-Sera-
One by one, both stranded and Gears went aboard their respective King Ravens. Delta Squad stuck together while Sam, Anya and Carmine went with Frederick in the other chopper. The stranded mechanic had been adamant to go along with them. Apparently the Onyx Guard had made an impression on him and he wanted to see her again for some odd reason. Marcus didn't bother questioning it since he'd fixed the spare Raven and even tuned up their own.
Marcus and Dom sat on opposite sides while Cole sat on his own since Baird was piloting, and it was probably for a good reason.
"Hey Cole," Baird called from the cockpit, "Don't puke on anyone back there, alright?"
Cole responded by smirking and flipping him the bird.
Baird chuckled to himself as he pulled the stick back, lifting the Raven from the outpost's helipad. Slowly the helicopter rose into the air, followed by the second Raven as they took off from the island. Deciding to play the part of the responsible pilot, Baird grabbed the microphone and spoke.
"Welcome aboard passengers to Air Baird. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicles at all times and pray that we don't have to deal with any glowies today as we journey back to the snow-covered hellhole that is Mount Kadar. May we have a wonderful flight, and do shoot anything that tries to kill us." He said, and made sure that his broadcasting channel reached the other helicopter as well. If he could see it, Sam pinched the bridge of her nose.
The stranded and their fellow Gears were watching and waving goodbye as they bid the heroes good luck on their rescue mission. Dom looked down to the farewell masses and whistled.
"Damn, I feel like I'm a rookie all over again," He said. Dom noticed Sam also staring down while Carmine had leaned back to take a nap. Frederick was their pilot, hidden inside the cockpit of his Raven. The wind roared in their ears as they passed over the seas to the mountains that lay many miles away. Marcus didn't bother waving back to the stranded and gears below him. He knew that they'd return with the Onyx Guard with them, safe and sound. He decided to do some equipment check to pass some time.
"Anya, can you read me?" Marcus said through the tac-com.
"Loud and clear, Marcus!" The sergeant saw Anya waving at him from the other Raven.
"Lookin' good, Cole." Carmine said from his end, waking up to give a thumbs up to the former thrashball star. "You got any paper bags on you?"
"Toss me your helmet Carmine. It'll make my tummy feel better," Cole said back.
"Nah, I'm good."
"Marcus," He heard Dom call his name, "What do you think we'll find when we reach Kadar?"
"My guess? More locust stuff going on. Though what the stranded guy said is true, then we're going to be dealing with more than just a couple grubs." Marcus said. The things that Brendan said were unsettling to say the least. Marcus could tell when someone was lying and Brendan was earnest of what he saw down there in the mountains. If it came to it, they'd deal with whatever snatched the Onyx Guard.
Marcus felt like he was going on both a rescue mission and an investigation. Giant portals buried underneath the earth. Massive human hands snatching people. Locust armies disappearing from Sera, nowhere to be found again. He had a feeling that this was all connected to something. He looked at the geobot that was in Cole's hands, the same one that called him by his father's name.
"Next stop, Mount Kadar!"
-Paradise-
"RUN!"
The corpser roared, thundering after the three trainees and the Onyx Guard. Its massive legs rocked the earth behind them as it gave chase. Eren and Jean were side by side in the front while Ashley and Connie were behind them. Ashley kept up her roadie run while Connie was struggling to get some distance between him and the giant monster chasing them.
"Ashley! It's getting closer!" Connie screamed, looking back to see the corpser slowly catching up to them. With four times the legs that they had it was easy for it to gain some speed. Connie nearly fumbled over his own feet when one of the corpser's legs crashed behind him, but Ashley was there to grab his arm and keep him running.
"Whatever you do, don't look back!" She yelled. Jean and Eren didn't need to respond as they finally reached the safety of the forest. Ashley and Connie were still running.
"C'mon Ashley!" Jean said.
"Jump! It's right behind you!" Eren said as well.
Ashley shoved Connie into the treeline and evaded just in time as the corpser had decided to try and impale her with one of its legs. The massive trees blocked the equally massive corpser from coming in, barricading it outside. With its prey out of reach, the Hollow monster bellowed another roar, turned around and stalked off, leaving the four of them alone.
"What the hell was that thing?" Connie said, shaking in fear.
"A corpser," Ashley said with a grave tone, "Underground predator, legs strong enough to punch through solid rock. To see them here, in this world..."
"And you know that, how?" Jean asked.
"Because that's Ashley's true enemy." Everyone turned to see Eren speak up, "Am I right? Reiner said that one day they'd come back for you."
"Wait a second! You fight monsters?!" Connie screeched. "Like, actual monsters?"
"Yeah, yeah you're right," Ashley said, "They're here, but that doesn't mean that we're done for. If that corpser means anything then there's gotta be more lurking around. Find as many friends as you can. Use your ODM gear to get to the top of the treeline and stay there until I'm done. It's the safest place here," Ashley turned around and began to walk away, leaving the three stunned trainees behind her. While Jean and Connie were willing to go along with the Onyx Guard's plan, Eren was not, evident by his frustrated face.
"Now wait a minute!" Eren said, stomping up to the Onyx Guard, "Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"The training grounds! There are still other cadets there!" She replied.
"Then I'm going with you!" Eren said, firing his ODM gear in front of Ashley. The Onyx Guard stopped dead as Eren put himself in her path.
"Eren, listen to me. Do not follow me. Stay here." She ordered and tried to start running but Eren got in her way again.
