TEN YEARS, The Kenny Ackerman Story BOOK TWO~ FUTURES, by Melly O'Hara

DECEPTION

CHAPTER 13        DECEPTION

For the next month I barely saw Kenny. And when he was at home; he was silent, broody, with a bottle of whiskey by his side and a glass in his hand. After learning the truth of the Battle for Troste and the trial, I kept my distance; seeking only to make his anguish more bearable with my silence, food on the table and my body for comfort.

During that period he spent more time with  Traute, the attractive blonde woman in his Squad that had caught his attention with her nihilism. He'd made her his second in command; trusting her judgement and liking her style.
I'd seen Traute around and about from time to time, since we all served in the Interior, and knew her to be competent, loyal and at times, ruthless.
Jealousy began to gnaw at my heart; knowing that Kenny spoke more with her these days than me. I couldn't even comfort myself with the knowledge that, 'At least I was the only one who truly knew him'. She, along with the rest of the Squad, knew of Kenny's plan; his 'Grand Dream' and of his past with Levi. They worshipped Kenny like he was some kind of God. A saviour who, once possessing the Founding Titan, would absolve humanity of all the evils in the world and create a new world order. That was what his dream meant for them. It had brought meaning to their lives. And unlike me, they had been onboard with it since Day One.
No arguments from THEM.

I knew that the furthest thing from his mind was a love affair. But I missed his closeness and time; which he had now transferred from me, to  Traute.
They spent the month 'scouting the Scouts'. Hunting down where the Survey Corp had taken Eren. Nobody seemed to know. So they searched.

Luck came his way when, after another incident had occurred where yet, another Titan; a muscular blonde female Titan had tried to abduct Eren. Nobody knew who or why. Some suspected it was to ingest Eren and add his Titan abilities to their own, but when it seemed that she was within reach of doing so; she didn't. She merely ran toward the Wall Maria, as if trying to escape Paradise.
Two more things differentiated this Titan from either the destructive Armoured and Colossal Titans and the mindless titans: one was that, not only did she NOT eat humans; she actively tried to spare them, the second being, that she had the ability to harden her skin into a texture that resembled  something like the substance that the Walls had been constructed from. It made her impossible to kill. Impossible to capture. Impossible to discover her secrets.

With the news of the near loss of Eren, and the almost certainty that another human seemed to possess the ability to transform into a Titan, as this Female Titan also behaved with purpose and intelligence. And with the possibility that its owner was yet another member of the Survey Corp; the Scouts were ordered to return to the Capital and surrender Eren for execution.
One Titan was an anomaly. Two were a threat.

It was here, in the Capital, that Kenny had planned to take possession of Eren, once he had been delivered to the Royal Government, and once informing them that he would carry out Eren's execution personally; he would take Eren to Rod's rebuilt Chapel and have Rod perform the Ceremony there. Completion of his life's dream was so very close. And all done, quietly. Without violence. Without engaging his nephew.

But, of course, life is not smooth. Life is not easy. And again, Kenny had under estimated the Scouts. They too, had a plan of their own. And theirs worked.

The Survey Corp already had suspicions of who the Female Titan was. A cadet that had trained with Eren, but instead of joining the Survey Corp, had joined the ranks of the Military Police. Their plan was to travel east to the Capital making their way through the territory in Wall Rose and enter Wall Sina, via the Stohess eastern outpost that was attached to Wall Sina. In travelling through Stohess, they would be where the cadet served, and bait her into transforming into the Female Titan in a built up area. There they would lay reinforced, multiple traps from which they presumed she couldn't escape from, due to the lack of open spaces.
She would be caught and her secrets would be revealed.