Chapter 9: Trost Part 5: Escaping the Net
After all of this I feel just about ready to buckle. I've been on my feet since dawn, and in a combat situation since before midday. I'm hungry, thirsty and incredibly tired. Every fibre of my body is telling me to pack it in. What I wouldn't give to be able to sleep right now. But we're not done, the day is still going. We've reached the supply depot; now all we need to do is clear the supply room. From what we know there are eight titans in the supply room all roughly four metres tall. Thankfully no more seem to be coming in. I suppose we can attribute that to our fifteen metre tall psychotic friend outside. How we're meant to clear the room itself is beyond me though.
"So," I say as I slump down next to Armin, "what do you think our options are?"
"Why are you asking me?" he asks confused.
"You've done pretty well so far haven't you? Got any ideas?"
"Well, I've been thinking about the lift that lowers into the middle of the room. We could draw all the titans into one place by filling that with as many people as possible and lowering it into the middle of the room."
I nod slowly, following his train of thought. "The rest of us could be up in the rafters..."
"Waiting to jump down and cut the titans' weak spots," finishes Armin. "The only problem is, we need some way to keep the titans in place when we make the attack; buy us some time."
We both sit still thinking. I do my best to keep my thoughts on the problem at hand, but it's hard. Historia never showed up to the central meeting point before we attacked. No one knows what happened to her along with Ymir and a few others. I feel like pulling my hair out at the roots with worry. Something else has been gnawing at me as well since the hour I spent on a roof with Mina and Armin. If Historia's real name isn't Krista, what else about her isn't real? Who exactly is she, and do I know her at all really? Have I fallen in love with a person who doesn't exist? 'You know, I think that's the first time I've admitted that I'm in love with her. Or at least I'm love with who I think she is. I guess this just gives me another reason to survive: I need to find out who she is.'
I'm snapped out of my thoughts by a clattering from the doorway. I look up and see Jean holding a musket. "Okay people listen up," he announces. "We've got several dozen muskets here, courtesy of the Military Police." He looks down the barrel and blows over the weapon, sending a cloud of grey into the air. "Ugh, and covered in a layer of dust," he coughs.
Armin looks at me and smiles. "Jean!" he cries out, jumping to his feet. "Do they have buckshot?"
"Yeah I think so, why?"
"That's exactly what need right now."
"What? Armin are you sure about that? I mean, are guns even effective?"
"Not as such," admits Armin. "But that doesn't matter."
"Come on over and listen everyone," I call out. "Armin's got a plan."
Armin turns a little red around the ears and gives me an agonised look. People stop leaning against the walls and come over however, leaning in to hear. "Uh, well," Armin begins nervously. "We're looking at eight titans in the supply room of the four metre variety. My plan is to lower the central lift down to what ought to be head level for the titans. The lift will need to be packed with as many people as possible to draw the titans attention. Once they're close enough those of us inside the lift will fire into the titans' eyes, blinding them. At that moment eight of us jump down from the rafters and strike the titans down." Armin looks up at everyone gathered around him. "These will have to be the eight people here most adept at slaying titans; you'll only have the one shot at this. Eight people have to kill eight titans at the same moment." Armin falls silent and looks down at the floor. "I recognise it's rather a long shot, but it's the best I've got."
"Well, for a long shot I'd say it's a pretty good plan," says Marco.
Most people nod in agreement. "Hey now," protests Armin, "one half-baked strategy can't be our only option can it?"
"I wouldn't call it half-baked," says someone I can't see.
"No," says Annie, "the risk is the same all round, and if we pull this off we get out of here with no losses."
Armin doesn't say anything, he just trembles slightly. "Hey," I say, putting my hand on his shoulder for encouragement. "Don't sell yourself short here Armin. The plan is good. I believe it will work."
"You have a rare gift for strategy," adds Mikasa. "That mind saved Eren and me more than once."
"What?" asks Armin disbelievingly. "When on earth did I ever save you guys?"
