"Ordinary men don't find their own way

It's in the struggle that we can finally see

I'll never forget how I felt so far away

when fear waged war and wore down on me"

- August Burns Red

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Seeing the sirens flash behind them had certainly been enough to give Mikasa a good jolt, but when finding out the cop's only beef had been with their taillight, she had allowed herself a moment of relief; that is until someone in the rear decided now would be a good time to create a sizeable bang and completely throw them back into the danger zone.

"Ma'am, you got something alive back there?"

She immediately did her best to adopt a surprised, but unconcerned expression before replying,

"We certainly didn't put anything alive back there… something must have fallen over."

The officer remained clearly suspicious.

"Odd something would fall when the vehicle isn't moving."

He looked back towards the rear.

"Mind if I take a look?"

Now concern was giving way to a knowing that the inevitable was about to happen. Well aware she could have denied his request, he probably would've surpassed her word anyway.

I'm sorry.

She gave him a nod.

Giving the both of them another curious look, he plodded purposefully back towards the door. As he left earshot, she turned to Annie, who, naturally, was already on top of the situation.

"There's another one in the shotgun of the cruiser. We can't drop this guy without him seeing."

Thinking fast, Mikasa came to the only plausible conclusion.

"We have to give the guys in the back a chance. I'll go for the guy in the car."

Nodding, they both climbed out the passenger side. Annie made for a very casual walk after the cop, while Mikasa used the cover of the dark and the fact that their vehicle was pressed gently against the woods to hit the ground fast and roll into the brush. She watched intently to see if she had been noticed, but as the police cruiser displayed no opening doors, she began to sneak around towards it. As she did, she caught Annie saying something about a sticky handle.

Becoming very quickly parallel with the police car, she crawled towards the passenger side of the police car as she heard the clank of the loading door latch. Knowing she had seconds, she began to rise, moving quickly at the car door… when it very unexpectedly swung open and crashed into her chest, sending her toppling backwards, while knocking the breath out of her. Her head collided with the ground and for a moment she saw lights; she tried desperately to recover as she heard the officer who had opened the door call out,

"Freeze! Don't move!"

As she looked back towards the scene, a number of things occurred in very quick succession; she first realized that the demand had been made at Annie, not her. The officer looked back towards the cruiser and immediately caught sight of her lying on the ground and made a noise of surprise. The one on the passenger side followed his gaze as the door to their transport swung up; Annie wrapped her arm around the distracted officer's neck while kicking out his legs.

By this point, Mikasa could do little more than scramble for her pistol, which she should have had at the ready, as the officer looked at her with frightened eyes and had to move his gun towards her, offering the same warning,

"Freeze! Don't… "

Or, at least he tried to, as a baseball bat, curving with an odd sort of beauty through the black sky, collided with his temple. His threat turned to a surprised and pained grunt; she didn't take her time thanking the benevolence. Despite having little to no breath in her lungs, she vaulted up and caught the officer with a kick to the gut that sent him against the side of the car. Jabbing with a sharp right to keep him off balance, she caught his head and slammed it against the door that had sent her down moments ago.

He collapsed without a word.

As she caught sight of Annie lowering the other unconscious cop to the ground, she allowed herself time to recover; slumping over the hood of the car, she gasped in copious amounts of air back into her compressed lungs, savoring the taste of the brisk night air. While her eyes refocused, she heard a pair of footsteps sprint up to her,

"Are you alright? Where'd you get hit? Is anything broke?"

Before she could respond or even react, Joseph was at her side, looking very much like he wanted to be of assistance, but was unsure of how exactly he could be so. Despite the thick pain in her chest, she found herself amused at his controlled franticness; she laughed, surprising him and herself,

"Yes, I'm fine, thank you."

He kept his voice low, asking again, as he was clearly trying to not make an embarrassing fuss out of it all, but she could still sense his concern and it caused an unknown feeling to rush through her gut.

She also caught sight of Ymir snickering wildly behind them and making an inappropriate gesture or two; the sight of her companion caused her to straighten and march towards the back, leaving Joseph to worriedly dog her footsteps.

"So… exactly what was… "

"Me. It was me."

In an unexpected show of humility, Sasha raised her hand while keeping her eyes on the asphalt. Turning towards her, Mikasa started to ask,

"Was it… ?"

"Yeah, it was. Sorry… "

Regarding her friend with a newfound concern, she muttered,

"It's okay…let's clean this up quick, we have a date to meet."

As they all quietly got to work, she caught a look of Joseph's face, which was wrought with no small amount of confusion; he would likely come to uncover a fair few of the secrets they all kept, she knew.

Now, however, was not the time.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

With one hand on the box of product and the other on the handle of his revolver, Joe stared out towards where the headlights of a very large vehicle had just killed its engine.

