"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."
~
Following the rest of the cadets further into HQ, we all reached the inner area where we had to take the lift down to the actual supply room. However, according to one of the members of the supply team, it's crawling with about seven 4 meter titans. Armin had a plan that would require the MP's guns first which were stationed here prior- also for supply. If we couldn't get our hands on those guns, we were screwed basically. Jean, Leon and a few other cadets went into one of the back rooms in search of the shotguns having more hope than awhile ago when I looked at the lot of their faces. The rest of us sat around in the larger room with the lift, ordering it up from below. So now we were just waiting, for both the firearms and the elevator.
Or ultimately, death. I thought cynically to myself.
Marco sat with me and Lea right beside the lift. I figured he would've went with the Jean to find the MP's weapons, but I was glad he chose to be here with me, as selfish as that sounds. Right now, everything was chaotic and I wasn't sure who was getting through this day. I just want to spend it to those that matter to me. My mind automatically flashed an image to this morning. Eren, Mina, Thomas, Nack, Milleus. How many others already died today? How many others will? Granted, we have a strange titan just outside fighting against the other man-eating titans but, how long will that last?
I felt a light squeeze in my hand, causing me to look up in surprise. Marco stared down at me, a small smile played on his lips.
"You're doing that thing again."
My brows were knitted together. "What thing?"
"Where you're overthinking and your face is all scrunched up and your head is tilted sideways." He chuckled, making me blink hard. I promptly straightened my head then.
"I do not do that." I pouted, turning my face away.
Lea leaned in. "You do it all the time Evie, you make a face like you got a mouthful of mud." She giggled at me. "That was hilarious!"
I rolled my eyes. "That only happened once, get over it already."
I got a bit too comfortable once during training at going full speed with my ODM gear. Being too close to the ground, my anchor came undone like it had in the drill where Reiner and Bertholdt helped me and I fell face first into mud, since it had rained the day before.
Lea grinned, closing her eyes. "And I await the day it happens again." After a moment, her face grew solemn. "If we get the chance, I mean."
I nudged her. "Hey," Her green eyes, curtained by her rose gold hair met with my brown ones. "we'll get through this. We're going to live." She watched me for a moment, doubt mixed with worry swam across her face at once. I don't blame her, I wasn't even sure I could believe my own words. But I didn't want her to feel like we were hopeless, not when she's spend all this time being optimistic. I released Marco's hand in order to hug her awkwardly having both of our gear in the way. "I swear, I'll do everything to make sure of it. You trust me, don't you?"
I felt her head nod over my shoulder. "Of course. We protect each other, yeah?"
I pulled away to smile at her. "Always."
Lea smiled back at me before swatting the air. "Alright, that's enough of this sappy crap." With that, she pushed herself off the ground and walked towards Sasha.
I sighed and leaned my head on Marco's shoulder, slipping my hand back into his.
"Marco?"
"Yeah?"
I hesitated before admitting to the constant emotion that's gripped my spine since seeing the Colossal Titan this morning.
"I'm scared." I whispered.
"I know." He told me, resting his head on top of mine. "It's okay to be scared. I've known you long enough to see that you wanna be strong, not only for yourself but for others too. Even so, I can tell you're a gentle person. You care about others while putting yourself at risk. Isn't that why you didn't make it into the top ten? You were always so busy helping someone else out instead of boosting your own grades." He lifted his head as I turned to look at him. He still had that innocent smile on his face like the one I saw when we first met. "Why do you think I've been worried about you? I'm sure if it came down to it, you'd put your life in danger to save someone you care about. But... I need you alive." With his free hand, he brushed the hair away from my face that hung between my eyes and kissed my forehead.
I squeezed his hand that intertwined with mine. "I need you alive. If I had to, I'd gladly give my life to save yours. Or Lea's, Sasha's, Christa's, Connie's. Hell, even Leon and Jean, those damn bastards."
"Good news!" Came the obnoxious voice of Marco's best friend. Speak of the devil. "Courtesy of the Military Police and covered in a layer of dust." Jean, Leon and the other male cadets that had left, returned with three wooden crates piled in each of their arms.
