Chapter 35: Chapter 35 The First Offensive
The ride to Jinae gave everyone plenty of time to run through their thoughts. They thought through many different things as they rode, but a common thread for all was the question that they had asked so many times by now. Would they come back?
Connie feared for his life, as he did his village. He hoped that not only would he live, but he would arrive in time to rescue them. He worried for his mother the most, with her terrible legs she would need help leaving. Some he knew would be willing, but in such a panic? He'd seen the way some had acted in Trost when the Titans broke through, otherwise normal people who would tear each other part in desperate fear.
Sasha had been afraid for her people, but she had also been worried about possibly seeing them again. She had been told not to bother coming back until she was normal by some, and she had tried very hard to do that. She'd changed her voice, been more polite, tried to obsess less over where her next meal would come from. Tried to, anyway.
Jean worried about his ability to command. His leadership in Trost had been… novice, at best. So many people had died in that city, and so many had only survived thanks to Gohan, not him. Except, Marco had been supportive of him. He'd said that what had made him a good leader was his knowledge of what it was like to be weak. A backhanded compliment maybe, except perhaps it was true. As they rode in formation towards Jinae, he knew they would be facing the Titans relatively on their own, the spearhead would be Eren and the rest of the Special Operations Squad, Mikasa included. That meant they would be vulnerable, like they always were. So, they would have to fight smart.
Armin's ride was fairly different to the rest. While he worried about his fate the same like they did, his thoughts were far more focused on his place in everything. He wasn't a fighter, despite placing in the top 10. His skills were in knowledge. Observation, intelligence, not things which would help them in the fights to come. Glumly, he wondered if he would be of any help at all.
Despite how long the ride had actually taken, it seemed over very quickly when they began to see the outskirts of Jinae appear in the distance. From such a distance, they couldn't make out much more than the small little dots of people, and the tips of rooftops, but already it was clear that word had reached the small town. People were running everywhere, wagons were loaded to absolute capacity while others seemed to be taking flight with only the clothes on their backs.
Armin spotted one rider racing off and knocking over more than one person as they did so. A few people angrily waving at them but the rider paid them no mind, it was clear they were all scared to their wits end.
"Damn, this place looks worse than Trost." Jean muttered to himself as he rode closer. He could make out the shared uniforms of some Garrison soldiers, but they looked no more organised than the people they were meant to be protecting.
"Trost had only one way out," Armin shouted out, apparently having heard him, "they had to be organised to get people through the gate. Here, people can run anywhere, much harder to control."
That was damn right Jean thought as he watched another wagon snap its reigns and begin to ride, loaded up with supplies. It barely made it a few seconds before people were already scrambling to try and climb onto the back of it.
"It's damn lucky we aren't going to be on crowd control!" Mina shouted, she too having seen the chaos that laid in front of them.
"Yeah!" Franz agreed. "I'll take my chances with the Titans before I jump into that mess!"
Some laughed, albeit nervously. Gallows humour he'd heard it called, and Jean felt vaguely comforted by it. What did he have to fear, death? He'd faced it in Trost and come out on the other side just fine. This would be nothing new.
He held onto those words like a prayer as they began to enter the perimeter of the town. Nothing new, just big dumb Titans.
When they did get close, some of the Garrison soldiers had realised to clear them somewhat of a path. Up front, Mike Zacharius broke off to speak with one of the Garrison officers, but waved for them to ride on through. As they passed, Jean noted that the situation was both better and worse than he'd initially thought.
Some of the garrison soldiers had begun setting up barricades, nets, and even cannons for the Titans, as well as evacuating all of the citizens. However, there was precious few soldiers compared to what he had expected. He didn't have enough time to count, but he expected that the number of scouts arriving had more than doubled the military presence in Jinae, a terrible situation for such a relatively large town.
"Supply wagons, dismount and offload all essential equipment!"
Several wagons broke off from the formation, as did their support teams, riders who had been alongside and would now help with the offload and preparations.
"You know Marco is from here." Jean said aloud as the formation waited for further orders. He looked around at the various civilians he could still see running out towards the main road that would take them towards the inner walls. He wondered if any of them were his parents, or any old friends. In the few short glances he got, none of them looked how he remembered his friend.
"He'll be happy to hear when he keep his home safe."
Jean looked to Mina to see that she didn't actually look as confident as her words made her sound. Her fingers were nervously gripping the band of white cloth in her hands as she had spoken. Hesitantly, he reached out and put his hand on her hand, raising it and the white headwrap upwards.