"What, am I not strong enough?" Eren demanded. To him, Ashley telling them to just run away and hide was insulting. They had trained their damnest to fight the monsters that threatened humanity, no matter what world they might be from. And now she was just going to let that training go to waste. "We train our asses off with you and now you tell us we have to hide?"
"Dammit Eren, listen to me!" Ashley was reaching the end of her patience. But Eren stood strong.
"No, you listen to ME! Mikasa and Armin are still out there! I'll be damned if I let them be eaten by some monster," Eren plunged his grips into his ODM gear and equipped a pair of ultrahard steel blades, "so I'm going with you whether you like it or not!"
"Eren, this is not about whether or not you're strong enough!"
"Then what is it! TELL ME!" Eren yelled at her, and Ashley finally had enough.
"You're not ready! YOU'RE NOT READY TO FACE THE LOCUST!" She yelled back, stunning Eren and the two other trainees. She'd just given a name for her enemy. Silence reigned as the three of them took in what Ashley said.
"Is that what they're called? Locust?" Eren asked. Ashley gave a hefty sigh before talking.
"Yes, the enemy of my people. The Locust. The reason why I'm the last of my kind, and why my world is in ruin. Why I'm even here in the first place." From the sound of things, the Locust were a big deal for her, and hearing the somber tone of her voice only strengthened her story. Ashley spoke directly to Eren this time, "That doesn't matter now. What matters is how we're going to stop it. A single corpser can take a out a small army of people like me. Here it's pretty much invincible. The only way we're going to be able to stop that thing is to improvise. Are there any sort of explosives in the vicinity? I know your ODM gears run on gas, is it flammable?"
"I don't know. Armin would though. He's the smartest out of all of us, no offense Ashley." Connie responded.
Armin...
"Holy shit, Armin." Ashley gasped. She'd completely forgot.
"What? What's wrong with Armin?" Eren said, sounding startled.
"He's back at the training grounds with Annie! He's out in the open!" Ashley said, and Eren felt his eyes growing wide with horror. The four of them had just barely escaped the corpser thanks to being near the forest. The training grounds however only had small buildings, which would be like matchwood to a corpser. Eren could only imagine what would happen if Armin was caught by the corpser...
"He's a dead man," Jean mumbled. There was no way Armin would stand a chance against something like that.
"Don't you dare say that Jean!" Eren said to him.
"What, you think Armin of all people could survive against that... that corpser thing? No way in hell!"
"He's not dead," Ashley said, readying her lancer, "Nobody's dying on my watch. C'mon Eren, let's save our friend."
"Right!"
"And Connie? Jean? Mind doing another job for me?" Ashley asked.
"Um, sure, what is it?"
KRA-THOOM!
"Holy shit, it's back!" Connie screamed as the corpser burst from the ground in a shower of mulched dirt. The mighty creature unleashed another hellish roar as it loomed over the three teens and the Onyx Guard.
"Ashley, about that job you asked? It wouldn't happen to involve that thing, would it?" Jean asked, his voice trembling in fear.
"Congrats Jean, you guessed right. You two distract it while Eren and I rescue Armin and Annie. Sound like a plan?" Ashley said as the corpser neared their location.
"Distract it?! How?!"
"Like I said," Ashley said as she and Eren both ran and flew to the training grounds ahead, "Improvise!"
"Oh, that's real helpful Ashley! Really solid advise! How about I just ask the damn thing if it likes me cooked or raw!" Jean said, turning to deal with the forty-foot tall monster in front of him. He readied a fresh pair of blades from his box compartments, praying that he wouldn't need to use them. "This just totally sucks."
"So, you up to piss off a monster?" Connie said, also armed with swords ready.
Jean grit his teeth as the corpser gave another roar and swung its legs.
...
Armin knew that there was trouble when he started to hear roaring coming from the forest. And before he knew it, trouble had arrived. It had taken the form of small, meter-tall creatures that looked like a horrid hybrid of a monkey and a dog. They attacked with razor sharp claws and wicked teeth, and while they were small in stature there were plenty of them around, at least several dozen or so surrounding Armin and Annie. Annie and Armin were standing opposite of each other in the training ring with a ring of monsters around them.
Whatever these creatures were had come up from below the ground, emerging from a gaping hole not too far away from them. Both teens had been so surprised by what happened that they were caught off guard by the monsters that crawled out., lumbering on all four limbs like apes. Now they could do nothing but keep them at bay and wait for help, if help ever came. So far none of the soldiers that were positioned here had come around to save them and Armin feared the worst.
Annie swung her dual swords, slicing off another one of the monster's heads. Another attempted to get the jump on her but a solid kick to the head snapped its neck and killed it. No matter how many they killed it didn't seem to make a dent in the horde.
"I don't know where these things came from, but something tells me that Ashley knows," Annie said, cutting off another head, "This just irks me."
"M-Maybe!" Armin replied, kicking a monster away back towards its friends. "They might be ferocious, but they're built like glass!"
He theorized that their main strategy was to overwhelm their prey with sheer numbers. He too was slicing them up, but not as aggressive as Annie was. He was keeping his distance from the encroaching horde of small creatures, only putting his blades to use when one of them decided to try and get its claws on him. It seemed to be working so far, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before they were swarmed. Without any large structures their ODM gear couldn't propel them to safety.
