Ok so... sorry for the late update I guess. Anyways, enjoy, as Beta'd by KappasRule~
I own neither DGM nor SNK
Cabin inside Wall Rose
Eventually, Levi had finally arrived. When he came, everyone gathered around a table to discuss the plan, and what has changed, if anything. Lavi and Allen stood off to the side, leaning against the wall. Hange and her squad had also arrived, along with Kanda and Lenalee. Their new addition, Krory, was nowhere to be found, however. Allen assumed that he was given a different mission last minute.
The first thing that Levi did, however, was wipe his hand beneath the wooden table. A mound of dust flew into the air, and a look of disappointment crossed his face. "You should've had plenty of time." He said, and took out a handkerchief from his sleeve. "Well… never mind that. We'll talk about your lax cleaning job later. Right now we need to get organized and plan our next move." He explained. "Of course… while much has happened, our goal is still the same. That is, to close the hole in Wall Maria. As long as we can do that, most of the details won't matter. Whether it's people next to us turning into titans, a hair-covered titan throwing boulders at us, or a handful of titans popping up inside the walls. Hey, Armin. You said if things went well, we could plug up the wall fast. Explain that again."
"Yes, sir…" Armin nodded. "My idea was to have Eren transform into a titan, then use his abilities to seal the wall. If Allen was taken into the situation, then it would take even less time." Allen piped up at the mention of his name. "The walls… seem to be made out of hardened titan bodies. So if we can create enough matter on the spot to plug the hole, then… if that's even possible, of course… there'd be no need for wagons to carry large amounts of material, like in the original plan. We could also choose a cloudy night, when the titans would be less active, to head to the wall. If it's just us on horses, we should be able to travel the road from Trost District to Shiganshina District in one night. Under these ideal conditions… the mission to retake wall Maria would take less than 24 hours."
Allen's mouth hung slightly open at the explanation. He looked around to see expressions of shock and disbelief as well. Armin looked down at his hands. "But now that I'm talking about it again, it does sound like a pie in a sky dream."
"Whether that dream can be made real depends on this guy." Levi said, gesturing to Eren next to him.
"Yes. I understand." Eren said.
"How about you, Allen?" Levi asked. "Think you can do this?"
Allen's never attempted to harden his own titan body before. Well, there's a first for everything. "Sure, why not?" He finally decided.
"Hear that, Hange? They're up for it. And you're the one who chooses where our experiment will take place." Levi said.
"Yes, of course. It's my duty as long as I'm alive." She said, rather solemnly. "The Garrison is fully mobilized and patrolling the wall. That requires an incredible amount of effort and manpower. Patrols in the walled cities have become so infrequent, they can't even maintain order. This situation will only compound chaos in the cities. We have to recapture Wall Maria; I'm even more convinced than before. I want everyone to feel safe again soon. I want this to be a world where people can live without fighting each other."
She looked up from her hands to look back at the group gathered around the table. "That's why I want to test both Eren's and Allen's powers as soon as possible. This time, we'll experiment without fear to find out more about this hardening ability, and everything else. The idea that he may have manipulated titans is an amazing possibility. If Eren can really do that, it could very well turn our situation completely around!"
Hange looked back down to her hands. "That's why we can't sit around and waste time! We have to hurry and take action… but… I still want them to lay low for the time being."
"What?!" Eren exclaimed. Allen, however, understood why he should. He didn't understand why Eren should, however.
"But… why?" Armin pressed.
"I mean… the situation seems to be even more complicated than we thought." Hange inquired.
"Huh… from the moment you came here, it looked like you've been on edge, like you're holding in a shit. You've still got that look on your face." Levi said. "So why do you need to keep it inside? Tell me, Hange."
"Minister Nick is dead." She said.
"He was the one that told us to block off the titan from sunlight, right?" Lavi asked. "The titan from the wall, I mean."
Allen remembered that man, and he remembered how much he despised him back then. Hange just nodded. "He was found dead this morning inside Trost District Barracks. I don't know the cause of death, but I know he was murdered. Probably tortured by the interior first squad of the Military Police first."
She sighed through her nose. "I had thought that the church would try to get their hands on Nick once they learned he was helping the Survey Corps. That's why I hid his identity and put him in the barracks. But…" She grinded her teeth together, clearly upset and frustrated. "I'd never imagine they'd use soldiers to kill him. I was naïve… it was my fault Nick was killed."
Silence poured through the room. Levi sipped his tea thoughtfully.
If they went after Nick because he helped the Survey Corps, would they go after the members of the Black Order as well? Allen was nearly positive that they wouldn't, but if they tried to, they surely wouldn't go down without a fight.
It was Armin who decided to speak up. "Torture…? So the MPs decided to torture Minister Nick to find out how much he told us?"
