The eyes in the trees have finally come out to play.
It was relieving to know that their worries had not been completely unjustified. Though, pinned down as she was in the crumbling doorway of a building being torn apart, Annie was thinking that it didn't really matter if they had anticipated it or not.
At least this time around I won't have to hear about it from someone else.
Still feeling the thrill of panic Mikasa's cry had sent tearing through her body, Annie sprinted through the trembling structure, darting around a corner and down a long hallway towards a secondary outer door on the South side of the building. This entrance was tucked under a large balcony and had taken much less damage because of that, though even the additional cover did nothing to keep the dust in the street from pouring in, offering her the same wall of dizzying smoke as her previous vantage point.
Mikasa's warning had given them an edge, small as it was; the advantage of not being shredded by the munitions that were now raining down from the sky in every direction. The noise was incredible, tearing through the muffled calm of the forest like shattering glass, blowing holes in the decaying stone as if it were paper. Billows of dust and debris clouded the streets in a thick smokescreen, turning the overwhelming greenness of the forest floor a dingy, clotted grey.
Taking away the Jaegerist's element of surprise had been necessary to their survival, but now it was painfully clear that they were trapped, spread out between the dilapidated structures that preceded the temple. This was by design, Annie figured, shielding her face as another volley of projectiles tore down the street and across the face of the building to her left. A tactic to keep them separated, unable to fire back.
How the Jaegerists had known where to find them was troubling, but it hardly mattered now. They had been found, like it or not, either by tailing them or by some other means that weren't quite as obvious. Gabi's look of terror as they bolted for cover hung in her mind, and Annie prayed that the rest of them had found equally sturdy walls in hide in while they waited out this barrage.
The waiting was the hard part for her, now. Stuck on the ground with no way to ascertain information on the enemy ship's whereabouts or the condition of the others made her feel less than useless, and the brief glimpse she had of the three Jaegerist vessels didn't give her much to go on.
But even with their aerial weapons, this attack didn't have the numbers it needed to completely wipe them out in one go, not if their only force was aboard the three ships, and there was a limited number of bullets that each artillery gun could fire before needing to reload. It was hard to pinpoint where the planes were hovering – a feat that was both incredible and deeply concerning – but she was sure that the closest to her position was somewhere off to her left, gliding above tree line and peppering the ground between where her building stood and the main entrance of the temple. Annie was also sure that they were surrounded by now, all avenues of escape closely watched.
If the enemy was smart, they would stagger their assaults, ensuring that at least two ships were always firing while the third had the chance to restock. There was no way of knowing if this was the case over the explosion of noise, but there would come a moment where the ship nearest to her would fall silent; that was when she would make her move.
She had to hand it to Jean, it was a pretty solid plan to come up with in less than a minute. Fanning out the way they had was risky, yet as far as she could tell it had paid off. As long as there was at least one person close enough to the underside of each plane, the second its gun stopped firing they would have a small window of opportunity. That's if could survive until then.
Straining her ears, Annie did her best to single out the ship closest to her from the rest of the assault, listening hard to bang after bang, metal scrapping against metal as the gun sprayed bullets down upon them, biding her time.
45 seconds later, there was a distinct pause.
One, Two, Three.
Annie was running. The moment she was free from the building she was airborne, taut cables pulling her upwards through the clouds of hazy smoke and hurling her towards the nearest plane in a high arch.
The enemy was smart, but not smart enough. Their staggering hadn't worked; two of the three artillery guns - hers and the one stationed on the Southern tip near the water - had run out of ammo, the crew aboard each ship working at full speed to re-equip their firing squad. Judging by the widespread damage to the town the Jaegerists hadn't been focused on hunting them down, only on making them stay put. A plan that they were quickly coming to regret; the Scouts were fighting back.
Shots were being fired from the center of the village, laying down cover for the 5 bodies rocketing across the rooftops towards the fumbling aircrafts: two Scouts for hers, three for the other. Reiner blasted into view to her right, trailing smoke and debris from a nearby alley, and fell in beside her as they both angled their compressors at the ground and launched themselves into the open space above the whirring propellers. Staying close to them was key; the guns could only tilt up or down so far. The closer they were the less damage they would take from neighboring ships as well, unless of course they had no problem running the risk of hitting their companions.
One glance at the occupants inside confirmed Annie's speculations. There were not nearly enough soldiers aboard to conduct such a forward attack; even a group with less experience than they had in battle would be able to put up a fight against this. What was their angle, here?
"Go for the soldiers, I've got the gun!" Reiner cried over the rush of machinery, his clothes flapping in the damp wind.