Armin slashed his sword at one of them, but another had used its fallen member's corpse as a ladder to launch itself at Armin. The boy had no time to react as the monster used its hand to lacerate Armin, leaving four long gashes on his chest as the lad cried out in pain. Suddenly one had become six and now he was at the mercy of the horde, his arms and legs pinned beneath their collective weight. Annie wasn't faring much better as one of the monsters had chomped on her calf and caused her to drop her swords. Armin could only watch as the slobbering mouths of the monsters filled his vision, each one of them hungry for his flesh.
"Armin!" Annie yelled, seeing the boy being taken down, but she could do nothing but try to stay alive.
"N-no! Someone!" He cried out, hoping that someone would hear him.
Brakka brakka brakka!
The sound of thunderclaps caught both human and monster attention as Armin saw the horde being blasted by something. The monsters on top of him were gunned down before they could chomp on him. Some had been dropped instantly while others howled in rage and charged at whatever was shooting them.
"Hang on Armin!" He recognized that voice anywhere!
"Eren!" Thank god! His friend had come to save him! Now that the horde's attention was directed somewhere else he could freely move and saw that Eren had not come alone. Ashley was there as well, mercilessly slaughtering the horde with her fire-spewing rifle. Every shot hit a target, and one by one the monsters fell by her hand. That rifle of hers was tearing through them like a tornado of bullets.
"Armin, are you alright?" Eren asked, giving his friend a hand.
"Y-yeah I'm good," Armin replied, happy to have his friend save him.
Armin and Eren turned their vision to the sounds of gunshots and witnessed Ashley in action. The Onyx Guard was merciless. Ashley stood her ground against them, seemingly untouchable against the incoming horde. Every once in a while a monster would break the ranks and get lunge at her, but Ashley would always knock it aside with her rifle, either to the side or back where it was and blast it. With one more burst of bullets the last monster fell dead at her feet. The barrel of her rifle was smoking hot by the time she'd killed them all.
"She's good." Both boys saw that Annie had joined them, leaning on her good leg.
"Annie, you're alive." Armin breathed a sigh of relief.
"Damn wretches," Ashley mumbled, kicking one of the corpses away from her as she reloaded her gun, "Always hated them. You guys okay?"
"A little worse for wear, but we'll live," Armin said to her, noticing that Ashley was focused on the four scratch marks on his chest. "Oh, one of them got me."
"You should count yourselves lucky," Ashley said, "Wretches don't usually play with their food like that unless the horde's big enough. And it looks like you've gotten your first Locust kills, Armin and Annie. Good on you." She saw that there were wretch corpses at the training ring with broken, cut bodies, ones that she hadn't killed when she got here.
"Wait. Locust?" Annie asked. "What the hell are these things anyway?"
"That's what they're called, the Locust." Eren said to her, "They're the real enemies of Ashley." Both Armin and Annie were surprised to hear the title of Ashley's long enigmatic enemy. Armin had known that there might be a chance that the now revealed Locust would come back for her. Now it was coming true.
"And for your question Annie, these are wretches. The Locust use them as swarm fodder." Ashley picked up one of the wretch bodies and shook it before tossing it behind her, "There's gotta be an e-hole around. This just keeps getting better and better."
"So you're a monster hunter, Ashley?" Annie said, "It doesn't surprise me. Ow."
"You alright?" Ashley stepped forward.
"One of them chomped on my leg. It doesn't hurt that much, it's just a pain to walk with a limp." She pointed down to her calf where Ashley saw red teeth marks behind torn clothing.
"Good," Ashley nodded and turned to Armin for the real reason she was here, "Armin, are the gases used for the ODM gear explosive?"
"W-what?" He sputtered. The last thing he'd hear from nearly being mauled to death was asking whether his gear's fuel could be explosive. "Um, I think so?"
"Do you know so? It's very important." Ashley pressed on. Armin gave it some thought.
"Well, there was that one time where we were testing out our gear in class," Armin said, digging into his memory. He found his answer, "No, I don't think so. I think it's flammable but doesn't yield anything like a bomb. Why?"
"Dammit. Eren and I, um, ran into something in the forest. We need to kill it." Ashley answered. By the sounds of things it seemed like Ashley and Eren had ran into something very, very bad. Especially if the Onyx Guard was coming to you for help.
"More of those things?" Annie pointed her sword to a dead wretch.
"No, much bigger. I think Ashley called it a corpser." Eren said. Annie blinked.
"A what."
"Think of a spider. Now make it as big as a titan."
"Oh. That's not good."
"Not good indeed," Ashley said, heading towards the supply building where the muskets and ODM gears were stored with the three teens behind her, "Well if we can't use the gas then we're shit out of luck. Nothing I have can penetrate the corpser's skin, and your swords aren't designed to cut through armor. So that means we're gonna try a different plan. Unless there's something else in this place that can kill a corpser." Ashley rummaged through some boxes, revealing nothing of use for her. Food, water, bullets, but nothing that could harm a corpser. Eren was doing the same, Armin beside him while Annie was watching the door. While the wretches might all be dead, she kept an eye out for anything else.
"Hey Ashley," Armin called out, "would this work?"
"What?" Ashley made her way over to Armin were there were canisters stacked tightly together in a box. Ashley reached in a pulled out one of them, a metal bottle with wrapping around the body. Another thing caught her eye. One word.
"Gunpowder." She said, "This is perfect! Armin, Eren, grab as many of the bottles as you can. And some rope too. Time to make a bomb."
"We're gonna blow it up?" Eren asked, "Are you sure this will kill it?"
"No, but it could give us a chance." Ashley replied.
"And just how are we gonna do this anyway without getting killed?" Annie said.