"Probably." Levi answered. "They'd want to know if the connection between the Reiss family and the church had gotten out, and they'd want to know where Eren and Historia are… quite possibly Allen too, now that they know there is still a second shifter among us."
"Of course, we have shared this information with Commander Erwin, Commander Pixis, and the entire Survey Corps. So now the tables have turned on the interior MPS. We're watching them… so they shouldn't be able to do anything too extreme." Moblit explained. "Still, if they change their methods, there are plenty of ways they could find us… we don't know who is a friend and who is an enemy right now."
He continued. "Even coming here today, we split into groups and assigned shadows to look for anyone tailing us. In this case, them." He said, gesturing to the Black Order. "Though, I don't believe this location is compromised yet."
"And so… that's why you want to hold off experimenting with them, Hange?" Levi asked.
Hange nodded. "Yeah." She frowned. "From the time Eren's titan powers were revealed, someone from the interior has been desperately trying to get their hands on him. Also, now that Allen has just recently revealed his powers, they must be twice as desperate."
She went on. "But, since the recent turmoil, the level of pressure has clearly changed. They're trampling through territory they used to see as off-limits. They may have already split the military into two factions. Everything inside the walls has become unstable, too…" She explained.
"If you think about this calmly, it becomes clear that 'outside enemies' like Reiner and Bertoldt had allies on the inside the entire time." She glanced at Allen when she said this, for some reason. It was only for a fleeting moment. "In other words, what we need to be worried about is being fatally stabbed in the back while our attention is diverted outside the walls."
"So, you're saying we should just sit here and have tea parties instead?" Levi asked mockingly.
"There's still a lot of we can do inside, like knitting." She said optimistically. "Please, just for now."
"'Just for now'?" Levi repeated her words. "No, it's the opposite. Do you think these people are going to give up that quickly? They'll find us here eventually. If we do nothing but run, then all we can do is get caught. Hange, you're normally clearheaded. But right now, you feel responsible for Nick being killed, and that's made you timid. How many of his fingernails were torn off?"
This took her off guard. "Huh?" She asked.
"You saw him, didn't you? How many?" He snapped.
"I don't know…I only saw him for a moment, but all the ones I could see were torn off." She said.
"Huh." He said. "If you're going to talk, you talk after one. If you're not going to talk, it doesn't matter how many nails they tear off. While I do think that Minister Nick was an idiot, it looks like he held onto his faith until the very end."
"My… god…" Hange breathed.
"If there's a chance Nick didn't talk, then it's possible that our 'someone' in the interior hasn't noticed that the Survey Corps is watching the Reiss family. Anyway, the way I see it, is that there are two paths we can go down." Levi held up his fingers as he went along. "We go outside before we're stabbed in the back, or we exterminate our would-be killers first. Which do you choose, Hange? Go before we're stabbed?"
Hange hesitated. "Both…" She finally said. "We'll do both at the same time."
"Huh… I guess that's exactly what Erwin would say." Levi said, finally finishing their discussion.
Allen was helping keep watch outside with Sasha and Jean. They were spaced out in these man-made wooden lookout towers. It was enough to keep him alone with his thoughts, which needed to be put back in order after the whole hubbub from earlier.
The MPs were going after him now? Well that was just great. This was exactly why he never wanted to reveal his abilities to the public. He sighed. "Hey, how's it going out here?"
Lenalee had landed next to his post. "Oh, nothing too exciting." He said.
She hummed thoughtfully. "Exciting, huh?"
He groaned. "But… I'm not looking forward to being experimented on." Thoughts drifted toward dissection tools and other torturous methods that Hange might do to him. He shivered.
Lenalee smiled. "It probably won't be that bad. I mean, I got to speak to her about it. She won't dissect you, I'm sure."
"You know what I don't get, though?" Allen asked.
"What?"
"Is that we're going to be doing these experiments… on two titan shifters, me and Eren… and also crush people who stand in our way." He shrugged. "I mean, I sort of get it. We have quite the crowd; we should be able to pull it off…"
"I don't really understand it all, either." She said. "But, if Cross says to go along with them, then just go along with them."
He groaned again. "I really, really, don't like him. We should overthrow him."
"Hey now, don't go thinking stuff like that." Lenalee tsked. "Especially if you're a titan shifter. People might take things the wrong way."
Allen frowned. "Whatever."
"Well, I just came to check in on you." She said. "I should be off now. Oh, dinner might be ready soon, too."
His stomach grumbled stubbornly at the thought of potatoes and bread. "I can't wait." He said. Then, he waved goodbye to Lenalee as she left.
Yeah, they talk a lot in this chapter. Hmm. So, my new goal this month is to keep chapters at 2,000 words! Aww yisss! Longer chapters~
Anyways, please leave a review :)