They all went around and poured one into everyone's possession. Jean handed Marco and I one before continuing on as we all gathered around Armin to hear the rest of his plan. I opened my box and snatched the few bullets that were in the box, loading them into the shotgun.
"Are you sure buckshot is the way to go?" Jean asked skeptically as he finished loading a shotgun. "We might as well throw spit wads. I mean, c'mon guys... are guns even effective?"
I raised a brow at him, not amused with his pessimism at the moment. Connie, who was standing next to him just gave him a dumbfounded stare.
Armin, on my left, stared at him with his blue eyes shining in uncertainty before sighing, a bead of sweat slowly going down the side of his face.
"I don't know, but they're bound to be better than nothing." Armin glanced around at everyone that was circled around us. "We're looking at seven titans in the supply room of the four meters tall variety." He started, briefing us on the strategy. "If we time this perfectly, this much ammo ought to be enough to do the trick. Step one: we lower a group into the area with the lift, getting the titans attention. Step two: when the titans come within range, the group fires in all four directions simultaneously; blinding them." Armin let out a shaky sigh. "Then the hard part, the moment of truth as it were. Before the titans have time to recover, seven of us swoop down and strike their vital regions; their nape." The blond leaned back a bit. "That's it, that's the plan. This puts all our lives on the line, we screw up- we're dead. I know it's a hell of a risk for one attack, but it's our only chance." Armin cast his gaze at the ground then, doubt rolling off of him in waves this time. "We're gonna need the best of you. Seven soldiers most physically gifted and adept with their pairing blades. You'll be the difference between life and death for the rest of us... I'm sorry."
"Seems like a sound plan." Reiner, who sat in between Connie and Marco, reassured the smaller blond with a smile.
Annie stood behind Reiner, shifting her weight onto her left leg as she put her left hand on her hip.
"When you get down to it, the risk is the same for everyone. Doesn't really matter who goes."
Armin never looked up though. "Look, I... I'm willing to be talked out of this. One half-baked strategy can't be our only option right?"
It was obvious in the way his voice wavered that he was hoping someone else would come up with something better. A way where no one would be a risk instead of everyone.
"Hey," Marco called to him from my right. "don't be so hard on yourself. For our only option, it's pretty well thought out." Marco had a smile on his face wanting to reassure Armin's feelings... but I could see he was nervous too. If the light sheen of sweat on his forehead and the way he kept moving his hands was anything to go by. "If we give it our all, we might just pull this off." Armin looked up at the black haired boy with a unsure smile.
"It'll be fine." Mikasa stated, she was crouched down on Armin's other side. "You just have to be confident. You're a better strategist than you give yourself credit for." This caused Armin to look at her in surprise. "I'm serious, that mind saved Eren and me more than once."
"When did I ever save you?" I tried to recall a time Armin did but I had to assume Mikasa meant before they joined since I couldn't pinpoint anything.
Suddenly, the lift door slammed open horizontally making us all look back to see Leon standing there. "Alright, the lift's ready to go and guns are loaded to the stocks. Let's go kill some titans."
I stood up, stretching my arms by putting the gun behind my neck. "So, who's the seven going in for the kill?"
Armin stood up along with everyone else. "The seven soldiers are Mikasa, Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie, Leon, Jean, and Connie." I nodded at his response. "Marco will take the lead in signaling when to fire at the titans."
Marco blinked at that, taken by surprise. "What? Why me?"
I bumped him with my hip. "Isn't it obvious?" He looked at me with furrowed brows as I shot him a grin. "You have the best judgement here, so you have to guide everyone else for the exact moment to shoot." He returned my grin with his own smile, his face growing slightly pink.
Armin, Marco, Lea, Sasha and I along with the rest of the cadets loaded into the lift with our shotguns while the selected seven took the stairs down. I took my spot next to Marco while Lea was next to me, Armin was on the other side of Marco while Sasha stood on the other side of Armin. One of the cadets helped close the door then pulled the lever to lower us down. I could hear my heart beating loudly in my chest as we descended, along with everyone's heavy breathing and not to mention the smell of the rust on the guns overpowering my nose. At least I would hope it's rust from the guns.