"Look, the biggest weakness that the corpser has is its mouth, its pretty much the only soft spot its got. All we gotta do is try to fling this stuff in and nail a shot, and boom. Down goes the spider." Ashley responded, grabbing the rope that Armin had, "Eren, help me with this thing. Armin, grab some more bottles and work with Annie to make another. We can't rely on a single bomb. Corpsers don't fall for the same trick twice."
"Why do they have this stuff here anyway? This type of gunpowder is used for cannons." Armin said, taking a close look at a bottle of the stuff.
"Probably for your muskets, which you lost." Ashley said, finishing her makeshift bomb. It was designed like a bolo grenade, but much bigger. There was no fuse so she would have to rely on making a clean shot with her lancer to make it explode. Armin and Annie finished theirs soon after.
"Good," Ashley nodded, "Now let's get the others out of the forest and-" Ashley stopped. The three teens wondered why.
"Ashley?"
"Listen." She said, and pointed outside from where they could all hear voices. They were deep and guttural, definitely not human.
"What is that?"
Ashley put a finger up to where her mouth lay behind her helmet to shut them up as she peeked through the door as quietly as possible. What she saw shocked her. A squadron of locust troops stood, five of them drones and a grenadier. One of them, a drone, pointed to the building next to them and barked something. The shotgun-toting locust snorted and lead them in as he kicked open the door to the cafeteria. And that was where the screaming started, and the shooting.
"NO! Please, don't!"
"Stop! STOP!"
"No, NO NO N-AAAAUUUUGH!"
"Ashley!" She looked back and saw their faces had gone white. Armin looked like he was about to start crying and Eren was shaking in his boots. A bead of sweat was going down Annie's face as they heard the horrifying sounds of gunshots and mortal wailing. "What's going on?"
"Locust soldiers. They're hunting down and killing anyone they can find," Ashley responded, "It doesn't make sense. Locust don't sweep an area building by building."
"SPREAD OUT!" The locust emerged from the cafeteria, covered in blood spatters. This time the three teens joined Ashley in watching what her foes were doing. One of them was carrying a human head with the spine still dangling from the nape.
"Oh god, that's Archie!" Armin gasped, covering his mouth. "They - they killed him!"
"Bastards!" Eren seethed, ready to jump out and rip the Locust apart with his swords.
"Wait," Ashley held Eren back with her hand, "Don't be stupid Eren, those Locust would cut you down before you'd blink."
"Find her!" The grenadier said, using his finger to direct the other troops around the area, "She must be here somewhere! The Onyx Guard is close!"
Silence. The three trainees looked down to the Onyx Guard, her face hidden behind her helmet. But they could see it. She'd become tense, gripping the doorframe with a clenching hand.
"Ashley, they're," Armin said, "they're hunting you."
"I know. That's what scares me."
They could feel the emotion in Ashley's voice. The soldier was living out a horrifying dilemma. Not only was she being hunted by an enemy that she only speculated would be here, there were innocent lives being taken by the Locust currently hunting her down. She had thought that tickers and maybe some other Hollow beasts crossed over along with her, not a kill squad out for her blood. One that had already caused undeserved deaths. She had to do something.
But there was something else on her mind. Why were they hunting her? She was just one Onyx Guard, she wasn't anyone spectacular. Why would the Locust hunt down a COG soldier like her in the middle of the day at a training camp for foreign soldiers with a strike squad and a corpser of all things? There had to be a reason for it. It just didn't make any sense. Unless...
Could he still be alive? No, that's impossible.
"Listen," She said, and the three teens got close, "The three of you stay here. No not come out until I've ordered you. Once we do we get out and call for help. Then we deal with the corpser. I'll take care of the locust."
"Wait, what are you going to do?" Eren said, though he had a good guess.
"I'm going to kill them." Ashley replied with a voice as hard as steel. "And get some answers out of them too."
"Ashley?" Eren said, and the Onyx Guard looked back to see his worried face, "Don't you die out there."
"I won't. I promise."
And then she kicked the door open and started shooting.
...
"C'mon big boy, I'm right over here!" Jean said, getting the corpser's attention. Again it tried to crush the little human that dared to taunt it, but once more thanks to the ODM gear the corpser missed. The impact punched right through a tree and knocked it down. The corpser kept on marching, not once stopping in its quest to turn them into smear marks on its legs.
"Think we're deep enough in the forest?" Connie shouted, avoiding a slow leg strike, "There's no way this thing will find the campsite from here! Even I don't think I could find my way back!"
"Alright, we're done here! Let's find the others!" Ashley really owes me for this one! Jean pointed his ODM hook at a treeline above the corpser and flew over it with a burst of his gas emitters. Connie flung himself behind the corpser as it turned around to try and catch them, but with the speed that they were going it was impossible for such a creature to gain ground this deep in the forest. The corpser's legs were simply too big. It roared in frustration as Jean laughed in victory, sailing through the forest with ease.
"Ha ha ha! Eat my dust you ugly freak!"
"Serves it right!" Connie shouted, using more of his gas to get a greater distance between him and the monster. "Whew, now that was intense."
"Yeah, no kidding," Jean said as he flew beside him, "Makes me wonder how Ashley dealt with these monsters with only a fancy rifle."
"Eh, she's probably got some tricks up her sleeve. She's mysterious that way."
"Jean! Connie!" A voice cried out from the treetops, "Over here!"
They followed the voice's trail and saw someone waving at them up high in the canopy of a patch of trees. There were also titan dummies surrounding it, but no security troops around, which worried them. The two also spied more of their fellow cadets standing around in the canopy as well, many of them they recognized as they got closer.
