Chapter 10: The Clouds Begin to Gather
"There's dangerous movement amongst the brass," says Captain Levi, setting his tea down on the table. "We're not sure what's provoked this sudden reaction, but the MPs are pushing harder than ever to acquire you."
The group is seated around a single long wooden table. The 'New Levi Squad' isn't exactly up to the same standards as the old one. It's actually just those of us who were able to survive from the 104th up until this point. Part of me trembles as I look around to see so few of us. Sasha, Connie, Jean, Armin, Ymir, Historia, Mikasa, Eren and myself. Currently we're posted even further off in the middle of nowhere than the 104th was before, we're high up in the mountains in the northern territory of Wall Rose. We only just moved in here yesterday, though at the time the Captain wouldn't say why.
"What?" asks Eren in confusion. "Why would they not trust us after all of this? And what's changed now exactly?"
"Think about it," says Levi with a meaning sweep of his eyes over everyone assembled at the table.
"Well, Reiner and Bertolt turned out to be traitors," says Armin, "but I fail to see how that implicates Eren and Matthias. If anything it should actually clear the rest of us shouldn't it?"
"I wasn't talking about that," says Levi, lifting his cup to take another sip. "There's something else that's changed; somebody else here just became a far more important item than they were a week ago." I get an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach as he says this. There's only one person here who could have become more important over that space of time.
"It's me isn't it?" asks Historia, her voice dry.
"That doesn't make any sense," protests Jean. "How can Historia's true identity have a bearing on Eren and Matthias?"
"I didn't say it was Eren and Matthias the MPs were after," corrects Levi, "They want her as well."
"What for?" asks Eren.
"We're not really sure about that part. From what we can tell the Riess Dynasty is rather important. It's probable they want to get their hands on Historia so they can shut her up. She's rather a disgrace you know."
"I still don't see what that's got to do with Eren and Matthias," says Connie.
"Neither do we. Someone up top is scared though, terrified might even be nearer to the mark."
"Terrified of what?" I ask.
"We think it might have something to do with what the traitor titans called the coordinate power. As you know during the pursuit Eren was seemingly able to force several titans to protect him and Mikasa."
"I really don't know how I did that though," protests Eren, "we don't know for sure it was me."
"It's the best explanation we currently have," says Armin.
"Also, I think I was able to feel it as well," I add. "It was strange; even though I was asleep it felt like something was trying to call me awake. A voice told me I needed to get up and fight, but I was too tired."
"You weren't so tired that you didn't start thrashing," pipes up Ymir. "You ended up punching me in the face."
"Sorry about that."
"What's frightening about the ability to control titans when the person who has it is on our side?" asks Connie.
"Because Eren isn't on their side," says Historia, before the Captain can speak up again.
"She's right," says Armin darkly, "The higher ups aren't on the side of humanity, they're on their own. If that happens to benefit the whole then that's just a bonus. Right now someone has the power to take control of mankind's greatest enemy, that represents a potential threat to the stability of the realm."
"What, do they think Eren's going to lead a coup or something?" asks Jean in exasperation.
"We're willing to bet that's exactly what they think," says Levi. There's silence at the table after that. Everyone looks rather uncomfortable.
"Are we going to become criminals?" I ask eventually.
"It shouldn't come to that," says Levi.
"It will," says Historia gloomily, "you can bet your life that it will."
"My my, someone's feeling a bit negative," says a voice. We all turn to see Captain Hange standing in the doorway. "Aren't any of you the least bit excited by the idea of being the dashing criminals hiding out from the corrupt government? It's just so romantic!"
"Oh shut up," grumbles Levi.
"First Captain Hange, what are you doing here?" asks Armin.
"Oh, well since we're incurring such opposition, the Commander decided that it would be best for the testing to continue. Especially if Eren has any other abilities that could be useful. Also," she adds with a childish grin, "I always wanted to play the part of the outlaw!"
"We're not outlaws," grunts Levi.
"Not yet. But give a little bit of time of us not handing Eren, Historia and Matthias over and we'll all be donning the green and taking to the woods!"
Even though I can tell she's only half serious, I still feel rather worried about the prospect. 'After everything we're going to be stuck on the run?' "Do we actually have a plan to try and fix all of this?" I ask.
Levi sighs, "As worrying as this is probably going to sound to you brats we don't. At the moment we don't have enough information to take any sort of actual action against the hostile elements of the government. For now the Commander just wants you all to lie low. We're digging, but it's going to take some time to get much."
"So we're just going to hide?" asks Eren, the frustration in his voice painfully evident. His anger hangs around him like a cloud and like always I worry about it exploding.
