This is the worst. Shiganshina of all places.
While their commander entered the city with only two of his top officers, the rest of the corps busied themselves killing the tens of sleeping titans that were there. All while, the two people with the highest kill count since Miche waited over the Jaeger residence ready to retrieve the true secrets of their world. Eren had passed out after carrying Levi to his home, leaving the corpsman to clear the debris all by himself. The steaming sixteen meter husk beside them was face down like a dead pure titan. Erwin gave it a glance and Hange easily overlooked its already decomposing features. Erwin asked Levi;
"Has the basement been flooded?"
"No. The door is still intact. Hange, did you remember to bring the key we copied off Dr. Jaeger?"
"Of course I did! It's not as shiny as the original but it'll serve. Ah! I was wondering where I kept it."
Erwin collected the key from Hange and signaled the last member of their party, Moblit to hand over his torch. The basement was cramped and dark with its wooden door at the end. Erwin led them to the door and just as he expected, something went wrong. The key failed to even enter the lock. Bad workmanship? Erwin had no inclination till ponder on that till dawn came with the titans in the district. He stepped back and Levi's blade flashed past a few centimeters away from his face easily breaking the padlock, Moblit came down to brush the debris away and entered first. A necessary precaution in case of traps. When no ill befell him, Erwin followed into the closeted workplace where books, jars, boxes, maps and even equipment remained in orderly state around the room. Without question, they began to search the room especially the desk with its few contents. He'd gone round the desk twice before he noticed the keyhole. He slid the key in…
And it unlocked.
After all of the struggle. I'm here! Free of censorship. Free of lie-
"You found it, Commander Erwin!"
Good grief
"Coulda said so. And the man's right beside you, no need to go on shouting. It's noisy."
"Oh come on Levi, what did Isabel tell you about being nice when she was with us?"
"Keep blowing your odor in my face and you'll get what she did."
"Moving on to why we are here…" They were both useful and efficient in their own way but ever so exhausting to have around. The three books each color coded for convenience with separate titles, The red book bore the label of information about the outside world; the black claimed to hold knowledge of titans and the green was apparently Grisha's autobiography. That could wait, Erwin leaned against the table and thumbed through the Black book and sure enough:
We belong to a unique race of human beings who can turn into titans. But not at will. At least not ours…
"Sir?!"
"Yes, Moblit?" He patiently accepted the paper being offered and dropped the red book in an instant. Levi snatched the book mid-air and scowled at him. The short man craned his neck to see the paper in Erwin's hands, letting his hands fall to his sides as they laid eyes on the most realistic painting they'd ever seen in their lives. A much younger Grisha Jaeger, a wife presumably and a boy who was most definitely not the Eren standing right beside….
"When did you wake up?" Levi looked displeased at having his charge awake while they snuck about in his father's basement and rightly so… the boy had been laid to sleep after a long hard exercise. In any case shorter exhaustion times would be something useful to note about enemy titan shifters. The boy shrugged and mumbled a response, intrigued eyes on the red book. More interested in the impossible painting, Levi must have dumped it in his hands-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH!" Eren screeched and howled but he never let go off the book even as his voice was flickering between a deep hoarse breathing and a high-pitched scream of pain. Hange fell on him clutching his body as his little frame was racked by pains and writhing. Hange whispered in his ear fervently, snapping Levi into motion as they both seized his hands and pinned him down.
Then it stopped.
He opened his eyes.
"..."
"..."
"Section Commander? I'd like to read this book a bit more." The silence scouts had been trained to develop hiding from listening titans was thick in the room. Even proper breathing seemed a sin.
"Oh, uhh of course, s-sure." He got up dusted himself and ascended up to the pure moonlight; leaving the four best scouts this side of Wall Maria in shock and fear. He managed to keep his face neutral till he emerged from the broken shells of the sleepy dead town and his face slipped into a jagged grin:
I've won!
Over three hundred kilometers away and half a day earlier, Miche and Grisha sat across Rita Iglehaut and her 'trusted' dull-eyed second-in-command Amanda... Just Amanda. They'd apparently had no news about the outside world and Grisha had discreetly motioned Miche not to mention the government's planned genocide of Marians, at least until they had a better idea of their host.
