A/N: Welcome back ya'll!
Here's the third and final part for my Survival series: The Second Outpost.
(If you haven't read the other two parts, then go read those first or you'll be totally lost.)
I hope everyone enjoys it!
"Get back in formation!" Daniel was screaming at Alik and Eve, waving one of his blades around to get their attention. Hannah was on the verge of joining them in the air, but Daniel caught her just before she could shoot out the cables to her 3DM gear.
There were no trees, only the same rolling plains they'd been on when she'd watched Hans die. She thought she almost recognized the spot where she hit the ground so hard, but knew that notion was ridiculous. She'd had her eyes closed. Now, though, they were open; and she didn't like what she was seeing.
Less than an hour away from Wall Rose and they'd already suffered two casualties. She was balanced on the balls of her feet in Osten's saddle, watching Alik jump and spin in the air. She was the distraction this time. As soon as the Titan noticed Alik's presence, Eve shot forward, her cables hitting the Titan's chest and huge swollen belly. She glimpsed Alik as he swung around the Titan's narrow shoulder. Retracting only the cable lodged in the Titan's abdomen, she avoided a nasty big-handed swat.
They'd never practiced this move before. Sure, she'd told Alik about how it worked, but that wasn't enough. Everything in her was screaming for her to slip around under the Titan's arm, run up its back, and slice open its neck. She had to trust her squad, though. Alik was her first real chance to do so.
Just as the over-large fist on the short, skinny arm reached for her again, she snatched her upper cable away and shot it into the thickest part of its thigh. Her boots were skimming the tall grass as she swung herself around. She tucked into a tight flip and shot straight up behind it just as Alik was finishing off the killing blow.
The body fell below them. Out here with no trees, she'd told him to make sure he landed on the Titan. Once they were dead, they served as a far better landing place than the ground. She was still in the air when she saw him fall too far to the left. Shooting out her cables to stab the Titan in the back, she turned mid-air to reach Alik. She smacked into him and they fell together, landing on the Titan's broad back before she rolled away from him.
When she hit the ground, she found her feet and started running. Osten met her just a few meters from the Titan's body and she hauled herself into the saddle. Alik joined her as they raced ahead, meeting back up with the three cargo wagons they were assigned to guard- and Daniel.
"What the fuck?" Daniel was red from the neck up; Eve knew it wasn't from the cold. "I am supposed to be your squad leader! Why would you ignore me like that?"
"The Titan had already broken through the last line of defense before us," Alik snapped. "What would you have had us do? Wait until it destroyed everything we are guarding? In case you forgot- that's all of our food for the next three weeks!"
"You should have waited until my command!" Daniel screamed back. "We should have taken it down together- just like we practiced!"
"Would you two shut up for a second?" Eve looked over at Hannah, surprised at her fierce attitude. The girl was usually calm and happy, never snapping at anyone. Eve felt her stomach sink into her feet. "We lost Usef!"
Eve craned her neck around, searching the snow-covered fields and steam-filled air for any sign of the tall, lanky boy. There was chaos all around. The formation was all but demolished. She had no clue where her other squadmate was, nor did she know where the other sets of cargo wagons and the other squads guarding them had vanished to. Through the steam and snow in the sky, she could see red, black, green, and yellow flares all around.
A Titan was headed for them through another broken part of the formation. There was no one to stop it. His big feet were crushing everything- including a riderless horse. She spotted Usef last-minute.
He was dangling from the Titan's fist.
"He's gone." Eve jerked her head around to find Daniel. "Hannah, the black flare, please. This one isn't eating." The blonde girl went pale, but nodded and grabbed the flare gun from the bag by her thigh. Seconds later, the black funnel of smoke was falling away behind them.
"Everyone together this time!" Daniel turned his horse to the side and they followed suit, forming a diamond shape behind him with Eve in the rear. "Hannah, you and Alik go for the heels. Eve, you distract it. I'll take it down."
Eve pursed her lips. She didn't want to argue with him, but he would have been better with the heels. Alik should have been given the death blow. He was fast and brutal - just like Levi and Mikasa. He didn't have enough experience to do things all on his own, but given time Eve was sure he could have managed just about anything the Titans decided to dish out.
