03 lets the hot water rush over his aching body to soak into his exhausted muscles. Each one of them does in similar fashion, and even the ever apathetic 01 has to close her eyes to steady her breathing, and the ever cruel 04 is reduced to little more than a shivering boy. It never last long enough, before James appears to tell them to do it all again.

  All of their weapons had been summoned, and the remainder of their lingering powers discovered. This means that the kid gloves are off. Vanguard is run to the very marrow of their bones sixteen hours a day, every day, with no signs of stopping even after three full months.

  Their minds are faster now, able to pick up on all of the details of their combat training and in class lessons on military tactics and strategy, but that doesn’t mean any of it is easier.

  On the days they are placed under medical bedrest to recover from wounds a single stim alone can’t heal, they are barraged with intricate details on special forces movements and advanced science and math. They study the complete history of nearly every military operation ever conducted since the beginning of recorded history, as well as review every recorded mission against nearly every anomaly site-51 has ever captured since the 1940s and that is only the beginning.

  Their minds can retain it and internalize it, they are learning, but it feels as though they are meant to drink from a firehose at the rate they have been going.

  Between the thousands of hours of instruction time, they fight. They fight each other, sometimes one on one, sometimes in a free for all, and other times one member against everyone else. They fight simulation teams of special forces and black ops units under site 51. They fight fighter jets 03 hadn’t even heard of before, they fight tanks and drones and all of them at the same time plus one another in team battles and war games. They even fight a number of anomalies site-51 pulls from their containment silo once Director Williams is done testing them.

  Those are the hardest to manage, because they are given permission to kill Vanguard. Almost all of them try to some degree.

  Much to 03’s personal relief though, none of them have been able to succeed, due in part to the fact that their weapons and training aren’t the only advantage vanguard has.

  Each member of vanguard was given an ability by the harbinger that reflects something deep within them. This additional power gives them the edge they need against one another to avoid dying no matter how hard 01, 04, 05, or the anomalies try.

  01’s weapons are two curved short swords. 03 thinks they look almost like machetes, or kukri maybe, but given that they are all made of feathers it’s hard to determine. In addition to her weapons she acquired the ability of mass teleportation. Only a few members of vanguard can teleport, but only she can teleport other people against their will. Though it’s easier to teleport willing subjects, she can still force someone to move position even if they resist, though that takes a great deal of effort. After some tests it appears there is no real limit on the number of people she can teleport willingly, though the more people she teleports the more physically exhausted she becomes afterwards.

  03 has his sword, as well as the ability far exceed his own natural abilities when his adrenaline manages to dump, which is a hard feat given how desensitized to the extreme he has become. His strength, speed, perception, and everything related to the fight part of his fight or flight reaction increases tenfold, though it leaves him nearly crippled with exhaustion if he pulls on that ability too often.

  04’s weapons are the only ones that didn’t manifest from the feathers like the rest of theirs. His weapons were his hands, or rather the razor sharp talons that sprout from his nails. Despite his weapons being lackluster in comparison to the others, his power more than compensates. Doctor Yiva has taken to calling it a fear aura. His inherent bloodlust projects itself out from his body, the intent to kill becoming a palpable, tangible feeling that paralyzes vanguard, literally. They become unable to move any more than small fractions while the fear aura is active, and any normal person will pass out from the inability to breathe through the overwhelming violent pressure. 01 is the only member of vanguard seemingly unaffected by the fear aura.

  05 has his studded “brass” knuckles for weapons, and his power acts almost like a self-stim. It’s the only reason he didn’t die when 03 intervened that day in the desert. 05’s body heals at an alarming rate. It took only two seconds for 01 to find him in the dirt, and when they returned the bleeding had stopped and his arm was already in the process of growing back together.

