Ragnar clanked his manacles against the wall behind him, as his arms hung suspended above him. He'd been confined for at least a few days, naked and alone in this dark cell. Nothing had been provided to him, neither food nor water… But he was neither hungry nor thirsty.
A hunger did burn inside him though. A burning desire for answers… for Annie.
The cell door clanged open, and a pair of warriors entered. Ragnar looked at them from under his brows, only his eyes moving. He stared at them, unblinking, as the tumultuous sea of anger inside him boiled up once again.
"So, you're the Prince," One of them sneered, "The son of the Crystal King… Not much to look at, being the son of a legend."
Ragnar just sat there, quietly.
"You've got a guest." The second one said, just as Ragnar closed his eyes to zone them out.
Ragnar's eyes opened as he heard a third set of footsteps clicking down the corridor outside. His heart jumped as Annie stepped through the heavy door, her hair cut as it had been when they first met.
He simply looked at her, finally lifting his head slightly so that he could see her better.
"Leave us." She said to the two other warriors. "Now."
But neither of the warriors moved from the positions by the door.
"We can't do that, Myrmidon," One said, "We have orders from the Council to not allow anyone in without us present…"
"Well, the Council won't stop me from beating both of your faces in," Annie said, annoyance pervading her voice, "Now, go stand outside."
After her threat, the two bowed slightly, before going to stand just outside the door.
"So… they seem to be treating you rather poorly…" Annie said, squatting down in front of him. "Good. You need to pay for what you did to me…"
"What…" Ragnar, in not having spoken for days, hadn't noticed how dry his mouth and lips were, and it took him a few moments to make it comfortable for him to speak. "Why, Annie, why did you betray us? Why did you betray me?"
Her face remained impassive, as if she was carved from ice.
"You, Ragnar, are the reason I betrayed you." She said. "I found out why you keep getting stronger… How you've managed to become so powerful… You steal other Shifter's powers. Like your sister, every time you kill a shifter, you absorb their strength."
She reached out, dragging a nail down Ragnar's cheek. Steam tricked from his skin, as his powers healed the cut that she ran along it.
"That's why I lost my powers." She said, before jamming her thumb into his right eye and squeezing. "You stole them! All except my ability to heal."
"I didn't know!" Ragnar cried out, as he felt his eyeball burst under her pressure, but it wasn't that pain that made him cry out, it was the betrayal he sensed in Annie's voice. "I'm sorry, Annie!"
"Oh, you will be sorry, Ragnar Mosher." She said coldly, before kissing him.
It was not a kiss like any they had shared before. It was a hard, impassionate kiss, without any love or kindness. Her tongue found his though, and…
With a deft flick of her tongue, she pushed something into Ragnar's mouth. He suddenly tasted copper, but kept his eyes closed, though his heart jumped in shock.
Then she pulled abruptly away, and drove a hard knee into his face. Without further banter, she left the cell, leaving the two junior warriors to look in upon the bloody Ragnar. But when they closed the door…
Eren… Eren! He called through their link.
What?Eren asked after a few moments. I heard that something happened from some of the guards, and now no one is allowed to see me…
Annie betrayed us… I think… Ragnar responded. Everyone except Levi has been captured. But… I think it may all be part of a plan.
Eren didn't respond for several minutes, and in that time Ragnar rolled the object Annie had given him around in his mouth, figuring out that it was a key…
Ragnar, I just received a visit from… I think… Wait, let me show you.
Images ran through Ragnar's mind, as Thanatos and Erebus pushed Eren's memories through the link.
Two women stood over Eren, who wasn't chained. They wore the same dresses as the two veiled woman he had seen earlier, but…
That's them… Those are the woman that were with my mother the night I was born…
The door to his cell banged open again, and suddenly he found the same two women standing over him. Both women's eyes were hard, though the seemed to probe every inch of his skin with fascination.
"You were right, Sekhmet," The red haired one said, "He is like his father…"
Ragnar stood up slowly, allowing his arms to come down from above his head.
"I know you both," He said, "You caused my mother's death."
The dark skinned one, Sekhmet, snorted.