"Most of the occasions would take a while to explain, for now suffice to say you did. Now come on, we need to get ready." Armin nods slowly, and gets to his feet.
"So," I ask, "who exactly might you have in mind for those eight titan slayers?"
'Why the hell did I ask?' We're all crouching on top of the rafters with two people on each side of the lift shaft. Mikasa, Annie, Jean, Connie, Sasha, Reiner, Bertolt and me, blades drawn, and speaking for myself not particularly comfortable. I suppose we should count ourselves lucky to have so many of the best in the Corps available to us, but right now I'm wishing I'd struck out when it came to my scores. This kind of pressure isn't what I was hoping for. If we screw this up more than likely most of us will die or at least get injured. 'Where the hell is the lift?'
I realise the heat up here is starting to make me irritable. 'Okay, just try to calm down and think of something else then.' But before I can get my mind into a more relaxed state, the clunk of the lift beginning its descent echoes into the chamber. The huddle of soldiers inside the lift are all clutching muskets like pieces of drift wood at sea. I hope none of them go off by mistake. As the lift comes to a stop, so do the thud, thud, thud of the titans' footsteps. One by one the four metre tall abominations turn their heads to face the new appetiser. 'They must be thinking they hit the jackpot right about now. That is if they can think anything.'
Suddenly a white light flashes over my vision, blinding me. When it clears I can't see the supply room, the titans or the lift. I can see a brightly lit field with trees in the distance. There's a little girl running around after a butterfly. 'Where am I?' The sun feels like, well like nothing. I can still feel myself crouching on the wooden beam, but I can't hear the titans or see anything except the brightly light landscape before me. 'Is this, a memory of some kind? No, it couldn't be; I've never been to a place like this in my whole life. Unless this is from before the accident. Even so, when would I have been in a place like this?'
The girl trips over something in the grass and falls over. Laughing she gets up unhurt and turns to look at me. Somehow I feel like I ought to know her, even though I know I've never seen her before. "Come on now you two!" calls out a voice from behind me. "It's time for lunch." I turn around to see who's speaking. I catch a glimpse of a large building with trees around it, but before I can see anything more the same white light from before engulfs me and I'm back in the supply room again.
'Wait no!' I almost call out. The vista is gone and I'm back to staring at the lift. The titans have all turned to face the prize meal and some have begun to walk towards it. The soldiers have raised their weapons. Most are shaking with fear, sweat running down their faces. There's a titan right underneath me, long matted dark hair hanging in clumps below its shoulders. 'I suppose titans don't find all that much time to wash.'
Now I'm not sure what to watch; the titans as they close in on the lift or the dark haired titan beneath me. I have to make sure I'm in the right position to garantee a good strike. "Hold steady," says Marco, his voice level despite the tense situation. The titans are now only a few steps away from the lift. "Hold." One of them leans in as if to look straight in the eyes of its prey. "Hold." All eight titans are now staring straight at the lift, surrounding it on all sides. If this goes wrong somehow, the lift will never get away. "FIRE!"
With a violent crack, a bright flash and a curtain of smoke all of the muskets fire at once, ripping into the titans' eyes. Eight terrible shrieks of pain act like a starter pistol as all eight of us run forwards along the wooden beams towards the titans. I jump, only a metre above my target. I swing my blades down, carving a pair of crimson lines through my target's neck. I don't manage to cut the nape clean out, but the damage is enough. The titan freezes instantly and falls forwards. The wound spurts blood, spattering my face with red gore. In panic I try to reach up to my eyes, screwing up my landing and dropping clumsily on both feet. Pain lances through my legs and I fall straight onto my back. My head hits with an unpleasant crack, and for a moment I writhe on the ground, whipping at the boiling hot sticky mess on my face.
