Fandom Attack on Titan: Chapter II

[Flame Demon]

"It's okay Bookworm" Victoria says giving the horse a pat on the neck before saddling her horse again "It's okay Yuki, that's a comrade" she whispers to her horse "Sorry, Yuki's not that fond of people she doesn't know very well" she says, she looks at Niklas, she had to agree he was a little slow in killing the titan, but they were all alive, whoever was left anyway and she didn't feel like fighting more titans, putting her swords back she sighs "Let's go before we can start over again in killing these monsters" she says.

 

[Loki The Trickster]

She walks with Victoria to their horses, straddling her own, Midnight, with her boot to the stirrup. As indicated by her name, her horse is as black as midnight, especially so underneath the forest canopy. Akai catches Serenity in her eye, immediately after which she nods at the woman. "You must be hungry," whispers the widow, reaching into her cloak. She retrieves some of her rations, a loaf of bread packaged in kraft, and tosses it over. "Here. Have this."

 

[Kloudy]

Marx Hawthorne
(Unknown Forest)

​

Hooves raced over a leaf-blanketed forest floor like thunderous musket rounds striking over and over again, drowning out the rider's breathing and erratic heart rate in an almost comforting fashion. More the more his horse ran, the more it assured him he was still alive somehow. It only took a few titans and some surprise to decimate an entire scouting team and firsthand experience had reasonably shaken up the corporal. Limbs and tortured expressions and a swamp of blood, parading about in their mess in the most antagonising manner.

He wasn't just fearful for his life, no... He hated it too. Hated those freakish killer giants. Hated that he had to go out and fight them. Hated that they were consistently sent out on suicide missions by people who thought they knew best. If there was one thing that would fuel his journey more than the gas at his hips - it was his hate for the world. A driving motivation to achieve some form of retribution or vengeance on the world for the fate he had been dealt, for his unfortunate lot in life. But of course, all he could do for now was hug his horse for dear life as his blood-slicked form rose and fell in step with the gallop that carried him to potential salvation.

. . .

Marx's horse began whining and the scout looked up warily to observe the scene ahead: decomposing titans and a group of people. He hated people, but at least it meant he got to live. Moving from his hugging position into a more proud sitting stance, Marx approached them at a slow canter before coming to an abrupt stop. Dismounting, his glare looked for someone who might be in charge. Unfortunately, he couldn't see any higher ranking laurels other than corporal, so he concluded that this was probably just another scouting group such as his own used to be. They were all dead however and it was probably very likely these guys would end up the same. With no clear leader, Marx approached the most authoritative-looking individual, Niklaus, with a certain brooding expression and spoke more out loud than directly the fellow corporal.

"Marx Hawthorne, corporal. My scouting party was ambushed in this forest; requesting to join up with your squad."

Two Fives

 

[Coco Adel]

Danira sighed with a bored expression, slightly irritated as a new face appeared. She didn't hate people, well the way people were acting during this expedition she might have been willing to change her mind on that one. People not listening, people purposely misinterpreting what she said as an excuse to lash out at her and people who pretended like no one should feel anything and nothing should mean anything to anyone. What a lovely group she had right? She was sure it was just nerves, tensions and irritation running high. These people weren't that bad and she wasn't exactly being a prize herself, but that was her way, sarcasm, and sass. Comedy kept her from going crazy, it made her mood better. That being said she looked the newcomer leaning in Clover's head and said. "You didn't bring more with you did you, because we may need to open a discussion about not noticing giant ass footsteps following behind you." She joked but was halfway serious, it would be annoying for the same thing to happen twice in one day.

Kloudy Two Fives

 

[SerenityAngel]

The white-haired girl didn't really respond to the woman called Victoria. She didn't mind how the horses reacted to her. She just wanted to get out of the open like this and get home so she could have a full meal, hopefully. This strange girl could have been quite pretty if she had some weight on her. Right now she was way too thin and malnourished. She would not have lasted much longer out here on her own, even with her skills and insight. Tucking her long white hair behind her ear she noticed out of the corner of her eye some rations were being given to her. Her odd colored eyes widened a little and she eagerly took the food without a word and nearly devoured it in a single bite. She was starved and much like a starved animal she ate it quickly and nearly felt like crying from feeling food enter her stomach. She could have been compared to a white wolf devouring its kill. The tangled mes of white strands becoming like curtains around her face, bread crumbs falling upon her cheeks. Teeth tearing away at the rations that were given her without any kind of remorse or thought.