There was no time to think it through now. Weapons drawn Annie and Reiner came down hard on the metal sheeting, sliding towards either side of the open cabin below. There wasn't much to use in way of an anchor point up here; they would have to rely on their gas and agility. The surface beneath her feet came to an abrupt end, and with a leap backwards Annie was flying, sailing out into the open air 20 meters above the ground.
She managed to get off a full clip before the sliding door slammed shut, painful screams coming from several of the plane's occupants. Using the metal rails attached to the underside she swung below the plane and back over to the other door, weaving past the ferocious buffets of air being thrown to the ground by the propellers. The interior was splattered with blood. Two dead soldiers crumpled against the tail end, and a third meeting his death on the tip of Reiner's blade. The rest had barricaded themselves in the forward bulkhead, presumably where the cockpit was located.
"Forget about them." Annie said when Reiner pointed his gun towards the handle. "Just see if you can break their little toy."
Half a dozen crates of ammunition were stacked near the mounted turret: they came prepared, at least. Within two minutes they had all been kicked or thrown from the open door, the crates smashing to bits as the belts of high caliber bullets went flying across the ground.
When she was finished, and without consciously deciding to do this, she bent down over the nearest enemy soldier, absorbing the empty-eyed look he was wearing, his final moments frozen forever onto his face.
"I think these guys are from Saharsa."
More than just their darker complexion gave this away; she recognized the insignia stitched to the soldier's vest; a distant memory of strategy meetings and war councils with the Warriors of Marly.
If the Jaegerists managed to form an alliance with the tribes of Saharsa, then we are in much bigger trouble than we thought.
"It's no use, the gun is as solid as a rock. I'd need a blow torch to break this thing down."
Annie reloaded her clips and gave the artillery gun a quick glance.
"Doesn't matter if they don't have any ammo for it. Come on, we should make for the Western edge and back up the team still under fire."
Reiner nodded, but frowned as he approached the open side door, getting their first good look at the rest of the settlement.
When they had boarded, the ship was positioned over the Northeast portion of the settlement up near the temple; now they could tell that the mosque had become much farther away, the Eastern edge of town slipping slowly away below their feet.
"Their trying to get us close to the Southern ship, we need to move."
The two had only just managed to touch down in a sheltered area of an ancient balcony when the neighboring ship opened fire on the plane they had pillaged, narrowly avoiding the props and fuselage and creating a spatter of holes along the hull near the tail. It tipped dangerously to the side for a moment, whatever loose objects still inside tumbling to the ground, before settling back into its slow progression across the perimeter to join its counterpart on the edge of the lake.
"Are they fucking crazy?!" Reiner said, his eyebrows raised in astonishment. "Any farther forward and they would have blasted it from the sky!"
"Looks like they weren't prepared for this much resistance." Annie said, shrugging.
"Speaking of which, how the hell is that ship still armed? Between Jean and Levi, it should be burned to the ground by now."
Through the smog and mist they could see the two men whirling through the air on ODM, but every time one of them broke away to engage the attack force on the ship, they were met with unknown gunfire from somewhere to their right, driving them back down.
So, they did come with backup.
No sooner that she had thought this, the air to the South was suddenly cluttered with bodies; a small advance squad of Jaegerist Elites swarming around Levi and Jean like flies.
"Go, Annie! Back up the others while I try to thin out the herd!"
"Fine, just don't get yourself killed. That would be inconvenient for me."
With a roll of his eyes and a grunt Reiner was gone, running off the lip of the roof and barreling through the air towards the mass of enemy soldiers. Turning on her heels, Annie made for the opposite edge away from water, crouching down and studying the Western half of the city where the third battle was taking place.
The artillery gun had finally fallen silent, the barrel smoking furiously as the team aboard rushed to arm it, while the remaining soldiers fired their own handheld weapons ceaselessly down upon the sunken remains of a caved in home on the edge of the village. The second one of the soldiers' guns ran dry, a new one was passed to them, the other being reloaded and traded off to the next to allow for a constant stream of fire.
Something was different here. Unlike the other two spots of contact where the enemy appeared more interested in keeping them pinned on the ground, this team seemed hell-bent on making sure whoever was trapped inside was dead. More than just dead: completely eviscerated.
Rattling off names in her head, she tried to get a quick grasp of where everyone was in relation to the battlefield. Armin was with Oz and Mikasa in the temple, the one place that the Jaegerists had completely ignored. Was that on purpose? Were they planning on killing everyone else and then using Armin to decipher the Children of Light texts?
Annie smirked. Good luck getting passed his personal sentry.
There were two – no, three shooters stationed on the roof of one of the taller buildings in the center of the village, aiming at the ship Reiner had run off to. Historia was probably there, along with Pieck. Gabi was an ace shot, so it would make sense for her to be there. That meant that to the West was Falco, Connie, and…
Ah.
