Chapter 12: The Uprising Part 2: Human Hunters

"Move!" screams Levi. I fire my cables into the edge of the cabin roof and throw myself up into the air. I back flip onto the thatched roof as four of the enemy rush past me. They aren't wearing any kind of uniform but the devices they're using appear very similar to the 3D Manoeuvre Gear. However, they aren't carrying swords so this system would be useless for taking on titans. 'What on earth is it for then?' I ask myself, even as the obvious explanation occurs to me. 'These aren't for killing titans, they're for killing humans!'

One of the hunters turns and fires at me, forcing me to sprawl flat as the shots fly overhead. Normally gunshots wouldn't be such a worry they're so inaccurate, but at this range they're far more likely to hit. I see Levi whizz around the corner of the building, blades flashing as he draws. He hurls himself straight at one of the attackers and makes a precision strike. The blades-sharp as razors-slice easily through most of his neck and deal significant damage to his waist. The hunter doesn't even have time to cry out before he's dead. "All hands engage!" orders the Captain.

I can't move though. I've been in combat with titans before but this is completely different. I can hear bullets flying this way and that and I can't even tell clearly who's who. 'How can anyone fight under these conditions? If I move I'll be hit for sure!' I swallow and try to calm myself down a little, 'no I won't. The odds of being hit are still not very high. They've only got two guns each and those can only fire one shot at a time from the looks of it. Just stay calm; you can do this.'

I draw blades and leap forwards off of the building. One of the hunters flies close by and on the spur of the moment I fire one of my grapples at him. The cable zips through the air and the hook embeds in the man's flesh. The man grunts as it does so. I use the sudden strike to turn in mid air, detaching the grapple as I do so. The hunter lands on the roof with a clumsy clatter as I turn to face him.

I fire both cables into the roof and pull myself forwards. The man raises one of his guns to shoot me but he's too slow. In a single clean strike I slice off his right hand. He screams in pain as his stump of a limb spurts blood. 'What now?' I suddenly ask myself. I know what I ought to do next but I can't bring myself to move.

"Matthias get down!" I hear someone scream at me. I whirl around to see a woman about to shoot me and I fall backwards away from the path of the shot. Unfortunately that fall takes me off of the roof entirely and I plummet towards the ground. I manage to pull myself up at the last second, lessening the impact as I thump onto the grass. The fall winds me but nothing more.

Now I'm exposed to several of the attackers at once though and I don't have time to move out of the way of their shots. I look up to see one of them taking aim. He never makes his shot though as a second figure rips past them, blades carving their way through his flesh. Mikasa spins in mid air before reattaching herself to the cabin and moving towards it.

I take the opportunity to scramble to my feet and sprint of the trees. Out here in the small open area there simply isn't much to use as an anchor point so I'm likely to end up a sitting duck again.

I land on one of the thicker branches and look back. The hunters are swarming all over the building and our forces are already in full retreat back towards the trees. I can see that two of the Scouts are already dead and at least four of the enemy have been killed. Eren and Connie are both making a brake for the trees, but three of the attackers have moved to block their path.

I jump out of the tree and pull myself towards them. I cut one man's lower arms off with a two point strike and plant both feet into his back, sending him plummeting towards the ground. I pull up and watch as he lands with an unpleasant thud and a slight cracking noise. Eren zips past me and turns to take a slash at another one of the attackers, missing by only a few centimetres.

I hastily move back up to their level and make a rather wild slash at one of their faces. My swing isn't very good, but the tip of one of my blades catches the man's cheek and rips open a large gash. He screams in pain and I hear a gunshot. I expect to feel the stinging sensation of a bullet entering my body, except nothing comes. I turn to see that it isn't the man I just attacked who fired but his companion. With a grunt of pain Connie falls backwards towards the rocky ground.

He lands on a patch of grass and rolls several meters before hitting a large boulder. "No!" Eren screams and at the same time throws himself into a collision with the woman who just shot Connie. The two of them slam into a tree and Eren runs the woman through with his blade, impaling her to it. The man I just gashed kicks me in the stomach and swing backwards. He raises both of his guns and fires. I let my cables go in time to dodge one of the shots but the other rips into my left shoulder.

