College sucks. Like seriously.
Chapter 21: Cadet Cavalry
When Jean and the other's stepped into the dimly lit dungeon corridor they found the source of the light to be a torch lit at the far end of the hall. Mikasa, Armin, and Reiner were just approaching the end cells after searching through all the other empty ones.
"Guys, wait up!" Connie called. Their group caught up to them and when they peered into the dim cell, they saw a pair of glaring white eyes set into the pitch black, featureless body.
"Can I help you?" hissed Wraith, incredibly tired and irritated by their sudden appearance.
"Holy shit, what is that!?" shrieked Connie, nearly stumbling back into Bertholdt in shock. Jean sighed and rubbed his forehead. It seemed even after filling him and the other two in on the conversation they'd overheard, Connie was still going to make an ass of himself.
"Exxxxcuse you!" snapped the shadow titan, reaching his limits. At the sound of his hissing voice, Connie, Marco, and Bertholdt shivered in fear. "If you have come to gawk at and inssssult me, then I'll assssk you to kindly leave!"
"We're sorry about him," Armin was quick say. "He's just surprised by you is all. I mean, it's not every day you meet someone made of shadows, right?"
Wraith continued to glare but allowed the excuse. "Why are you here?"
"I want to know where Eren is," said Mikasa bluntly. She was glaring into the cell with heated eyes, furious and worried over her brother's situation.
"Ah, you were lissstening, weren't you?"
When all but Marco, Connie, and Bertholdt nodded, Wraith hissed in annoyance and replied, "I thought I heard ssssome ratssss. Oh, Rogue will not be pleasssed…"
"Where. Is. He," snarled the black-haired girl.
"And who are you? Why should I tell you anything, little girl?" whispered Wraith dryly.
Armin sighed. He was hoping to calmly talk Wraith into revealing Eren's location but it seemed Mikasa was too impatient for that. Though, his way might not have been quicker if Wraith was stubborn enough.
"I'm his sister," she snapped.
"Ah, you musssst be Mikassssa, yessss?" Wraith asked. When she nodded, he continued, "He use to speak of you often…"
"Use to?" repeated Christa curiously.
Wraith nodded solemnly. "He does not talk about hissss old life very often anymore. It sssseems to make him sssad to think about."
"Well, if you tell us where he is, he wouldn't be sad anymore," Armin tried again, hoping to coax the shifter into telling them. "He'd be back with his friends and family and who knows? We may even be able to get the other's out and help them too."
Wraith stared at him before letting out a disturbing, choked laugh. "You honesssstly believe a group of teenagers could break ussss free? How naïve are you?"
"Hey, you'd be surprised what we can do," Reiner said with a smirk. "I bet we can get them out just fine on our own!"
"I wouldn't go that far," Jean muttered, sweat dropping down his brow.
"We can and will get Eren out," Mikasa said firmly. Her eyes narrowed. "All we need are coordinates."
Wraith held her gaze and the two engaged in a stare off, neither one budging for the other.
"Guys, we really don't have all night," Marco said, staring up the corridor worriedly.
The titan huffed and crossed his incorporeal arms. "I am sssorry, but if Eren were to find out I ssssent you after him, he'd be furioussss."
"But isn't that why you're here?" said Christa, softly. She flinched slightly when he turned his blank eyes on her, but she powered on. "You said Eren sent you to convince the Survey Corp to free him and the other subjects, right? Why would he be mad if we came to help?"
"Because you are a ssssmall group of cadetsss with little exxxxperiencccce outside of training," Wraith explained. "To ssssend you there would be a death ssssentenccce. Ssso yesss, Eren would be very disssspleased with me, essspecially consssidering his passst with you."
Mikasa simply glared at him, trying to think of a way to force him to tell them where Eren was. Before she could voice her thoughts, Jean snorted and gave Wraith an answer he wasn't expecting.
"So what?"
Wraith raised an eyebrow, though the movement was lost on his dark face. When he didn't respond, Jean continued, looking annoyed and bored at the same time.
"So what if Eren gets pissed with us for wanting to find him? It wouldn't be the first time that arrogant, suicidal bastard turned down help," he said, surprising his fellow cadets. "If that guy can't get it through his thick skull that he doesn't have to take on everything alone then he hasn't fucking changed since training. And guess what? We didn't listen to him then, and we aren't listening now. I may not like the guy, but I can understand why Mikasa and Armin are so set on finding him. So why don't you just tell us where the fuck we can find him, before Mikasa decides to start getting rough. And trust me, that's not something you want."