"Put it on." He told her, knowing how much it reassured her. "You're right, he'll be happy. So we'll all tell him together." He turned to the others around him, looking at Armin, Franz, Connie, and Sasha. "We'll tell him we kept his home safe, how we took back wall Rose, and how much of a fool he was for leaving us for the MP's."
The others laughed, and Sasha let out a whoop of excitement. She was nervous, and forcing a brave face, but every time she did she felt just a little more confident about her chances.
Her confidence did earn her a few embarrassing glances from the other scouts however.
"Sir! Titans have broken through wall Rose!"
Nile Dok's rebuke about having his interrogation interrupted died on his lips as his brain finally comprehended what he had been told. With the door to the room open, he finally noticed the panicked sounds from outside as soldiers rushed around. His chair scraped along the floor as he shoved his way past the soldier in the doorway and entered the mess of panicked men and women.
"Enough!" He shouted, catching enough of their attention for discipline to kick in and have them halt. "We've drilled for this. Prepare for the evacuation of civilians into wall Sina, and reinforce the gates in case of attack. Rallying points and officers, you all know your jobs now act like it!"
The mess of anxious people began to slowly organise as training pushed them into response. On the inside, Nile was just as anxious as everyone else. With wall Rose broken, it would be havoc inside of Sina as they fell back to their last line of defence. The Military Police would need to crack down hard to control the populace and keep any semblance of order.
He remembered what things had been like when Maria had fallen. Utter pandemonium as people tore each other apart over every last scrap of food to survive. Disease running rampant, slowly choking the life from their cities. Looting, assaults, murders, and rapes. A mob of frightened, angry people who thought their lives were coming to an end. Now he may have had to command over such an event now.
He hoped that the Scouts and the Garrison would be able to stop the Titans, but he didn't truly believe they could.
"Sir! What should I do?"
He turned around to see Marco stood at attention. The young man had a desire to help, and their interrogation hadn't suggested anything nefarious yet… but it was too early, and the situation too perilous to risk allowing him out of confinement. So, he turned to one of his aides instead.
"Have him and his team locked up, we'll deal with all of this later."
Marco protested, he heard the boys' complaints as he was grabbed and put in cuffs, but Nile didn't stay to listen. As he moved through the headquarters, several personal aides began to join him with his personal effects and details about any information they had. He would need to study them thoroughly, as out of date they would be by the time he actually reached the king.
Reiner and Bertholdt lay still in the long grass as they watched the rider in the distance. It was hard to tell who it was beyond the fact that he was a Scout as his green cloak billowed in the wind as he rode. They'd been moving along for over an hour by this point, having to take a long route to try and avoid where they thought the Scouts would be headed towards the Titans.
With their civilian clothes and other belongs in their backpacks, they would look like any other normal person fleeing in panic from a distance. It was that hope which they relied on as they continued to travel on foot. Still, whenever they had seen the Scouts, which had been thankfully few and always at a long distance, they would hide as subtly as they could.
It looked like this one was a lone rider however, heading from Ehrmich to the old castle headquarters. The two Titan shifters themselves had been moving around the long way to try and get behind the headquarters to wait for the right moment to attack. With little information to go off of, they'd had to take a guess that the Scouts would beeline it towards the Titans, and that they might try to take Annie from the headquarters to further inside the walls. That was why they would be waiting in sight of the main road to Ehrmich.
It would be hard to fully avoid attention, particularly if any civilians tried to flee there, but they couldn't risk the chance of losing Annie. Ambushing the Scouts mid-transport would make things easiest, but otherwise they would just wait until they were sure that the headquarters was mostly empty.
When Commander Erwin finally arrived at the old headquarters, he was pretty certain he'd managed to grasp a few more details of the situation. The civilian evacuation was well underway, the Garrison forces had moved to deploy, and Mike had deployed the scouts to lead an offensive alongside the Garrison.
"What shall we do about our house guest?"
It was one of the first things Hange had asked when he arrived, and one he'd had plenty of time to think about. He had planned to move her, and this situation would prove all the more pressing of a reason to do so. Except…
"Has there been any sign of Reiner or Bertholdt?"
Hange shook her head with dissatisfaction. "Not a peep."
He'd thought as much. What had kept him from ordering a guard to escort her past the walls had been the rather conspicuous lack of sighting of the two Titan shifters. They had no report on what had caused the breach yet, and while it was fairly reasonable to suspect their involvement, he couldn't be certain. What had kept him hesitant was the fact that no lightning strikes had been spotted before or since the Titans had broken through the wall, which left him to believe there was a chance that one or both of them were not within the Titan breach zone, and were instead waiting in ambush to rescue their comrade.