"No, young master, you caused your mother's death," Her voice seemed to sneer at him, "We simply helped the process along. And at least, it was her wish, to further the cause."
Ragnar stayed silent, even when the redheaded one threw a tunic towards him.
"We know much, young master," She said, "We even know that your little love has visited you and likely given you something with which to escape…"
Ragnar grunted, impressed that they had all this figured out. Sekhmet stepped in close to him, holding her hand out. He spat the tiny key out into her hand, with which she unlocked his chains.
"Now, please. Cover your nakedness."
Wary of his mother's former servants, he grabbed the tunic and stepped away from them, quickly pulling it on and tying the belt.
"I suppose you expect me to thank you." He said, when he was finished. "I'm sorry if it won't be forthcoming."
"No, we don't expect you to thank us," Dian said, "We once served your mother. And though we now serve another, we expect that she wouldn't want you chained naked in a cell. Now, what you choose to do with this is entirely up to you."
And then they left him, leaving the cell door open behind them. Expecting a trap or double cross, he approached the door slowly.
The two guards who had earlier argued with Annie lay beheaded on the floor, their blood staining the stone floor. He looked down the passageway each way, trying to remember which way they had brought him.
Ragnar knew that he was far underground, another way to dissuade a Jotunn from transforming.
He grabbed a sword belt from one of the dead guards, before padding off down the corridor.
Annie felt sick as she walked through the Black Acropolis.
Ragnar must hate me, now. She thought, just as she stumbled onto a scene that made her stop in shock. A pair of warriors had a woman, a slave by the look of what remained of her clothing, face down on the ground. Their rough hands were, exploring her.
"Please, Master's, please stop…" The woman begged. "I cannot be married if you…"
One of them smacked her, and she fell silent, seeming to resign herself to her fate.
Annie slowly approached, just as one of them was forcing the slave girl's legs apart. A vicious knee to the back of the head sent him sprawling across the girl, blood spurting from his mouth as he bit through his own tongue.
The second one, playing with the girl's chest, had only a moment to look up, before she drove her boot into his face, sending him sliding across the Acropolis' paving stones.
"What the-" He began to say, before Annie silenced him with the steel shod toe of her boot. His blood spattered across the wall behind.
She looked at the confused girl, who couldn't have been much younger than herself, and simple motioned with her head.
"Go, quickly."
The nearly naked young woman, got to her knees and groveled in front of her.
"Thank you, Master. Thank you so much for saving me…" She began, but Annie had already began to walk away. The girl looked after her, before turning and darting away towards the Acropolis' slave quarters.
Annie had only one thing on her mind… Her father had said that a box had been recovered from the group of 'Wall Soldiers', which she had lied and said was simply medicine. But she knew what it was… And where it was kept hidden.
She pulled open the door to the armory, and found several warrior waiting, as a slave wearing a leather apron sharpened their swords on a grindstone. Each of the warriors, all junior to her since she was a Myrmidon, nodded to her as she brushed by them, heading for a storeroom in the back… She'd had to nearly kill one of the Warrior's who'd participated in the attack on the Scout Legion to find out where it had been sequestered, but find it she had.
Several slaves passed her, as they went about their business in the armory, and soon she found herself standing in front of the storeroom the warrior had described. Opening it, she found shelves upon shelves of goods, most of them having a rather roughhewn look to them…
This is the Plunder Storeroom. She thought. So most of this must come from the bandit tribes to the west…
Walking through the deserted storeroom, her eyes darted back and forth along the shelves, looking for that little wooden box…
There it is… She said, seeing the little metal latch that held it closed. Pressing the button next to the latch, she smiled as the vials and needle and plunger showed themselves…
I shall be reborn! And then… Then I can save Ragnar, and burn this place to the ground…
Ragnar darted behind a pillar as another patrol walked along his corridor. He and Eren had been in nearly constant communication, and had found that as they grew closer, their link grew stronger. He'd narrowed it down to only a single cell block.
As soon as the patrol was past, he burst into motion, making for the heavy steel door that led to the cell block. Wrenching it open, he found himself face to face with a disgruntled looking warrior, much older than himself.