  06 doesn’t have weapons in the traditional sense, he was instead given armor. The black feathers gather around key points in his body to make his hand to hand combat expertise more effective—such as armor around his knuckles, forearms, shins, feet, knees and elbows. His power is also the only other “support” ability, the first being 01’s. His feathers are compatible with everyone else's. As each member of vanguard uses their powers their feathers will slowly vanish, between firing them out of their wings as supersonic projectiles, summoning their weapons, teleporting, and so on, their wings will grow thinner. 06 is able to send his own feathers out to add to everyone’s else’s, giving them more resources to work with.

  07’s weapon is a large polearm, like a spear, though it’s more accurate to call it a large pointy stick made of feathers, as there is no distinction between the “tip” and the rest of the feathered weapon. His unique ability is equally fitting, as it allows him to hide his presence almost entirely. It isn’t just superior stealth, which he is already excels at, but more so that he can physically suppress himself, so that he becomes unnoticeable even when the other vanguard members are actively looking for him.

  Lastly, 08’s weapon is a long stake that resembles something like an elongated railroad spike halfway between the length of 01’s kukri and 03’s longsword, and his power is extreme perception. His eyes, ears and nose have everyone beat by a mile or more. 03 can hear the blood pumping through a person's veins but 08 can hear the sound of a spider eating a fly ten miles away. 04 can hear a foot step through ten foot thick concrete, but 08 can hear the sound of a conversation being held in the sub basement of the site-51 containment silo from the battle field.

  Despite 04’s fear aura being objectively the most dangerous, it’s 08’s power that has 03’s the most concerned. Perhaps it’s because 08 acquired his ability first and didn’t tell anyone, or that he is obviously lying about its extent. His perception likely extends far beyond what he tells Doctor Yiva.

  Luckily for 03, even without super senses he can smell the scent that lingers in the air now as he dries off from his shower and changes into his plain white lounge clothing. The smell of butter and fried eggs wafts through his room against the far wall of their living space.

  03 should really be asleep by now but 07 had cried all night again, keeping him awake well into the start of sunrise it seems.

  The smell of cooking stirs him in his bed. How long has it been since he smelt something like this? It has to have been nearly a year by now. It’s hard to tell. He had tried to count the time, but the training had required every ounce of his focus, so he lost track on occasion. Trying to calculate his failures and missed time, 03 estimates that it’s been a total of eleven months since he was first brought to the prison where all of this began. Eleven months since he’s smelled a fresh egg…

  His stomach growls, which is strange as well. The facility provides them with all of the nutrition they need in flavorless bars and protein slip cocktails. They are designed to maximize their development in the early stages of their bodies' enhancement phase. It’s all he needs. He is told to eat so he eats, he is told to drink so he drinks.

  He hasn’t been told to eat yet. That isn’t to say he has to be specifically ordered to consume sustenance, but rather that mealtimes are on a set schedule and this smell exists outside of it, and that's throwing him off balance, though not necessarily in an unpleasant way.

  03 stands from the bed, and walks down the long hall to the kitchen space.

  06 places two fried eggs down onto a plate set in front of 08, who offers the hint of a smile at 03’s appearance.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake ya.” 08 offers in apology.

  03 remains silent, watching as 06 sets two more down onto a plate and slides them over to an empty seat.

  The movement is smooth, intentional. Instead of sitting down at the second plate, 06 moves to the fridge and opens it, grabbing two more eggs and cracking them into the pan on the stove.

  “Take a seat,” 06 offers casually.

  “I’m alright,” 03 dismisses. “Just wanted to see what was going on.”

  It’s a lie. The truth of the matter is that 08 worries him. The things he taps out as he lies awake at night, the looks he gives James, the doctors, his eyes hunting for something every time they leave the courtyard.

  That same, distant part of 03 wants to become lost in it, in the fantasy it creates, the possibility it offers. 03 knows it’s only ever a fantasy, a fantasy that might one day get them killed, or worse, bring the noise to a level that will break him.

  “E-R-E-N” 08 taps with a finger, and 03 can’t help but pause at it.

  “Come on, have some. We’ve been eating nothing but slop for months. Have some real food.” 08 offers, as if nothing else had happened.

  “I don’t see how this is necessary for our performance,” 03 says casually, hoping they will give him an excuse to dash away that lingering doubt still crawling around in his head.

