Choices

Chapter 18

     3 months later
  

     Armin Arlert stood on a roof of one of the many buildings of Trost. It was a massacre, hundreds of bodies layed across the streets, most with at least half of them missing. The buildings and houses were torn apart, shingles were gone and whole roof were torn off.
      He stood on the roof with the rest of his unit, he didn't know any of them. And they all looked just as scared as him. He was told to bolster the vanguard by a garrison member, but before he could even ask a question the man had grappled away.
      He could see the heads of Titans walking through the streets, they would stop look around, then continue moving. Only stopping for a long period of time if they found a survivor. Armin had never seen a Titan before, except for the three in Shinganshina. But they were all small ones. Around five meters, but what he was seeing now were ten and fifteen  meter ones, doubling and tripling the sizes.
      He was scared to say the least, he was the weakest person in their class. And he didn't have the nerve to stay focused enough to help out any. His squad was supposed to support the experienced soldiers. They were fresh out of training! What chance did they have against man eating beasts?
      The short boy had little hope, and the Survey Corps. Was their only chance. But most of them were in Sina, picking up supplies for their next expedition. Word was being sent but Eren and the other soldiers wouldn't get there until that evening. If they were lucky.
      The hole had Titans pouring through and garrison members did what they could to cut them down, but they had no experience against Titans. If full fledged soldiers couldn't do anything then what could a group of soldiers fresh out of training do? It was a waste of men and women. A voice brought him out of his thoughts.
      "We need to start moving!" Announced his squad leader, a tan man with cropped hair.
      As he said, the small unit got ready. Steeling themselves, ready for almost certain death. Armin Arlert was surprisingly the most calm person there. He seemed to be the only one that wasn't crying, although he was damn near close.
     His squad leader started to quickly cable away, the rest of them following. Armin shot his cable in to a roof, the shingle it grappled to falling loose, he nearly splattered on the stone road beneath them, but managed to shoot his other cable into a wall of one of the destroyed houses. No Titans seemed to be near, all of them either entering the city, or so far in they had passed a lot of the cadets.
      But then disaster struck. His squad leader being the farthest ahead, was suddenly split in half by a Titan that jumped out of the alley way. It clamped down on him vertically, the other half went flying, following the retracting cable. Armin screamed in terror as another extended its hand and another unit member was caught.
     There were two of them left, him and some girl he had met merely hours before. She was screaming too. Armin immdeiately shot his cable into the tallest building he could find. And that building happened to be a partially intact home. He rolled roughly onto the top of the house, newrly going off the other end. The girl was on a roof on the other side of the street.
     He saw half of his squad leader dangling from a building, his ODM cable had finished it journey, with a piece of its cargo. He saw the other unit member being horribly dismembered while screaming in agony. Armin fell to his knees. This was what Eren had been fighting? This? These abominations? He knew they were bad, but never expected this.
      The other girl from his unit maneuvered over to him. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, he sat there though, still dazed and in shock at how fast it had happened. He couldn't believe it, his death would be as gruesome as theirs. If not more so.
     "Armin we need to move!" She screamed, still shaking his shoulders. He snapped out of it.
     "We need to move now!" She repeated. A shadow was suddenly over them, and they both looked up.
     "Shit!" The girl screamed and she grabbed his arm and dragged him back. A hand was coming down at them, fast. Even though it was small, it could easily crush them. They barely missed it.
     She was dragging him, risking her own life for him, why, he did not know. He tried to move, but couldn't. His legs wouldn't work for him. All he saw was evil. That evil was a Titan. A look of joy plastered on its face, it had long hair, and showed all of its yellow teeth and up to the gums. It reached for them again, this time the girl sliced its fingers off with her ODM blade. The hunks of flesh fell, and a thud and shake was made as they landed on the roof of the building and steam rose from them. She was still dragging him away from the Titan while they were on the roof.
      She turned him around and screamed. "You need to move!" She screeched it right in his tear streaked face. He could move suddenly, his legs regaining feeling. He shakily stood up, and started to run, her next to him and the Titan taking slow yet large steps. It was right behind them and they were running out of roof.
       Armin felt a shadow over him again, but this time he was ready as he shot his cable randomly, hoping to God it hit something. His prayers were answered as he heard the thunk of it hitting something solid. He hoped it was sturdy. Because if it wasn't he would most likely be a pancake on the ground.
      To hell with it!, he yelled mentally as he jumped up and retracted his cable. The girl did the same as she was next to him in the air. Thank God, he thought as he flew off. He didn't look back.

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     Sasha Braus' unit was gone, she was alone. Her unit was killed within seconds. She didn't know any of them. She had met them during deployment. They seemed nice, and helped her get geared up and she did the same for them.
     And now here she was, grappled to Wall Rose, seeing Titans in the city by the dozens. They were everywhere. She could only find a few streets that they weren't walking down. They were like a weed, always came back within a day or so. When she was on top of the wall just hours before, she saw them clawing at it. She didn't expect a colossal one to kick the wall in, that was for sure.
     Her physical strength had always been low, her ODM scores weren't all that great. But she could balance better than anyone on the ODM simulated harnesses, even better than Mikasa. But not by much. But still she was challenged in physical capability, sure training would have helped if she hadn't been malnourished.
     She hoped the Survey Corps. Would get word of what was going on and arrive soon, the sooner the soldiers were there. The sooner the elites like Levi and Eren would be there. She remembered when word of Eren's promotion to the elite class spread throughout the 104th. A horse driven carriage had rode up.
    

     A carriage arrived suddenly, it rode sluggishly up the hill, an old man holding the reigns. He had a long beard down to his chest but was bald on the head. His forehead was permanently creased with wrinkles of worry and stress. His shirt showed he wasn't wealthy. Far from it actually. It was a lot like Eren's but the old man's was more tattered.
     The carriage was filled with stacks of news papers and an assortment of other things such as food, clothes and crates that were labeled 'SALT'. That excited the Trainees. Salt was expensive.
     The old man spoke in a raspy tone. "Your instructors thought that you'd like to hear 'bout that youngin' that joined the Surveyer guys," he had a smile on his face.
     The old man started unloading stacks of newspapers onto the dusty ground, and a few of the guys helped. The headlines on all of the newspapers said "Elite Jeager," on them. They all picked one up. The columns all spoke of Eren and his heroics.
     "Saved Elite, Petra Ral, from certain death," was another line in the waves of stories. Sasha folded her papers up and shoved them in her pocket. He had been gone for eight months and was already an elite.
     Gossip went around camps for months.

     She hoped the elites gpt there soon, because the cadets were torn apart, literally. Smoke was rising, and she was sure they could see it from Sina, or at least some of the villages in Wall Rose's lands. She cpuld hear the screams of terror from below, and she shuddered. Another person was most likely dead.
     The brunette heard a cable snapped and retract next to her. She turned to see Krista Lenz next to her on the wall. She looked terrified. Her hair was frazzled and her clothes had blood on them. The two looked at eachother, then back at the street.
      "Marco is the only one that survived in my unit," she told Sasha shakily, tears falling from her eyes and down to the streets below.
      "I'm the only one left in mine," Sasha replied. They continued to stare at the city.
      "The elites should be here by the evening," Krista informed her, "and Eren will be with them,"
      "Oh thank God!" Sasha praised as she threw her hands upward, her blades still in her hands.
      "I know," Krista laughed. But the sadness and fear still loomed around them.
      "We should get tpdown there and help anyone we can," Sasha said as she startd her descent. Krista agreed and followed her down.
     It would be a long and bloody day for the human race.