"Took you fucking long enough, asshole," The older warrior growled, "A half hour late for the she-demon and brats guard duty. Now comeon, here's the keys. The brat is supposed to be fed soon, so you might as well get ready to do that…"
The guard handed him a ring with a number of keys on it, and walked off. Ragnar stood there for a moment, totally shocked at how easy that had been, but before his shock became too obvious to any onlooker, he slipped through the door, pulling it shut and locking it.
Eren!He called through their link. I'm close!
He heard a muffled yell from one of the cells in front of him, and skid to a stop, pulling the keys out and shuffling through them quickly, trying each and every one of them.
Finally, one of them worked, and he pulled open the door.
"Eren, let's-"
Marcus Ursus charged out of the cell, his sword flashing towards Ragnar's throat. Ragnar dodged under the slash, before slamming his shoulder into the larger man's chest, driving him back into the cell.
Turning a quick eye to survey the room, he saw that Eren was in the room, though he was tied up, with a piece of leather cord stuck in his mouth.
Ragnar didn't even try to grab his sword, instead gripping Marcus' sword hand with his right hand, and twisting. They struggled against each other, in a battle of pure strength.
"So, I see that you did manage to escape," Marcus growled as Ragnar began to win, "Jonah thought you couldn't, but it looks like I've won that bet!"
He twisted his body, before bringing a leg up in between them and kicking Ragnar explosively in the belly. Ragnar thudded into the wall, jerking his head to the side as Marcus' sword cut embedded itself into the stone wall behind him.
I need to finish this now!
Ragnar slammed a hard uppercut into the other man's face, sending him reeling back, without his sword. Then, feeling invigorated for some strange reason as steam filled the room, he went on the attack. Steam burst from his entire body, as he kicked Marcus hard enough to dislocate his jaw, snapping his head back with enough force to keep him busy healing for at least a few moments.
Ragnar snatched the sword from the wall, cutting Eren's restraints quickly, and drawing blood from Eren's arm in the process.
"Ow!" He complained. "Could you be a little more careful?"
"No time! We need to get my sister, the rest of our comrades and go! We don't have much time!"
They scrambled out into the corridor, closing and locking the door behind them, just as the noise of something smashing into the great steel door at the end of the hallway could be heard.
"Shit!" Ragnar cursed, as he and Eren began to fling open the cell doors all along the block. "Quickly! Quickly!"
The first cell held a pair of weak looking men chained to the wall as Ragnar had been, though from their scraggly beards and emaciated looks, they'd been here much longer than either he or Eren.
"Who… Who are you?" Asked one of them, his eyes squinting at the rather dim candlelight.
"I am Ragnar," Ragnar found himself saying, "Why are you here?"
"We… We defied our master." One of them said. "Shifted when we weren't supposed to… But we swear it was an accident!"
With a sudden movement that made the two men flinch, Ragnar cut their chains, allowing them both to drop to the ground.
"I don't have any time to explain what's going on," Ragnar said quickly, as the hammering grew louder, "But you are free now. Unfortunately, you will have to fight for your freedom…"
And then he dashed off to the next, repeating the process over and over again, until only a single cell remained. Forty men and women now filled the corridor, most of them struggling to rise from their knees as they kissed the ground. A few of them looked like recent captures though, and wouldn't make eye contact.
"Ragnar… What are we going to do with them?" Eren said quietly as they stood in front of the cell door, which was larger and thicker than any of the others. "They… They're just slaves…"
He froze when Ragnar turned on him, his eyes harsh.
"I won't leave anyone behind, if they wish to fight for their freedom, then I will bring them back with me." He said, before slamming a key angrily into the doors keyhole. "And they may be slaves, but that doesn't make them any less human."
The door hissed open, and Ragnar squinted into the darkness. Something moved, a shadow that darted to the side, and Ragnar suddenly launched himself to the side as a woman launched herself out at him.
"I knew you'd return for me, Father!" Ymir screamed, her overgrown fingernails stabbing towards his face. "I hoped every day, so that I could have a chance to kill you!"
But for all her speed, she couldn't connect with Ragnar, other than a few scratches.