After clearing up the mess they had made, they had only been a few miles to the cutoff where they would turn to get to the meetup. The cleanup had taken exceptionally longer than it should have, as he had been scrambling around the woods looking for his bat, which had skipped tremendously after colliding with the officer's skull; he had been close to giving into the exasperated groans of the others, promising they would buy him another if he just got in the damn car, when he had found it. Now they had pulled into the clearing, unloaded, and waited for the other two parties to make their arrivals.

Despite being late, they were still the first ones there; apparently being fashionably late was still very much a thing.

The truck the second party had arrived in was very quiet, despite being noticeably larger than theirs. Doing his best to judge the distance, he had to guess that the truck's headlights had been level with his hairline before it had shut down.

Doors opened and closed and in the darkness several sets of footsteps moved gently towards them. Presently, they were lucky enough to be operating by moonlight; the celestial body was two-thirds full, but still beamed down with a powerful radiance. The clearing, thusly, was very slightly illuminated all around, and would certainly help for keeping a low profile while the transaction was made.

While they were quite capable of seeing a fair bit, Joe still had to wait until the first person was about twenty feet out before he could truly pick out features on those approaching. The first was the young woman he had seen leaving the building several days prior; redhead, very alive expression, and who held herself quite well. Two others accompanied her; a taller man with close cut hair and one with blonde hair tied back. They both held very grim looks on their face, and Joe found himself wishing he could see their eyes better; being able to tell if they were frightened would be very useful.

Pushing only as far as they had to in order to enter the clearing, the three stopped advancing and the redhead, whom Joe remembered as Petra, spoke up,

"Glad we didn't keep you."

Mikasa shrugged gently in the moonlight,

"Not a big deal, few minutes hardly makes a difference."

He noticed she didn't mention that they had only just arrived themselves.

Probably more professional that way.

Petra gestured to the men on her right and left,

"Gunther and Eld. They don't talk much, but they handle themselves fine."

Joe waited for them to make their introductions, but none came. He found himself only slightly disconcerted that they may have already known who he was. The discomfort turned to slight elation after not too long as, in his heart, Dust pointed out,

They've heard of you.

This possibility became truth as the one called Gunther looked at him, asking,

"You're Joseph."

He just managed to bite back the response, "Who wants to know?" as, not only had Gunther just been introduced, but his sentence hadn't been stated as a question either. Joe instead went with his own statement,

"Yeah, that's the rumor."

A blisteringly painful silence bit into the air. Just when he assumed there was nothing else to the exchange, Gunther added,

"You recently put my cousin in the hospital."

Joe tilted his head back; this was certainly something that he had been expecting would become an issue at some point, but he hadn't imagined this would be the time it would have come up. As he tried to will a response forward, he noticed that Sasha had moved slightly back to her right and Mikasa the same to her left to block him off from Gunther, only allowing them to make what he assumed was eye contact.

Hard to tell in the dark.

Whether they thought he needed protection or Gunther needed protection, he felt slightly flattered. Allowing some relaxation to return, he dropped his bat from his shoulder, where the hard end collided with the ground, giving off a harsh clang. Toying with the handle, he returned,

"Missed one payment and dodged two more. That's not something we like to call an honest business practice."

"So you break four of his more essential bones."

"So I tried to change his outlook on the business."

"By putting him in the hospital."

"If you want to put it like that."

There was a slight pause and he was able to note Gunther shifting his balance,

"Well, I don't have some way to put it, that's just the way it is. I was meaning to thank you."

He cleared up Joe's confusion before he even had a chance to ask,

"Kid's an asshole and didn't know what he was doing… he'll live the rest of his life a lot more cautious and not so assuming he'll be able to get away with shit like that."

Still surprised, but much less worried, Joe gave a nod, which he exaggerated to make sure it was seen in the low lighting; he saw it returned thereafter.

Man, put a guy in a cast and get thanked for it? This just keeps getting weirder…

He also realized, much to his discomfort, that he had no idea how truthful Gunther was being.

A fresh series of rustling turned him to the right. As if they had been waiting for a resolution, those who could only have been the Canadian side of the bargain cautiously broke the tree line.

They were all dressed very much the same; dark khakis and black tops and no small amount of firearms. In total, eight entered their newly formed triangle. One, who could have been any of them for all the differences they sported, spoke low and deliberate.

"For all our sakes, we should conduct this quickly."

Mikasa jerked her head and Joe, along with Ymir, Ilse, and Sasha began hauling over cases; after motioning to them, she asked,

"Why? We got some reason to be worried?"

The man turned his head lightly from left to right, which didn't elicit the tone of his following words; he looked like he was waiting for something to happen.

"No, no, it would simply be good to not dally for too long."

No arguments there.