"Krista! It's Krista!" Jean said with glee, launching himself over to the group and landing on the same tree branch. "Good to see you're all in one piece."
"Connie!" Sasha ran over to her friend and gave him a hug, "Oh, I was so scared! I couldn't find you!"
"Y-Yeah, don't worry, I was scared too!" Connie said, choking out his words. "Sasha, I can't breathe!"
"Is this everyone?" Jean asked, looking over the group and seeing plenty of familiar faces. But this was nowhere near the size of the 104th. There were about two dozen or so trainees here and the class numbered in the hundreds. Jean didn't want to assume the worst but with what's been going on, he couldn't help it. Who knows what else might have followed Ashley here.
"A lot of us fled to the lake nearby when we started to hear roaring coming from the forest. We were already training so we camped up here and waited for someone to come get us." Reiner said, grimacing as he did. Inwardly, Jean was relieved that they were still alive. "It was stupid of us to do that. We're all low on gas, and if someone doesn't come with supplies then we're gonna have to walk back."
"NO!" Connie shouted, startling everyone with how quick and loud it was, "No, you can't do that!"
"Why? Was it something in the forest?" Reiner asked.
"It was that roaring earlier! It was so scary!"
"It sounded like a bear!"
"No way man, bears don't sound like that!"
"Do you think it was a titan?"
"Jean, do you know what that roaring was?" Marco asked. Jean turned to Connie, fear in his eyes. They said; should I tell them?
Connie nodded. Yes.
Jean took a deep breath. Of course he would have to break in the bad news.
"Y'know how Ashley's not from around here, right?" The others nodded, some already knowing what was about to happen, "Well, one of the monsters that tried to kill her back on her world found its way here, and now it's hunting us down presumably to try and kill us. She called it a corpser." Jean said, witnessing the shocked reactions of his friends. Some of them had their mouths open. Whatever Jean was talking about sounded utterly horrifying. Even the name sent chills up their spine. Corpser. Like it was going to turn you into one.
"So that's what the roaring was? This corpser thing?" Ymir asked. "Sounds like a load of bull."
"It's not a load of bull since me and Connie were nearly impaled and eaten by the damn thing!" Jean angrily said back, addressing the crowd again. "Ashley told us to lure it away from the campsite while she went to try and find a way to kill it."
"And you thought bringing it to the training grounds in the forest was a smart idea." Ymir said back with a dull voice while crossing her arms. Everything was sounding like some made-up fantasy.
"Yeah, but we totally baited the damn thing and tricked it into going deeper into the forest." Connie said, "By the time it comes back Ashley will be more than ready to put it down."
"You sound so confident Springer, I'm surprised you didn't get lost as well," Ymir taunted, making Connie puff his cheeks in frustration. Steam billowed out his ears and Ymir smirked, "By the way if you've seen this corpser thing, what does it even look like?"
"Like an enormous spider with a dozen legs and a mouth that would make a titan piss itself." Jean replied. He noticed Krista staring off into the distance, eyes as wide as dinner plates, "Krista?"
"U-Um, y-you mean that thing?" Krista pointed towards the ground, where everyone could see something emerge from beyond their line of sight. And there it was, the corpser, hunting below. From the first moment it showed itself, they knew it was huge, and had many, many legs, just like what Jean had described just now. They could feel the impact the legs made, like the sounds of thudding war drums. Some of the trainees let out gasps of fright and backed up to the tree trunk. They may be soldiers training to defend humanity against the titan scourge, but this was something else. Titans were one thing. This corpser was far more horrifying.
Reiner couldn't believe what he was seeing, his mouth open like a gaping fish. Bertoldt trembled where he stood. Even Ymir, stone cold Ymir, was stunned. She'd thought Jean and Connie were making this up, but they were telling the truth. She instinctively grabbed Krista, keeping the smaller and far more frightened girl close to her. And then she realized something else.
"Didn't you idiots say that you lured that thing away?" She hissed at them, making sure to keep herself quest lest this corpser below heard her.
"We did! It must have tracked down our scent or something." Connie mumbled.
"Well," Reiner ran a hand through his hair, "what do we do now?"
...
"All clear!" Ashley shouted as the last locust corpse dropped in front of her. The three trainees anxiously exited the storage shed, holding the bombs close.
"Is that all of them?" Armin asked, looking around in case any more locust decided to try and kill them.
"No," Ashley said, "There's always more of them around. Keep close." Ashley moved forward, staying near the buildings for cover. She neared one of the locust corpses and began to loot the body, rummaging through the armor for anything she could find.
"Ashley? What are you doing?" Eren asked, and was surprised when Ashley grabbed a locust rifle and inspected it.
"A hammerburst one? What the hell? The locust haven't used these things in years." Ashley said, looking over the bulky weapon. The mark one hammerburst, or simply called a "hammerburst one", was one of the first locust weaponry encountered. It had a six-round burst and amazing stopping power. It was phased out many years ago by the mark two hammerburst, which was able to fire semi-auto or two to three-round bursts. Ashley herself hadn't seen a hammerburst like this in a very long time, which only made her wonder just how long the Locust had been here if these weapons were still being used by them.
"What is that, a locust gun?" Armin said, kneeling down to get a closer look at the weapon in Ashley's hand.
"Yeah. A hammerburst. Burst fire." Ashley said, and then proceeded to hand it over to the blonde next to her. "Here. It's yours now."