Then then the supply room came into view. Titans were roaming around aimlessly, being there were no humans down here until now.
"Good. We're still at seven." The sound of the lift halting drew all of the titans attention, making them turn towards us and stomp over. Immediately, we all cocked the shotguns over our shoulders, ready to fire. "Okay, nice and easy." Marco whispered, his nerves were getting the best of him. One titan walked over to our side with shaggy hair, it's face barely visible. But when it did turn it's face, we could see it's light eyes peering wide through it's hair looking like something out of hell. Sasha whimpered at the sight, tightening her hold on the gun.
"Don't lose your cool! Fire only when they're all within range!" The titan began walking closer, and two other titans came along beside the one in front of us. I could imagine if I were to turn around, other titans would have us surrounded. I never realized how slow they move, at least while we're standing still they seem to not rush after us. My mind started whirring. What if anyone here misses their shot? What if it's not enough? Or if any of the seven hadn't even got down here yet? "Steady." Marco's voice brought me back to the moment.
I couldn't take my eyes off the titan ahead of us. I could feel both Lea and Marco shaking on either side of me as we all stared at it watching us. We were definitely breakfast, lunch and dinner served on a plate for them. It's eyes drew closer as it took another step and I narrowed my eyes down the barrel of the gun, trying to focus. They were a little too close for comfort now, the eye a mere foot away from touching the end of our guns.
"Marco?"
"Almost..." He reassured me. The titan took one more step, closing the distance. This is it. I moved my finger over the trigger. "Fire!"
Deafening shots rang out through the air like fireworks, all seven of the titans stumbled back and some even gripped their face as steam emitted from their eyes. Then the others came, running across the beams on the ceiling and jumping down to slice their blades across the back of the titans before they could regenerate.
Every titan that surrounded the lift fell, except for one. It simply stumbled back then turned to face it's attacker.
"Connie missed!" I heard Bertholdt yell.
"Lead it the hell back!" Jean ordered on the other side.
It was on the left side of where the four of us were and we couldn't see exactly who took down which titan but we knew the single titan standing was where Connie was and it was slowly following him away from us. I quickly turned the safety on and placed the butt of the stock under my arm, reloading with the extra two bullets I put in the pocket of my jacket. Lea put her hand on my arm.
"Evie, what are you doing?"
"I'm not about to let someone else die today."
Once the two bullets were in, I began to aim again until Annie took down the titan on her own. It collapsed like the other and began to vanish in a pile of steam.
"They're all dead!" Jean called up to us. "Start loading up supplies!"
Armin grinned over at us, relief replacing all his doubt and fear. Relief came over all of us seeing that we actually pulled it off. Marco sighed and his eyes fluttered closed for a brief moment as his knees gave in, he almost collapsed on the floor of the lift if Armin and I hadn't took hold of him quickly. We all got off the lift and ran over to the large gas tanks on the far side of the wall, unscrewing the lids of our own gas supply, grabbing the hose and sticking the nozzle into the tanks. Majority of the cadets were ecstatic, whooping about how we're gonna live and thanking that berserker titan outside. Lea was no exception to that.
The strawberry blonde had ran over and tackled me, luckily there was a wooden box my size behind me or she would've taken us both to the ground.
"Evie, we made it! We'll be able to get over the wall!" She was giggling hysterically, probably from disbelief at the words she was saying. I hugged her back before lightly prying her off of me.
"I told you, didn't I? We're gonna live." I unscrewed my gas lid before grabbing the hose and refilling my second tank.
Lea beamed at me, hope shining in her serpentine eyes.
"I'll see you over the wall then, yeah?"
I returned her smile, with one hand raised in a wave. "Of course, I'll be right behind you."
"You better be!" She called over her shoulder as she ran towards HQ courtyard.
Just when she got into the sunlight, she flew off using her ODM gear along with some of the others.
"Listen man, what you said before about me being a leader and all... don't talk to me like that again, alright?" I heard Jean's voice say behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder to see Jean and Marco sitting on top of the crates that prevented me from falling over before, filling up their own gas canisters. Marco finished one of his canisters and moved on to his second.
