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Post by redox-kun on Oct 9, 2013 19:37:19 GMT -8
“you are not to transform until i give the order”
those were the last words that the squad leader gave to him. stefan still remembers how quickly the buntaichou’s head rolled before his horse had accidentally trampled it, having no rider to commandeer her. it’s a waste, but there’s nothing that he can really do when several nine-meter class titans were pursuing them almost recklessly.
there’s nobody around him except for trees, his panicking classmates, and the titans that are barely balancing themselves on their two feet. in the midst of all this, stefan sees paths of light radiating from behind the masses of leaves. freedom. the unknown. all of these would be his, if only he pulled his reigns more to the left for the next ten minutes or so. a girl in her 3d maneuver gear is thrown overhead - by an irregular, maybe? stefan bites his lip and considers whether the titans would pursue his titan form or not.
he has only a little bit of time to make his choice before the paths converge again. LAIKA OF GS!
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Post by darth vader on Oct 9, 2013 20:47:41 GMT -8
she's a blade
| Thalia's horse was one of the first casualties, his stomach ripped open by a titan's grasping hand and there'd been no time for shock, fear, grief--only the explosion into movement, throwing herself off the collapsing horse and swinging into the upper canopy on her 3DMG with mere inches to spare between herself and her horse's fate.
Ducking and weaving her way through the trees is simple muscle memory, her body propelling itself forward independent from her mind. The squad leader is dead. Her squad is in tatters, fleeing for their lives and dying instead. Ahead of her, a titan gouges out a tree trunk in his quest to uproot a 3DMG hook and the soldier--the boy--attached screams as he plummets through the air. Thalia changes direction, rebounding off a branch.
Adjust gas levels, compensate for the force of the turn, calculate enough space to leave to draw her blades and build momentum: she doesn't think these things as much as process them on a level beyond her mind's racing thoughts. Our leader is dead, and her arms are raised, we're being slaughtered like animals, and the fountain of blood that spurts forth from the back of the titan's neck turns the white trim of her uniform to crimson.
The boy stumbles to safety on a lower branch and stares forward sightlessly. Thalia lands beside him, pulls at his arm, and shoots off again. We need something, we need--
They all have to know what they need. Has he transformed yet? Her body registers the presence of light ahead, the thinning of the forest, and moves toward it. Her thoughts spill over each other. She needs to find him. And do what? Win. They need to win.
She swings across the path and catches sight of a familiar white head of hair, bent over his horse and pounding forward amid a few other survivors. There's a cluster of titans chasing after them haphazardly and she could shout at him from here, but in the middle of this chaos there's no guarantee he'll hear her. Or comprehend. If only they had a moment or two to speak--
Thalia doubles back and swings out low to the ground across the path in front of the pursuing titans. One of them tracks her and turns clumsily, crashing through the brush and she spins out a hard U turn, sailing back a foot past him. Close enough to reach out and touch the unnaturally smooth skin. He tries to lurch after her and topples over himself to the ground. His brothers halt behind his bulk, trying to clamber over him with no great success.
She's already gone, ignoring the dizzying lightness of her gas tanks to catch up with Stefan. Trying to keep pace with a horse on 3DMG and talk at the same time isn't easy, but it isn't the hardest thing she's done in the last ten minutes either. Somehow she forces her way out of her dissociation enough to speak to him.
"Why haven't you transformed yet? We're being massacred."
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LAIKA OF GS!
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Post by redox-kun on Oct 9, 2013 21:23:12 GMT -8
stefan does his best to hold back the wry smile that threatens to spill over to the surface. somebody had to remain alive to tell the tale. except that’s not really the smart thing to tell thalia de luca. then again, there was no smart answer for someone like her. nothing that she would accept, coming from him.
he gives the (slightly) more politically correct answer.
“...i would really prefer not to be tried for treason. better to try our luck with the titans rather than the military, don’t you think?” stefan clicks his tongue as he realizes that the girl had just caused him to miss a detour. well, there was still plenty, if she would only get off his back. “unless you would like to take responsibility...if only you could” his shoulders slump, as if he really did believe that it was a shame that nobody with the authority remained alive in this squad.
it’s funny, how the military feared him more than they feared these mindless beasts. how much humans feared lies and deception, even if they were the only things that kept their society afloat.
a smaller titan comes after them on all fours, but stefan barely spares it a glance. thalia wouldn’t let it get that close - he trusted her enough on that front, at least. even if that wasn’t the case, the loss of his limbs would hardly be permanent or lethal. he’s more free here than he ever was within the walls. there’s no question of that.