Once her hands were emptied of the food she licked her calloused hands of any remaining crumbs so as not to waist a single morsel left uneaten. She heard a female voice directed at her and for a moment she was confused but glanced over with her strange and odd eyes. Most would find them disturbing to say the least, others had called her possesed or scary, especially when seen at night she was compared to a ghost. Yet this voice was not afraid of her or even cared about her appearance. To the comment she responded quite seriously and a bit confused. Her mind was a bit unhinged so she didn't get sarcasm or jokes and took things seriously but not to heart. "This area is usually pretty quiet. I certainly didn't bring them. I would have noticed them. Your group of humans must have caught their attentions." she corrected as if it were common fact. She didn't have much in the way of social skills at all so that was just how she was. She didn't mean anything by it.

When the new guy showed up and said that his group was attacked this was the sure sign that they needed to move and now. "We have to leave, NOW!" she said and snapped the reigns of Bookworm to get him to start running in the direction she wanted. Her grip was as tight as she could make it, her teeth were grit and her eyes sharp and glancing everyhwere. She kept her ears on alert and her head on a swivel as she rode and lead them away from their current location.

 

[Two Fives]

Abruptly, Niklas whirls around on his heel. He hears noises in the dark of the woods, coming ever so closer. Thud... thud... thud.

Soon the corporal identifies the noises as the heaving of a horse's hooves, not another throng of titans, thankfully. Nevertheless, Nik is far from at ease, even as Marx comes into view from the creepers and coppices. “Niklas Dok,” remarks the corporal as Marx dismounts. “Welcome aboard. Similar situation here. Titan ambush. We managed to take them down without causalities.” Looking over his shoulder, he indicates for Marx to follow his eyes. Some feet away lay the corpse of a titan, whose arms and legs are splayed out along the forest floor in a macabre sprawl of death. A slat of broken metal is lodged in the neck. Several more titan corpses are a distance away, all decomposing. This explains why steam covers the area over like a morning's mist. “As you might be able to tell,” adds Niklas. He overhears Danira's stab at humour, appreciative of the light-heartedness in such a dark time.

“Serenity is right, though. We can't stay here,” Nik explains, sending a signal Astrid, Victoria and Akai's way with a nod. A signal to mount their horses. He walks on over to his horse a moment after and mounts him. With his hands to Silver Steed's reins, he whips them up, then down, yelling, “Hyuah!” Immediately, Silver Steed rushes after Bookworm and Serenity through the forest. “Follow Serenity's lead. She'll lead us to where we need to go.”

 

[Loki The Trickster]

Akai heeds the signal. Shortly after mounting Midnight, she murmurs to Victoria, "My name is Akai. Excuse me for not introducing myself earlier." With the introduction over and done with, she leans backwards, employing the cantle of Midnight's saddle as a makeshift backrest. Reeling in the hard leathers of two of her horse's reins, Akai wastes no time at all in riding after Niklas and Serenity through the deep dark woods.

She feels the wind in her hair, her blonde curls blowing out behind her, twisting and tousling against a vicious backdraught of air. Similarly, her cloak furls out around her shoulders, billowing out against the currents, the emblem sewn into the back of her uniform, the Wings of Freedom, waving beneath the breeze like a raptor's wings.

 

[Allo]

Astrid's eyes wandered to the man who came to them, introducing himself as Corporal. Her eyes narrowed, before turning away from him, awaiting Niklas next instructions. She was wary of new people even if they were in the same regiment as her. She didn't bother to introduce herself to any new comers before she heard horses hooves. She nudged her horse who sprung into a gallop as she pulled the hood over her head. She rode next to Niklas as usual before turning her head towards him. "You did well back there.. Back at the fight with the titans. I was impressed." She said before her eyes turned to look ahead of her. Instead of him though, her blades didn't dull or break. She wanted to tease him for it.