With difficulty I clear my vision, unveiling a dim and red tinged display of the world around me. Steam rises from six corpses surrounding the lift on three sides. 'Wait, only six? Shit!' Sasha screams as the titan she just failed to kill dives after her, sending a cloud of dust into the air. I scramble back to my feet in time to see Annie push off one of the pillars, using the extra height to slash open the neck of one of the surviving titans. At roughly the same time Mikasa performs a mid air spin, cutting into the neck of Sasha's titan multiple times. After that, everyone is still. Steam rises steadily from the eight giant cadavers giving the room a bizarre atmosphere.
Jean signals the lift to come down and everyone immediately begins to pile out. The lift is quickly sent back up again so that those upstairs can come down. Everyone begins to hastily connect their gas tanks to the large cylinders by the walls, while those who can't find a socket rush towards the armoury to gather fresh blades. I let out a long sigh of relief. 'That's another scratch on the right. I wonder how many I'll have before the end?' I stretch and turn towards the armoury, since all of the sockets are currently in use and probably will be for the next ten minutes or so. 'I hope that berserker titan outside can buy us that much time.'
As I slot fresh blades into my sheathes I dwell on my brief vision before the fight. 'Where was that place? Maybe I was really there at some point; it did feel familiar. In fact it felt, safe. And that girl, I'm pretty sure I never really knew any girls during my childhood. I may not remember all that clearly, but I know I grew up in Rieskrippe. There were only two girls who ever lived there and she wasn't either of them.' "Aaaaah," I moan quietly, "when is this ride ever going to end? I feel like I've been thrown in every possible direction, including inside out!"
"Then I suppose it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that you're talking to yourself then?" I turn around to see Armin. "This day's been hard on everyone, I can understand the stress."
"It's more than that," I sigh. "I think I might have had a kind of hallucination earlier. It was bright and sunny with a blue sky. There was a field, with flowers and butterflies. And there was this girl, a little girl; about five I'd say. She seemed, so familiar. But I know I've never met her in my life."
Armin flashes a concerned frown. "It's probably just the moment getting to you. You had a lot on your plate just then."
"Right," I agree. Inside though I'm not so sure about that. 'I'll have to try and figure this out later though, for now I need to focus on getting out of this alive.' Taking one of the new blades I scratch two fresh lines on the 'Kill' side of my gear.
"Four so far. I wish I could say I had a few kills or assists to my name."
"I'd say you earned eight assists just then," I say with a grin. "It was your plan after all."
"Yeah, but I didn't actually do anything."
"If it wasn't for your plan we would have lost a lot of good people. I'd say you did a job just as important as those of us who struck the killing blow."
"Maybe," Armin falls silent.
"Come on," I turn around to face him straight on. "Let's go and refuel. This nightmare's finally about to end, and it's thanks in no small part to you. Try to cheer up a bit."
"It's just," Armin stutters as we walk over towards the gas cylinders and stand in line, waiting for the current user to finish their turn. "I can't help remembering that there were six of us when we were last here."
That gets to me. Thomas, Nac, Eren... "Wait, Mina! Where's Mina?" I exclaim suddenly. "Did you see her anywhere?" Armin shakes his head sadly. "Don't think like that Armin! She's got to be around here somewhere hasn't she? She was with us when we started out; I saw her on one of the roof tops."
"Matthias, a lot of people didn't make to HQ."
"No! Not after all that! She survived all of that, she can't be dead now. She, she..." I groan. "This just isn't fair," I mutter bitterly. It's a final statement though. Somewhere out in those streets is the blood of Mina Carloina, and I'd like to think that she wasn't defiled enough that they left a few other parts of her behind to rot in the sun. I suppose I should cry or something, but by this point I really don't have the energy to be truly sorrowful, just depressed and disappointed. "I," I say, as I bend down to connect my gas tank up to the cylinder, "I just want to go home."
In a few minutes both me and Armin have refuelled our gear and are ready to depart. "Where's Mikasa?" he asks looking around for her.
"She went out onto the roof earlier," calls out Connie as he rushes for the stairs out of the room. "If she hasn't headed back to the Wall yet she'll be up there."
"Thanks!" Armin calls out after him.