"So the government sent you here not expecting organized survivors, is that correct?" Rita was young, so very young but gifted with a good mind for leadership and authority. "Though you've shared so much about Wall Maria's fall and these... overly abnormal titans, I haven't heard what our best defense against them is?
Ouch
"Our current research and data on them is confidential, but I can say to you, one soldier to another, that there is strictly speaking no hope against the Armored, and the Colossal Titan's ability to disappear at will makes him quite the elusive foe, for his size." Miche gave a weary sigh and steeled himself to look straight at Rita.
"But that won't stop the scouts or our efforts, Commander Erwin is only the latest face in a struggle against ignorance. Since we the scouts were formed, every battle has only been different shades of defeat, a little loss, a necessary sacrifice, an enlightening retreat, even a crushing rout. Our victory is coming, and we the living have a duty to see it through. No matter the cost!" Rita sat up straight looking fervently into the battered face of Miche. And for the first time, sitting so close, Grisha saw that the hair covered up gashes and half-healed scars on the temple and forehead of the corpsman.
"H-how will you fi-" Whatever effect Miche's speech was intended for, it left Rita struggling to regain her voice, her face twisting at that flash of weakness, "How do you intend to seek answers?"
"Insinuation and intuition of course!" Mike quipped.
Rita chuckled at that reply, a soft gentle exhale that belonged to girls her age not burdened with cities and impenetrable titans.
"We of the Garrison have, obviously a much greater rate of success, maybe that's why this little rebellion bothers me incessantly. I'm glad to meet people willing to fight with their lives but some people aren't. Some people, that prefer to foist chaos and death on the city rather than inconvenience themselves for order!"
"Might I offer Doctor Jaeger's help? He's quite experienced with rebellions I gather." From a child it would have been an adorable misrepresentation of the facts, from a Section Commander it was nothing more than mischief and humor. But his mind was true to the assertion, already buzzing with comparisons between Marley and this woman's regime.
A mole and a symbol of terror
"Send your soldiers out. I'll inspect this little uprising from in here."
"Why my soldiers?" Rita stiffened at the request and glared at him, her assistant also visibly hostile to the idea.
"Ours have nothing to do with your insurrection and resistance, they're much less involved as well as being soldiers, sworn to give their lives. They'll take care of the room." Grisha answered. Rita sighed and nodded,
"Pat both them down." It was almost a little insulting but they both complied, after all their mission was to convince her that they weren't hostile. Nanaba and 'Amanda' exited the room followed by the rest of the trainees and scouts.
"Tell us about Quinta and this uprising."
"Where do I begin? So, I grew up in this city, my father was- well, is an apothecary. He hasn't been able to get supplies to adequately continue the work. And uh-" She caught herself and straightened "I haven't always been alone, before the Fall of Shiganshina, my father went to a merchant's house and that's where I met Kramer. Mathias Kramer."
As she told her story Grisha noticed her trivializing her close relationship with this boy, whether Miche realized it too or not was indecipherable but it was a clear warning, this was a sensitive topic; Yet important enough to bring before a military superior. Her tale skipped past her trainee years and first postings till the Breach. She was still agonized about the deaths, no doubt about that, laboring over each individual soldier and describing how it felt when someone she knew died, then finally how Amanda had put her name forward, how the officials had run off with all the money, how Duccio had been such a good help; leaning forward as she neared the climax of her story, the night when Mathias Kramer had re-entered Quinta with a bang, a dead soldier and a criminal MP. As her story wound up, she told about facing citizenry that lived for their next minute not caring for preservation or communal living.
"The looting was just out of hand, and when we tried to stop them, they just got so angry like they had some right to destroy others lives! And that was the start, but we acted fast, some measures were strict, yes, but they were good, they were necessary! And instead of putting their hands and heads together they're plotting, with Ma-Kramer. I had to be careful, they targeted me more than once, I can't even go home much. And now Kramer heads a little rebel posse hoping to overthrow me for the dastardly act of punishing criminals."