It was obvious, now that she thought about it. Who else would the Jaegerists want dead more than their turncoat Elite? Contrary to the others, this attack was personal; retribution for the damage Arya had caused the Council. Annie harbored no ill will for their resident doctor – even if the way Armin looked at her filled her with a strange mixture of moroseness and relief – but at this rate Arya's actions against her own people were going to get anyone close to her killed: something that Annie had no intention of allowing.
She was close enough to the western perimeter to have a decent look at the firing squad currently laying down a barrage against the Scouts buried underneath the crumbling house, which was significantly larger than the one her and Reiner had dealt with. At the head of the charge was a man with rusty-colored hair and a sallow complexion, and even though he was still quite a distance away and any sound coming from him was being drowned out by gunfire, it was disturbingly clear that he was laughing. Not any kind of normal laugh either: one that reeked of malice and psychosis the likes of which sent shivers of unease down Annie's spine.
What is actually going on, here? The incredible timing of their attack, which lacked in both numbers and in strategy, had no purpose that Annie could see. If the Council -who she was certain wasn't aboard the vessels but suspected they weren't very far away, either - wanted to corner and eradicate the Scouts, they must have known that this wouldn't work. It didn't matter how ill-prepared they were or how far from home they might have been, unable to call for aid. Unless they were seriously unlucky, it was likely that they would all come out of this mostly unscathed.
Separate them, keep them pinned, and…
Then what?
A flash of movement below yanked her from train of thought, and Annie tightened her grip on her hilts reflexively. Someone was darting through the dusty streets between where she was perched and the ship to the West, moving under the cover of eaves in the direction of the assailing ship. One of the Elites from the South?
Her eyes narrowed. No, the cloak they were wearing was one of theirs: layers of dirty, brown fabric that was a far cry from the emerald green they once wore. What the hell were they doing out in the open?
Just as the figure made for a tight alleyway between the line of houses a block down from the crumbling building that held their comrades, the hood that had been pulled deep over their face was torn off their head by the buffets of air swirling off the Jaegerist ship, and Annie could make out an unmistakable tousle of red hair.
Oz?
A wave of unease washed over her as she stepped off the edge of the balcony, swinging fast and low through the dusty street towards the corner Oz had disappeared around. This was incredibly foolish: at any moment she could be spotted, and the next she would be nothing more than bloody mulch sprayed across the ground.
But there was something about the look he had been wearing that rang the alarm bells in her mind: There had certainly been fear, paired with concern that was etched into deep canyons on his forehead, but there was more to it than that. There was something in the composition of his features that reminded her of Reiner; an expression that she found in herself from time to time, a fleeting glimpse behind the eyes of her reflection that vanished before she could catch it.
Why do you look so God damn guilty, Oz?
Lighting down soundlessly near the opening he had taken, Annie peered cautiously around the edge of the building and down the tight alleyway now filled with dust and chunks of stone. Oz was nowhere in sight, but she could still make out the footprints he had left behind in the thin layer of film covering the soft moss of the alley. At the far end there was another line of houses, passed which she could see billows of smoke rising over their sunken and tattered roofs, the mechanical whir of the ship somewhere off the left of her sightline.
If she were able to get across the street and into one of those houses' unseen, there may be a far exit that would grant her access to where the others were pinned down, allowing for an escape route. It was possible, given how focused the Jaergists were on their assault. Was that what Oz was doing, looking for a way to free their trapped friends? He had never struck Annie as a "risk it all" type of man, but a good man nonetheless, and dangerous times were known to bring out all kinds of different facets to the people you thought you had figured out.
If that was his plan, though, what was with the look? There was no mistaking what she saw, of that she was certain, yet no idea she rolled over in her mind allowed any of this to make sense. The attack, Oz's behavior, none of it seemed to connect with one another despite clearly being related in some way. Armin's old complaint that every answer they received only provided them with more questions still rang true, and Annie let out a frustrated huff.
Liberate their friends, reconvene with Reiner and the others, make for the temple and set up a defensive line: that was what she needed to focus on. There was no point in trying to figure it out when she wasn't even sure if they would all live to see the end of this.
Tucking her anxious thoughts away, Annie made her way down the alley, following the path Oz had taken across the dusty ground. The noise from the assailing Jaegerists across the street bounced off the stone walls around her, creating a vortex of distorted sound that ached painfully in her ears. The layers of particles on the ground rose up in choking plumes where she stepped, making her eyes water. She had barely made it halfway down when her whole body stiffened, a ripple of goose flesh blooming on the back of her neck. She whirled around, blades raised up in a defensive block.
How she had been able to hear it over everything else was a mystery; perhaps she had been expecting it after Oz's guiltiness had shown itself, the anticipation of some new and unforeseen complication. Whatever the reason was she had heard it - the rushing sound of compressed air pelting towards her through the tight space of the alley – and was able to get her guard up only seconds before she was slammed into, a flurry of blades crashing into her own and the weight behind them sending her tumbling to the ground.
Tucking her knees up to her chest, Annie let the momentum pull her into a backwards somersault. Kicking with all her might she managed to catch her assailant hard in the stomach, throwing them off her and into the air, where they landed with a crash near the mouth of the alley. Righting herself on her feet Annie spun around, weapons raised as her attacker stood up with a huff and regarded her tightly; short blonde hair dangling in front of a familiar stoic and deadly expression that rivaled perhaps even Annie's.
She should have felt surprised, or at the very least a certain degree of betrayal given their current situation, but all Annie could do was let out a dry laugh as she studied the face of the woman staring back at her. Just like everything else, it didn't really matter how this had come about, only that it was now another thing standing in her way. Her intuition had proven her right: another complication.
You sure know how to pick 'em, Jean.
"I'd tell you to lower your weapons and stand down, but I'm getting the sense that isn't really an option for you, is it Quinn?"
Quinn shook her head slightly, dust falling from her hair as she returned Annie's exasperated smile with her own rueful one.
"That has never been an option, not for me, nor for the High Council."
Annie nodded. "I expected as much."
A tense quiet fell between them, the two eying each other cautiously through the swirling dust their altercation had pulled into the air. So complete was their focus that they barely even flinched when one of the walls of the house across the street caved in, sending a shuddering wave across the cobbled stone beneath their feet. Any shift in movement Annie made, no matter how subtle, was quickly mirrored by Quinn: the tightness of her grip, the angle of her shoulders, her footing on the uneven ground; Annie figured that even the tight expression Quinn was wearing matched her own, all the way down to the scowl that was starting to tug at her mouth.
Her mind was working overtime. What did she know about this woman that could possibly give her an edge in the scenario? The high, tight walls severely limited their area of combat, the broken chunks of rock littering the alley another hindrance in her defense. Using ODM wasn't an option either. Even if she could get out of Quinn's reach, all that waited for her above the house line was a barrage of bullets if the Jaegerists on the ship caught sight of her. That left only one other option: she had to stall.
There was very little Annie could conjure up in way of information that could help her, partly due to Quinn's isolation from the group and partly because of her own, but she did know that this silence was going to end sooner rather than later. She needed more time.
"You really had them fooled, I must say, playing the obedient soldier act. The eager young cadet looking to prove themselves turns out to be nothing more than a Jeagerist fly on the wall, keeping a watchful eye until the time came to make your move. Pretty cliché if you ask me."
"A tactic you know all about, if I'm not mistaken." Quinn countered, her smile growing wider as Annie teeth snapped together in response. "I could bore you with all the gory details, but the outcome of today will still be the same: you and your sorry excuse of a Regiment will lose, and the High Council of Eldia will get exactly what they came for. Seriously, Commander Armin really needs to be more careful of who he keeps close."
Annie's finger twitched near her gun's trigger but relaxed when she saw Quinn do the same. One rash move was exactly what this opponent was waiting for, and she would be damned to give her that kind of satisfaction. What she needed to do was create a window, one that would allow her some movement in this confined space.
This moment was gifted to her as a blast of air from behind, accompanied by a call of concern that brought a rush of warning through her mind.
"Hey! Are you guys okay? Are we making a move on the other ship now?"
It was that other cadet, the one who's name she could never seem to recall. The overly helpful one. The "yes sir, no sir, anything you say, Commander Kirstein" one. The one who possessed the kind of trusting naivety you would find in someone who had never tasted betrayal.
Annie found that in the pause that followed after the cadets concerned call that she desperately wished she had learned his name. Out of basic respect, sure, but for another reason as well. It was a powerful thing, to know one's name. Maybe if she had bothered to know it, her cry of warning would have held more weight.
"No! Stay back!"
But she was already moving away from him, tearing across the ground towards Quinn and her now outstretched gun. It must have hurt her ears, a shot taken in such close quarters, but that was not what Annie heard. It was the splash she heard the most. The crunching of bone and the splattering of fluid against the upper wall he was hanging from. The lack of impact on the ground that told her he hadn't even had a chance to disengage his gear from the wall.
And, finally, it was the cold, exasperated laugh that slipped out from between Quinn's lips.
"For once in your life, Alexi, shut the hell up."
Alexi. His name was Alexi.
Shifting the barrel of her gun, Quinn began pointed it direct at Annie's forehead.
"Now, where were we?"