Chapter 16: The Uprising Part 6: The Thorned Titan

Bruce Yeager cries out in pain and clutches at his shoulder as blood begins to well up from the fresh wound. Everyone's gazes are snatched towards the figure standing on the rooftop above us, holding a smoking gun. A grey cloak and hood covers their face, and behind them are twenty six other such figures. "You!" screams Bruce in utter fury.

The figure holsters the pistol beneath his cloak before drawing a second one out with his left hand. This is followed by a long thin bladed sword with a half spherical hilt that arches down over the man's fingers. He raises the points the sword at Bruce and as if it were a silent signal the figures behind him rush forwards. They leap from the building each armed with swords, pistols, muskets, knives and a wide variety of other weapons. One of them is even holding a spear. The MPs are totally disorientated and several of them are cut down.

The rest fall back to the alleyways and open fire. Those with Anti-Personal Gear quickly activate it and move into the air. Suddenly there's an intense fire fight. The first figure holding the thin bladed sword hurries over to me and Historia. He pulls back his hood to reveal long brown hair, gleaming green eyes and a face that defiantly doesn't belong to a man. "You two need to get out of here now," she snaps. "We can hold the MPs off for a few minutes at best but there's not much chance of us actually beating them."

"Wait, who are you?" I gasp.

"My name's Amanda Quinn, I'm your adopted cousin."

"What?!"

"Look there's no time to explain now you need to go!"

"But what about Eren?" asks Historia.

"Don't worry your highness we'll take care of that."

"H-highness?"

"You don't know?" says Amanda, clearly stunned. She shakes her head in frustration, "Oh well, you'll find out later on I suppose. Right now we can't afford to lose you to them. Now you have to move before Forrae comes after you. I can buy you some time on that front."

"What about-

"Less talking, more running!" Amanda pushes us both towards the end of the street. "Get to the surface and make for the village of Eseter. I'll meet you there, now run!" Without checking to see what we do she turns back to the havoc we've just left and charges back in.

I look at Historia in confusion. "What, what do we do?"

"What she says run!" shouts Historia pulling at my arm.

"But what about the others?!"

"We're the ones they're after right? If we leave they're likely to follow now let's go!"

Reluctantly I turn away from the melee and sprint down the lane. Unlike Stohess people aren't flooding out into the streets here. At a few points I see a face peering out into the lane, but they dart back inside as we pass by. 'This probably isn't the first time the locals have been roused by gunfire.' The idea that people could live in such squalid conditions that gang fights and death are normal makes me sick. "If we do manage to pull off a coup," I puff out as we run, "we're going to have to try and fix things down here."

Historia nods but says nothing. At first I think that's just because she's out of breath but when I look again I see her face is contorted with confusion. "What is it?" I pant.

"That girl back there, she called me 'highness'. Why would she do that? Who are my family really?"

"You, you don't think..."

"I don't know what to think anymore. One of my friends turns out to be a woman who's over a hundred years old, my friends are currently in the middle of some sort of battle and I've been just addressed as royalty. Could this day get any more insane?"

Almost as if in answer to her words there's a massive explosion from behind us. I skid to a stop and look back. The last traces of crackling yellow lightning fade away as sixteen metre tall humanoid shape emerges. "Oh dear god," Historia whispers.

"Run, just run for all you're worth dam it!" I scream. We turn back to sprinting as fast and as hard as we can away from the new titan. The sound of giant feet pounding against the ground isn't long in reaching our ears. I can feel the earth tremble beneath my feet and fear tears through my body. 'Oh god, oh god, oh god. There's no way we can out run that thing!' The crashing continues to gain speed and becomes rapidly louder; covering the distance we put between us and it in less than a tenth of the time it took us to make it.

I look up to see a huge dark shape looming over me. The titan stomps right over our heads and comes to a halt in front of us, sending dirt and stone flying up into the air. The new titan is unlike any of those I've seen so far. It's the same height as the Armoured Titan except nowhere near as thickly built. It resembles the Female Titan in some respects but most of its body is covered in a kind of scale version of the Armoured Titan's armour. Sprouting from its back are a series of long spines, and a pair of especially long ones sprout from its forearms just above the wrists. It's hips are slim and woman like but it's chest is flat. It head is truly bizarre, being made up of four quarters that all meet around a central line that's the same position as the mouth. The entire head is devoid of features bar a pair of burning white eyes and a short mop of white hair.

The Thorned Titan stares down at the two of us, some steam still rising from its newly formed body. It cracks its neck and shakes its arms about, like a runner at the start of a race. "Come on then Sacrifice," I hear Forrae hiss inside my mind. "I'm going to assume you're not coming quietly."

'Dam right about that bitch!' I wave to Historia to get back, before sinking my teeth into my right hand. My titan body forms in a bright flash and I'm left standing facing the new enemy. The Thorned Titan is taller than me by a little more than a metre, forcing me to look upwards to make eye contact with her.