She grabbed the two that she wasn't using, and held them over the ground to give to him. "Here. Since you sloppily slayed the Titan and broke your blades. Don't want you running out so soon, yeah?" The corner of her lips perked in a smile before handing them off to him. Her eyes upturned to look at the sky, looking at the birds fly overhead of them. "Must be nice, being a bird and being able to fly freely..." She mumbled, her grip on the reins becoming tighter.

 

[Two Fives]

“You didn't do too bad either,” replies the man, reciprocating her smile with one of his own. The smile is faint. As he rides, he lowers his head at times, avoiding tree branches that hang low from the forest canopy. A while after Astrid offers Nik her blades. He respectfully declines with shakes his head, telling her, “There's no need. Look. Got some spare. Should last me for the rest of the mission.”

If I don't die before it's over, Niklas macabrely muses. He keeps these thoughts to himself.

“Must be nice,” Niklas comments at Astrid's mention of the birds overhead. “These Wings of Freedom aren't enough. Must be nice, too, not having to fear the titans. Why is that titans only feast on human flesh?” A question he doesn't expect an answer to. A question you may as well pose to the philosophers. Nobody knows. Nobody will ever know. Not in his lifetime. As short as a Scout Regiment soldier's lifetime is.

 

[Uncultured]

Violently rattling, Kane gripped to his saddle, knuckles white, eyes distant, wide with shock as his mind ran.

"Why them... Better them...

No...

No...

Better me than them

Why did John

Why him

Diana

It ate Diana

Why

Why her

And not me? "

Thought the greenhorn, directing his horse with absent mind to a geyser of steam rising above the treetops, signifying a fresh titan kill, a breadcrumb that would hopefully lead to Kanes fellow scouts.

And so it did, for within a minute of finding the titan, following the nearby hooveprints in the soft dirt of the forest, his fellow scouts came into view. As he rode to them, in his shame he looked down, his brow beaten, tired, and as he did so he noticed for the first time that his hands were soaked in blood, none of it his.

"There isn't a scratch on me... I could've... I could've done more"

Continued Kane within, lip trembling at the irony as he galloped to the squad of scouts.

Approaching them he recognized Marx, one of the soldiers who had been in the ambush. Kane cracked a ghost of a smile, meek and hollow, for at least someone else had made it... Even if it wasn't one of his friends that did.

"Corporal Foster... Corporal Foster reporting..." said Kane quietly, still in shock. After all, this was his first trip beyond the walls, and many of his close friends had died in front of him, his hands stained with their blood.

He looked up to his comrades, his guilt crushing, awaiting punishment. His crime cowardice. To live on while others died. Running, rather than standing to fight the murderers of not only his friends, but his two brothers who had fallen years prior in service to the scouts.

"I could've done more... I could've done something... I'm... I'm sorry... They're all dead" he said, words coarse with dehydration as he fell in with the troop.

 

[Loki The Trickster]

As Kane falls in with the others, Akai catches him from the corner of her eye. One sideways look is all she needs. She recognises his expression... that expression that comes only after an encounter with those man-eating monsters. Akai had seen that expression wrought on her face in a riverbank's reflection only a night before.

Even if his expression isn't enough, his words confirm it.

She casts her eyes down. She looks at her hands, fists that furl around Midnight's reins, and at her ring. A diamond ring. A wife's ring. A widow's ring. Those repressed memories come to the surface like the flotsam of a flood, but Akai holds them at bay. She looks as though she's a thought away from crying. It could, however, be the wind of the ride rather than the woe of the recollection. Wind or woe, either could be the cause.

"Save your breath," mutters the widow. "You're alive... and they're dead. Make their deaths count. Make their deaths have meaning."

Niklas Dok's words had stuck with the woman.