Eve had no problems with her own assignment. She was the fastest of them all and could perform most of her moves with little or no gas. Straight up movements and sideway movements needed the gas, but anything else she managed with almost none at all. Hannah was great with the tendons. She had spot-on accuracy every time she went in for a blow. She hadn't seen much of what Daniel could do.
"Go!" They were only a few meters away from the Titan when the call came. Eve jumped up and her cables hit each shoulder as she launched herself forward. Hannah and Alik were already at the heels. She slipped lower and to the side as the Titan brought his arm up to snatch her out of the air. He missed by only a few hairs. Her eyes were on Daniel as he shot up over the Titan's shoulder.
Alik and Hannah completed their cuts, and Eve felt the Titan falling before she saw it. Her attention was more on Daniel than it should have been. As the Titan fell, he reached up. Thinking he meant to take another swing at her, Eve darted away, her blades slicing down the forearm from wrist to elbow. She must have missed the tendon. The Titan's fist closed around Daniel just as he moved in for the kill. The Titan missed his body, but managed to grab his cloak.
She reacted before she heard the crack that turned her stomach. Three seconds later, her blades were deep in the Titan's flesh, carving out a three meter long section. The Titan's body fell with Daniel's cloak still caught between its fingers. As she fell with the Titan, she watched Daniel's head flop around on his broken neck. It wasn't until she reached the ground that she realized that he was still alive.
Her swords wound up back in the sheath somehow, and she was kneeling beside Daniel as Hannah and Alik rode up on their horses. Osten and Daniel's horse were close by. Hannah gave a little shriek as she slipped from her saddle. Alik just paled.
"Blink once for yes," Eve whispered, slipping the dagger from the inside of her boot where she'd hidden it. It was one of the pretty silver ones she'd found in the storage closet a million years ago. She was holding her breath as she pressed the blade to his neck. His blood-shot eyes closed once, then shot open. His mouth was trying to form words, but the only sound that came out was drowned under a gurgle of hot blood that stained her hands.
It was swift, but Hannah cried out again all the same. Eve shoved the knife back into her boot, stood, and grabbed Hannah by her upper arm, hauling her to her feet. "We can't just leave him!" She was wailing at the top of her lungs. Eve glanced around them. The cargo they were supposed to be guarding was so far away now, but there were no more Titans in sight for the moment. She looked down at Daniel's body and crouched once more.
She ripped off the blood-stained cloak and threw it at Hannah before grabbing the crest sewn onto his uniform jacket. It came off with a sharp rip. She forced that into Alik's hand as she moved passed him. She was in Osten's saddle in the next second.
"We have to catch up to the carts." She knew she wasn't being as gentle with them as she should have been, but she didn't have any words of comfort at the moment. "We regroup just on the inside of that little forest. We'll rest only after we get there."
Alik and Hannah each nodded and began to follow her after she snatched up the reigns of Daniel's horse to run beside her. They were going as fast as they could, but the formation was somehow closing ranks once more. She tried pushing Osten faster, but Hannah and Alik couldn't keep up Osten's pace and she was forced to slow a little.
"Yellow flare!" Alik shouted. Eve looked to her left and saw the flare as it continued straight into the sky and exploded. "We'll keep going. You have the extra horse and the medical training." Eve looked back at him, saw his determined expression, and nodded.
She broke free of them and headed for the flare, but kept jerking her head to the side every few seconds to watch their progress. Still no Titans for the moment. She took a deep breath and looked down at her hands. The ends of her cloak, her gloves, and the knees of her pants were all stained a dark red and very wet. She couldn't seem to shake the image of Daniel's blood staining and melting the snow around him. She'd managed to fuck everything up in less than an hour.
With a hollow chuckle, she squinted to try and see who was waiting at the bottom end of the flare. There were four people and only one horse. She couldn't be sure, but one of them looked to be supported by two others. When they spotted her, one began to wave.
"What happened?" Her question came just as she arrived and jumped from Osten's saddle. Sasha was supported between Ymir and Connie while Krista stood a little closer to the horse.