"Exactly," says Levi coldly. He raises his cup to his lips a takes a long drink. Putting it back down on the wooden surface he gives Eren an icy stare. "You will all be remaining inside of this mountain range until further orders come. Is that clear, Yeager?"
Eren looks just about ready to rip someone's head off. I can practically see the anger radiating off of him. However he swallows hard and mutters, "yes, sir."
"Good. As of now we have no idea who our enemy is, so you trust no one outside of this room besides Commander Erwin as of this moment."
"Also," says Hange, "I think since the Riess are more than likely connected to this in some way that it would be best if Historia could tell us her story in full."
I glare at the first Captain from across the table. I know how Historia doesn't like to talk about that, in fact she's only spoken to me about twice in the entire time I've known her. I don't want her to feel pushed into retelling her story if she doesn't want to. "Oh please," says Levi, cutting through my thoughts, "personal comfort is really of very little importance right now Quinn. How about you just tight and let her decide for herself?" I turn slightly red with frustration and embarrassment that my display was quite so transparent.
"Fine," says Historia, "I'll tell you all about my life. I can't promise a particularly exciting tale though." Her voice has switched back to that tone that frightens me so much. Her voice and eyes become dead and hollow. She loses all real drive and seems like she wants to just drift away into nothingness. It terrifies me to be honest.
"Ever since I was able to think clearly I knew there was something wrong with me. The other children wouldn't play with me, the only people who would speak to me were my grandparents, and even they only did when it was completely necessary. I worked on a small farm and helped to raise the animals as I got older. I always tended to prefer their company to that of people. On the few occasions I tried to talk with the other children I'd be shouted at and have sticks thrown at me.
"I ended up reading a lot in my spare time. I always found it strange how much parents in stories always loved their children, when my mother never even spoke to me. In fact, she tried not to even look directly at me. My father I'd never seen. At one point I thought he might have died, but my grandfather told me to stop being such a fool. I was hit over the head and told not to ask about him again. My mother would often go off in these large carriages, at the time I had no idea where she was going. Looking back on it now I suppose she must have been going to work in my father's house, where she was a maid.
"I couldn't go past the boundaries of the farm. If I did anyone who saw me would chase me right back in and I'd be beaten for it. By the time I was six I'd learnt there was no point. One day I decided in all my childish stupidity, that I'd try and give my mother a hug. I'd read about how kids were meant to do that sort of thing and how parents were supposed to like it. My mother never smiled, so I thought that maybe this would make her happy."
Historia lets out a bitter hiss of disdain at that. "I can't believe I was ever that stupid," she says, shaking her head. "As soon as I touched her she recoiled like I was some kind of poisonous snake. She hit me several times in the head and sent me sprawling. I can remember that I was bleeding, but that I was also happy because for the first time my mother had actually payed attention to me. I suppose small kids have a bit of an addiction to that sort of thing. Then she looked at me with such disgust and bitterness that it took away all the happiness I'd just accumulated. She said, she said that wished she could find the courage to kill me."
I reach out a hand to put on her shoulder, but Historia brushes me away. "Leave me Matthias; I'm fine. After that I never tried getting her attention again. I also stopped believing what I read in books. About a year after that something strange happened. Several men in dark clothes took my mother and grandparents away one day. My grandparents came back but my mother did not. Then I was taken away from the farm and left to live in this small cottage out in the wilderness with a young couple called Schimler. I liked that rather a lot because they were actually kind to me sometimes if I did the right things. They only ever beat me when I really did the wrong thing and didn't seem to get angry if I asked questions. They'd never answer them though.
"Then, five years ago Wall Maria fell. In the middle of the night a group of twenty men in black came and took the Schimlers away. I heard gunshots from the woods not long after that. Then I was taken to a big castle in the interior of Wall Sina. That was when I met my father for the first time. He was a fairly normal looking man except for his clothes which were very expensive. He said that I'd be staying with him now. I did for the next two weeks and I wasn't much fun. I never got to speak to anyone and I was confined to a small set of rooms inside one tower.
"Then my father took me back outside to the courtyard. There was another large group of men dressed in MP uniforms, as well as this large group of people in scarlet robes." I tense up at that. I can remember that during one of my deliriums I saw a woman trying to protect something from of a group of men in robes like that. As far as I could tell she was killed. I doubt that's a coincidence.
"One of the men in robes came over to me and turned my face to the light so that he could see me clearly. After a while he said that I wasn't proper blood. My father told him that while that was true there wasn't another option open at this time. Then the robed man became very angry and shouted at my father that it was all his fault that they'd lost it, whatever 'it' is. My father said that in the end they needed somebody and that I was the only one left after that night." Historia shakes her head, "I'm sorry, but I don't know what to make of that.
