Attack on Fire Emblem - Chapter 4 (Micaiah's mud traps)
The young mage examined her captives Titans. The Titans were submerged into the mixture of mud and snow of the Rasputitsa region, and could not move their limbs as they were stuck in a carefully structured pit. Only their head were above the ground level. Not that it made them any less dangerous. Despite being immobilised, they would attempt to bite any nearby wondering soldier.
Micaiah knew she should be proud. It was her meticulous-carved pits that had trapped the Titans. Yet she was regretted the lost of her comrades. One of her close friends, Oscar was trampled on as he attempted to lure the Titans towards one of the traps. His horse was trapped in the thick mud and he could not escape the sole of the Titan.
In addition, Henry was also slain after he fell off his horse, and used himself as bait as lure another Titan into a pit.
Since being captured, the Titans had been experimented on every day. So far they noted that the Titans neither starved nor slept. They had impressive regeneration abilities, and could heal an eye within an hour. The Titans had key sense of sight, but their hearing and smelling abilities were not as acute. This correlated with the fact that Titans were more active in the day than at night.
Titans were immune to all kinds of magical damage. Only magic that could manipulated the physics near the Titan could affect them. For instance, the pits that the Titans were trapped in were created by light magic. Still they had not found an effective way to take a Titan down.
The sacrifices of the fallen seemed pointless.
She looked to Robin, who was scribbling slowly on his notebook. She did not need to look at his notebook to know that he was recording the heroes and the Askr soldiers who had fallen in battle.
KIA (killed in action): Peri, Finn, Oscar, Henry, Arthur, Quan, Clarisse, Cain.
MIA (missing in action): Clive
While Robin did not show outward concern, Micaiah knew that he was deeply worried about the well-being of his fellow men. He would dispatch messengers frequently to Modena to account for the available men.
The latest message confirmed that the Titans attempting to assault Modena, but the walls were holding. Palla was doing a decent job. The heavy weapons were doing some damage, with a few Titans reported as fatalities. However the deaths seem to come at random and no weak point was spotted.
Hesitating to interrupt Robin in his thoughts, Micaiah wiped her brow with her blue scarf and stood at attention till the strategist was ready. They would attempt to suffocate a Titan today. With a wave of a hand, Robin ordered his Askr soldiers to tighten the cables surrounding one of the Titan's neck.
The Titan struggled and even grimaced at one point but the suffocation had no visible effect. Raising his hand once more, Robin halted the experiment. This time, Robin wore his heart on his sleeve. Hunching his shoulders, he excused himself and made his way back to his tent. He was almost out of ideas. In addition to magic, he tried physical methods like drowning, starving and even burying a Titan alive. None of the methods work.
His reflection was cut short when Micaiah finally summed up the courage to enter his tent.
"You are saving lives," she began encouragingly, but she was cut short.
"We have yet to find anything useful. We don't know a practical way to defeat a Titan yet."
"But you found out much more than anyone has before."
"And it's still not enough!" Robin burst out in yet another rare display for emotion. For a moment, Micaiah could swear that his eyes turned into glowing red coals of fury. Apologising, he regained his senses and remarked that he decided to source for a second opinion.
As if to herald that second opinion, an Askr soldier marched to the tent and notified Robin that his distinguished guest had arrived. A hooded character entered and quickly introduced himself as Leo, the Prince of Nohr.
Micaiah knew straight away why Prince Leo was invited. He had a keen intellect and was well-read. It was rumoured that he finished reading all Nohr's magical books before he was 16. Before Micaiah could return his greeting, Robin showed Leo his research journal.
"You are approaching the Titans like a siege engineer," Leo noted. "you keep focusing on the 'how'; as in 'how to kill a Titan', rather than the 'what'?"
"Will knowing what a Titan is help us kill it? If so, do you know what it is?" Robin asked.
After shaking his head, Leo nevertheless remained upbeat. How could he remain optimistic despite their crisis? Yet in Leo's head, he had to see everything as a game. If he allowed himself to compute every loss and every setback, he just would not function.
Leo's aides brought over several parchments and he pulled out one. The scroll had complicated scribbling on it and Micaiah was amused that she could not make out the concepts on it.
"I divided the understanding of our world into several disciplines; (A) Chemistry, the study of the structure of matter, (B) Biology, the study of the agency of living beings and (C) Physics, the study of the magic that binds both matter and the living together."
Robin stopped Leo with a raised hand. He did not see the relevance of the conversation.
Sighing, Leo explained that the way to study the Titans (as with all other living things) was to cut them up.
"We need a giant saw. Last I checked, you thinking like a siege engineer. Can you help me build one?"
Author's remarks: While the Fire Emblem series had always had a medieval theme and suffered from a technological stasis, I decided to allow the development of scientific philosophy in this series. In real life medieval times were not a state of limited progress, but rather many advances in sciences and other philosophies were made. The watermills, horse saddles and even gunpowder were developed during that period.
Furthermore in Attack On Titan, the protagonists were able to advance in technology to develop better weapons. There is no reason why I should limit scientific progress for this story.