A Numbing Mineral

Armin and many of the other participants looked at the screen in shock to see that they actually passed the test. Eren, Floch and Blake made a small applause for Mikasa and her team's success. Annie seemed unfazed at the result with her arms still crossed and her face plain of emotion.

"Ain't no fuckin' way…" Clyde said, a bit surprised but then he chuckled. "If a bunch of kids could pass the test, then I can definitely pass."

'You say that, not realising who's on your team,' Armin thought.

"You mean 'we', right?" Floch corrected the red-haired man.

Clyde's chuckle fizzled out. "Oh, yeah. I'm not on my own."

"What's up with you?" Floch said a bit pissed off at his teammate."You're acting like you have no chance."

"It's because I don't!" Clyde said angrily. "I'm stuck with a bunch of teenagers for teammates! Of course, I'm going to be pissed off!"

"Well, these teenagers went to a combat school to hone our skills," Floch told the thin man. "The team that just passed were our classmates."

"That don't mean shit. They were previous examinees who died that went to both junior high and high school combat programs and that goth chick almost died if it wasn't for that healing factor bullshit, she would have bled to death. Do any of you have that power?"

Floch and Armin remained quiet with Clyde growing a smug smile.

"Knew it. They barely passed with that stupid monkey lemur thing swinging around and clawing them. Tell me, I heard that for combat schools they have ranks for different categories for fighting like speed, offence, defence, whatever. Anyways, what were their notable ranks?"

Armin quietly sighed hearing that question because knowing how Clyde is so far, he's going to be proven right.

"Mikasa, the goth girl, was top 5 in overall athletics and academics," Floch told Clyde.

Floch was going to list the others' accolades but Clyde raised his hand, signalling for him to stop talking.

"Don't even need to hear the rest," Clyde said smugly. "The fact that one of your top-ranked students nearly died tells me that I have no hope of passing this test and all of us are going to be used as more old footage to scare off future examinees."

"What about you, then? What was your rank when you attended combat school?" Floch asked, irritated.

Clyde crossed his wiry arms and scoffed before he tried to stand up from his seat but the auburn teen stood up before him with the older man being a couple of inches shorter.

"What was your rank?" Floch repeated a bit more slowly.

"Get the fuck away from me," Clyde threatened.

"Or what?"

Attention from the other examinees started to gather here making Armin do his best to ignore the gazes as best as he could. Blake stood in between and placed a forearm on each of them.

"Hey, guys, Relax. This isn't the right time to be fighting," Blake told the two. "You guys could take it out on each other after the test."

"Yeah that's if Bird Brain over there doesn't croak before the end of the test," Clyde chuckled and walked away.

Floch sat back in his seat. "Can't believe I have to work with him. He's so irritating!"

"I know, dude. Trust me, I had my fair share of unlikable teammates during my tenure in these exams, but I still have to try to get through it. Don't stress about it, Floch. You're only working with him once and possibly never again."

"Yeah, possibly," Floch rolled his eyes.

'Clyde isn't wrong. If Mikasa barely passed, what chance would we have? We can only hope that the monster that we're going to fight doesn't have any far-range attacks. Floch isn't bad, but it's just that besides his fast flight speed, he's pretty average in everything else. Reiner has a lot of strength and durability with good tactical intellect, so he should be relatively fine. I don't know much about Clyde, but with his confidence, I hope he can back up his words. As for me…'

Armin looked down at his hands and noticed that they were shaking.

"Team 5, it's time for your test!"A voice came from the entrance. Armin turned his head to see Petra there gesturing for the next team to follow her.

Armin stood up and approached the instructor.

"Are you part of team 5?" Petra asked.

Armin shook his head. "No, but I was wondering where's the other team?"

"Oh, team 4 are in the medical room, just making sure they have no significant injuries before they head back to the hotel."

"They're heading back to the hotel? Why?"

"Well, there's no point for them to wait back here until everyone is finished so after they get checked in the medical room, they go back to the hotel so they can rest."

"Got it, thank you," Armin said before walking away and sitting back in his seat before the next team gathered before the ginger-haired instructor.

"What did you ask her?" Eren asked.

"I wanted to know if the previous teams would come back here, so I can not only get their experience on the test but maybe get some info."

"Info?What info?"

"I don't know!Something!Anything! Maybe they caught a glimpse of the monsters they have in stock. I wanted to be better prepared for this."

Armin leaned in his chair before he placed his hands over his face. The hopelessness started to flood his thoughts. He was one of the physically weakest students in his class and Mikasa was one of the strongest and the other three aren't slackers either with Jean being 7th in athletics and academics, Sasha was number 1 in accuracy as well as being 9th in athletics and Connie was 4th in speed and even they had trouble with the Kecha Wacha.

If Armin was there, he would probably be dead or someone would be injured or even dead because of him. He doesn't get along with Riener nor Clyde and Floch and him aren't best of friends, so the chemistry is practically non-existent.

"What's so funny, Krista?!" Eren suddenly said, standing up.

Armin slightly spread his fingers to see a snickering Krista standing up with a smug smile.

"Oh, nothing. Just witnessing your friend's breakdown. Seeing his friend that's leagues ahead of him in strength, nearly dying has made him so frightened that he sought aid from an instructor." She chuckled.

"She was protecting Sasha, Krista!" Eren told the blonde. "Or were you too blind to see it, Bug Eyes?"

"Quiet!" She demanded. " I don't want to hear you!"

"Make me."

"Gladly."

Krista summoned her rapier and began to walk towards him but Armin and Reiner stood in between to prevent any scuffle from happening.

"Eren, you can't fight her! You will be disqualified, remember?!" Armin grabbed Eren's shoulder.