"Ymir!" Eren said, stepping in between them, trying to grab her. "Ymir! Stop it! That isn't your father! That's your brother!"
"I don't care who he is!" She said, madness consuming her voice. "He has his face!"
Eren pushed her hard back against the wall as she tried to lunge at him once again.
"Historia is in trouble, Ymir!" He said, his words causing Ymir to freeze. "She came with us to save you! And now she's been captured. We need your help, so stop trying to kill Ragnar!"
Ymir whirled to look at Eren, her eyes wide.
"You… What in the hell are you doing here?"
"We went to Shiganshina and closed the breach, and when we didn't find you…"
"We came looking for you." Ragnar finished, turning to look towards the end of the corridor, where the pounding had reached a crescendo. "Now, please, you have to trust us-"
The door dropped to the floor behind them with a clang, and ten warriors rushed in, blades and shields drawn.
Ragnar and Eren both burst into action, their pillaged swords going to good use as they slaughtered the men who were, in the end, simply prison guards. As they stood over the decapitated bodies, Ymir walked by, going to the door before stopping to look over her shoulder at them.
"So, what are we waiting for?" She asked with a grin that not even her emaciated cheeks could hide.
Eren and Ragnar looked at each other, before smiling and following her through the door, their newly freed friends following them sedately.
The doors that led to the tunnel opened, and a young female warrior grunted in surprise, her face already contorted in terror, as Ymir fell upon her with a fury that checked even Ragnar's attack.
"Fucking bitch! You're one of the worst!" She said as she drove her thumbs into the smaller woman's eyes. "This is what you deserve!"
The girl screamed and kicked, until Ragnar stepped up and ended her life with a savaged flick of his sword. His sister glared up at him, but he held her gaze for a moment, before turning and leaping up the stairs two at a time.
He opened the doors, suddenly finding himself in what he guessed was the jail, and also finding a blade pressed against his throat.
"Why did the mission fail?" Captain Levi asked, the bodies of a dozen men and women covering the jail floor, his eyes hard. "Was it the Leonhardt girl?"
Ragnar slowly pushed the blade away from his throat, as Eren, Ymir and the former slaves skid to a stop behind him.
"She did… Sort of," Ragnar began, "But she also freed me, and… Well, if it was her plan, it worked. I got into the jail, and was able to free who we came to set free…"
Levi didn't respond, simply turned towards the door.
"I was able to track down Mikasa and the others," He said without looking at them, "They've been taken to… Well, from all of the graves, I can only assume it's some kind of execution site."
Ragnar could almost feel the palpable change in the air as Eren and Ymir tensed behind him.
"I know what you're thinking," Levi said, cutting Eren's inevitable call to action off, "But we can't go haring off without a plan. We need a distraction, someone to draw off the swarm of these people who are likely to show up…"
Ragnar simply nodded towards the Captain, knowing fully well what he had in mind, before turning to the freed slaves.
"Listen, listen all of you!" He said, stepping forward. "You can see that we are no friends of these men who call themselves your masters!"
He saw their eyes narrow, some from fresh faced youths, to the two older men with bushy and overgrown beards.
"But no more of that! Here and now is your time to rise, you outnumber your Masters, and I know many of you are able to shift as well." Ragnar paused as he saw a few nods. "I cannot ask you to fight with me, but I beg that you take your freedom, and at least assist me by spreading the word. Now is the time! It is time to rebel against those who would oppress you! Tell your friends, tell your family! Cause havoc among their ranks, and when it is time, go to the west! And I shall lead you away from here!"
The slaves didn't so much as cheer, but he could see that in tasting freedom for the first time, they hungered for more.
"All right," Levi said, "Myself, Eren and… You're Ymir, right?" Ragnar's sister nodded. "Okay, the three of us will go and free the rest of my team… And then we will make a beeline for the Walls. Understood, Death Prince?"
Ragnar's lip twitched as Levi used a title he hadn't heard in a few weeks.
"Understood, Captain. Let's go."
He charged out into the street, aware of the throngs of people around him going about their regular day to day business. Several of them gave him strange looks as they eyed him, but recoiled in terror as they noticed his hand going to his mouth, and his teeth sinking down.