  So much time is dedicated to training and schooling and combat, he almost forgot what it was like to just be friendly with them. They were his friends after all, weren’t they? It shouldn’t be hard, and yet here he was, acting like he’s asking permission to sit at a lunch table on the first day of school again.

  He can lift the weight of a fully loaded cement truck over his head but god forbid he share a meal with the people he fought and survived with. He’s an idiot, a socially inept, self doubting mess. Site-51 should have rewritten his brain to not be so pathetic instead, maybe it would have yielded them better results. But knowing a thing did little to prevent it from happening.

  “No, but it’s nice. We completed our initial conditioning, we earned normal foods. Celebrate with us.” 06 flashes a familiar, charming smile.

  It comes so easily to him, it almost makes 03 cry. Is the noise in 03’s head more than theirs? Or do they fight it off better than he can? Regardless of the why, it makes him happy to see 06 and 08 acting so normally, even after all of this time. Months of training and conditioning, with barely a moment to breath, let alone speak.

  They share words in the fraction of time between drills or over the two minute long showers they share but that isn’t enough to maintain friendships. Still, even with that being the case, in this moment, they act as though not a single second has passed since their time together in the prison. They talk and smile and act as though they have been the same good friends since the beginning, and 03 finds himself envying their ability to so effortlessly fall back into how things used to be.

  “If you’re sure it’s alright…”

  “We are designed to be soldiers, not robots. Doctor MacArthur said so himself. If you really need to convince yourself, think of this as team bonding,” 06 suggests with an innocent shrug of his shoulders.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Why not invite the others then?”

  “Because we only have six eggs.” 06 puts the last two on his plate, and sets it down at the head of the table while gesturing to the still open seat.

  “Who only buys half a dozen eggs for a team of seven? Even with one egg each it wouldn’t be enough.” 03 shakes his head.

  “04 doesn’t get one,” 08 chuckles.

  It almost brings a smile to 03’s face. Almost.

  He pauses for a second, realizing then how they have managed to fall back into these seemingly old habits. It's so simple that 03 almost doesn’t believe it. It's a simple logic trap. Acting normal, being friendly, talking like this. It's team bonding. If it can be justified as a method to help site-51 then it passes as permissible. He shakes his head, equal parts relieved and frustrated with himself for not seeing it sooner.

  The egg is the single most delicious thing he has tasted. The flavor fills his mouth and lights up his taste buds. Months of tasteless slop have dulled him to the reality of what real food was like, and now that he has it he never wants to let it go.

  “See? Aren’t you glad you sat down now?” 08 gently taps 03 on the shoulder with a fist.

  “Oh fuck off.” 03 shrugs the hand away with a smile. It hurts actually. Despite having trained every other muscle in his body to achieve peak physical performance, he hasn’t smiled much, if at all, doing so now makes his cheeks cramp.

  03 places a hand over his mouth, trying not to smile more at how ridiculous it is that smiling alone is a debilitating ailment.

  06 can’t help but laugh at the display. His own smile becoming quickly infectious, further worsening 03’s symptoms.

  “Stop, I'm serious.” 03 moves to cover his eyes, but he can hear the blood pumping through their veins, hear the sounds their mouths make as they smile wider, air escaping through their teeth.

  “If I knew all it took to get you back to us was a fried egg I would have made some sooner.” 06 teases.

  “yeah right, as if they would give us food early.” 08 rolls his eyes.

  “Are you kidding? With how much Doctor MacArthur loves breaking procedures I'm sure he would have buckled sooner rather than later,” 03 adds.

  “Doctor Yiva would have ripped off his head.” 06 comments, pointing his fork across the table. To accentuate the point, he makes an effort to pop the yolk of his egg with a knife.

  03 shakes his head and massages the muscles of his face to try and loosen up the tension keeping him smiling. “I just…I guess I was trapped in my own head, you know?”

  “Oh come on now. Aren’t we your friends? Can’t hang on to the last threads of sanity for our sake?” 08 narrows his eyes.