"Then, one of MPs asked if my mother was important anymore. My father looked very sad at that, then shook his head and said no. My mother became hysterical and tried to run away, but she was caught and held down. She looked at me and said, 'I wish you'd never been born.' Then they cut her throat and let her bleed out on the cobbles. As you can imagine I was terrified. My father told me that I was going to have to be someone else now and that he'd come and get me when it was time. He told me to be Krista Lenz and to join the cadets as soon as I was old enough. Then they took me to an orphanage in Trost, and I lived there for the next two years until I joined the 104th. You all know the rest."
We all sit in silence. Most people are looking at Historia with sympathy, some are looking dumbfounded at the ground and Levi is looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "Actually, there's one other thing we don't know," he says, "Why'd you tell everyone you're real name?"
"Because, because I'm sick and tired of living a lie. Every day I spent living as Krista Lenz, the good little girl, I was denying Historia Riess another day of her life. I felt like I was dying inside. Still, I was afraid. Then someone told me something two years ago. They said that I shouldn't be ashamed of who I was, or to try and die somewhere in some oh so heroic way. They said that if I wanted to be brave I needed to admit who I was and stop telling myself that my life had no meaning. That stuck in my head for the next two years until finally, on that morning just before we were deployed to fight in Trost, I told Matthias who I was.
"I spent some time with him after that as myself rather than a mask. I thought it might help to stem the feelings I had of being enclosed inside. It just made them worse though. In the end I decided that enough was enough and when we were all up on top of that tower and I was sure I was going to die well, I decided to hell with being frightened of who I am."
"How very, touching," says Levi, sarcasm pretty much leaking out of his voice to the point where part of me expects it to splash out onto the table. I scowl at him but he ignores me. "Well, perhaps your father decided that it was time to come and get you. We haven't been able to dig much up on the Riess family, but we do know that your father is Roderick Riess and that also had at one point three more children by his actual wife. Apparently they all died several years back."
"That would explain what Historia's father meant by the last one left," says Hange. "It sounds like Historia may be the heir to the Riess Dynasty."
"But a bastard can't inherit unless legitimised," points out Levi. "And as far as we can tell Historia has not been."
"Yes, that does throw a spanner in the works doesn't it? Still, that's where all the evidence seems to me to be pointing."
"But why send her to join the military if she's so important?" asks Armin. "Surely they wouldn't want to run the risk of her being eaten by titan if she's the heir."
"It's possible they don't want her as the heir," points out Levi. "In the end all we know is that they want to get their hands on her, Matthias and Eren for some reason. I think it makes sense to assume that the Riess family is at the least a major player in this matter. We'll have to try and find out more about them. They seem to have something of a shadow role in the politics of the Kingdom; no official position of great power, but when they want things to happen they always do. That implies that they're pretty good at pulling strings. They may have been the ones behind the initial demand that Eren be handed over to the MPs."
"So, is there anything we can do?" asks Eren.
"For the mean time, no."
Extra: Structure of the Human Military
The Military of Althand is divided into three branches or Regiments: The Garrison Regiment, The Scout Regiment and The Military Police Regiment. Regiment is not actually a strategic unit however, only a way of distinguishing which branch of the armed forces an individual is from. The land within the Walls is divided along an east-west axis into two parts: the northern and southern territories. These each posses a Garrison force commanded by one of the two Generals of the Military. These are both then split into eastern and western halves which are governed by a Lieutenant-General. A third a final split is made under the command of a Major-General. Each of the outlier Districts is protected by a triune of men lead by a Colonel.
The smallest organisational unit is the Squad, made up of five privates and a corporal. Four of these along with a Sergeant and a Lieutenant make up one of the three platoons in a company, which is lead by a captain. These captains are nominally under a major in a battalion of three (though in the case of the Scouts they are lead by Major-General Erwin Smith). Three battalions go into a triune under a Colonel, three triunes into a Division under a Major-General, two Divisions into a sub-territory under a Lieutenant-General and finally two sub-territories make up a primary territory under a General.
The Military Police number around 8100 at their usual estimate of full strength, being composed of nine separate triunes which in the case of the MPs are called Brigades. These forces are usually deployed solely within the inner territory of Wall Sina, though they can be deployed beyond it should the need arise.
The Scouts number a meager 300 strong at full strength, only around a Battalion's worth. This broken down into four companies under four separate Captains. Usually the commander would be a Major, but since the Regiment needs a high ranking officer as its representative it is commanded by a Major-General.
The Garrison number around 10800 strong, divided between the northern and southern territories.
Note: This is not necessarily the method organisation used in the actual manga/anime. I'm not aware how they are organised in that so I have endevoured to create my own system. This is the system which will be followed throughout all of my pieces.