She clasped her hands together in irrigation, rubbing them one over the other until Miche sighed.,
"Would this punishment have anything to do with the Outer Gate and why it's covered with scaffolding? You should be aware that we practice death by hanging not Titan, Miss Iglehaut." Miche's voice was painfully steady. After his years in the scouts, Grisha could only imagine how utterly repulsive it must have felt to see humans 'punished' the way his comrades had died screaming and begging.
Rita took on a defensive tone with him; "We captured the Titan a few days after we sealed the breach, it reminds them of danger outside, it's probably done more help for us than any patrol or rations."
"It's going to do far more help than any rations or speeches we'll give that's for sure." Grisha replied.
Time to think up a plan then.
"Here's how I see it. You're facing a rebellion, and there's three ways to put it out of business. One, we go for the figurehead, Mathias Kramer, and take him out. However, if after all this time he's still free I suppose the house searches yielded nothing?"
When she nodded, he continued, "House searches are a classic trap, all it did was anger the innocent citizens and make Kramer's associates nervous, besides of course convincing them that they were right all along about your tyranny. Taking Kramer out would be most unproductive, in this small city his disappearance may be enough to collapse that tight group of rebels, or might splinter them into competing cells of gangsters without a common cause. The second is to take away their grievance or their symbol of oppression, in this case you and the Titan. It's quite easy really, we the Survey Corps will kill the titan like we- pardon me, they are paid to do and in addition offer to escort them to Wall Rose ending any complaints of being locked up here. Those who insist that they want to stay will be split against those that want a better life, meaning Wall Rose. The last available path is that we offer negotiations, once again splitting the table between those open to peaceful dialogue and those who want anarchy and war. Make your pick."
Rita stopped writing down the options setting down a handy pencil and frowned at the paper. "I'd say you have an obvious preference." She said.
Miche nodded and replied; "Indeed, the second option of taking out the titan is the least aggressive and with us a foreign body, it's neither hypocritical nor out of character for scouts to kill titans and demand freedom. But there's one small catch." Her eyes shot up and she huffed in amusement, slipping on a cynical smile.
"As Doctor Grisha said, moving people to Rose is possible, but they won't stay there. Our dear Royal Government intends to send most Marians above the age of fifteen to fight the titans. Unarmed."
The pencil flew out of her hand as she jerked in horror;
"That's suicide!"
"But it makes life better for those left. Which is all of Sina, all of Rose and more than half of the Marians left. Would you do any different?" Miche asked. She said nothing.
Grisha butted in,
"For now, allow us to kill your titan. Tell no one about what we've told you. I strongly suspect that there's a mole in your ranks. So summon your soldiers tomorrow morning and we'll make one announcement to them and another to the townspeople. Iglehaut, right? I look forward to working this case with you." She took his hand and shook it,
"I'll call for an escort to immediately take you to the inner gate." As she left the room, Grisha turned to Miche.
"If we're looking for a rebel group with a wanted leader there's most definitely a hideout of sorts. We should collect a map and look over the city. Let's meet at the barracks after you've sorted out your troops." Miche nodded and smiled.
"I could have Gelgar escort you directly." Grisha frowned at the Section Commander but it didn't stick as both men broke out laughing at the ridiculous memory of Grisha dangling from a scout. Rita came back and cocked her head,
"Alright then, Eugene will escort your men to the Titan."
"Take a count of all your troops tonight and get a list of who has access to the patrols." Grisha leaned in to make sure no one could hear them. She nodded and turned swiftly.
In half an hour, Miche and the other scouts flew off in the direction of the Titan while Grisha received the map and looked over the streets and pseudo-district clusters of houses.
Markets, Houses, Estates, Silo, barracks.
When a young trainee brought him the list of patrols, he compared the placements looking for where the soldiers avoided, where they were sent. Unfortunately the officer in charge had neglected to keep reports of who was sent where and on what basis.
Hmm. It's careless act that benefits the rebel spy by hiding any chance of us finding soldiers who make impromptu detours. Too much of a coincidence.
It was the location of the clustered shopping street that sold it. Close-knit, multiple back street exits and inconspicuous meeting points like a bazaar.
Well, well, well.