The rest of them nodded in agreement, still taken aback by Jean's sincere, if not slightly rude, words. Mikasa glared through the bars, emphasizing Jean's threat. White eyes shifted between each face, from Mikasa's death glare to Armin's anxious expression, and landed back on Jean. The boy appeared irritated but determined, anger set in his gold eyes.
"You remind me of him," Wraith concluded with a nod. "Sssset in the choiccces you make, but sssstill concccccerned for otherssss."
"The hell are you talking about now?" Connie grunted, more confused than ever.
Reiner snorted out a laugh, "He says Jean reminds him of Eren."
The shadow nodded again and Jean fumed. "I'm nothing like that suicidal moron!"
The other chuckled under their breaths, even Mikasa was holding back a smile.
When they settled down, Wraith let out a sigh and reluctantly said, "I will give you the coordinatessss and rough directions to the sssubject'ss ccccelllss, but that is all I am giving you. And if he assssksss, you never sssaw me…"
"Understood," Armin said, in relief.
After giving them the set of numbers, Wraith curled back up on his bed without another word, exhausted from the day's event.
"Thank you, Wraith," Mikasa said as they dashed back up the stairs.
"I wisssh you the bessst of luck…"
"Mikasa! Mikasa!" hissed Jean, doing his best to keep up with the black-haired girl as she flitted to her dorm room.
Entering her room with Sasha, Christa and Ymir on her heels, she turned and blocked the door from the boys.
"Go back to your dorm and get dressed if you're coming," she said blankly.
Jean spluttered out in shock while Armin, Reiner, and Bertholdt hurriedly left for their rooms. Marco and Connie stood behind them, conflicted.
"You're not seriously going right now, are you!?" Jean asked in astonishment.
"Of course we are, Eren's being held prisoner somewhere and he needs us. If you don't want to go, then fine, stay out of our way." With those harsh words, Mikasa quickly slammed the door in their stunned faces.
After nearly a minute of standing in front of the girl's room, Jean snapped out of his daze and grit his teeth. He started marching off down the hall.
"So, uh, what are we doing?" Connie asked, having to jog to keep up with Jean's long strides. Marco followed along silently, face set in a thoughtful frown.
Jean didn't answer, and instead opened the door to the boy's dorm. Armin, Reiner, and Bertholdt had already dressed and were about to leave. They paid no mind to their returning comrades as they slipped out the door and practically ran back to the girl's dorm.
Jean started rummaging in his footlocker for clothes. Marco sighed and started pulling clothes out as well.
"Wait, you guys aren't seriously going too, are you?!" exclaimed Connie.
"Just shut up and get dressed," snapped Jean, fed up with the night. "Unless you wanna stay here and explain to the higher ups why your dormmates are missing when they find out we're gone?"
Connie shuddered, just imagining being interrogated by the Commander, or worse, Captain Levi. He quickly starting dressing, not wanting to be left behind.
When they were done, they all left again to head back to the girl's dorm.
Ten minutes later, the cadets found themselves galloping away from the base on borrowed horses. Mikasa and Armin took the lead, with the blonde acting as the navigator. Swinging on their hips were their ODM gear, taken from the storage room. It was doubtful they would need the wires but the swords were great weapons, whether the target was titan or not.
"I can't believe we're actually doing this…" Jean grumbled under his breath.
"No point in thinking over it now, Jean," his best friend said with a kind smile.
"You could have always stayed back," snorted Reiner. "No one forced you to come along."
Jean grumbled under his breath but was ultimately ignored by the rest.
"According to the coordinates Wraith gave us, it'll probably be another hour before we reach it," Armin called out to everyone. There was a collective groan that ended quickly with a glare from Mikasa.
There was minimal talking as they rode forward, most of them too tired to make conversation. Jean was certain this plan was going to go down the drain quickly. How were they supposed to fight like this, as exhausted as they were? Not only that, they were just cadets for god's sake! They didn't have any experience fighting humans and what little experience they had fighting titans would barely help in this situation. This facility was probably loaded down with trained guards armed with weapons more appropriate than swords, like guns. Jean had little faith in what they were doing, but even he had enough concern for his friends to continue galloping along.
The hour past agonizingly slow. They'd had to slow down when they reached the forest path and several times their poor horses would trip over tree roots and fallen branches. When Armin informed everyone they would be reaching the facility soon, they all stopped and loosely tied their horses to nearby trees. They planned to snag them on the way out and didn't want to waste time struggling with knots. Sasha and Connie nearly fell off their horses in their tired daze.
"It should be just through these trees," Armin said moving forward quietly.
"I think I see light!" Sasha exclaimed, earning several quick hushes.
The cadets found themselves at the edge of a large clearing and they quickly found a tree to hide behind. In the center of the clearing stood the concrete building, guarded by two beefed up men in uniform, large shotguns in hand.
