The Honor Guard

Fight

The afternoon sun was sitting high in the clear sky. The first and second year pages were waiting for their instructors for their hand-to-hand combat lesson.

Despite the girls being at the Academy for a few weeks now, there was still awkward tension between them and the male students. It was to be expected, but it made the co-ed lesson a bit harder for the instructors.

Sasha leaned against a tree dozing lightly. Mikasa heard her slight snoring and kicked her leg out from under her, causing her to awake as she felt on her a**.

"What the hell Mikasa?"

"Sasha you've gotten in enough trouble as it is here...it's not a good look for you or any of us" she motioned to the other female pages. "For you to be sleeping before a lesson."

"Fine..." she got up dusting her uniform off. "You got anything to eat?"

"You just had lunch?"

"And your point?"

A whistle cut through the air, Sasha and the others looked to see Connie smiling reaching into his pocket. He pulled out an apple, tossing it to Sasha with a wink.

Sasha desperately tried to hide he blush and she bit into it.

"Good afternoon gentlemen...and ladies" a voice called out.

The pages turned to look to see Sir Zacharis walking down the hill, followed but a woman with short cropped blonde hair.

They all stood at attention saluting their instructors.

"At ease" the woman said firmly.

"So" Mike clap his hands together, "whose ready to beat the sh*t outta each other"

************************************************
Hange was lost in her lecture on long range weaponry and battle tactics. She always got animated when it came to technology and warfare.

Her philosophy was fight smarter not harder.

Her audience wasn't as enthralled as she was.

"And that's why canon balls made of..." She turned to see Oluo with his head  leaned against the window, a bit of drool coming out of the corner of his mouth.

Petra, who was sitting beside him taking detailed notes, elbowed him in the ribs. He jerked awake in pain, biting his tongue in the process.

"Whath theth-" he stopped when he saw Captain Zoe staring at him.

"Now then...back to canon ball density and their strength..." she stopped again as Moblit had started to snore a bit.

"Well why don't we just have a demonstration then? Nifa if you would please hand me a sheet of paper"

Nifa tour out the textured paper from the leather note pad.

"Thank you...now Marcel if you could give me about four sheets....thank you."

She crumbled up the single sheet of paper, and the four sheets.

"Now here I have a light density cannonball let's say made of aluminum. So let's see if I can hit my target" she pulled out her miniature catapult she had built. Hange loaded it and fired, but the paper wad only managed to hit the front rows.

"Now let's try what Marcel gave me, a more denser cannonball maybe made of just iron"

This one made it to the second row.

"Still can't get the distance or arc I need" Hange said. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out more paper and a jar of ink.

"So let's say...this cannonball" she wadded up two sheets of paper and then dipped it in ink. "Is a mix of iron and lead, with lead being the heavier of the two ores"