"M-Me? I-I can't use this!" Armin stammered. The gun in his hands felt heavy and far too big for him.
"Why not?" Ashley said, and already knew Armin's answer.
"I don't know how!" Armin had only used the muskets that Ashley had somehow gotten a hold of. This was something totally new.
As she gave it some thought, Ashley realized that it was pretty dumb of her to start giving kids foreign guns. She'd said it before. They weren't toys. And these things were definitely more lethal than some flintlock muskets. But with the situation at hand, arming the trainees was the most surefire way that they'd survive. She'd just confiscate the weapons when they were done.
"Here, I'll show you how. A crash course on reloading weapons of my world." Ashley said, handling the hammerburst with Armin. "This is the trigger, like a musket. Squeeze it to fire a burst. See this," Ashley gave a pat to a long, curved rectangular piece of metal below the gun, "This is the clip. It holds the ammo for the hammerburst. When you run out of ammo, yank the clip out and put a new one in. If you time the reloading right, you can get active rounds, which increases fire rate and damage output."
She handed the hammerburst back to Armin, who was now holding it with one hand on the trigger and the other on the grip.
"Think you can handle it?"
"I'll try." Armin said, with slight trepidation.
"Alright. Eren, where's the guard tower? We gotta let people know what's going on here."
Eren pointed to the northwest, "Over there. See it on the ridge?"
"Yeah. I'll be right back. Gather whatever you want from the corpses, the locust aren't going to be using them anytime soon. Oh, and see if there were any survivors in the mess hall," Ashley said as she ran towards the small wooden tower. Up the dirt hill she spotted animal tracks leading to the guard tower and the familiar smell of blood. Upon arriving she was greeted by the grisly sight of half a dozen wretches feasting on the remains of the guards, who had been most likely swarmed. The moment Ashley arrived the wretches hissed and scurried off, leaving their feast.
"Great." Ashley mumbled as she made her way over the corpses to see if there was anything she could use to call for help. What wasn't covered in gore was utterly useless. Papers and a broken musket. Yet when she turned the body over, she saw something in the hand of the corpse. It looked like a gun, but it was small and had a wide barrel. There was also an open box with multicolored cartridges inside. Ashley put two and two together and found that this was a flare gun.
"This should be useful," She said as she stepped out, loaded a red cartridge into the flare gun and fired into the sky. She prayed that someone would see it and alert the local military.
Who knows how many locust are still hiding around.
She made her way back to the main area and saw that the three of them had entered the cafeteria. The locust corpses were untouched, meaning that they went to check for survivors first. A smart move on their part. Ashley pushed the doors open to the cafeteria, seeing Eren, Armin and Annie standing frozen still. It didn't take long for Ashley to realize why.
If the guardhouse was a mess, then the cafeteria was a bloodbath. The unfortunate cadets, the ones that weren't training, had been slaughtered without a hint of mercy. Each one had meet a horrific fate. Some had been blown to chunky bits while others were missing their heads, legs, even their arms. The stench of death filled the air, along with the sounds of dripping blood and the occasional fly.
"Oh my god," Armin whispered, covering his mouth in shock. Annie looked like she was about to lose her lunch.
Eren said nothing. The only thing he could do was survey the massacre. A deep chill traveled through his body as he mentally absorbed what he was seeing.
"Just like Halvo Bay." Ashley muttered. Eren noticed the Onyx Guard had walked up behind them.
"Ashley," he said very, very quietly, "is this what the locust did to you?"
"Yes." She replied, "They did. For a very long time, Eren."
He noticed that Ashley wasn't as affected as the they were. It was like she had seen something like this many times before, which was evident by what she said as well. It was to his growing horror that she must have seen this happen so many times that she had become numb to the gore. Just how long had she been fighting?
"What should we do?" Armin asked. Leaving this scene alone after what the locust did felt so wrong. There had to be something they could do.
"Nothing." Ashley said, stunning them, "Right now we can't do anything for them."
"So we just leave them?" Eren asked, horrified at what Ashley was saying. He'd thought that she had some sort of ceremony for burying the dead, but apparently she wasn't that sort of soldier.
"Right now we've got other problems. We can't afford to waste any time." Ashley said, and noticed their faces, etched with shock, "We'll come back for them, only after we deal with the locust."
"Did you ever get to bury your dead, Ashley?" Annie asked.
"Annie, what the hell?" Armin hissed, shocked by her insensitive question.
"Not as often as we should have. Most of the time it's like that," Ashley pointed to the gory scene before them with her lancer, "too many body parts. Don't know whose limbs belongs to which corpse. Too many friends lost, and now trainees who put their trust in me." Ashley finished. The three of them knew what the Onyx Guard was going at but nobody wanted to say anything now. It wouldn't be the best time for them to start talking.
"C'mon, let's go. Hopefully that flare gun alerted someone," Ashley said, walking out of the cafeteria. There was a moment before Armin, Annie and Eren followed her, the brunette giving one last look to the slaughter. He had a very bad feeling that this wouldn't be the last time he would see something like that.
"So now what?" Annie asked, "We've got the bombs. Let's find the corpser and kill it."
"Not yet. First we check for survivors in the camp. Then we deal with the corpser." Ashley said back. "Armin, Annie, go see if there's anyone in the classrooms and the dorms. Eren, you're with me."
Armin and Annie ran as fast as they could to the other side of camp while Eren and the Onyx Guard walked over to the Locust corpses.
"Looks like Armin forgot his hammerburst," Ashley mumbled, seeing the weapon placed upright next to a pole.