I pull up and use one of the branches to swing under him coming up behind his exposed back. The pain from my shoulder is excruciating and I can barely focus on the fight. Recklessly I fire my hooks ahead of me without even bothering to check if there's a usable anchor point. One embeds into a tree slightly to my left while the other falls wide without hitting anything. The one anchor is enough to pull me forwards though. The man turns to face me as I make a wide swing at his head. The razor sharp blade easily cuts its way through flesh and bone, resulting in a partial decapitation. The man dies instantly, falling backwards to land with a sickening crunch against one of the rocks bellow.

I land somewhat crudely on the open patch of ground where Connie fell. I hurry over to him and use my still working right arm to turn him over. Blood is welling up from the entrance wound on the right side of his chest. Judging from the positioning it should have missed his heart and to my relief I can hear a ragged wheeze of air as he breathes. "He's alive!" I call out to Eren as he descends down from the canopy.

Eren bends over Connie's battered form and looks at the wound. He grimaces at the expanding red mark on his friend's chest. "How do we stop the bleeding?" he asks looking at me expectantly.

"I, I'm not sure," I stutter. "I suppose we need to remove the bullet and wrap something over the wound. I don't think we have time now to perform any sort of field treatment though. Look!" I point towards where six more of the enemy are entering the trees in pursuit of Armin, Hange, Ymir and Historia. As we watch there's the crack of a gunshot and Ymir jerks slightly to the right as she moves, but maintains he position despite the injury. I turn back to Eren, "you can carry him right? My left arms pretty much gone for the time being." Eren nods and hauls Connie's bleeding form into his arms.

I fire my grapples into a nearby tree and swing myself back into the air. Once I reach a height of about ten metres I begin to move forwards. The cabin was located on the top of a long slope down towards the flats, which is covered in tall pines. The floor of this sloping forest is carpeted with a mixture of both grass and bushes and large rocks which just out like thorns, ready to break apart anyone unfortunate enough to fall on them.

As we continue our retreat the sound of gun fire continues to break apart the air. There's a whizzing noise just by my right ear as a bullet misses me and embeds in a tree. 'Who are these people?' I find myself wondering admits the panic and confusion, 'are they soldiers or something? If not then how on earth did they get this modified version of the Manoeuvre Gear?' The questions simply swim around my head unanswered. I don't have the time to even consider what the answers might be right now though.

One of the attackers overtakes me and pulls up, turning in mid air to fire directly at me. He's underestimated how fast I'm going though and I crash headlong into him before he can fire his weapons. As we both spin and struggle to remain airborne I ram my knee into his groin. In response he fires one of his guns, but the shot is made wildly and hits nothing. His cables let go and he hangs off of me, scrambling to get his other loaded weapon into a position to fire it. I manage to work my right arm free of the tangle and cut into his left arm.

Then there are two shots and I feel a stinging pain in my right leg as one of the bullets embeds itself. The hunter is not as lucky though, dropping away from me towards the ground. One of his comrades decided to try and take a shot at us and one of the rounds went into his skull. Gasping I hurriedly try to move on, firing into the next tree and pulling myself into a zigzag movement in an effort to try and make myself harder to hit.

The next few minutes are pure mayhem as bullets fly through the air and Scouts take wild slashes at those enemies who try to come in close to improve their accuracy. I even see Captain Levi skilfully throw one of his blades into a pursuer, knocking them clean out of the air. The slope gets steeper and steeper as we go, to the point where we're more or less falling straight down rather than moving horizontally. Getting around the trees proves at times to be difficult and at one point I only just miss hitting one by a second's worth of reaction time. One of the hunters smashes her head into a branch and plummets down to the ground and one of the Scouts that I don't know rams directly into a tree, stabbing himself with his own blades.

