MIA

After breakfast, we went to the training area to show the cadets how to use our 3DMG gear.

"Sounds easy to me," Jared smirked, thinking this would be the easiest thing ever.

"Don't get cocky, brat," Meghan smirked. "Zoë, show 'em what they'll eventually have to learn how to do."

I nodded, taking my 3DMG gear for a ride. I found a dummy and twirled in the air with my blades slicing its neck, landing on my feet.

"You have to balance them for a minute," Lucius said.

"A minute?!" Jared exclaimed, and Meghan nodded. Tiffany and Stephanie held back a laugh behind Jared's back.

Later that day, I sat by Lucius, and Henri looked a little mad at him for some reason. I shrugged it off and turned to the cadets. They were fast learners, and I believed that in three days, they would be ready for the next expedition.

Lucas was still very quiet, but I just think he's worried about Michaela. My father was still alive, and put in this situation, he would probably act the same way as Lucas.

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"If you have to fight hand to hand with a titan shifter in his or her human form, you'll need to be tough," Meghan informed them.

"But there aren't any titan shifters with us, Meghan," Devon reminded Meghan.

"Yes there are," Meghan said with a smile. "I am one. And you'll have to fight me."

Devon fought Meghan first and realized she wasn't going to go easy on him. She got him out the first round, but Michaela went next and tied with Meghan.

Lucas actually beat Meghan, but she could've just been going easy on him. She toughened up later on, and she tied with Tiffany in the next round. Meghan grinned at her when the fight ended and said, "I like you, Cadet Hassibor. You've got the moves." I smiled and laughed a little, because she barely compliments anyone.

"Mia Zoë, fight me now," Meghan said with a scowl. My smile faded when I realized she had heard me, and I knew that fighting her would be the only way out of the mess I'd gotten myself into.

So I fought her, just like old times at the academy when she was the best and I was second in my class. I wasn't going to allow her to beat me, so we fought rapidly until I used a dark beam to sneak behind her and beat her.

"No fair, I didn't say we could use stealth!" Meghan whined.

"You didn't say we couldn't, either," I told her. She scowled at me, so I did the mature thing- I stuck my tongue out at her and walked away, leaving her amazed at what I just did.

Days passed and the cadets were getting really good at controlling the gear, much better than me when I was at the academy. And to top it all off, my friend Janise, who had been in the Scouting Legion for a little less time than my mom, told me that she was engaged to Miche, a good friend of mine who had been with Janise for a few years now. He was a good man, in my opinion.

"I'm making you a bridesmaid, Mia," Janise said happily.

"No way!" I squealed, jumping up and down with excitement.

"Yes way," Janise answered with a smirk.

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The cadets were doing great until Wisteria Genspie, another member of the scouts, came along. Wisteria is, without a doubt, literally the hardest trainer out of all of the scouts. She'll scream at you no matter what- even if you're just minding your own business.

Devon was barely slouching in his seat, but when Wisteria noticed this, she hollered, "Sit up, boy! No wonder they asked me to help!"

When she turned around, however, Devon mimicked her and I had no choice but to crack a smile. Stephanie was trying not to laugh. Tiffany was, too, but she failed miserably.

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After training, I went outside of the Scouting Legion Headquarters with Michaela. While we were in town, we spotted a girl with strawberry colored hair and electric blue eyes being pushed into mud by a buff kid with slick black hair and dark brown eyes.

"Please," the girl pleaded, "I'm just an orphan, and I don't have anything!"

The boy snarled and grabbed a metal locket from the girl's neck. "No! That's the only thing that was left from my parents!" The girl wailed.

The boy rolled his eyes and teased, "Oh, cry me a river, you big baby. Boo hoo hoo!"

"HEY!" I shouted at the boy with Michaela standing firmly by my side. The natural kind expression on Michaela's face was replaced by a deadly glare, which should've scared the bully away. It didn't.

"Leave her alone," Michaela hissed with her arms crossed and her curly brown/caramel blonde ombré hair swaying as the wind blew on it.

I took another look at the little girl and realized that she was the daughter of Ivy and Kyle, two good friends of mine who sacrificed themselves for me. The anger inside me boiled even more.

"Oh yeah? What are you two gonna do about it?" The bully sneered.

"Unfortunately for you, our parents are part of the Scouting Legion, and we could easily tell them what you've been up to," I replied.

"So you're going to tattle on me? Ha! You two aren't anything but weak little cowards!" The bully chortled, spitting in our direction.

Michaela cracked her knuckles and added, "Oh, and my friend may have forgotten to mention that we're part of the Scouting Legion, too, and you would never want to mess with us!"

The bully's eyes widened. He started to shake a little before handing me the locket and running away like a childish brat. I gave the little girl a kind smile before handing her the locket. "T-thank you," the girl trembled nervously.

Michaela and I kneeled down and shook her hand. "I'm Mia Zoë," I introduced myself.

"And I'm Michaela Powers," Michaela added.