 

[SerenityAngel]

Serenity didn't want to be caught by the titans that were sure to fallow if they caught. There was too much steam and commotion. There were too many humans to stay in one place and not draw unwanted attention from the over-sized humanoid things. "Keep up! I won't slow down and don't spare the horses if you want to get there without incident!" she called back without even so much as a glance. If they fell behind it was their fault. She would not be to blame. They wanted to see where the signal was coming from so she would show them and then she could get back inside the walls for much needed recuperation. She made Bookworm's hooves fly across the ground, not caring about the branches that tried to scratch at her face and clawed at her clothes. The trees were tall and thick. Like mountains for pillars standing straight up to support the sky.

She rested most of her weight on the stirrups rather than the saddle so she could put less strain on the horse as he ran. The wind lifted her slender body up a little to make her lighter and she moved with the horse as if she were just a mere extension of his muscles. The time in the trees made her lighter but her grip was not diminished. Her strength of arm and leg were decent but her energy, stamina and other vital traits were diminishing as the says go past. Did humans always talk so much to one another? Was I like that? It seems so noisy now. It's unsettling and makes me nervous. They need to be quiet and watch where they're going. she thought with little prejudiced or discrimination. She wanted to call back to them again but that would do no good. It was a large group so they needed to communicate, right? She grit her teeth before releasing the reign with one hand to grip the metal wing key around her neck tightly. The cool steal felt like ice against her warm hand, but it was a welcome sensation. Kept her alert and awake. She then quickly let it go and grabbed hold of the reign again.

 

[Two Fives]

“We're riding for the radio signal,” shouts Niklas at Kane, referencing Camilla the Captain's briefing from earlier. With the wind crashing into them all, the man raises his voice. He finds if he doesn't his words may as well be whispers, muffled by the air currents. “We know where it is. Just keep up and follow her,” He looks ahead, directing his eyes at Serenity, the one who's leading the cavalry charge. Despite their perilous predicament and the potential prospect of a titan being only around the corner, Niklas can't help but crack half a smile at her impressive show of horsemanship. “We can't risk stopping. Not now. Not until we complete our mission.”

He doesn't know what Kane has been through... but Akai is right. Now is not the time to dwell on the past, however recent it may have been. This is the present; that's all that matters. We are alive, Niklas muses.

 

[Maki]

Mizuki's excitement quickly faded away as she gave her gas tanks a couple of hefty hits, the metal tubes letting out an empty ring. She was already down 2 blades as it is, so her ODM being half empty wasn't a welcome surprise. I have to watch myself and save what's left for when I truly need it. The rolling thunder of footsteps snapped her out of whatever daze she was in. Although their group was skilled, or lucky, they had no chance in fighting a larger group. Holstering her blades she nimbly maneuvered down the trunk of the tree, her feet landing softly against the ground. The group was gearing up to leave and there was no way she was going to be left behind for the titans like the new girl. Hopping onto Blockhead she gave his reins a harsh lash causing the steed to bolt towards the group.

As the Scout caught up she was surprised to see that even more stragglers managed to locate and join up with them. The two didn't look like they were in the best mental shape, and one was even covered in blood. Whatever attack befell them must've happened within the hour. The expedition must be going poorly. There were so many squads dismantled by the titans in the past day. She couldn't even imagine how many were wiped out altogether. And all just to find a radio signal. "So, what do you guys suppose it is? The signal, I mean." She barks against the wind, not speaking to any particular person.

 

[Loki The Trickster]

"Who knows," Akai, the Delphic woman, answers in a surly mutter. She wears a foul expression on her face, her lips creased into a line. They're creased as though each and every word on her tongue tastes rotten. "Better be worth all this blood." She speaks above the currents of air billowing into her from the ride, above the horse hooves ravaging the dirt underneath them... above the things they can't see, only hear, in the dark of the woods around them.

 

[Two Fives]

“Hopefully,” Niklas whispers. When he whispers the word under his breath, a sliver of doubt comes to his murmured voice. Of course, his whisper along with his doubt falls on deaf ears, especially under the heaving of horse hooves as they make dirt tracks of the earth. Slightly louder, loud enough for the others to hear him this time, he declares, “I have faith in the officials. I have faith in Captain Camilla. They wouldn't make us die for nothing.”