"I haven't taken on my second form in a few decades so I'm afraid I'm a little rusty. Still, that should help to level the playing field a bit." The Thorned Titan opens her mouth and lets out a growl that builds up into a roar and then shriek. She charges forwards, swinging the two long spikes on her arms as blades. I grab her right arm and spin her around me, redirecting her own momentum so that she throws herself into the ground. I'm relieved to see that by this point people aren't hanging around and hoping for the situation to blow over. They're pouring out of their ramshackle houses in droves.

'Sorry to bust up your homes. But if we win this conflict I'm pretty sure we'd have gotten you new ones anyway. If we lose then well, the condition of your houses is going to be the least of your problems.'

I rush the Thorned Titan in the hopes that I might be able to keep the advantage, but she flips back to her feet and nimbly deflects both my blows. She then shoves one of her arm blades into my stomach and pushes me away with her foot. The spike detaches as I'm pushed away, and almost straight away a new one begins to grow. I rip out the one I'm currently impaled by and throw it at her. The Thorned titan calmly swipes it out of the air.

"You're not going to win this you know. Just back down now and we can make this end a lot faster with an awful lot less pain."

'Shut up! You're a lair and traitor the Humanity!'

"Ah, that's where you're wrong. I'm on the side of Humanity. I'm re-establishing the balance, which is exactly what you should be trying to do."

'Balance? What balance is there in this world? We live in a cage, trapped like chickens in their coop, just waiting to be slaughtered.'

"But we don't need to be slaughtered. We were safe for the last hundred years, part of which I saw to myself. Then those two stupid idiots Quinn and Yeager had to go and screw everything up! I'd never been so humiliated in all my life as that night. Thankfully I was able to at least remove the stain from my name afterwards."

'What do you mean?'

"Oh I'm sorry; I was under the impression that we were supposed to be fighting."

The Throned Titan charges forwards and jumps into the air, launching several savage kicks at me which I just barely manage to deflect. She then lands neatly and lands a solid kick on my chest, sending me staggering backwards. I shake myself and try to charge back at her, swinging several times at her head. She easily deflects them however, grabbing my right arm, pulling out straight and twisting it so that the bones and muscles crush and tear each other apart.

With a snarl I rip my arm free and punch her directly in the stomach. The resulting impact makes me wish I hadn't. The blow sends her back several metres, but it pulverises my entire hand and the shockwave dislocates my shoulder. 'What the hell?!'

"My armours an awful lot more advanced than that stupid child's is. I've spent years perfecting it." To my amazement the scales of the Throned titan's abdomen don't even seem to have been cracked. They simply absorbed and the force and sent it right back up my own arm.

Hastily I reset my left shoulder with my equally battered right arm. Both my limbs are now covered in steam and the Thorned titan hasn't even been scratched. 'She's right; I can't do this. Her armour covers her entirely, even the joints. It's so flexible it doesn't even slightly impede her movements. My blow knocked her backwards but nothing else. I'm not even that skilled in hand-to-hand fighting to begin with, and there's no space down here to move!'

Before I can try to collect my thoughts she attacks again. This time she launches a series of rapid punches at my head, which I manage to dodge with some difficultly. She then brings her knee up into my still healing midsection, sending blood spraying in all directions. I fly backwards and land on my face. I push myself up onto my arms in time to see her looming over me.

I roll to the right in time avoid having my head stepped on. Pushing myself up halfway I leap into the air. I grapple the Throned titan, wrapping my damaged arms around her head hoping my weight combined with the limited fore I was able to summon will be enough to pull her over. It isn't.

She staggers a few steps but the right herself. She then tears me off of her head and hurls me into the ground. My spine breaks on impact along with the back of my skull. I try to sit up but my body's been so badly damaged it's impossible. "That was a good effort there. If I'd been anyone else bar our bestial friend it might have actually worked. But you're forgetting, I'm not just any titan shifter, I'm the first titan shifter!"

'Got quite the ego there it seems,' I manage.

"I prefer to think of it as well deserved pride. Now, it's time we took a little trip. It'll be easier if you can't do anything while we do." Her foot comes smashing down on my face, pulverising what's left of my head. Everything goes black as my eye sight fails. I try to get my body to move but some much of its nervous system has been destroyed that it can barely manage more than a twitch. I can feel myself being rolled over. There's a searing pain at the back of my neck and then light rushes into my vision.

I'm ripped out of the titan carcass by a massive hand. I try to struggle but of course it avails nothing. The Thorned titan holds me in front of her two metre tall head. I suddenly find myself overcome by a terrible fear as those white eyes burn into me. The Thorned titan opens her jaws wide, the hinge extending right to the very back of her skull. The last thing I see before blackness washes over me is a giant set of teeth closing, from the wrong side.