"Sasha was knocked off her horse," Ymir answered.
"It was an Abnormal. Came through and squashed our horses…" Connie was smiling, but it wasn't a pleasant expression. It was as if he didn't know how to express how distressed he was. Eve knew that feeling entirely too well.
"The rendezvous point is just ahead. I'll take her with me. We need to get off of these plains. I can't very well have a good look at her out here." Connie was shaking as he and Ymir propped Sasha in the saddle behind Eve. Ymir and Krista rode double while Connie followed on Daniel's horse. They rode hard and fast for the tree line only a few kilometers away.
Everyone was regrouping still, waiting for more stragglers and trying to sooth their horses. Despite being bred for this sort of running, they were still exhausted. Eve left her horse in someone else's care, too focused on trying to get Sasha somewhere safe. Connie helped.
"Where the fuck is Peter." She was mumbling under her breath, worried about not having a flat board for Sasha's head and neck. They moved slowly, doing their best not to shake her up too much, though the ride had probably done whatever damage Eve was worried about. They found a small stretch of ground that wasn't occupied. "Connie, I need you to hold her head as still as you can." Eve left the rest of her on the ground as she took of her cloak and laid it over the cold, wet snow. She needed a tarp or one of the wagons, but she didn't know where either of those could be found.
Between them, they managed to get Sasha stretched on the ground. Eve snatched off her gloves and felt Sasha's head first, checking for breaks. She had no visible head injuries, but she also knew that the internal injuries were the ones to worry about. She would have to wait until Sasha woke up to try to determine more. Sasha's ribs and spine came next- feeling along every bone to check for fractures or breaks. Two of her ribs were probably fractured on her left side, but weren't completely broken through or displaced. Eve grabbed her little bag and had Connie lift her just enough so that Eve could tie her middle up as tight as she could with the thicker cloth bandages. With that task completed, Eve moved lower. She found Sasha's left ankle swollen, but wasn't sure for the moment if it was broken or fractured, so she shoved her boot back on her foot and left it alone. They had little choice. Sasha could still ride, at the very least.
"Sit here," she told Connie. He hadn't said a word the entire time, just kept nodding mutely whenever she told him to do something. That awkward, painful smile was still firmly in place as he brushed a piece of her hair out of her face. "She'll be okay. Doesn't look like anything too serious for now." He only nodded again.
Eve found Peter several minutes later, fighting to stitch up a badly bleeding cut on someone's arm. She wasn't sure who it was, but she jogged over and grabbed the tourniquet from her bag. It took everything she had to get the bleeding to slow enough for Peter to finish. By the time they were done, he looked like a butcher coming away from the slaughter. Someone had made a fire and boiled some snow down to water for them, so they washed away the blood on their hands.
"Sasha's got two fractured ribs and possibly a broken ankle," she stated. She was making every effort to keep her voice soft and without expression. "No external signs of trauma to her head, but she's out cold."
"See if ya cain't get her over here and into one of the wagons. I've only got three or four injured so far." Peter was trying to sound confident, but Eve knew better than to believe his tone. Fewer injuries almost always meant more deaths. From what she'd learned from him over the last few weeks, he'd rather be too busy to take a piss rather than have only a handful of minor injuries- at least out here. Injuries were usually temporary. Death was always final.
"Daniel and Usef are dead." He snapped his head around to stare at her, his eyes narrow. She just shrugged at his questioning look. "We all saw Usef in a Titan's fist. Abnormal because he wasn't eating him. We went to attack and Daniel hesitated. The Titan grabbed his cloak and snapped his neck. He was paralyzed from the neck down, Peter. I…"
"Ya made the right call." She glanced up at his hard look for just a moment before nodding once and running to find Sasha and Connie. She grabbed one of the flat boards on her way by a wagon. Sasha was more important than her guilt for now, so she had Connie help her get her onto the board and strap her down. They carried her to a wagon, but left her strapped down for now. She didn't need to move right away when she woke up. She draped her soaked cloak over the end of a wagon. Peter was only a few meters away, wrapping up a few scrapes and tending to the minor injuries.