The unit ride their horses through the forest, crossing the open space of a wooded glade, only now realising how much time has passed when they look to the sky. The sky has transitioned from afternoon blues to evening reds that make promises of sunset in an hour or two, maybe more. Some moments after they're beneath the canopy again. Shadows from the overhead branches encroach on them from all directions. “The titans are less active without sunlight,” Nik finds himself repeating, principally to put the newcomers at ease. “Nevertheless, ride. Don't stop. Just keep riding!”

 

[Coco Adel]

"Our group of humans?" She quirked her eyebrow at her. Were she was certainly an oddball, referring to them as humans as if she were not one herself. "At ease soldier," she said as a way of saying lighten up, as she seemed to have taken her comment far too seriously before she ran off. As Niklas told them to move out she shrugged, pulling in Clover's reigns and squeezing her heels into her sides a little to make her go as they started to run to their next destination, wherever that was.

SerenityAngel

 

[Uncultured]

Kanes sorrow had matured in the hours past, molting into fury and a desire to kill as many titans as possible, and although he still lingered in the past, it was now fuel rather than burden. Pulling him from his depression, this fire sharpened him, clearing the fog from his mind, honing vacant eyes to hawk like glare, focus returning twice fold as he swore that whatever titan stood in his way would face a swift, painful death.

"Who cares why we die...?"

"The only reason we need is killing as many as possible."

"That's the only reason I need after what they've done"

Replied Kane in an angry, biting tone, dark eyes burning into Niklas as he kicked into the side of his horse, Shilling, psychotic energy and rage driving Kane and his mount forward as the scout embraced his hate and his rising bloodlust for the titan menace.

 

[Kloudy]

Marx Hawthorne
(Unknown Forest)

​

"No, I wasn't followed. They were preoccupied with eating the rest of my group."

Marx gave the woman a dismissive response without looking at her, clear in his tone that he didn't think much of the fate his comrades had been handed. Hell, he was barely happy that he himself was alive. Her sarcasm wasn't lost on him, but he didn't engage in it either. He wasn't high ranked in the slightest, but he had good soldier sense. A level of professionalism kept him easy enough to get along with in situation like these, where he'd normally bite back with a retort came a perfunctory update of apparent maturity.

Marx listened to what Niklaus had to say and then turned to follow his indication, gazing coolly at the steaming titan corpses he had noticed when riding in. The job didn't look particularly skilful in execution, especially the titan with a half-destroyed sword blade sticking out of it, but they were still dead. It was more he could say for his last group. Marx's corpse tour was cut short as Niklaus called out for the group to mobilise. The black haired pessimist turned to his horse and was about to mount it but stopped as someone came into view: Kane Foster. Marx had expected him to be the first of them to die back there, but apparently he had made it out alive but fairly shaken up. Mentally shrugging, he turned back and mounted his horse fluidly, Guess some people are made of stronger stuff.

Marx rode on with the group, wondering why exactly they were all here. Maybe it was just to map out more land for the scribes back behind the walls. It was all mundane in his eyes anyway; ride into the unknown, probably die to some titans, attempt to achieve an ultimately pointless goal. The higher ups were definitely people he hated simply for the audacity they held to send out soldiers to their deaths with a straight face, equipped with plans and tactics that rarely worked. It was ridiculous.

He blinked himself out of his thoughts and looked down at his hands, gripped loose against the reigns. A smudge of blood was smeared across the back of his left hand. It wasn't his nor a titan's, but one of his comrades. A faint smile touched his lips briefly before receding back into a thin line. It hadn't been a titan that had shed that particular blood...

Coco Adel Two Fives Uncultured

 

[Flame Demon]

Victoria nods at Akai as she follows the group, her horse being the exact opposite of Akai her horse, as white as snow, if not lighter in color, she was glad to be out of the sun and into the safety, somewhat, of the forest, she lets Yuki catch up to Midnight "Victoria" she says "We didn't have a change to introduce ourselves during the ambush, so it's good" she says, she wondered how much she and Akai were alike, they both lost someone, that much is clear, she remains quiet as she keeps her ears and eyes on the surroundings in case there's another ambush.