There was a temptation to simply have Annie executed lest keeping her prisoner be untenable, but she was too valuable a source of potential information to throw away. Now they had more information of their own they could leverage, it was vital they managed to get something out of her.
"When the remaining search teams arrive, we will hold them here. I want a substantial guard in case either of those two try something. Hold them as a second wave in case Mikes' force needs support, but otherwise they should remain here."
Hange wasn't entirely sure, but she nodded along in agreement. For now, it was their best bet to wait and see. The castle made them an obvious target, but it also gave them their best chance for defence if they were attacked. A large structure for manoeuvring, and one that couldn't be destroyed lest they risk killing their ally. It also held another advantage…
"How goes Gohans' recovery?"
"Startlingly fast." Hange beamed. "If I wasn't so busy with our friend then I would love the chance to study him. His recovery is incredible for someone without Titan powers like our little Eren. Must be something to do with his Ki powers, or maybe his tail? That furry little thing must mean something after all. Aside from a bundle of nerve clusters that is."
Hange still remembered how the boy had passed out from her accidental squeeze. But in her defence, it was so furry and cute how could she not?
"Perhaps one day. But for now, the Titans are still our top priority."
"You see it?"
"Yeah."
Sasha and Mina watched the Titan in the distance growing larger as it headed towards them. When it had first been sighted the panic in Jinae had kicked up another level, despite how far away it was. It was one thing to know Titans were inside the walls, it was another to see one coming towards you.
"We move out after the Garrison has dealt with it right?"
"Yep."
Mina was keeping rather quiet as she tried to forcibly calm her nerves. She didn't know how Sasha had managed to hear the damn thing, but as soon as she had it had sent Mina into a steadily building ball of anxiety. She wondered if she would ever get over that, or if it always make her scared. In time, she supposed she would find out.
"Sasha! Mina! Fall in!"
Jean was sounding far too much like an officer for either of the girls' comfort. The lack of his usual abrasiveness only highlighting the seriousness of the situation. Still, they did as he said, and leapt from the roof with only a small hiss of gas used to cushion their landing.
"Mount up, we're moving out soon."
Jean gave no invitation for further discussion as he also moved back to his mount, the Titan now firmly out of view behind several buildings. The only word they had that it was still there was the shouting of the Garrison soldiers. With all the horses in a long column, they snaked through the town waiting for when they would finally be sent out. After the shouting reached a crescendo, a volley of cannons were fired. The blasts booming as the sound bounced from house to house around them, followed by the activation of ODM gear and then silence.
"ALL UNITS! MOVE OUT!"
A cacophony of snapping reigns followed as the scouts began to move. Hooves beat against stone and then against grass as they burst out from the town and into the countryside once again. A steaming Titan corpse laid against a Garrison barricade, deep gouges in its chest and one of its arms blown off by the still smoking cannons stationed nearby. As they moved, a few of the Garrison soldiers turned to the scouts and began to cheer.
"Kick their asses boys!"
"Kill those Titan fucks!"
"Come back alive! All of you!"
It filled Jean with a strange set of feelings as they moved by, racing out into the open and beginning to spread out. He didn't fight the smile he felt forming on his face as the wide-open spaces greeted them. The open, and the Titans. They were far away in the distance, but the few shapes moving around were clear to see.
Spread wide across the horizon, over a dozen waiting Titans. Their targets, their duty. Jean gripped the reigns harder and gritted his teeth.
"Are you ready Eren?"
Eld's words were more of a statement to get ready than a genuine question. It was far too late to back out and change his mind now, he'd had the entire ride to be ready for a fight and express if he wasn't sure. He was. He was sure. Still, that didn't help as the adrenaline began to pump in his veins. A slight shake in the hand, a rapid beating in his chest. It was time to fight.
"Eren." He looked to his side to see Mikasa, eyes locked straight onto his as she reached up a delicate hand and touched her scarf. "I'll be right here, by your side. If you need me, I'll be right there."
Just like he had been there for her. She didn't need to say it, but he knew that was what she meant. Funny how it no longer brought out the same irritation in him it once had. He smiled at her, then began to pull his horse from formation.
"SPACE!" He called out, and the others all peeled away as he beelined straight for the first Titan, a 10-metre tall and wiry framed creature with its lips pulled back into a permanent grimace.