In the next several minutes, Joe watched carefully as someone from the Canadian side, who clearly knew more about the expensive consumables then he did, came forward with some equipment to test a few samples. When he finished with no complaints, Annie and another man from their side moved to exchange payment which was quickly counted. Petra and her two companions looked on as though mediators; they only moved when Annie handed off a case of money to Krista who brought it to them. At last, the cases were closed and lifted, as the deal seemed to have reached a conclusion. The relief and eagerness to beat feet was nearly palpable as the head Canadian turned to offer some form of final statement.

"Well, I can certainly say this went well. I would expect nothing less from Hange's crew though… be sure to ask… "

He stopped talking to stare ahead for several seconds, before crouching and hissing,

"Down!"

The near twenty of them followed suit and Joe turned as they did to get a look at whatever had prompted the sudden movement. Through the trees, a far distance away, were several bobbing lights; while they were not near enough to be of immediate concern, the fact was certain that they were indeed moving their way. Very quickly and quietly, Eld asked collectively,

"Anyone bring any friends they forgot to mention?"

In the dark overgrowth, the following silence was as good an answer as verbal denial; Joe heard one of the Canadians mutter,

"Could be cops, border patrol… or they could just be a couple of campers or fucking kids…"

Mikasa turned to her right,

"Let's find out."

The statement acted simultaneously as an order for Sasha, who slipped into the brush ahead of them, making no more noise than a tree branch caught in a light breeze. For about a minute, everyone remained silent and motionless, allowing their breathing to be as gentle as possible. Joe went down to one knee; if he need to move fast, he didn't want his feet to be asleep. As the minute finished, with the lights bobbing ever the closer, Sasha slid back into their fold. She spoke clearly and calmly, but there was a very apparent undertone of worry,

"It's cops and border patrol both looks like, we only see six lights, but there's at least two dozen of them, maybe more coming, we need to fucking move..."

People started rising to make their getaway and were immediately pulled down by their neighbor; hushed arguments began to escape into the back air and all Joe could think of was the impossibility of them all making it out of there safe and unnoticed. Someone would be seen. He turned to Mikasa to see a face that showed her mind was hard at work; he could tell though, that even she wouldn't be able to pull up a solution fast enough.

Then, with sudden clarity, he knew what had to be done.

Scooting along the ground, he planted himself right next to her; she glanced at him to acknowledge his presence, before continuing to stare out towards the gradually approaching beacons.

"Got any ideas?"

"Yeah, I do… you're gonna need to hold onto this…"

He took the pack off that held his extra ammunition and supplies and placed it by her feet. She gave him a look that told him she was not yet comprehending what he was doing; quickly, he pulled free his Colt and his 1911 to make sure they were both as he had left them, then tapped his bat to make sure it remained in the personalized holster he had made for it over his right shoulder. He turned back to her,

"I'll draw them. Wait for the signal, it'll be pretty obvious, then get everyone the hell out of Dodge."

She made no outward response to his statement, but they were close enough that he could see her eyes; he saw several flashes of emotion. There was realization, anger, and… was that fear? The emotion she centered on regardless, was the anger.

"Joseph, don't you fucking dare… "

With the way the moonlight shone over his shoulder onto her and obscuring his face, he knew she couldn't see the very small, sheepish smile he offered. Perhaps it was better that way.

"See you around."

She snarled something furiously at him as he rose quickly to his feet and moved off to the left to where he would have the most cover with the trees; as he did he felt her hand reach out as if to snatch him back. For a moment, he considered letting it, but before his selfishness got the better of him, he pulled away and took off low and as quiet as he could.

Time seemed to pass with frightening speed; he scoured far around to left of where they had been encamped and in finding a small ledge that he could hold decent cover behind, he scrambled against it. His common sense and anxiety began to creep up, trying to sow seeds of doubt; fortunately, Dust was there to beat them down. He lay out his two sidearms in the moss next to him, and sighed, long and calming. He then slowly twisted, staring from under a large bush to where he knew they would be coming. For only a few moments, it was silent. Then, the rustling of brush gave way to about two dozen shadows creeping forward. A quarter of them in the front held their lights angled forward.

Quietly, he rose to a high crouch, Colt in hand. None of them looking towards him, he pulled back his left hand and pulled the trigger. He waited until they had passed about twenty feet of being perpendicular to him, before closing his eyes and steeling himself for what he had to do. And then, he hesitated.

I could… just get out of here now. No one would see me.

What the fuck are you thinking? Light em up, you wuss.

Dust's bitter and angry growl tore through his thinking. It startled him, but he was immediately thankful, as he straightened. He felt a tremendous surge of rage rise within him and as his eyebrows furrowed, his face contorting into a furious mask, he slammed his palm down on the hammer.