"What are we doing with the dead locust?" Eren asked.
"Aren't you wondering why they sent a strike squad and a fucking corpser to try and kill me?" Ashley said back, making Eren pause. "It's outrageous. I'm one Onyx Guard. I'm not that important or powerful, and I'm pretty sure you send a corpser to kill armies, not one woman."
"Maybe they think you're that dangerous." Eren reasoned. "You know how to kill them."
"Anyone can kill locust, Eren. Even you." Ashley said to him, surprising the trainee. "Now come on, loot that grenadier. He seemed to be their leader."
As he knelt down to get closer to the corpse, Eren realized just how inhuman the locust looked. They were covered in dark gray scales rather than tan flesh, and their teeth were exposed. He also noticed the eyes. Reddish-orange, like fire. Eren swallowed the lump forming in his throat and started digging through the many packs on the grenadier's belt. He pulled out ammo, some tools, a tooth of some sort of animal. When he reached into the last pocket he felt a piece of fabric, like paper. He pulled it out and saw that there was writing on it from a language he had never seen before.
"Ashley, I found something." Eren said, holding up the piece of paper. Ashley walked over and Eren handed it to her, the Onyx Guard quickly noticing that whoever had written this had done so in a particular way. There was writing on the top and several rows of sentences below it, each one spaced out from each other.
"Can you read it?"
"Kind of," Ashley said, looking closer at the lettering, "It's some sort of list, like instructions."
"Instructions to what?"
The sound of gargling laughter caught their attention. The locust grenadier, the one that Eren had looted, and the same that Ashley had sworn was dead, was laughing. Blood seeped through his teeth as he continued to chuckle, despite dying on the ground. Ashley quickly made her way to the locust and aimed her lancer at his head.
"Ashley..." Eren whispered.
"This will only take a second Eren," She said to him, still focused on the locust, "Tell me grub, what are you doing here? And what does this list mean?"
The grenadier slowly turned his eyes to the Onyx Guard. He let out one more mirthful laugh before talking.
"You'll find out soon..."
The locust slowly raised his arm up, and Ashley saw a pair of grenades in its palm. And then they started beeping.
"GET DOWN!" Ashley screamed as she tackled Eren to the ground, protecting him as the grenades detonated, taking the laughing locust with it. As the dust settled, all that remained of the locust was a charred skeleton and scorched flesh.
"What was that all about?"
Ashley gave Eren a hand to lift him up, "Guess he didn't feel like talking."
"You two alright?!" Armin came running up with Annie behind him, "We heard an explosion!"
"We're fine," Ashley said, "You guys find anyone?"
"We found-"
"EREN!"
Mikasa launched herself at Eren with a mighty hug. She was so happy that he was alive and well. The same was for Eren, who gleefully hugged her back, surprising since he didn't decide to push her away. He must have been more affected by the dead in the mess hall than what they had expected. There were other trainees too, some of them looking at the dead bodies of the locust behind Ashley.
"You're alive," She whispered, "You're alive."
"Yeah I am, could you let go? You're crushing me."
"Oh. My bad."
"Is this everyone?" Ashley counted at least a dozen heads, including Mikasa. Some of them were shaken. Others were looking around, wondering what exactly was going on. It was good to see that there were some still alive, and she wondered just how Jean and the others were doing in the forest. Hopefully they were alright.
...
"Should we try to run?" Krista whispered, peering down to the corpser below.
"And risk getting crushed? No thanks." Connie said back.
The rest of the trainees were not alright, stuck in the forest while camped up in the canopy, making sure to stay out of sight from the corpser. Speaking of the monster, it was patrolling below, trying to catch the scent and sight of the little humans that had fled from it. It knew that they was close, but where? Where were the humans?
Thankfully, it had not made the decision to look up.
"Then tell us, oh wise man of the forest. Tell us what to do." Ymir said, clearly annoyed with the situation.
"Well how about you think of something, then!" Connie said back, fed up with Ymir's attitude.
"Guys!" Reiner hissed, but it went unheard. The rest of the trainees could only watch in horror as the yelling escalated, and in a fit of fury Ymir pushed Connie against the trunk of the tree. The impact jarred his ODM gear and a single sword fell to the ground below. It was dead quiet as the sword embedded itself in the ground, right in front of the corpser, which leaned down to take a whiff. The behemoth spider bared its teeth and finally looked up, seeing the silhouettes of small humans above.
"Oh man," Jean groaned as the corpser bellowed another roar and smashed its legs against the old tree. Wood cracked under the power of the corpser, and the trainees hung for dear life. Some were not so fortunate, falling to the ground below but able to activate their ODM in time and launch themselves back up the tree and away from the corpser's range.
This time it was ready. The corpser's legs snagged wiring and yanked, bringing an unfortunate cadet to her death as she collided with the ground at breakneck speed.
"Oh god! It, it fucking knows how to counter our ODM gear!" One trainee cried out in horror, tears running down his face. "We're screwed!"
"Jean, what do we do?!" Marco yelled, bracing as the corpser smashed the tree again, causing it to tilt. "We can't stay here!"
"We run!" Jean said.
"Are you crazy! That thing will kill us!"
"Not if we all go at once!" Jean said back, realizing that the only way to escape the corpser was to run as fast as they could to the camp. Ashley better have something to put this thing down!
"Jean, are we really doing this?!"
"Better than getting killed by that thing!" Jean said, preparing himself to run the moment the tree would fall. "Everyone, get ready!"
