Almost

Let the Real Fight Begin (4)


I rested my weight back on one heel, jamming the edge of my blade into the ground. I had snapped one already, and had done nearly the same with this particular sword, saving it only by tucking it against my shoulder as I hit the ground, sliding rather than rolling. It was painful, and more importantly, it was frustrating. I couldn't number the amount of times I had tried this, anchored safely on the ground, and failed. Miserably. Always failing. I stood, centering my body as I drew another blade into the guard.

"Your balance is off." Her voice startled me, forced my form into a crouch as I twirled, one blade rising into the defensive position as the other prepared to attack. She was sitting there, pale as bone, blood- colored hair tied up in its usual high- ponytail, forest- colored gaze locked on my own.

"I've done it exactly the way its depicted. I want to master it on the ground before putting it in the air." She smirked, drawing her guards and snapping blades into place.

"Its not meant for the ground, dear." The red- haired captain shot upwards, one hook in the maneuver gear snapping into the nearest tree before she twisted, the second whipping her around in a tornado- like arc in the opposite direction she had appeared to be going. She shifted again, blades cutting through the downed tree that had clearly been used as practice many times, executing a perfect round off onto her toes before repeating the motion. Her blades landed directly where the lowest point of the deltoid muscle in a titan, swinging into something that resembled a tornado across where the weak point would be. I swallowed. When she fought, even against a slashed up, broken tree, it wasn't fighting, but more like a sort of fancy, ballroom dance. Far more than even awe- inspiring. She anchored on the maneuver gear, floating along the trees. "If you were having so much trouble with this form, why didn't you come to me for help?" Well, this was embarrassing.

"Chess and Mally are out spending the day together, Dania and Dee are running the final preparations for going beyond the wall, and what they can try to figure out as far as sealing Wall Ares." I shrugged. "I figured I could work it out on my own."

"I didn't ask about my squad." She landed, touching down lightly in the grass. "I asked why you did not come to me." Her voice softened slightly, and she looked away, as though living somewhere else. "Do I really scare you all that much, that you absolutely loathe coming to speak to me? Or is it just the age; the lack of respect. Or am I... Too distanced, I don't... Understand, why-"

"No!" She didn't move. Not at all. Didn't even bat an eyelash. Yet she stopped speaking. 'I can't speak for the others. I don't want to speak for the others, if I'm honest. Some of them are complete, blithering idiots. But for me, its nothing like that." I could remember her, every single time I had met her before joining the Survey Corps. It wasn't many times, and yet, each one was as vivid as though just the day before, as though I had only just met her a moment ago. "Every time I've been in your presence, Alice, you've been pulling me out of some shit situation I've gotten myself into. I want to redeem myself." She dropped her head, shaking it.

"There is nothing to redeem." She was smiling. The first smile I had ever seen on such a somber face. I remembered in that moment, just how young she was. Only two years older than I was. "I almost envy you, Regina." I cocked an eyebrow, taking a seat on a decent section of the torn- up tree.

"How so?" She opened her mouth as if to say something, before her eyes grew cold once more. Her blades slid out before I had even drawn a breath, in less time than it took to blink an eye. "Whomever is in my forest better show their face before I skin it from their skull." A growl, low, from the back of her throat. I suppose it would be accurate to say that it was useful to instill fear into people, and it did well. I was holding cocked blades, crouched on the battered branch in less than a moment. Something, a cold feeling, was making its way down my spine. Prickles, as though a warning. As though something was about to happen. Alice drew her right hand up to her lips, gear trigger held by her last two fingers, blade cocked back toward the same shoulder. "Regina. Things are about to get really, really bad." I was going to ask her what she meant. I had full intentions of doing so.

That, however, was the same moment that lightning crackled down from the sky. The ground shook, tilting with a violent pitch. We were up in the air, as though released from a slingshot. I fell into a pattern, not behind her, but beside her as we swung in a turn mirroring the other, snapping onto the nearest, tallest building in order to get higher, faster.

"Hook! Time to move, now!" I could see it, ugly as before, its bone- color teeth exposed to the air in sharp contrast to red, striated muscle.

The Colossal Titan.