It's as we come towards the bottom of the slope that I realise there's nowhere for us to go after we reach the flats. Without horses or anchor points for our 3D Gear we've no way of getting away. These people have ranged weapons and we don't, so I don't fancy our chances in an open combat. Before I can think about that any further though we're hurtling out into the bright sunlight with only a sparse handful of trees in sight.

I manage to land fairly smoothly despite my momentum and turn around to see around fifteen Scouts emerge from the trees, followed by twenty seven of the enemy. About fifty metres behind us is a road which leads to the nearest town thirty two kilometres from here. There's no point trying it though, since we'd be running from our attackers on foot, and they likely have horses not too far from here.

As Eren swings out of the forest-still carrying Connie-one of the attackers fires at him, hitting him in leg. Eren grunts and screws up his landing, dropping Connie and falling in a heap. The hunters rush towards him as he falls. One of them (a tall dark haired man with three long pale scars running down his left cheek and wearing a long brown coat) rushes over and kicks Eren directly in the face. Eren spits blood and tries to scramble to his feet. "Serum!" the scarred man shouts to one of his comrades, who throws him what looks like a syringe filled with pale yellow liquid. Before Eren can get up the man jabs the needle into his neck. Eren shakes for a few moments before falling forwards onto his face.

"Eren!" screams Mikasa. She runs towards Eren's slumped form and the scarred man spins in place, firing one of his weapons directly at Mikasa. She lets out a faint gasp as the bullet passes through her middle and she falls backwards.

"Filthy eastern wench," spits the man, kicking her savagely in the head. "Get this brat out of here!" he yells to two of the others, "one's a good start. Take him to the Fox's Head and keep him quiet on the way. We'll be joining you shortly." The two men nod and haul the unconscious Eren to his feet. One of them hoists him over his shoulder while the other watches the rear as they both run towards the trees. "Now then," says the man with an animalistic snarl, "There are two more of you who my master wants to meet very badly. It'd be faster if you'd just hand them over, but then, that wouldn't be very fun now would it?"

I shoot a hurried glance at the two Captains. Levi looks completely different to how I've seen him before. His face is contorted with rage and his hands are even shaking. Hange looks ice calm though, her eyes coolly surveying the scene in front of her. "Well, we wouldn't want to deprive you of your fun now would we?"she says. "Matthias, I think this circumstance justifies a rather extreme course of action don't you?"

"Yes sir," I reply swallowing nervously. 'These guys aren't set up to fight titans, that's clear enough. I guess they were hoping to subdue me and Eren with drugs of some kind before we could transform. Still, I'm not really sure about this.' With a deep breath I sink my teeth into my right hand, sending a small spurt of blood followed by a brilliant flash.

As my titan body materialises around me I break into a charge. My legs though still only partially formed propel me forwards like a cannon ball. The enemy scatter out of the way as I stampede through them, crushing one of them under foot and sending another flying through the air with a kick. I roar as loud and as savagely as I can, hoping to frighten them off without any need for direct combat. Several of the hunters begin to retreat towards the trees but the scared man just grins up at me with gleaming eyes.

"Heh and here was I thinking that I wouldn't get to see one of you freaks after all," he says in a silky voice. "Good, good; I enjoy a challenge." With that he holsters his pistols by his sides and detaching the gun component takes out the handles. I swing my fist at him and he jumps backwards in time to escape being pulverised. He reaches inside of his coat and pulls something out. My eyes widen as I see him draw a pair of blades. "All hands engage the Scouts and keep them occupied. You can kill any of them except for the Riess girl. Although," he adds as if as an afterthought, "I wouldn't mind getting to kill the shorty myself."

He swings up and around me with such incredible speed I can barely tell where he is. His movements are a total blur to me and I flail wildly in an effort to protect my nape. I clamp my left hand over it and try to lash out with my right. The man easily dodges my swings and I feel a searing hot pain as he cuts through the fingers on my left hand. His attacks are so fast I can't keep up at all. As he moves past my head in a blur of motion I lunge forwards and try to bite him out of the air. He dodges easily but he changes course away from my nape.