"Promise me you're not gonna take this the wrong way, but I don't think you're a good leader cause you're strong. I think you're a good leader cause you know what it is to be weak." I know I shouldn't be eavesdropping, especially at a time like this, but I couldn't help the urge to want to listen. I knew they were talking about earlier when we all started on our way to HQ. "You're one of us. You're scared out of your mind, just like we all are. It makes you alert; sympathetic. You made a damn good call out there, got me running for my life. You're why I can even say this."
I couldn't help but smile and shake my head. What an admirable guy. Always trying to lift someone's spirits. What did I do to deserve him? I turned then and pushed Jean off the crate, fortunately, he landed safely. I ran around him towards Marco, standing behind his crate and smiling innocently.
Jean glared at me before Marco hopped down, blocking Jean's view and tilting his head as he looked down at me. "Was that necessary?"
I cocked my brow teasingly. "No, but it was fun."
"You should keep your dog on a leash, Marco." Jean commented.
I walked around Marco and gave Jean the middle finger. "You should know wolves hunt horses, and I couldn't tell you apart from a herd of them."
Marco sighed, waving his hand between us. "Okay, I think it's time to go now."
I stuck my tongue out at him but headed towards the courtyard with them anyway. Once we were in the sun again, I decided to let myself relax. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling the heat envelope me before being pulled back to reality again.
"Evie!" I snapped my eyes open to see Lea waving me over to the roof of HQ's first floor. "C'mere quick!" Beside Lea, I could see Leon and Mikasa also there staring at something on the opposite side of this building.
I turned and grabbed Marco's hand. "I'll meet you on the other side of the wall, okay?"
He gave my hand a squeeze and smiled. "If you're not there then I'll come back looking for you."
I grinned up at the freckled face boy. "Deal." Marco leaned down and gave me a peck before shooting an anchor off into the side of the building and flying up with his newly supplied gas. I turned and hooked myself onto the roof, reeling myself up there. "What's up?"
Lea pointed in the direction where her brother and Mikasa were gazing off at. "Look at what they're doing."
Following her finger, across the road I could see the Rogue Titan propped up inside a broken house; swarmed by other titans. And they were munching on him like he was the appetizer. The Rogue Titan's skin tone noticeably darkened, I imagine from having chunks of him being eaten and he started decaying, the right side of his rib cage was clearly visible. But why isn't he regenerating?
I heard another pair of footsteps land behind me, making me turn and see Armin.
"What are you doing? We have to leave, now." Mikasa motioned to the same scene as Lea did, making the blond gasp a bit. "Cannibalism? Can he not regenerate like the others?"
I felt my brows knit together in confusion. "That's what I was wondering. There's no steam coming out of him."
"This may sound stupid," Mikasa started, not taking her eyes off of the titans ahead of us. "but I was hoping he'd be the key for us. That he'd help mankind break the cycle, turn the tide long enough just to give us a little ray of hope."
"Well," Lea squeaked. "he did good enough to buy us time to resupply and take down some titans."
"Mikasa's right." A new voice said. We turned to see Reiner, Annie, Bertholdt and Jean had joined us on the roof. "He's too valuable to just let die. There's too much we can learn from him. I think it's perfectly clear our priority should be to ward the scavengers off him, he's no good to us picked apart."
"Are you out of your mind?!" Jean exclaimed, looking at the tall blond with confusion and disbelief. I couldn't really blame Jean but I also agree with both Mikasa and Reiner at the same time. "We got a path out of this nightmare and you wanna stay?!"
Annie regarded him with unamused grey-blue eyes. "Think about it: having an Abnormal as an ally would be an incredible advantage, right? A canon's got nothing on a titan that likes to rip apart his own kind."
Jean averted his gaze of disbelief onto Annie, taking a step back. "Are you... Do you even hear yourself? He's not like a new friend!"
Lea nervously laughed. "For once, I kinda agree with Jean. We barely made it here, I'm not really so eager to throw myself back in the fire."
I couldn't voice my opinion if I wanted to. I couldn't choose a side to be on. Both were reasonable but...
"It's the one that ate Thomas!" Armin cried out, dragging my attention to what he was talking about.
