicated some sort of secret.

The discussion proceeded fast, they were all capable people who knew how to do their job, but what most of them failed to account for one thing, the existence of an intelligent enemy, they were all used to the normal mindless titans and intelligent enemies were a variable they didn't know how to deal with except for a few.

Erwin said "We know about the existence of more titan shifter than the ones we currently know about, this information was brought to us by Klemens and Liesl from their discussion with the armored and colossal shifters.

Given that they have interacted with them more than any of us, I think that asking their input about the current situation would be valuable, Klemens, Liesl, if you would" he said while looking at them expectantly.

'Oh fuck, we forgot about Ymir' thought Klemens to himself, but this was not the time to think about that.

"I think that sending the whole expedition at the same time to be something we should rethink" said Liesl.

"Elaborate" replied Erwin intrigued by what she was saying.

"Normally, if we were fighting only against titans, the current modus operandi of large numbers together would be the best option, but our enemies are not mindless creatures this time, but intelligent and militarily trained people who know how we think and act in such situations.

I think that we should sent one or two people alone to scout the area completely and then report their findings"

"That would be suicide, there are too many titans and sending few people would be like sending them to their deaths" said Mike Zacharias correctly, that would be correct if the people she wanted to send were anyone else.

"That's right, it would be suicide, it would be if we didn't have people capable of traversing the interior of Wall Maria and survive to report back and act at any possible encounter with the enemy" as soon as those words left her mouth she received a glare by her friend.

"Are you stupid? You can't seriously want to do that again?" he said with slight anger in his voice, more anger than he felt in a long time.

"It's the best option" she replied.

"It's the most logical, but the most logical is not always the best"

"Can you two stop your lover's spat and explain, what does he mean by again?" interrupted squad vice captain Moblit, trusted second of captain Hange.

Klemens grimaced a bit, but still replied "She means for the two of us to go, we can survive the encounter with any titan, probably even with the titan shifters, if we can't end the enemy we can at least leave alive, we have already done so after all, five years ago"

"You mean?" asked captain Hange.

"We lived in a village near Shiganshina, one of the first the titans attacked after breaching through the wall, after that we lived for more of less two weeks in the titan infested Wall Maria and survived to tell the tale, we know how to move undetected and how to reach Shiganshina in the shortest possible time, it's the best option I can think of" continued Liesl earning herself another glare filled with anger by her pissed off companion.

The others fell into thought, eventually Erwin interrupted the silence "That would indeed be our best possibility, going in blindly could potentially spell the deaths of every one of us, sending the two of you could give us invaluable information about our enemy, but what do you mean about acting when encountering the enemy, how would you deal with that?"

"They already know we'll be coming, if they find us it's not a big deal, either we kill them or we escape" said the youngest girl in the room, her mentality surprised the other people in the room greatly.

"And if you don't manage to escape?"

"We die, obviously" said Klemens with a sneer, not to the person who asked the question, but to Liesl.

"It won't happen" countered the girl with great self confidence.

Commander Erwin asked "The most important question at this time is if the two of you are willing to take such a great risk, so? Are you?"

"Obviously, even if I have to go alone" replied Liesl with a sly smile.

She knew what she was doing, she knew that Klemens wouldn't permit her to go alone and stopping her from doing such things was something he knew useless from experience.

She knew she was manipulating him, but she did it anyway.

She had full confidence in their combined talents after all, they had never betrayed them, even if he thought otherwise.

He glared at her, long and hard, he wasn't really debating wether to let her go alone or not, but was letting her know that he despised her for making such a choice.

He knew she was right, it was the best choice and was also sure they could do it, nobody had more confidence in their abilities, they managed to do it as children, why couldn't they do it as trained soldiers?

So he let out a long sigh and reluctantly accepted with a small nod of the head.

It was then decided when they would leave and how long their mission would take "You'll depart in five days, the expedition with depart a month after, if you haven't managed to return in that time you'll be treated as missing, are you alright with that?" asked the commander.

"Yes" the two replied.

And with that the meeting ended.