Eren groaned bitterly before he slammed himself back in his chair. "Someone has to teach that spoiled prick a lesson!"

"I agree," Krista said with a cold smirk. "Except this bastard will be on the floor, begging for forgiveness."

Eren laughed in his chair. " If you think that you could beat me, you must be as delusional as Reiner thinking that he could date you."

Armin's eyes looked at Eren in fear and anger before he weakly shook him and Floch laughed but it slowly died out as the blonde heard footsteps heading his way. He turned around and saw Reiner suddenly behind him.

"Move. Now," Reiner Reiner threatened. His golden eyes looked down at Armin, trying to hide his anger but still failing with a visible vein popping out of his neck.

"You know I don't think-"

Reiner placed his left hand on Armin's right shoulder and shoved him aside, leaving Armin lying on the floor. He picked up his glasses from the floor and he saw a small fair-skinned hand in front of him.

"You okay?" Annie asked.

Armin took up the offer, gently grabbed her hand and stood up. He adjusted his glasses back and thanked the female blonde for the help.

'Woah, her grip is stronger than I thought,' Armin squeezed the hand that Annie touched.

"Hey, Reiner. Relax yourself," Annie said, approaching the tall teen. "Wait until the end of the test to pick a fight."

"Step out of this, Annie! This skinny fuck needs to learn a lesson! And I didn't forget what you said about me!"

Armin looked at Eren but he was calm, a little too calm for Armin's taste. He would usually burst in anger and they would be fighting right now but he still sat in his seat so calmly but his eyes looked like he wanted to tear Reiner's throat. His pale grey eyes were full of rage. Even though, Armin was friends was him, if he said he wasn't afraid of him right now, he would be lying.

"Stand up, Yeager," Reiner said.

Eren leaned back, closed his eyes before he opened them again and simply leaned back in his chair.

"Make me."

Reiner cracked his knuckles before he made a small chuckle. "Gladly."

"Are you sure about that, Mr.Braun?"

Armin looked to see Rico standing by the entrance with her arms crossed.

"Lay a finger on him, Mr.Braun and you will be disqualified."

Reiner clenched his fists as he glanced back at Eren, who had a small smug smile on his face. The muscular teen hissed his teeth as he walked away. The white and black-haired teen had his hands behind his back.

"Rico 2, Meathead 0," Eren chuckled.

"How did you know Rico was coming?" Armin asked.

Eren touched his nose. "Her scent."

"Seems that you have recognised her scent already," Annie said. "Impressive."

"It's not hard. She smells a bit like lavender and blueberries," Eren said.

"You tried to get Reiner kicked out, huh?"Floch leaned towards Eren with a small goofy grin.

"I was so close," Eren whispered. "I should've kept talking to piss him off even more."

"So, you and that tall person got a grudge against each other?" Blake asked.

"Yeah, he was very popular at our combat school," Eren said. 

"And one of the strongest," Armin added. "Perfect blend of offence and defence with his ability."

"What about the blondie with him?"Blake nodded.

"She ain't no slouch either. Very versatile with weapons and also very good with defence and offence but…she's more deadly with her mind. She's very knowledgeable and strategic," Armin said.

"Brains, beauty and brawn, huh? Sounds like a deadly combination," Blake scratched his head.

"Team 5 begin!" The AI voice announced.

"Team 5 has started," Annie noticed.

"Let's see how well these guys do," Floch said, looking at the nearest screen.

Armin sat down and looked at the screen to see how Team 5 was going to do. The team consists of 2 females and 2 males. The two males were fair-skinned. One of them had short brown curly hair and the other had curly dirty blonde hair but it was most likely dyed since the hair on the sides of his head had a dark brown colour with both of them having a pair of dull green eyes. One of the females was dark-skinned, full lips and long black hair that was braided and reached her tailbone and the other one had shorter brown hair styled in a ponytail with a double-bladed spear in hand. The two males each had an identical tomahawk and the dark-skinned woman had a black and silver rifle.

They immediately began to track their monster when the voice announced that the monster had been dispatched to the area.

Blake tilted his head a bit as if he sort of knew one of the members of that team but wasn't sure about it until he smacked one of his armrests.

"Oh shit, I know her! The one with the rifle!" Blake realised. "She was my classmate in junior high and in high school!"

"Oh really? Did she do anything notable?" Floch asked.

"Yeah, she was one of the best in my class.2nd in both overall offence and defence. I'm surprised that she's only trying out now. Luckily, I never had to fight her full power but she would mop the floor with me."

"How good were you?" Armin asked, a bit curious.

"Meh. I was only 6th in offence and 4th in overall strength," Blake said. "But I was 3rd in my final year of high school."

'So Blake must be a hard hitter,' Armin noted. 'But it does make sense since his weapon is a blunt one.'

Armin glanced at his metal staff, noticing that there was white cloth wrapped around only one end and measuring at around 4 feet in length.

'It's too short to be a bo staff…that means that he uses it as a massive baton.'

"You like my staff, huh?"Blake grabbed it by the cloth end and pointed it at Armin, inches away from his face.

Armin leaned back. "W-well yeah! I mean, it's weird to have a weapon like that."

"I don't think so. At least not for me. I used to play baseball with my dad when i was younger so a weapon similar to a bat was going to fit me."

"How much did it cost?" 

"A few thousand, but it was worth it. Here, touch it," Blake leaned forward, extending the metal staff and making Armin lean back.

Armin touched it with his index finger and then he felt a bit of numbness spread throughout his body. When he pulled his finger back, the numbness left and Armin's mouth opened in shock. He felt this sort of numbness before. He learned about this mineral in junior high and this staff has the same effect as with Krista's weapons.

"No way…no wonder it costs so much…this staff is made of Hyperion Stone!"