"Connie," Eve began. She tapped his shoulder to distract him away from staring at Sasha. "I know you're worried, but she will be okay. You have duties just like everyone else." He nodded at her, but glanced back at Sasha one last time before running off.
Peter and Eve spent the next half hour tending to the minor injuries sustained in fighting off the Titans. Several sprained wrists and ankles, a half-dozen small cuts, hundreds of scrapes, and a few fractured ribs later, they were regrouping into proper squads and grabbing the last few seconds of the break to relax. She didn't know where Alik or Hannah were, so she set out to look for them.
Erwin was writing something down when she found them. They were holding each other's hands and Hannah looked like she was crying. Erwin eyed her hard, but didn't summon her. Instead, he moved away from her squadmates and toward a more secluded area. Eve followed, understanding what was about to happen.
"You're being reassigned. You, Alik, and Hannah are to work with Peter until I can figure out where those two will be the most use. Consider Peter you squad leader." The more senior field medic hadn't joined them for this expedition due to pneumonia, so Peter was the only true medic they had. Eve just nodded. "Hannah told me what happened."
"I did what was necessary." She was cold but not hollow. Apathy had settled over her like a wet blanket. This was another death at her hand, but there was no time for emotion now. Maybe when they were safe on the other side of the Wall she could take the time to mourn, but until then, she had to focus. She did not regret her actions.
"By failing your squad leader?" Erwin's tone was hard, but one of his eyebrows raised at the same time, as if it were a rhetorical question.
Her posture tightened. "By ending his life myself rather than letting him die slowly. He gave us orders and we followed them perfectly. I tried to stop the Titan from grabbing him, but my efforts weren't enough after he'd hesitated. I was bait, but you know as well as I do that such a strategy works less than half the time when dealing with the Abnormal Titans." Eve left the fact that he shouldn't have taken the killing blow himself unsaid. It was implied, and Erwin knew it.
"Alik told me that the two of you split from your squad to take down a Titan yourselves."
Eve nodded and took a deep breath. "Yes, Sir. It was a ten-meter class, but slow. Everyone else was busy, and we were guarding the food. We could not allow that Titan to get so close to the one thing that will keep us alive out here."
"Where did you go when you sent them here?"
"There was a yellow flare. I had Daniel's horse. I found Sasha, Connie, Ymir, and Krista. Sasha was out cold. Connie helped me get her here and taken care of. She's strapped to a board in the back of a wagon right now. I sent Connie to go do whatever it was he was supposed to be doing once I was sure she'd be okay." Eve wasn't sure if that was what he wanted to hear, but everything was the truth. Lying was pointless anyway.
"You'll stay with Peter from now on. Keep the injured safe while we are riding and tend to them when we are still. Respond to yellow flares." He turned on his heel and stalked away. Eve couldn't protest. She'd rather protect people than food anyway.
By the time the group was ready to set out again, Eve had found Osten and was waiting by the wagons. Connie came back one last time to check on Sasha, but she was still out. Alik and Hannah joined her first, though neither spoke to her. Alik didn't blame her, but Hannah did. Peter rode up to them at last, annoyed.
"You brats are stuck with me for this stretch, I guess," Peter grumbled. The "senior field-medic" Peter wasn't nearly as nice or funny as the one behind the Wall. "Ya'll have basic first-aid skills, so ya can take care of the minor stuff. Leave the complicated stuff to me. Got somethin' you can't handle? Find me. I'm usually right here. Eve's gonna be runnin' for yellow flares, but she'll need back-up out there and I will need back-up here. Hannah, you'll stay with me. Alik, you'll go with Eve. Don't give her lip! Half a day, and hopefully you brats'll be outta my hair. Don't die."
With that, Peter turned away from them all and trotted to the front of the wagon where the driver sat. Eve rolled her shoulders as Hannah took up a spot as far from her as possible. Alik was close by, but he wasn't speaking for now. They needed time to adjust, but they wouldn't get it out here. She'd had Armin to help her… Who did they have? A heavy sigh escaped her lips, but she didn't bother trying to comfort them. It could wait until tonight when they reached the outpost.
A/N: Death and blood galore!
Fun shit, right? :p
Let me know what ya think!