Towards a Slow Reconstruction [OPEN]

[Nikita Arlovsky]

Restoring the district of Trost to its former state was originally a duty for the Garrison and civilian workers. However, some of the higher-ups decided that progress wasn't moving fast enough (in fact, Nikita heard that it'd been slowly down quite a bit as of recent,) so the government issued that a large portion of the Scouting Legion had to work in the reconstruction for a set period of time. Speaking of time, how long was he supposed to stay here again? It might be a month or a month and a half.

Three weeks had already passed, but time couldn't be dragging any longer.

"You, scouting boy! Help fix the roof high up there, the supplies are in the wagon, far right column of boxes." yelled some Garrison squad leader a couple yards away.

"Yes sir." Nikita replied obediently and climbed into the supply wagon. He was able to place the box of roof tiles gently on the ground, along with a smaller box of nails and a hammer. The blond glanced at the squad leader and saw that she was still bossing other cadets around to do work while she hadn't nailed a single piece of wood or tile down. Guess that kind of stuff wasn't limited to just the Military Police.

Nikita made two trips up the roof through the 3dmg, since he'd probably drop one of the boxes if he tried to bring everything up at once. Setting the boxes aside to the one part of the roof that still had decent tiling on it, Nikita started to push some of the broken tile off from the roof, looking down to make sure that no one would get a concussion or anything from this. 

"I signed up for the military to fight, not to do construction work," He grumbled to himself as he moved on to placing a new tile against the edge of the roof, "Construction's not going to help me at all. They should've gotten more of the Garrison to do this work." he glared at the squad leader as he said that last sentence. She looked back up at him and he averted his eyes, reminding himself that he might as well focus on getting this roof done so as to decrease the chances of being forced to stay here for an even longer time.

[Ludwig Beilschmidt]

Apparently, killing the Titans in Trost had been the easy part, Ludwig realized. He had been helping to rebuild the damaged town for days, and right now he was working high up on a series of row-houses, sawing off the splintered ends of rafters that had collapsed in when one of the Titans had landed on them. His high vantage point served two purposes. He wanted to make it extremely clear that if even he, a commander, could spare the time to help fix the town, everyone could, and he wanted to be able to keep an eye on people. Right now that second purpose had served him better than the first; Ludwig set down the saw he'd been using and wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket as his gaze turned to the streets.

Given that they had no assigned missions, a few groups of Scouting Legion members had been assigned to help with the reconstruction efforts. The men and women worked mostly without complaint, but every now and then the strange bravado of theirs surfaced. As Ludwig understood it, their world seemed to be one of black and white: they were either dying for humanity, or they were useless. Unfortunately, the slack attitude of some of the people under his own command didn't help much, and tensions had been running high. Ludwig could hear their complaints even now; the empty town streets provided some surprisingly nice acoustics.

"That idiot hasn't picked up a hammer or a trowel all day-"

"If I had wanted to build houses I would have signed up for the Garrison in the first place-"

"They should have gotten more of the Garrison to do this-"

Biting back a sigh, Ludwig wedged his saw firmly into the shattered wood before turning and sliding off what remained of the building's tiled roof, activating his maneuver gear at the edge and swooping down to the top of a nearby building with unusual grace for someone of his height. Walking across the half-finished roof, he called down to the streets below.

"Captain Kreider."

The woman looked up.

"When you're finished delegating, I need you working there," Ludwig pointed to his former working spot. "I've got to check up on the others." The woman looked somewhat disappointed, but nodded and saluted to him nonetheless. Her authoritative barking out orders softened somewhat, and a few of the disagreeable muttered complaints died down. With that business taken care of, Ludwig turned and crossed the roof, towards the nearest Scouting Legion member, the one whose complaint he had overheard. Plenty of members of the Garrison died to take back this town, he wanted to say, or perhaps, At least acting like a brat here won't get you killed, unlike outside of the Wall, so kindly shut up and keep working. But Ludwig bit his tongue. He was tired, physically and mentally, and that was making him petty.

"It's not the work you signed up for, but your help is appreciated regardless," he muttered, although it wasn't entirely possible for him to keep the overly cool tone out of his voice. With the other outlying districts potentially at risk, Ludwig couldn't afford to divert Garrison men or supplies to helping restore Trost. The Scouting Legion had been nearby, and they hadn't been busy. The answer had been as simple as that.

[Nikita Arlovsky]

Nikita glanced down from the rooftop as he saw a man, more muscular than most soldiers (which was saying something,) glide to the female captain  through the maneuver gear. He immediately recognized the blond male as the Commander of the Garrison. As important as rebuilding Trost is, the Belarusian never expected to actually see the  Commander in such a close proximity. He expected the man would be preoccupied at an office on getting construction material and managing the number of soldiers to work in which sections of the district, but there Commander Beilschmidt was, making that bossy captain actually do some labor of her own. Perhaps Nikita's view of the other military branches were colored by the way fellow Scouting Legion soldiers talked about them.

He was surprised when the commander then came to where he was (not that he showed it.) Nikita stopped his work and stood up, expecting some orders, but blinked at what he had heard. Perhaps the man had heard his small complaint? Yes, that had to be so, he'd be too busy to go around saying that to random nobodies that have not said a word.

He nodded,"... Yes, sir. I understand, sir." he said obediently before crouching back down and getting to work on the tiles again. The Garrison wasn't the business Nikita was assigned to, but such a small matter wasn't worth getting in any trouble for. What would his siblings think if he ended up severely punished by the commander? It'd be shameful at best.

Five more tiles were properly hammered down to the roof, but Nikita's hands slipped as he attempted to grab the sixth. It fell off the roof, hitting one Garrison cadet in the head and knocking him out. Another cadet was walking with him and started to yell at Nikita. The Belarusian stayed silent at first, seeing no reason to do anything but ignore. However, the cadet just kept going.

"-You useless scum! All you've 'heroes of humanity' have done is leech of our people's taxes not to mention-"

Nikita flew down to where the cadet was with the maneuver gear, and held the shorter man up by the collar, "I'm more 'useful' than you can ever hope to be," he said with a condescending glare and his voice lowered to a whisper, "You're nothing but a mediocre soldier. Not skilled enough for the Military Police and too much of a coward for the Scouting Legion. If you think you're really worth something then try to beat me in a fight." He'd completely forgotten about the commander who could probably still see what was happening, but there was no way he'd let a mediocre fighter call him useless and get away with it.

((Sorry! I'd completely forgotten about this thread, I hope I haven't left you waiting for too long))