It was an awkward manoeuvre, and not one he'd had long to practice, but with the help of a little Ki push he managed it well enough. Leaping high off his horse, he pushed himself up into the sky as it turned away and cleared from him. As he reached the peak of his jump, he bit down into his hand, blood spraying into his face and a single thought on his mind.
Kill the Titans.
The thunderclap that followed was tremendous, preceded by the blinding flash of lightning that struck his body. Bones, muscle, and flesh began to form into the air, rapidly shaping their way into his Titan form. When his first newly formed foot hit the ground, he was already swinging out a giant fist, crashing it straight into the head of his chosen enemy.
The Titans skull crumpled under the impact. Fragments of bone and viscera flying everywhere as its body was knocked backwards and fell to the ground. All the remained was the shreds of a lower jaw and a flopping tongue. As steam billowed from the Titans open head, small sparks could barely be seen underneath as it began to regenerate. Eren gave it no time to rest, his foot raised high before crashing down straight onto the beasts neck, squishing its nape with one bloodied stomp.
He let out a roar of victory, of rage and hatred as he charged the next creature.
"All units!" Mike called out as the formation poured around the Titans dead body like a river around a stone. "ENGAGE!"
One by one, scouts leapt from their horses and soared towards the Titans.
Gunther leapt from his and flew straight towards one of the creatures, one of his hooks dug straight into the creature's face. A normally suicidal technique, Gunther used a little Ki to dodge past the hand that came up to snatch him from the sky, soaring straight past the beast before firing out another hook into the creature's nape. The strain on his body was incredible as he suddenly halted all momentum and flew in reverse, his harness straining to keep him in place before he hit the Titan, and dug his blades deep into the nape. A chunk of flesh hit the ground, followed by the Scout a moment later. Not a few seconds afterwards, he was back on his horse and moving out.
Petra rode her horse around one Titan and between the legs of another. As she went between the second, she leapt powerfully upwards in a jump no normal human would have previously been able to make. Arriving directly at nape level of the six-metre monster, she fired both grapples into the neck and reeled herself in. One carving of flesh later, the creature began to fall as she flew off of it and back towards her mount.
Mikasa hit the Titan that had turned to follow Petra, leaping and slicing at the tendons in the back of its knees the creature began to suddenly drop. She landed on the grassy floor on her feet, skidding across the ground but not losing her balance. Instead, she sprinted forwards and leapt up high with a boost of gas and Ki, not going for a slice but instead getting herself the perfect angle for a different attack as a ball of energy left her hands with a roar of power. The nape exploded with gore and the creature groaned before dropping lifelessly to the floor.
All around her, Mikasa watched Titans fall one by one, but none fell quite so brutally as those by Erens' hands as she watched him reach out and lift a four metre Titan, such a tiny thing in comparison to him. He raised it up by the body with one hand, then with the other he dug his fingers into its neck and began to tear. A large section of the creatures back came free with the nape, and it too joined the growing number of dead Titans.
"Titan up ahead!" Jean called out. Riding alongside him, Mina, Armin, and Franz all readied themselves to attack. "Franz and Mina, go right! Armin with me! Whoever has a shot from the back attacks!"
It was a fairly common method of attack that they had been taught in the cadets, and one that was admittedly only useful for killing Titans that had been separated out on their own. However, this had been just such a situation for it, so the basics would do just fine.
As they broke off however, the Titan began to change. Its slow walk turned into a hunched over shuffle as it quick walked towards Franz and Mina, the two of them suddenly very startled and riding their horses into a rapid sprint.
"Shit, abnormal!"
The Titan followed the two diligently, and Jean and Armin managed to ride behind it with relatively little issue. As they did so, they spotted the nape of the creature shifting wildly from side to side as it lurched forwards making an exaggerated shoulder shuffle with each step.
"We need to slow it down!" Jean called out, more in anger than trying to come up with a plan. Of course the first Titan they faced had to be an abnormal, why couldn't it have been something simple.
"The ankles!" Armin pointed ahead at the rapidly moving targets. "Cripple it and then hit the nape!"
It was a good plan on paper, but looking at the massive plumes of dust and dirt being kicked up as the Titans feet dug into the dirt Jean was not feeling particularly eager about it. Still, they had a job to do, and their friends were up front and in danger unless they acted.
"Alright. Wait for me to hit the ankles, then you go for the nape."
"Wait- Jean are you sure?"
"Not by a damn bit, but we've gotta do it Besides, I'll be better at hitting the ankles than you will be, ready?"
Armin certainly didn't look sure, but he visibly gulped down his anxiety and readied his swords.
"GO!"