There was a tall and lanky titan, almost just skin and bones. It had stringy brownish blond hair and beady eyes just casually walking through Trost. My nose stung, making tears well up at the corners of my eyes thinking about Thomas. Suddenly, there was a deafening war cry from the Rogue Titan. He began stomping away from the house he was leaning against and shook most of the other titans off of him. He started at a slow jog, two titans stuck on both of his arms slowing him down. But, with another step, the left titan fell off and took the Rogue Titan's arm with it.
Another step and the right titan and arm fell off. Although he was armless now, it didn't seem to bother him one bit as he picked up his speed and latched his jaw onto the lanky titan's neck, lifting him up over his head. We all watched as he did so, the ribs we could see started to crack and I cringed at the sound, taking a step back.
A smaller titan waddled over to him but the Rogue Titan simply used the titan he had bitten by the neck, like a cat would to another cat, as a weapon. He slammed the skinny titan down on it before flinging it at another larger titan, sending them crashing through a building.
The now armless Rogue Titan let out another war cry before it fell face first onto the ground with a tremor, before finally letting out heaps of steam.
"What was that you were saying? Cause I think it's a moot point now." Jean spat out before turning around. "Enough of this, let's leave while we can. We're lucky the ugly bastard didn't get bored, we'd have been next on the menu." I was ready to leave as well. I almost turned around before I saw a strange figure on the back of the Rogue Titan. It was near the nape of the neck. "A titan's a titan, regardless."
Whatever was at the nape of the neck was moving, emerging. It was hard to tell through all of the smoke but it looked like a person. I peered even harder, taking a few steps towards the edge.
"That's... not possible."
Leon chuckled a bit. It's been awhile since I'd heard it, it almost startled me. "Hey Jean, doesn't that look all-too-familiar to you?" The person that pulled itself out of the Rogue Titan was a familiar brunet. One I'd talked to many times and could relate to. He wasn't wearing the standard brown uniform jacket and he seemed unconscious now as he leaned back with his face to the sky but I could see him now. Mikasa didn't hesitate to swoop down to the ground and run over to the boy, uncaring of any level of threat that came with being on the ground at the moment. She jumped on top of the fallen titan and threw herself at the boy, catching him in her arms before putting her head on his chest. "I didn't think I'd see that crazy son of a bitch again."
"Is it really him?" Lea asked, her hands were over her mouth, making her voice slightly muffled,
Armin was slowly shaking his head. "No... No, it can't be. I-I saw him get..." Then we heard a wail. Mikasa was crying. We never saw really Mikasa smile, let alone cry. We all jumped off the roof and followed the sound of her bawling through the smoke.
"If he's secured, we should get back to the rooftops. The ground isn't safe." Reiner pointed out.
"He's right." Leon pointed out. "If you got him Mikasa, then let's get off the ground. I don't think he finished off those last two titans."
Mikasa didn't respond but did comply, still crying up a storm. Lea, Jean and I were kinda just standing there in shock at the whole scene before us. Mikasa never let go of the brown haired boy as we made our way to the very top of HQ, right above the huge hole the two titans made by smashing their ugly faces in it when we first got here. Mikasa wasn't wailing anymore as we all just stood around and stared, but she continued to quietly cry and sniffle. I can imagine the amount of relief and happiness overflowing in her and the belief that she had lost him was gone. Eren was in her arms and alive, albeit out cold. I did notice his left sleeve of his khaki green shirt and left side of his pants were ripped off, along with his boot being gone.
"Okay so, uh," Jean began quietly as he turned to see the steaming corpses of the other titans that laid sprawled about the area. "Eren did all of this?"
Lea suddenly bursted out laughing, holding her stomach. "I know he said he wanted to kill all of the titans but man, this is taking it to a whole other level!"
I wasn't exactly sure how to feel. I constantly clenched and unballed my fist multiple times as we went to the top of the wall and made our way to the lift. Eren's alive but... does this allegedly make him a titan? Did he know this whole time? And what of all of that he was spouting to me about his mom and getting back at the titans? Was that all just bullshit? I'm not sure what to make of everything.
Can Eren be trusted?