Trying to keep him on the back foot I swipe at him with my right hand. Instead of dodging backwards he fires his cables into me pulls himself forwards. In a dark whoosh of motion he cuts into my right shoulder, severing multiple supporting tendons and ligaments in his attack. I feel my right arm of limp and I stagger away in panic. 'What do I do? He's too fast, I can't stop him!'

The man attacks again, striking at my head this time and carving out my left eye. The pain is worse than almost anything I've felt and I can't help screaming. I can feel my shoulder trying to knit itself back together again as the individual fibres reform themselves. It's not going to be fast enough though. I trip over and fall backwards to land with a crash and a cloud of dust. "You're mine now!" jeers the man as he hovers over me. "You stupid fools and your special powers. Always thinking you were better than us ordinary mortals. Well now the shoe's on the other foot isn't it? Let's see who's all haughty when we're done here eh?!"

Before he can launch into his final attack though, a second blur streaks into my field of vision. It knocks the man away, sending him flying into the branches of an oak tree. Captain Levi hurls through the canopy of leaves and out the other side, clutching at the man's throat. He twists free and elbows Levi hard in the shoulder. As they land the two come apart and skid slightly. "Well, well, if it isn't Corporal Ackerman," says the man with a sneer. "Oh wait, no, sorry, it's Captain now isn't it? You always did cling to the brass like a small raggedy child Levi!"

"I did my duty to Humanity," spits back Levi, "That's more than you can say Bruce!"

"Duty to Humanity?" laughs Bruce, "The only duty I had then was to myself. I'll admit I've gone up in the world a little now since the whole Erwin incident but I'm still looking out for number one. You really should meet my client Ackerman. He'd just love to have you and the rest of your filthy clan whipped off the face of the Earth. You and all the rest of God's rejects!"

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

"Oh right silly me, I forget your precious daddy never told you the special stories did he? Went and got himself eaten before you were even four years old. I'm sure that must have been just terrible for you mustn't it?"

"How do you know about my father?"

"I know a lot more than that Levi. Not just about you but about everything. My client has been keeping me on his payroll for a while now, and I've picked up a lot of interesting things over the past ten years. If you want to come work him too I'm sure he'd be happy to impart some of his knowledge."

"Shut the fuck up! I'm going to kill you, just like I should have done all those years ago!"

"Dream on Ackerman. If this how you want it then that's just fine with me; you'll be able to top off my trophy rack very nicely!"

Levi snarls and charges forwards. Bruce deflects his first swing to the right and takes a step back as Levi draws up for a second. The Captain drives him backwards with swing after swing, each one deflected in a hail of sparks. Finally Bruce catches one of Levi's attacks and forces his right blade down his own left blade. He tries to run Levi through but he manages to parry the attack.

By this point I can feel that all my injuries have healed, and I look back towards where the Scouts are fighting against the main body of the enemy. They've all taken to squatting down in ditches and I can see Armin with his back to a tree. The hunters are steadily advancing, firing as they go to keep the Scouts' heads down. I glance back at Levi in brief indecision before rising to my feet and turning towards the hunters.

Suddenly though there's a bang from somewhere back up the slopes. All of the hunters stop firing to turn and the sound of clashing blades ceases momentarily. I look behind me to see a purple smoke trail rising into the sky. 'Purple? That isn't one of our signals.' The hunters to my surprise being an immediate withdrawal, firing at the Scouts as they run.

"Dam," hisses Bruce, "I guess we'll have to continue this another time Ackerman. Until then, try not to die; I'd hate to miss the opportunity." Levi roars and charges forwards, but before he can go more than three steps there's a bang as Bruce sets off a smoke bomb. Levi comes to a stop coughing before being lost to m field of vision. Bruce breaks out from the smoke at a run, heading for the trees. I try to grab him but he jumps neatly over my outstretched hand and swings up into the trees. Within a minute all of the hunters are gone.

I pull myself out of my titan form and slide down to the ground. I look around me and my stomach tightens. Eren and his captors are likely far away by now, several of those Scouts still alive are wounded and Mikasa and Connie are both bleeding to death on the ground in front of me.