Jean said it more as a command to himself, as he forced his legs to raise himself up onto the back of the horse, then leap forward. His hooks hit reasonably well, landing on the lower back of the Titan and he reeled himself in at not quite full speed. He needed a small amount of drop to keep himself level with the Titans ankles.
When he reached the first, he slashed out wildly and was rewarded with a spray of blood and a sudden shift in the Titans posture. It was then that he realised he failed to account for not hitting both ankles at the same time, as the Titan promptly pivoted, and semi-collapsed onto the ground, the harsh stop sending Jean flying straight into the creatures ass cheek and bouncing him off onto the dirt.
Whatever embarrassment he might have had failed to appear as the beast turned to look back at him, a wild and manic expression frozen on its face as it looked directly into his eyes. And then, Armin was in the air.
The slice wasn't very good by most standards, and it dulled his blades something terribly, but it was enough. The nape came free and the blood coming loose signalled the Titan to finally slump forwards and die.
"I… I did it." Armins face wore a wide smile as he looked at his defeated foe, a feeling of pride welling up inside of him. It had been a hard target to hit, only made possible thanks to Jeans efforts. "-Jean!"
Armin spun to look for the man, spotting him rising groggily to his feet and rubbing at his neck.
"Son of a bitch." He moaned, rolling his head from side to side as he massaged at the muscles. He swore he felt a crack of something when he'd crashed.
"Jean! Are you okay? That looked like a pretty bad hit."
He immediately began to blush. "W-what, what did you see?" Looking at Armin, it was clear that he'd seen everything, and from the smile he wore openly it had been every bit as embarrassing as Jean had feared.
"Hey! Are you two okay? What's wrong with Jean?" Franz and Mina both rode up next to the two of them, watching a bit concerned as Jean groaned in pain.
"Nothing! Nothings wrong!" He yelped, beet red as he coughed and cleared his throat. "I-… I'm fine, just peachy."
"Jean crashed after he cut the ankle." Armin began, drawing Jeans betrayed gaze over to him. "He crashed into-… the Titans foot as it came up, looked painful."
Mina rode closer and reached down a hand to help massage his neck while Jean looked at Armin with disbelief. "Take it easy now 'sir', the next one's ours."
"Yeah, you two can have the fun of being bait." Franz moaned, before pulling on his reigns to move and re-join the formation.
Both Jean and Armin whistled for their horses and mounted quickly. "Hey Armin… thanks."
"Springer, move to engage from the rear!"
The bald-headed boy leapt from his horse and soared upwards at the seven metre monstrosity. The target was standing still as it watched the others, and the lump nape was open and waiting. Connie hit the target dead perfectly.
He rode the corpse down as he fell, collapsing into the dirt when it finally smashed down hard. After ending up with his face in the dirt, he spent a few seconds wiping himself clean from the dirt that had gotten in his eyes. It was as he was blinking away the mess and regaining his vision that he froze, staring directly into the face of the Titan that he had killed.
A face that seemed… familiar.
He tried to place where he had seen it before, thinking it may have been at Trost. Except that wasn't what his mind conjured, instead he thought of Mr Bauer, the baker from his hometown. He told himself that it was impossible, and yet all he saw when he looked at the Titans was the similarities.
The bushy moustache, the wrinkles around his eyes, the same little sunspot underneath his right eye.
He blinked. It was the same sunspot. Not similar, it wasn't some other kind of mark, it was the exact same, down to the very shape of it. That was… impossible.
"CONNIE!"
The scream of warning came just in time for him to notice the other Titan reaching out towards him. He let out a panicked yelp as he began to scramble backwards, before someone sliced at the Titan and it began to fall. It landed next to him, and he saw Christa still stood on its neck, hooked buried deep and blades bloodied.
"The hell are you doing Connie! Pay attention!"
He blinked back in surprise. He'd never seen her that angry before, not that he didn't deserve it he admitted. She didn't wait to hear his apology as he began, instead racing off to get back onto her horse and join up with her squad again. By the time he'd risen to his feet again, Sasha had ridden herself by his side with his own horse reigns in her hand.
She let go of them not so as to pass them to him, but so she could slap him right on top of his bald head.
"Get yer head on straight Connie, this ain't no time to be daydreamin'."
With a kick to her horse she was off again. Sasha was definitely pissed if she was starting to talk with her native accent, and he forced himself to concentrate as he pulled himself up onto the horse. He moved to re-join the formation, but halted, unable to resist one last look back at the dead Titan.
It looked… so much like him.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone