[darth vader]

a series of balancing acts

Lucia's never left her old life entirely. Thalia watches her polish her set of blades in silence, rubbing the embossed handles with a soft cloth. The younger woman is sitting a few feet away from where Mina is examining Anael's 3DMG. The younger girl, Thalia might have labeled her once, but there are no children in the Survey Corps. Whether or not they know it.  Kain lights on the branch behind her and Thalia tilts her head toward him.  "She's upset about this," he says unnecessarily. "She shouldn't take point."  "She was never going to," Thalia answers. "Anael is riding point on surveillance. Mina and I will be on assault, you and Lucia on support. I want to see how Anael handles the dissolution of a deliberate ambush when she's not functioning as support. The academy rarely bothers to test critical thinking."  "Better now than later," he says, and swings to the ground, landing beside Lucia. The sound of their voices carries to Thalia, but she can't make out what they're saying. She supposes it doesn't really matter.  Today's course is laid out. A straightforward wedge ambush to enact on a trio of cardboard cut outs, and then the surprise: a captured titan, pried out of the lab's grip with no little effort, to emerge at the head of a duo of shifters and engage with the squad. And the part that's making Lucia's mouth twist in that thoughtful grimace: working with Rosenburg's--group to accomplish the objective. Thalia pushes off from the tree to follow after Kain, laying one hand on Lucia's shoulder and squeezing in reassurance as she passes by.  "Rendezvous is in 3 minutes with Rosenburg," she says to the group. "We'll move parallel to the kill point. Remember the goal of this is alliance, not assimilation. Follow our standard procedure, but allow Rosenburg's elements to flow through it if you see a way they might help, but don't compromise your own movement unless it is an emergency. Anael, you're on point. Mina, you're in assault with me. We're heading up to the meeting spot."

LAIKA OF GS!

[redox-kun]

[attr="class","stt"]

becoming a squad leader wasn't quite the same on the second time around. there were more officers to impress, more accusations to deflect, and less manpower to choose from. the legion had already lost two of her most trusted retainers, and the prospective replacements were less than eager. it might as well been a new squad entirely.

ceres had done the best that she could, and sophia appreciated that. despite the loss of hugues, she had managed to integrate herself into his role admirably. sometimes, sophia would catch herself looking for his towering figure before realizing that ceres’ petit build was what she should have been looking for. she never took offense, and for that, sophia was grateful.

“you’re nervous” ceres says to her when the other squad members are out of earshot. “you’re nervous for the squad. you’re nervous for him”

“...you know that it wouldn’t be the first time” sophia surveys them carefully, trying not to let her eyes linger too much on lucas. the boy with his father’s eyes. the boy who had looked her in the eyes one morning and saluted her for the pride of the scouting legion, the pride of the hammond name. “that’s how i keep myself accountable”

the same accountability that has been thrown into such doubt over the last few years. sometimes, sophia has her moments of weakness, the moments that she buys into their accusations. yet she never says a word. it’s not important, whether she is deserving of leadership or not. what’s important is that she can lead.

she has never been the natural born leader that thalia was. it was always about being honed by the struggle when the situation falls apart. that’s why she had admitted such men and women onto her squad. those who would give into despair would be poor matches for the group dynamic. everything else can be learned.

ceres and kazumi had already been given their directions, support and assault respectively. sophia walks over to klaus, who was napping under a tree.

“klaus, take point” the man opens a sleepy eye, winks at her, and appears to return to his nap. lucas attempts to lightly kick him awake for his disrespect, and klaus manages to catch his foot before he makes contact. lucas falls into a dirt, and sophia cannot help but think about how unlike his father he is. “...lucas, you’re on support”

maybe lucas could have answered back if he wasn’t yelling for klaus to let go of his foot. well, at least they're at the meeting spot already.

TOO MUCH GREASE CAN BREAK DOWN A MACHINE

[attr="class","addr"]darth vader

LAIKA OF GS!

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[darth vader]

a series of balancing acts

If Thalia had hoped at all that Lucia's reservations about the mission would be alleviated by their arrival at the meeting spot, she was sorely mistaken. Lucia lands at the edge of the clearing and straightens her shoulders and fixes her gaze to the training course in the distance. As if she's merely passing through and Rosenburg's group had nothing to do with her.  It's a good thing Thalia long ago relinquished any such hopes. She tacks her course to overshoot where Lucia stands by a few dozen yards. She can hear Kain and Anael settle in behind her. Anael has a habit of tightening and re-tightening the straps across her shoulders when she's nervous, and the creak of leather is a dead giveaway. The second pair of footsteps must be Kain, because Mina knows what she has to do. "Sophia," Thalia says, nodding slightly. "We're ready whenever you are." She keeps her eyes markedly away from the spectacle taking place in the dirt, but she's fairly certain Anael is sneaking a glance or two or six.

LAIKA OF GS!