  03 raises an eyebrow. “Don’t act like we weren’t all hanging on by a thread.”

  “Maybe you became a passenger in your own body but I’ve been hanging on since day one,” 08 challenges.

  “Well, you were also the last to break,” 06 counters. “We aren’t all as strong as you. These past few months have been… excruciating. It’s not like we have had the time to talk or bond beyond a few short words between beating each other nearly to death.”

  “I don’t know, it seems like 01’s had an easy time, and 04 always looks like he is enjoying himself.”

  “01 always looks like she is having an easy time, she's a robot, she was a human doll even before all of this happened.” 08 counters.

  “Not necessarily,” 06 corrects. “She made a joke in the simulation room that I thought was pretty funny.”

  03 nods his head. “She has a good sense of humor actually...”

  “I guess you’re right.” 08 shrugs. “Speaking of, 07 is obviously having the hardest time, so much so I'm surprised nothing has happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, nothings been done about it…”

  “I doubt they would decommission him, if that's what you're implying.” 03 offers softly. “He might not be as strong or as fast but like MacArthur said months ago, luck is a real thing, and he is very lucky.”

  06 nods his head sagely. “Besides, I wouldn’t let anything happen to him.”

  03 finds himself wondering if that’s true, wondering if someone gave the order, if 06 would be compelled to take his life.

  He shivers at the thought, forcing it away from his mind and distracts himself with another mouthful of fried egg

  “So why only a half dozen? Why not just go for the full dozen?” 03 asks, desperate to switch the topic.

  “Like I said, 04 doesn’t get any.”

  “I thought that was a joke!”

  “Only half a joke, if 04 did come out, we wanted to make sure we had an excuse to not let him sit down with us,” 06 answers with the utmost sincerity. “He used all of our hard work to get here, he doesn’t deserve an egg.”

  The answer is so genuine, and so profoundly absurd it makes 03 crack. A laugh escapes him, the first one in god knows how long. It hurts, but it hurts so good.

  The laugh starts small, and rises into a nearly full meltdown that sends 06 and 08 into a spiral of their own. 03’s laugh is so harsh at first it feels fake, he has to find it again, almost like searching for a note while mid hum. It makes a strange, squeaking noise followed by several snorts that further add to the steadily growing madness.

  By the time he finds it again, he is on the ground. 08 is hunched over the table nearly breathless at the display, trying his hardest not to make a noise as he brings his hand down on the table over and over.

  06 hides his face in his hands, pulling his fingers through his slicked back hair to try and gain a modicum of composure only to fail miserably every time he makes eye contact with one of the two.

  How long has it been since he laughed like this, 03 wonders. It would have been before all of this, back when he had a different name, back when he was a different person, back when he was that stranger 08 called him by tapping on the table.

  Their faces are still there, but only barely. He doesn’t remember the last time he heard their voices... It’s frightening how quickly that specific detail fades. Then again, they weren’t his family, were they? They were someone else's family. But still, it pains him to realize he no longer remembers the sound of their laughter, and he holds on to that pain—to remember, to keep that part of himself.

  A part of him feels guilty for this—laughing along with these two, the people he considers friends. He doesn’t deserve this, he shouldn’t be happy here, shouldn’t be happy at all, but in this moment, he is.

  So much has changed, so much forever altered, but he supposes he still had this. The two people next to him are 06 and 08, and they are still his friends.

  After their meal, they clean the kitchen and pretend that nothing terrible has happened. They talk for a time, about anything and everything and nothing at all. It’s not as though any of them have unique experiences, but still there is some enjoyment about hearing their perspective on the different challenges they have had to endure.

  03 doesn’t want it to end, doesn’t want 06 to close the cupboard or put away the salt and pepper because he knows that once it’s done, it might be another day before they get to really talk again.

  06 and 08 feel it too. They pause for a time as the water dries in the sink, and the realization comes over them that they will have to sleep soon or else tomorrow will be an even fresher hell than the day before.