"I'm Alexandrea," the girl, Alexandrea, responded.

"Hey, I knew your parents, Alexandrea! Their names were Ivy and Kyle, right?" I beamed.

Alexandrea nodded.

"You can come with us! We'll get you cleaned up and give you a new home," Michaela offered, helping Alexandrea up.

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Once we got home, Meghan noticed Alexandrea walking with me and rolled her eyes. "What is it with you and bringing kids back to Headquarters?" Meghan snapped.

"She's Ivy and Kyle's daughter, Meghan. I'm just doing them a favor," I replied, walking away from Meghan.

After Michaela and I cleaned Alexandrea up, Michaela offered to take care of her while I went to Erwin's office.

"Did it have to be Wisteria?" I asked Erwin when I arrived at his office. "She's evil! The cadets are ready, and she's holding them back!"

Erwin blinked in surprise and said, "Mia, I think you're just overreacting. Now why don't you go find something to do?"

I huffed angrily and walked away. For the first time in a long time, I felt like a child. And I hated it.

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In the morning, I didn't feel like getting up, even though Meghan kept pushing me out of bed. Reluctantly, I got ready and went downstairs to meet the cadets in the training area.

Halfway through the training, we got a message saying that the titans were attacking the wall again. "This day just keeps getting worse," I murmured.

"What is is?" Stephanie asked.

"Titans," I grunted.

"Can we go with you?" Devon asked anxiously.

I looked at Wisteria and gave her a sad puppy-eyed look. "Oh please, Wisteria Von Evil?" I pleaded with sarcasm in my tone.

Tiffany cracked up, but Wisteria did not. She just frowned and said, "In your dreams, Cadet Brody. You're clearly not ready for the serious work we do around here. And Mia, you sound like you need to stay behind, too."

"What?!" I gasped in horror.

Wisteria took off without me or any of the cadets. I frowned and sighed angrily. "Hey, don't sweat it. There's still next time," Jared reminded me.

I nodded and decided to keep training the cadets, even though I knew they didn't need it.

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Once the Scouts had arrived back, everybody met up with them in the training area. "You're ten seconds late, Zoë," Wisteria sneered.

"And you're still lame," I shot back at her. Wisteria turned as red as a strawberry, and I turned around to high-five Devon, who was cracking up in the background.

"I love your hair like that, by the way," Stephanie chirped. I realized that I'd forgotten to pull my hair back and exclaimed, "Crap! I almost forgot!"

While I dug through my pockets searching for a hair tie, Lucius said, "I think it looks fine the way it is, Mia. Now let's start practice."

I blushed at Lucius before giving up on my search for a hair tie.

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"So," Michaela wondered, "what do you guys do for fun?"

"Paperwork, experiments, training...yeah, that's about it," I shrugged.

Michaela laughed, "That has to be a joke!"

I shook my head and said, "Well, we get to go to the villages sometimes."

Devon sighed, "You really need help."

Meghan snapped, "You really want to say that about us? We're used to being independent and counting on ourselves for missions. We don't have time for anything else anymore. Every day, it's eat, sleep, and work. Nothing more, and nothing less."

"Well actually, I go mountain-climbing sometimes-" I tried to say before Meghan stopped me.

"Zoë, you know we don't do that anymore," Meghan interrupted me.

"Maybe we should!" I chirped.

Meghan forced out a laugh, but my friend, Gina Ackerman, came in and noticed that Meghan was making herself laugh. "Gina!" I squealed.

"Have I met her?" Michaela asked.

I gasped and said," Oh, sorry Michaela! This is Gina Ackerman. She's not related to Meghan, though, in case you were wondering."

"Hi! I'm Michaela!" Michaela introduced herself.

"I'm Gina! It's nice to meet you, Michaela!" Gina replied cheerfully.

"Ooh, I just had an idea!" Tiffany exclaimed, dragging us all outside.

She began drawing a line in the concrete with a piece of chalk, and formed several large balls out of leaves. Tiffany then lined up the balls one by one and put us into two groups. Devon, Stephanie, Nathan, Meghan, Gina, and I were in the first team, while Tiffany, Michaela, Henri, Tristan, Phoebe, and Lucius were on the second team.

If this was part of the cadets' training, then they would've done very poorly, because Tiffany put me, Meghan, and Gina before- the daughters of Hanji, Levi, and Mikasa.

"So what are we doing?" I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.

"We're playing an epic sport!" Michaela cheered.

"It's called dodgeball," Tiffany said, getting excited.

A/N: Hey everybody! So we hope that you enjoyed this chapter, written by Mia-zoe while IlluminatiSistersXOX typed it up because we weren't in the same room when we wrote this so...yeah. Anyways, we hope you're enjoying this story so far, and we'll see you in the next chapter!

❤️❤️Luna and Mia❤️❤️

P.S. The collage above was something IlluminatiSistersXOX made a while back for this book, so we hope you like it! 😊