 

[Loki The Trickster]

She starts to see Victoria in her periphery as she rides closer with her horse. She recognises the expression on her face, as she had with Kane a moment before, that expression that follows all who've had an encounter with death and demise... follows all who've lost someone dear to their heart. Her horse's hooves fly off the ground over a trench of mud. Akai clears her throat sometime after landfall and asks, "Who was it?" The question is ambiguous... but Victoria will know what she's asking.

 

[Midrick]

Pierce found himself prone in a shroud of underbrush keeping him covered to the point where it was almost impossible to see him. He was being nudged by his horse, Angron, "What... quit it Gron." he said as he slowly emerged from his camouflage. He suddenly remembered how he had found himself in the brush. His squad were under attack... they panicked... that much he knew. Shit, Dane. he thought, shaking his head. It was all coming back, Dane hadn't seen the low hanging branch, Pierce had turned around to see the titan was on him like white on rice. "Fucking hell." he whispered, he was seeing the blood now, and the bits. When he turned back around from seeing the end of Dane there was an embankment, naturally Angron panicked and they both rolled down. Must've been how he had escaped, the reality of what was happening dawned on him, he was the last one standing. No time for a burial. was what he was thinking as he mounted his brown horse, gotta find another squad, thought. If not he would be stranded in the forest with a bunch of titans.

He rode his horse through the forest for a while, he expected that he would be doomed to the fate of his comrades, agony before a far from glorious death. But his luck seemed to turn as he saw a large group of scouts riding not to far from where he he was. He kicked Angron's sides with the heels of his boots and the horse shot forward. The deaths of his friends still ate at him, but they were far from the first people he had seen die. As he neared the group he raised his right hand in a greeting, "Pierce Leahy, my squad's wasted, I'm the last. You got room for one more?"
Two Fives Kloudy Uncultured

 

[Uncultured]

"Yeah of course... Pierce is it?"

"Your squad taken down too huh?"

Yelled Kane to the newcomer over the howling wind in his face, trying to welcome him to the rag tag group, knowing it likely that Pierce had come from a scene similar to the one Kane had only a few hours previous.

"I'm Kane.... Good to meet you" continued the scout, words shallow and sullen, although better than the shell-shocked muttering of hours past. However, his eyes betrayed his calm words, as they darted about the treeline, both desiring conflict and revenge, while also fearing a repeat ambush.

 

[Flame Demon]

"Lucas, my closest and only friend, Bookworm was his horse" Victoria says, her expression slightly saddening when she uses past tense "Before he left to take down a titan that was going to catch up he...", she trails off as she looks down, she probably didn't have to say more then that "I'm going to bring Bookworm home to his family, it's what friends do right?", she changes the topic as she glances around the forest, they were getting a lot of new squad members and she honestly preferred a smaller squad, but nothing she can do about it.

 

[SerenityAngel]

Serenity heard the man's encouragement but scowled ahead of her a bit. "Don't let them drop their guard! It's as good as a death sentence! They may be LESS active after sundown but they will still move and attack if they catch your heat." She informed warning so that the fear stays in them all and keeps them aware. "You want to get through the days out here, be afraid. It will keep you aware and alive." she said from experience. Her fear had kept her alive to this point. She would be damned if she let their lack of guard got her killed as well now.

The hurried glomps of thudding hoof-falls were like a dull roar as they raced along the forest floor. Soft thrums of crimson blood rushed through veins, forcing adrenaline to continue pouring into systems and heighten senses. Falling leaves danced in the cooling wind. The temperature dropped, the sun was setting. It was nearly night and most of the titans would slow down or stop completely. This was not all that comforting though. They could still wake and move if needed. She would not let the horse rest. She would push him to get where they needed and he would be fine getting there. There was water and grass for them to eat there and it was somewhat safe. It had been a while since she last rode like this. These people need to stay close or they would be lost without the light.

She could hear voices and extra hooves falling against he ground. How many troops were out here today? Why were there so many? They keep coming and coming. They're going to attract more attention! She thought a bit worried. Were all these people really necessary just for one signal that had been there for months or longer? It didn't matter to her. Instead of worrying about how many humans joined, she kept and ear and eye out for titans, even resting ones, as they could be just as deadly at night and even more terrifying if they find you when your guard is down.