After Trost's mop-up was completed, Colt Grice was joined by seventy or so new faces, most notably Bertholdt Hoover.
As it turned out, Braun elected to join the Scouting Legion while Leonhardt remained in the Military Police. Despite having the marks, Hoover elected to remain in the Garrison, reasoning that a live soldier behind a cannon was of more use than a dead Legionnaire.
So Hoover and Grice spent their afternoons on the Wall, whenever they were not holed up in the HQ, refilling ODM canisters and transporting ammunition and other provisions along Rose's smaller outposts. In the two weeks following Eren Jaeger's tribunal, there was surprisingly little excitement, aside from listening to the higher-ups debate the possibility and purpose of a sentient Titan among humanity's ranks.
Rumors about a cluster of Titans to the north of Wall Rose had drawn the attention of Commander Pixis, who saw reason to suspect that another breach by the Armoured Titan was unlikely but not impossible. The inexplicable transformation of Eren Jaeger implied a capacity for intellect within certain Titans hitherto unknown, neither aberrant or ordinary. Man-made Titans was a term too sensational to throw around in board-meetings, so the Armoured and Colossus were classified as named and deemed the highest possible threat. Any Titan exhibiting aberrant behavior was to be eliminated.
This, Colt had heard from Bertholdt by way of Reiner, did not sit well with the Scouting Legion, chiefly their Squad Leader Hanji. She had argued, unsuccessfully, that there were benefits to capturing a Titan alive for the sake of study. The Legion had yet to capture anything beyond a three or four metre Pure Titan, and being that Titans possessed no means of understandable communication nor observable intellect, her name remained something of a bad omen. Few, if any Paradisians seemed interested in the prospect of a Titan's greater faculties.
Since the Garrison Regiment in Trost had more experience warding off Titans than any other Division this side of Wall Rose, they were deployed. They focused their efforts on defence, rather than on-the-ground engagement. But the soldiers were still expected to be proficient with ODM gear and blades. Colt had placed fourteenth in his division.
As they boarded the lift, Hoover stuck close to him. "You should've gone with Leonhardt," Grice said. "Or Braun. I was surprised to see you here."
Hoover shrugged. "It'd be redundant for two of us to go into one branch. That's what Reiner said, and I didn't have a good enough argument to dissuade him."
Colt said nothing.
"I suppose you think I should've kept a closer eye on them."
Colt frowned. "I'd trust you to be able to make the call. You've given me no reason to doubt that. Besides, you're the one who was nearly top of your class. I'd be better off as a camp de aide."
"Only next to Braun and Ackermann." Hoover checked his ODM fastenings. "It's a technical score. If they graded us based on brains I would've never cut it. Shadis said in his report that I was too willing to let others choose for me. That's not the kind of temperament you want in a Squad Leader or Commander."
"Which is why we're both in the Garrison," Colt said.
Hoover flashed a wry smile.
Unlike those used in modern war, the cannons in Paradis required only two soldiers to operate. The use of artillery to combat the Titans had been going-on well before the introduction of ODM gear and blades. Cannonfire was more powerful than any blade but notoriously unreliable. Back in Marley, armored tanks could cut down humans and Titans alike in a few shots, but inevitably these island devils had to work with whatever resources they'd been allotted.
Even after losing a Wall and a third of their territory, Eren's transformation had incentivized them to persevere. A testament to mankind's desire to cooperate in the face of extinction, or an exercise in futility. The men in Mitras and across the ocean would profit nonetheless. The rest, even outlanders like Colt and Bertholdt, were only a small part.
In spite of their apparent ignorance of the world outside, the three Walls and a culture of fear did more for their protection than the Scouting Legion or Military Police could. Still, Colt saw no reason to compare his plight to theirs. These Paradisians had been shut away for the good of all; those remaining Eldians would have been sent to Heaven if Marley had their say. In every civilian and soldier and nobleman among him slept a devil. Their astonishment at the idea of a Titan coming from a human's will did nothing to worry Colt. If not for their ignorance he would have been just another beast, lumbering aimlessly amid the grasslands or the desert to the north.
A seven-metre Titan lumbered over the plain. From that distance, Grice could distinguish its face, round cheeks and beady eyed. A mop of dark hair fell across the face.
"Damn," said Hoover, "that's the largest one I've seen in some time." He looked over at Grice, who had not taken his eyes away from the Titan. "We should prepare the cannon."
They adjusted the cannon's aim until it was almost flush with the Wall. The Titan wandered up to the Wall and felt along its flawless surface. Colt looked down at the Titan and saw at once a body falling down the flawless white dock onto a hard-packed dirt mound. A scream tore from a throat that wasn't his own dampened in the brilliant flash of light and the artificial body called up from subconscious will. The Titan begotten and blinking in the sunset turned its head to look up at the top of the wall and raised its hand over its face, squinting against the sunlight.
A sense of identity recalled and discarded. The smell of blood and raw meat and waste overpowering what had once been a rational creature. Such was the price to pay for Eldian blood. Sweat on the nape of his neck, prickling in the late summer heat. The smell of cigarette smoke, drawn into his lungs with each uneven breath, became pungent. His red armband was tied too tight but it was the only way it would stay on.
A hand clapped his bony shoulder, causing him to flinch.
"Excellent, Yeager. Now, the others."
A line of men, bound at the wrists, looked back at him. Behind these men were the officers from the Marleyan Police and a few from the Titan Biological Society. In each Eldian's face he saw his father. A guilty rat. A Restorationist. All of them must be sent to Heaven.
"Grice!"
His hands clenched around the pole. Mouth welling with saliva.
"Grice, are you all right?" Hoover's hand was on his shoulder. Grice released his hold on the pole and took a breath. "They can't get to you up here."
The Pure Titan had lost interest. Grice tore his eyes away and looked at the Colossus candidate. "We had a clean shot."
Woerman dismissed Colt for the rest of the afternoon.
In the infirmary, Colt spent a lot of time sitting and answering questions he already had the answers to. The doctor, a wrinkled old man with hardly any hair left, could find nothing wrong apart from a simple case of combat stress, and advised a rest period. Colt, after all, had been trapped within the HQ until the 104th Training Corps showed up, and while he had not personally seen one of his comrades torn apart, he'd identified plenty of deceased comrades during the mop-up.
The doctor glanced at his file and said, "I used to visit a young man with your condition. His father was one of the wealther in all the Walls, though you'd never know it. At the time the father was a drunkard. He claimed his son was holy, and could speak to his ancestors." He paused. "In all my years on this Earth I've never seen eyes such a shade as his, nor yours."
Colt shifted uneasily. The man was no doubt lonesome or simply introspective. He hadn't mentioned any irregularities in his medical records.
"Do you see any Titans around Utopia, sir?"
The doctor scoffed. "Titans barely come around the north, it's too cold. I'm at a loss as to what the Garrison intends to do here, aside from spend our tax dollars." The doctor didn't look at Colt directly, instead organizing his papers at the desk. He simpered. "I meant no offense to you. It seems a shame to allow you young men to cast your lives aside. We should be preserving what little we have." He opened a drawer and wrote something down. "If you're interested, the church is always looking for volunteers."
Colt smiled and thanked the man for his time.
⁂
The black carriage moved from Sina towards Mitras, taking a dirt road towards the open countryside. Flat plains and ordinary deciduous trees dotted the landscape. In the waning sun the carriage pulled up outside a wrought-iron gate and the driver spoke with the doorman briefly and the gates screeched upon the dirt as they opened to permit them through. The estate could be seen from a distance and had once belonged to Rod Reiss's father before him. Far away from the troubles of Wall Maria or Rose, frozen in time. It was where Rod Reiss had raised his own children and where their remains were buried five autumns ago.
Captain Kenneth Ackerman exited the carriage after it pulled to a stop and walked up to the cabin. Aside from a stable for the horses there was a small house in which a groundskeeper had lived longer than Kenneth had been alive. He tipped his hat and Kenneth Ackermann exchanged a curt nod.
Rod seldom called for an audience with Kenneth, or anyone else for that matter. But Kenneth was undiscerning and brutal whenever the need arose, and Rod was self-aware enough to recognize the need for a more discerning right-arm.
The other bedrooms were spotless but otherwise untouched. Rod's was barely furnished, save for a bed and wardrobe. He collected tomes of history from the Underground's black markets the interior would dismiss as fictitious. Uri had been the avid reader in the family.
Rod was in the study. He'd gotten more portly over the years.
"Well," said Kenneth, throwing the list of names down on his desk, "there've been accounts from Wall Rose about a series of medical discrepancies within the 104th Training Corps. This last nurse I saw was worrying herself into a state. She gave me Jaeger's name, but his records have been taken care of as you requested."
Reiss didn't look up. "What about the rest of the cadets listed?"
"Reiner Braun and Ymir Fritz have joined the Scouting Legion, from the sounds of it Commander Erwin is getting ready for an expedition into Wall Maria. Bertholdt Hoover's joined the Garrison alongside Colt Grice. And Streissman's daughter has been reportin' back to me on Annie Leonhardt every week or so." Kenneth grinned. "Beats havin' to wrestle her into a carriage. She's got a mean kick."
Rod took the sheet of paper and scanned it quickly. "This isn't much to work with."
Kenneth said, "Just between us, man to man. If there's more than five of these—Titan inheritors, we're going to have to deal with it sooner than later."
"There is only one inheritor of the Founder. Eren Jaeger seems most likely at this stage. Your best bet, Kenneth, is to keep eyes on the rest indirectly."
"You've heard that Lenz has been accepted into the Scouting Legion?"
Rod exhaled. "That's her path. Fritz gave her word to protect her. I'm sure she will uphold her end of the bargain."
Kenneth's only real familiarity with Krista Lenz was her late mother. Rod had knocked up a whore and couldn't bear to let her squat in the underground, so she'd come to live on the farm as a kept woman in the barest sense of the term. She became addicted to opiates after the birth of Rod's daughter, and barely left the house or did any work. In the end, Kenneth slit her throat because she wouldn't stop screaming at Rod to kill the helpless bastard than let her grow into a monster like him.
"She could've been Queen, if not for the circumstances of her birth." Rod approached Kenneth with small steps. "Sparing her the sacrifice is the only right thing I've done by her."
A lifetime in the underground had hardened Kenneth's morals. He had never bought into the cult of Reiss or the Wallists as anything more than a means to an end. Humanity's ignorance was its salvation, and there would always be a place for men like Rod. He continued,
"The Founder knew of the world beyond the Walls. It is a greater threat to humanity than any Titan. So it is imperative we keep a close watch on those who would seek to rend that armistice."
"See, you keep covering your ass with platitudes. It might work on the folks in the church, but it ain't going to work with me."
Rod got to his feet. "The man who slaughtered my children and Frieda found a way to transfer our inheritance. It is an imperfect process, but I believe that what happened in Trost proves that he succeeded. That would mean he has subjected his own progeny to a burden that was never his to carry. We in the Reiss family understood that responsibility. But he would subject his own son to that sacrifice, all for the sake of his delusions."
"The MP Anti-Personnel Brigade was created was to protect the royal family from such threats. You could've notified me and had Grisha detained within the same night. Why didn't you speak up?"
"I was preoccupied," said Rod in a cold voice. "Burying my children while you conducted your own operations underground. Eren's survival was not a facet I had taken into account after the fall of Wall Maria. But it presents us an opportunity we'd have otherwise lost by killing Grisha. Eren is far more malleable."
Kenneth's lip curled. "So, what? We just chain him up in your little dungeon and have someone else—"
"Have you forgotten that you were spared, not by Uri Reiss, but my discretion? I could not simply bring Grisha in as a political criminal." A hard light to his eyes that gave Kenneth pause. "Like his father, Eren's blood is impure. The best we can do is have another Reiss ingest his spinal fluid. But that will take time, and there's only so much the Commander in-Chief can do for us." He scowled. "Once the outcome of the 57th Expedition is decided, I'll decide how to handle this. You're my eyes and ears, Kenneth."
"Your Lordship," Kenneth said with a small bow, "I meant no offense." Despite his modest home, Rod still was susceptible to flattery.