[redox-kun]

[attr="class","stt"]

"some girls think that they're a bunch of hotshots" klaus catcalls at thalia's squad. sophia doesn’t even turn her head when she says, “twenty laps after the mission.”

he shrugs with a rather solemn expression as he drops lucas’ left foot. “if i have any limbs left by then. yessus, captain”

it was more lip service to thalia’s squad than anything, and everyone in their squad knows it. from what he’s heard, klaus figures that thalia de luca was bound to write him up otherwise. didn’t sound like inter-squad barriers stopped her. ceres and sophia didn’t seem to enjoy involving outsiders in the squad’s affairs.

lucas attempted to regain some of his dignity as he gets up and brushes the dirt from his uniform. he’s more overexcited than anything when thalia signals the start of some serious ass-kicking. “lucas hammond, ready for your command, captain!”

sophia doesn’t even ask for ceres and kazumi’s consensus. they’re ready when she asks them to be. klaus finally clips his sheath on and winks at thalia's squad. “see you on the other side, then” he aims his grapple hook at the trees and takes his first shot.

TOO MUCH GREASE CAN BREAK DOWN A MACHINE

[attr="class","addr"]darth vader

LAIKA OF GS!

[newclass=.addr:hover]width:106px;height:66px;background-color:#C1C1C1;color: #000;margin-top:-106px;padding-top:40px;font-size:10px;opacity:1;-webkit-transition: all .7s ease-in-out;[/newclass][newclass=.addr]width:106px;height:66px;background-color:#C1C1C1;color: #000;margin-top:-106px;padding-top:40px;font-size:10px;opacity:0;-webkit-transition: all .7s ease-in-out;[/newclass]

[darth vader]

a series of balancing acts

Thalia can practically hear Anael's face freeze in a horrified grimace behind her as Rosenburg's squad explodes into motion, their words still hanging in the air. She waits for them to pull away a sufficient distance before speaking. "There's a temptation, in the face of Titans, to assume that no human will ever be your enemy," she says aloud. "That will cost you your life, if you believe it. And not by the mercy of death." She turns to look at Anael. She smiles. "But the point of this mission is to train yourself to work to surpass a lack of trust. I suppose you've gotten off to a good start. There will be times when you are among comrades you do not have faith in. Regardless, you must have a belief in yourself that surpasses anything else. As long as you are aware of what you can do, you will be safe. And you are not alone entirely. And you will never be." She matches Thalia's smile--it's somewhat shakier, but there--and salutes and turns on her heel, sprinting for the course. Once Anael is in the air, in motion, Thalia feels herself relax a hairsbreadth.  "I thought that might be why you didn't put up a fuss about this scheduling," Kain says softly behind her. Thalia has no answer and she knows he doesn't need one. She enters the course behind Anael, registering Mina sliding in slightly to her right, and Kain peeling off to his position. The trees condense into a green and brown blur. Nothing except a series of repeated actions: that's the trick to moving forward.  The first part of this exercise is simple enough. Working within the scenario of a squad assigned to ambush and eliminate a group of titans with an established position. Thalia feels like no time at all has gone by before Anael is swinging back to report her surveillance and confirm the mock titans ahead of them.  The girl is just swinging back out in front to point, a rapidly diminishing blur in front of Thalia, when the primal roar erupts from the center of the kill zone. Thalia watches with hawk's eyes as Anael re-directs her course to a path slightly diagonal of the noise's origin. A path running parallel, allowing observation but not confrontation. So far, so good. The rest of the squad adjusts to follow her toward where the titan waits.

LAIKA OF GS!

[redox-kun]

[attr="class","stt"]

klaus might not have been any sort of gentleman whatsoever, but sophia didn’t let him onto the squad on the basis of his smart mouth. as he flies through the trees, he starts rattling off clock directions and approximate arrival times. he also comments on terrain on occasion, and how it would affect the movement of the ‘titans’. while he would have usually preferred to go by the use of degrees, both lucas and kazumi would have been rather lost. had it not been on the practice field, he might have had a few choice words for kazumi. the squad knew how to compartmentalize, however. they’ll have all the time in the world to insult each other when they’re dead.

treat the simulation like a mission, sophia had told them.

memento mori.

like any of them were going to take something like that lying down. that’s not why sophia let them be here. that’s not why kazumi was here, twelve years into the scouting legion.

kazumi had envied sophia once. she remembers the grating of her teeth when sophia stood beside her during their graduation, the only trainee who had bested her. she vowed to become her better, whether it was in the military police, the garrison, or the scouting legion.

if sophia was a star student before, she was a terror on the battlefield. kazumi found the opportunity to ask a few years later. she's not sure if she will ever come close to understanding sophia. has that one weakness determined the difference in their strength?

“...those who have something to lose remain weak, complacent. i...have always wanted to be that weak woman”

but sophia isn’t weak anymore (has she ever been?), and she will never be again. kazumi told herself that until she believed it. the squad leader didn’t make it difficult, not in all her years of captaincy.

kazumi wrinkles her nose at the sound of the lone titan, but they do not increase their speed. the cardboard targets are as valid of an enemy as the moving titan in a simulation. she dips down to slice off the target area and pulls herself up into the trees again.

TOO MUCH GREASE CAN BREAK DOWN A MACHINE

[attr="class","addr"]darth vader

LAIKA OF GS!

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