  Silently they make their way back to their rooms, save for 08 who pauses for a moment, and detours over to 03’s room instead.

  “Everything alright?” 03 asks, taking a seat on his bed while 08 leans against the doorframe.

  His finger jitters at an impossible speed, so fast 03 has to focus to make out the Morse code message it relays.

  03 blinks. He registers the Morse code but assumes it’s incorrect. He blinks, and 08 notices the gesture, and repeats his code again.

  “I-F-O-U-N-D-A-W-A-Y-O-U-T”

  03’s heard sinks deep into his chest, as if the floor just opened up underneath him, and he dropped

  03 shakes his head, and moves to turn away, eager to dismiss this, desperate to forget what he just saw.

  “E-R-E-N” his finger taps onto the wall, pulling 03’s focus back, almost against his will.

  “Please…. You can’t do this.” 03 tries, but instead of listening, 08’s finger jitters again, relaying another sentence in Morse. 03’s mind picks up the speed, forces time to slow in that tiny space, the message relayed to him in full as though he was hearing it.

  “Teleportation reroute has an effect range, like a thick wall surrounding the facility. If I can fly beyond the range, I can teleport without being rerouted. fleas in a jar, we just need to jump.”

  03 knew this was coming, knew it was coming from the moment 08 had first tapped out their real names in Morse code, and he dreaded every second of it.

  The fleas in a jar. It’s a science experiment that showed fleas, when placed in a mason jar, could simply jump to escape it—that was, until a lid was added. The fleas tried to jump out of the jar, only to hit their heads on the lid enough times to learn they couldn’t escape. Even when the lid was removed, and the fleas were free, physically capable of escaping at any time, they only ever jumped as high as where the lid previously was, until they all died.

  It gives rise to that familiar, distant part of 03 again, some part that he thought had sunken away months ago. While he still holds on to as much of himself as he can manage, there is the truth of the biological changes that have been made to him. Even if it is possible, and they really are fleas in a jar, he doesn’t believe it’s physiologically possible for them to leave. The noise won’t allow them to think about it.

  Then… why do they need to leave? It is apparent that 08 is either more resistant to the effects of the noise, or is better at suppressing it. They don’t all need to leave, do they? 08 can leave, and in leaving, find some solution to the noise for the rest of them?

  A tidal wave of pain crashes into his skull before he can think to suppress it. )3’s vision goes white, his jaw clenches so hard on reflex he fears his teeth might shatter. The thoughts of escape, the hope it makes him feel, turns 03’s bones to dust under the weight of the agony that flows over top of him then, forcing him to bring his hands to his head to try and prevent his skull from collapsing.

  This is foolish, beyond stupid, they will die, they will be executed, they can never escape, they don’t need to escape, they shouldn’t want to escape.

  03’s body begins to shake, and he brings his hands to his ears, sucking in desperate breaths of air to end the fire coursing through his neurons as the noise rips him apart for even testing out the idea in his mind.

  08 moves, and wraps 03 up in a hug, a hug so painful 03 wants to peel away from him, but despite that desire he fights against it. The pain is good, the pain means he still feels something, he won’t let it go away, even if it kills him.

  “I'm sorry, hey I'm sorry, it’s alright. I should have known… you, you and the others… it’s alright, I can do it, I’ll do it for us, alright?” 08 breaths, holding 03 tighter. “You saved me, saved us, remember? You saved my fucking life Eren, let me save yours. I can do this, I will do this. I’ll escape, I'll find help, I'll get everyone to safety just like you did.”

  03 want to believe it, the fragments inside of his mind cry out, desperate, claw the corners of his mind to dig themselves free of the pit site-51 has made for him.

  “I—” 03 tries, but his breath comes hard, raspy, the agony is unbearable.

  “Don’t talk, don’t think. You don’t have to do anything Eren, I’ll save us this time. I swear to god I will.”

  “Is that right?” a sneering voice half cackles from behind, and 03’s stomach falls away from him as a familiar hatchet wound grin carves up the face of the boy who's heard everything 08 just said.