Together the two of us take the stairs out into the courtyard and grapple up onto the roof. Mikasa is indeed still there looking down into the courtyard. At the other end of the roof are Reiner, Annie and Bertolt, and Jean stands on the back slope of the roof, lingering. Armin and I land and hurry over. "Mikasa, what's wrong?" Armin asks.
"That titan," she whispers. I turn to look, and can hardly keep myself from throwing up. The berserker titan is pinned against the wall of a house with six more titans on top of him. "They're eating him." Both of the berserker's arms have been ripped off, and the other titans are gnawing on his flesh. The entirety of his left side has been eaten away showing his ribcage, through which I'm pretty sure I can see his internal organs. He tugs vainly at his kin with his mouth, trying to pull them away, but it looks like his energy is failing him. The regular titans continue to rip the flesh from his bones.
"Cannibalism?" gasps Armin.
"I guess it's the only way titans know how to kill something," I growl in disgust, "They eat it."
"We have to try and save him," says Mikasa firmly.
"What? Are you insane?!" cries Jean. "That abnormal may have saved our hides but he's still a titan!"
"Regardless," I reply, "he could still be very useful to us in the future. At the least he's a valuable test subject. If we could figure out why he's fighting his own kind, perhaps we can figure out some way to turn other titans over to our side."
"But he's not on 'our side'! He's on a side all his own."
"I'll help get him out if you guys are up for it," interrupts Reiner.
"What? Reiner have you lost it?"
"He's right," says Annie. "A cannon's got nothing on a titan who likes to rip apart his own kind. He's likely to be incredibly useful to us."
"You're all insane, the lot of you! You can't ally a titan!"
Suddenly Armin grabs me by the arm. "Look," he says, pointing to a blonde haired twelve metre titan that's just strode into the courtyard. "It's the abnormal that ate Thomas!"
Suddenly the berserker lets out a terrifying roar, tearing free from his enemies and charging strait towards the newcomer. He leaves behind the last remnants of his right arm in the jaws of another titan, but he doesn't even slow down. Still roaring he dives on the twelve metre sinking his teeth deep into the abnormal's weak spot. Blood spurts into the air as the berserker shakes his prey left and right, like a wolf attempting to rip flesh from a carcass. With a guttural growl the armless attacker sinks his teeth in as deep as they'll go sending a huge spray of blood into the air.
The blonde abnormal slumps limp in his jaws, steam already beginning to rise from its body. A fourteen metre is moving in towards the berserker. 'This has got to be it; surely he can't keep fighting like this much longer?' As if to prove me wrong the fifteen metre tall monster hurls the body in his jaws straight into his enemy, crushing the fourteen metre against a nearby building. Throwing his head back he gives one final deafening howl of a roar, and then falls forwards onto his face.
Steam begins to billow from the dead body, the flesh turning black and drifting away on the breeze. I can't begin to describe my immense disappointment. The opportunity we've lost here is just, unthinkable. Then something on the blackening body catches my eye. It's a kind of darker patch on the nape, a smudge about 2 metres long and 50 centimetres wide. Then, to my astonishment-and clearly that of everyone else watching-the dark patch begins to move. It stretches upwards towards the sky, and then bursts open.
Out of it comes, no, it can't be. A person! A human form emerges, long sticky tendrils of dark red flesh pulling away from its face. The human practically falls out of the dark patch before slumping forward slightly and kneeling on top of the dissolving nape. The figure looks like a young man with short dark hair, dressed in a faded brown shirt with what look like ODM harness straps on. His face, even from here looks familiar. "No," I whisper, "It couldn't be him, could it?"
Suddenly Mikasa is off the roof gliding to the ground and running desperately towards the figure. When she reaches him she grabs him in an embrace, and I can hear her crying from all the way up here. "It just can't be," I mumble feebly. Dropping down from the roof myself I walk slowly-as if in a daze-towards the smoking titan corpse. I scramble up onto the nape, to where the figure sits clutched in Mikasa's arms. The figure, of Eren Yeager.