"Guys, do we have some sort of plan here?" Jean asked, nervously staring at the gunmen.
"I might have something in mind," Armin said, analyzing the situation. "A simple distraction and take down should work without causing too much noise. If we do it right, any guards inside shouldn't hear us taking these guards down, but it could be disastrous if one of those guns goes off."
"Then we go for the guns first and knock the men out next," Mikasa said sharply. She looked over at the others. "Who's going to be the distraction?"
As if they all shared the same mind, each recruit turned to stare expectantly at the one cadet slumped against his tree, fumbling with his gear and muttering to himself. When he noticed the silence, Connie looked up and found nine pairs of eyes staring back at him.
"Er, what? Did I miss something?"
Five minutes later, Connie came stumbling out of the forest, holding his arm and showing off an obvious limp. When the guards noticed him, they stiffened and lifted their weapons to point at the boy's chest.
"Who are you? What are you doing out here?"
"Oh, uh, heh, hi," Connie sheepishly said, stopping in his tracks. He attempted to salute them but pretended to wince and went back to holding his arm. "I'm cadet Connie Springer, and ya see, I kinda got lost from my squad while we were out on late training patrols. You guys wouldn't happen to know how to get back to Survey Corp HQ, would you?"
The men shared a look, but noting the boy's injuries and uniform, they lowered their guns and walked closer to him. It took every ounce of willpower Connie had not to turn and run. He tried not to look as scared as he felt when they were mere feet away from him.
"How'd you get so banged up, son?" one of them asked, curiously.
"Ah, well, my horse got spooked and threw me off into a tree," Connie explained, using the excuse Armin had told him. He tried to look embarrassed about his misfortune.
One of the men sighed and they both slung their guns over their shoulder. "Alright, kid, we'll let you off this time, given the situation, but this area is restricted. The Survey Corp headquarters are about—,"
Before he could finish, his gun was grabbed from behind and he spun around in time to catch a brutal punch to the face, curtesy of Mikasa. He crumpled to the ground, unconscious, while Reiner knocked out the second man, and stole his weapon.
"Good work, Connie. I didn't know you could act," complimented Reiner, casually.
"I wasn't completely acting!" snapped the smaller boy, pulling his arm away to reveal a clean, genuine cut. "Jean really cut me with his blade!"
"Hey, they wouldn't have believed you if you weren't bleeding," said Jean. He, Bert, Marco, and Reiner lifted the unconscious guards and stashed them behind the tree line. "Be glad it was just a small cut. We could have had Mikasa break your bones."
Connie shuttered at the thought and held still while Christa bandaged up his arm. The cut honestly wasn't that bad, it wouldn't even need stitches, but they needed everyone in their best shape.
"That went better than I expected," remarked Armin, frowning at guns. "What do we do with those?"
"We use 'em, of course," chuckled Reiner, lifting the shotgun up to stare down the sight. "Me and Bertholdt went hunting enough to know how to use a gun."
"But those are shotguns, not hunting rifles," said Sasha, suspiciously.
Reiner shrugged while Bert grabbed the other gun and checked the chamber for ammunition. "We're still a better shot than anyone else here."
"Let's try not to go that far," Armin said, creeping back towards the steel door. "I really don't want anyone dying here, on either side."
"We might not have a choice though, Armin," replied Mikasa. When they all surrounded the door, everyone looked to Armin for further instructions. The blonde sighed and stared at the door.
"We're going in blind from this point on, so we'll have to proceed with caution," he said, trying to listen for the other side of the door, but even if there were someone there, the door was too thick to hear anything.
"Unless we get caught, then all bets are off," muttered Reiner. Mikasa agreed with him and unsheathed her sword, all but Armin followed her lead.
The blonde sighed in defeat and pulled on the door handle, surprised to find it unlocked.
"Guess they assumed those guards would be enough protection," Jean deduced.
The group quickly snuck inside, closing the door as quickly as possible, and hiding in a shadowed corner. The open room didn't provide much cover for them, but luckily, they'd entered at a time when the guards were on patrol somewhere else.
"Wraith said we'll need to take the left door down the stairs. The cells should be at the bottom," Armin whispered. "Reiner and Bertholdt will take the lead. Mikasa and Jean will take the back and protect our rears in case any of the guards show up. Alright?"
They all nodded in agreement, though Mikasa looked less than pleased to be the last one down, and Reiner and Bert moved forward and hesitantly opened the door.
"It's clear for now," the large blonde muttered, quickly starting down the stairs, gun raised. Bertholdt and the rest followed suit and they all descended down the dimly lit stairway, alert and cautious of what they would find at the bottom.