"Oh god, oh god. I don't wanna die..." Krista mumbled, unable to keep her eyes off the corpser.
"Krista, babe. Look at me." Ymir grabbed Krista's shoulders, forcing the blonde to divert her attention, "You stay in front of me. Don't get out of my sight and we'll live, okay?"
"Okay."
The corpser slammed its legs against the tree again, this time the sound of splintering wood filled the air as the tree began to collapse. The corpser pushed it towards collapse, eager to start killing. All of the trainees were piss-scared at the monster that so eagerly wished them all painful deaths, but now wasn't the time to be scared. They knew that this corpser was just a taste of what was to come. The titans were still out there, their enemy awaiting them. Everyone knew this. Jean too. This would mark their first real world experience, to see who had what it takes to be a real soldier.
"GO!" Jean yelled as loud as he could, just time for the tree to smash on the ground with a colossal thud. The trainees took off like missiles to the camp site, leaving the corpser in the dust. The enraged Hollow beast gave chase, crushing trees in its wake. Jean didn't once look back. He knew what was behind him.
I hope you're there Ashley! We need you more than ever!
...
"ASHLEY!"
The Onyx Guard spotted trainees running from out of the forest. Their terrified faces was all Ashley needed to know what was going on. She spotted Jean leap from the darkness of the forest, followed by the corpser blasting through the treeline, sending wood flying across the area. Armin and Annie, who were seeing the corpser for the first time, seemed so shaken by the monster before them. It was only thanks to Jean reaching Ashley did they snap out of it.
"IT'S HERE!" Jean pointed backwards, continuing to run away from the Hollow beast. He'd done his part. Now it was her turn.
"Everyone scatter!" Ashley commanded, "Eren, Annie! The bombs! Get ready!"
The corpser charged like an angry bull, plowing through the ten-foot high fence like it was tissue paper. Eren and Annie gripped their makeshift bombs like a pair of lifelines. Ashley readied her lancer, knowing that what the corpser would try to do. As it got closer, Ashley and the rest of them could feel the earth shake beneath their feet as the corpser neared their location. Many of the trainees who ran were watching the Onyx Guard stare down the spider without an ounce of fear. It didn't seem human at all.
Then, as it got closer, the corpser raised its mighty legs to crush the humans into murky smears, revealing it's open mouth; it's one true weakness.
"EREN! ANNIE! NOW!" The two trainees hurled their bombs as hard as they could, Eren doing a spin throw while Annie resembled a discus toss. Both of the bombs flew right towards the corpser. But in mid-air, they collided, causing the ropes to entangle and discharge some of their explosives. Bottles of gunpowder flew at the corpser's face, some breaking apart and coating whatever surface it touched. For Ashley it was now or never. She fired a single shot from her lancer, right into the first bomb thrown from Eren and ignited.
The gunpowder went off in a fireball, blasting the corpser at point-blank range. Some of the trainees shielded their eyes from the explosion as it kicked up wind and dust. Ashley kept her lancer aimed straight at the corpser, noticing that it hadn't gone down.
"Oh shit, it's still alive?" Connie wondered, noticing the corpser's shadow in the haze.
"Yeah, but look closer." Ashley said.
As the dust cleared, they noticed what Ashley was saying. While the corpser was still alive, it hadn't come out unscathed. The right foremost leg had nearly been blown clean off, hanging on by ruined tendons. The corpser's right face was also partially scorched, and the cerebral transmitter was also damaged with some of the lights broken and flickering. It was also covered in black soot and cascading blood. The corpser weakly looked up, noticing the single Seran aiming her lancer at it, along with some of the other humans whipping out their blades. Seeing it wounded must have invigorated a sense of strength.
"It knows." Ashley said, "It knows it can't fight."
"I say we finish it off." Mikasa said, gripping her swords. "Kill it where it stands."
"I'm with Mikasa on this one." Sasha said, "I might not be a fan of seeing hurt creatures, but this corpser is ugly and cruel. I hate it."
Knowing that it couldn't hope to win this, the corpser mustered what little strength it had and started to burrow away, digging a massive hole right in the center of the campsite. Ashley and the others watched as the monster fled back underground where it could lick its wounds in safety. After a few moments the tremors died down, signalling that the corpser had fully retreated. For now, the Locust were beaten back.
"We," Jean started, "we did it. Holy shit we did it!"
"HA HA! Take that, you rotten spider bastard! Next time you'll think twice about picking a fight with us!" Connie taunted, yelling at the filled hole. The trainees let out whoops and cheers at their first victory over the Locust. Ymir hugged Krista after kicking Reiner in the balls after he tried to do the same.
"I didn't think that would work, Ashley." Armin confessed to the Onyx Guard.
"Sometimes things work out Armin. But don't get too excited. They'll be back." Ashley warned. They always do.
"Ashley O'Malley."
The trainees instantly stopped celebrating when they heard that familiar voice. Keith Shadis and a cadre of troops on horseback had arrived just in time to bare witness to the carnage of the locust raid on the training camp. And that wasn't all they saw. They also witnessed the corpser retreating, most of them shocked by the monster that now lives below their feet. Shadis himself was stunned by the recent events that happened while he was gone. The camp was in ruins. The forest was pretty much completely wrecked. And Ashley hadn't even told him about the mess hall.
They also noticed that Shadis was bringing some company. Levi Ackerman and Erwin Smith rode with him. And none of them looked happy with the Onyx Guard.
"Mind telling me what's been going on here?"