When I come to my hands and feet around bound and there's a kind metal apparatus been shoved into my mouth. I can't open my mouth at all and I can barely move my tongue. In fact I pretty much can't move anything. I've been woken by a rush of light as I'm lifted up out of some sort of box. I'm dropped rather roughly on a stone floor and I try to look around in the disorientating light. The walls seem to be made of stone just like the floor. It's a strange bright white stone, like the kind the Walls are made from. I'm hoisted to my feet by a man wearing a Military Police uniform. Since my feet around bound I can't stand and he has to hold me up. He grunts in annoyance before slinging me over his shoulder.

I kick and struggle frantically. Then the sight I see over his shoulder shuts me up. Eren is being pulled out of a similar box by two more MPs. But that's not what stuns me so much. A man in his early fifties with a balding head and wearing a simple black suit is holding Historia tightly in his arms. To my amazement it looks like he's crying.

I don't get the chance to see any more before I'm carried out of the room. I watch as Eren is picked up in the same way and we head down a staircase of the same white stone. We come out into a wide empty room held up by white columns of exactly the same white stone. This entire building seems to be made of the stuff. The roof is about twenty metres above us and everything gleams with deposits of some sort of crystalline substance.

I'm thrown roughly against the floor by the man carrying me, who promptly proceeds to undo my restraints and fasten me onto a table. My wrists and ankles are shackled to the corners so that I can't move. I'm splayed out like a frog about to be dissected in an anatomy lesson. I can turn my head from side to side though, even if my speech is prevented by the metal apparatus.

Eren is taken up onto a dais where he's forced to his knees and has his hands chained to metal poles at either corner. He has a similar piece of metal shoved into his own mouth. To my surprise the MP rips off his shirt, leaving his bare skin exposed. I'm thankful they don't seem to feel the need to do the same to me, as it feels cold enough down here with my shirt on. I look over the other way to see Historia being led by the hand by the older man in the suit.

I try to shout at him to leave her alone, but all I manage is a kind of distorted grunt. Historia looks both afraid and confused at the same time. The two of them stop a few steps away from where I've been tied down. The man dismisses the two MPs who hurry off to the far end of the huge room. In fact, looking at it from further inside it looks a lot more like a cave than anything else.

"No doubt you are all wondering what's going on here," says the man.

'Dam right I am!'

"I would prefer if you would keep a civil tongue inside of your mind young man," he says giving me a cold eye.

'You, you heard me?'

"Of course I did. You're being rather voluble it would be difficult for me not to. Now, if you don't mind I'll explain the situation."

He sighs, "My name is Roderick Riess and I'm one of the last three surviving members of that family. From what I can tell you've all been wondering what exactly is so special about this particular family. It is the fact that we are the true royal family. We were the kings and queens before the Titans came, and we still hold all the true power in this realm, even if we now act from behind the scenes.

"This power is not merely power through wealth and possession; it is the power of the Titans. The eldest of the Riess household has always held the power of the Titans in themselves, up until seven years ago, when it was stolen and my family slaughtered." Rod Riess stops for a moment and put his hands over his eyes. When he withdraws them there are the traces of tears on his cheeks. "Right now there are only two Riesses alive besides myself. Only one of those is eligible to become the next ruler, and that is you my dear daughter." Rod Riess turns to look lovingly at Historia as he says this.

Historia still looks incredibly confused. I can't say I'm much less confused. 'Who's the other one?' I think directly at Riess.

"It's rather ironic that you should ask that question," says Riess. "In fact, that other is you. You are the third and by far the oldest Riess currently alive."

'What? That's impossible!'

"I assure it's true. Your real name, Matthias Quinn, is Edmund Riess. You have survived down the ages, much like two others you have met."

"You mean Forrae?" asks Historia.

"Yes, Forrae. She was assigned as the Riess family's personal protector one hundred and seven years ago."

"Protector?" comes the indignant voice of Forrae from some place outside of my field of vision. "More like a glorified lapdog."

Ignoring the interruption Riess continues. "The other I speak of is Grisha Yeager. And it is because of that man's actions that we are all here now." I look over at Eren who's staring at Rod Riess in shock. "Seven years ago Grisha Yeager along with Andrew Quinn attacked myself and my family while we were in our private chapel. He assumed his titan form, ripped open the roof and killed my entire family. He stole the power from my beloved daughter by devouring her whole and then escaped into the night, leaving me alone."

Eren shakes his head frantically in denial of this. "It is true. That power you posses Eren, it isn't yours he passed it on to you five years ago, the only way a titan power can passed on." Eren's pupils dilate and he suddenly has a strange kind of spasm. Suddenly, through the mental link we share a series of images rush to me from Eren. His father injecting him with a needle and the world vanishing in a brilliant flash. The perspective changes to Grisha's as Eren's titan form looms over him, smaller than usual but still at least ten metres in height. Its eyes gleam in the pale light of the moon as it lunges towards him, jaws open wide.