LAIKA OF GS!
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Post by darth vader on Oct 9, 2013 21:33:01 GMT -8
she's a blade
| For the first time since she watched the titans burst out of the forest and scatter her squad like dry leaves in the wind, Thalia feels a flicker of emotion that isn't ruthlessly suppressed before it can catch spark. The mechanical precision that had steered her limbs while her mind reeled doesn't desert her; she lived too many years on the street to ever let her guard down, but as she swings away from Stefan momentarily to dispatch the titan approaching them, she turns over his words.
She returns slightly bloodier, but unscathed. Her hair, barely brushing the bottom of her neck, is matted with sweat and blood, none of it hers but only some of it titan. There'd been a soldier she couldn't save for every one she jerked forward into motion, urging them toward the light.
"There's no earthly way they could hold you guilty of treason under these circumstances," she says. "They're the definition of extenuating. If it comes down to it, I'll simply tell them, however, that the squad leader informed me you were to shift in the event of his death and the failure of the mission. He was a reasonable and far-sighted man, in that regard."
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LAIKA OF GS!
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Post by redox-kun on Oct 9, 2013 21:54:19 GMT -8
he could have tried to outrun the squad while thalia was distracted, but he doesn’t. she’ll be back soon -- wouldn’t take her long to fall a four-meter class. after all these months of living together, about the only thing that stefan takes the most seriously are her skills.
“you make it sound as if they would believe you” stefan’s insipid expression doesn’t even flicker at thalia’s rebuttal. “as if a colleague from my trainee days could be trusted. do you think that they would even trainees know what i was if they had a choice? surely your naivete wouldn’t go that far.”
maybe it’s the time to use his 3d maneuver gear instead. the titans would never reach him in the treetops, and he could wait to transform. the remainder of the squad would be running for their lives, none the wiser. there were probably those who had the same idea, but those who didn’t get to their horses would risk being left behind in a den of lions.
well, maybe being left behind wouldn’t be such a bad thing. he reaches for his grapple hooks.
LAIKA OF GS!
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Post by darth vader on Oct 9, 2013 22:35:11 GMT -8
she's a blade
| It's true that Thalia knows little of politics, but she knows the value of strength and thus her own value.
"They won't believe me," she says, "But they'll need to pretend they do. The Survey Corps is hardly suffering from such an embarrassment of riches that they can afford to lose both of us. I might not be as important as a shifter, but they're not going to throw away the top graduate who chose them over the military police. This isn't the corruption of the inner cities, or even the easy complacence of the academy. We're already where they send people to die for their punishment."
"Now if you're going to transform, do it," she says lightly. The gas in her tanks is almost out. She can feel the minuscule slackening of her 3DMG as she darts onward. "If you're not, I have rather pressing matters to attend to."
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LAIKA OF GS!
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Post by redox-kun on Oct 9, 2013 23:03:29 GMT -8
suddenly, stefan is a child again. a child who watched on as his parents rode off on their steeds, never to spare a glance at what they were leaving behind. he wasn’t sure if they lacked emotional fortitude to do so, or if they never really cared.
it’s been over a decade, and the need for rationale has grown stale. either way, nothing can be done about what they had chosen. their bones are dust, and his heart is naught but an engine. the engine for humanity’s worst fear - both man and titan. he’ll either doom himself or doom the people around him, and does it truly make any difference?
the sky is orange; the sun is starting to set. soon, the titans will be unable to move, leaving the blood on the ground to drain in peace. whether they fight or not, as long as they can keep momentum, the result will be the same. they will escape with their lives.
he thinks that he would like to be able to feel the warmth of the rising sun again.
he fights himself -- he fights the hunger for freedom drumming in the back of his head. stefan protects himself from her words with whatever eggshell pieces that he has left. it’s not much, but it’s something that has kept himself alive this whole time. that’s enough, isn’t it?
is it enough is it enough will he be lost will he be a b a n d o n e d?
his musings send him in a deep enough trance for another titan to catch up with them and sink its heavy fist into the earth, and the horse stumbles from the quake, but not before stefan manages to lodge his hook into a tree. vertically, he flies past thalia and knows that he does not have much more time to make his choice. as much as he plays the distance game, stefan’s been watching thalia for years, and the slight dip in her performance doesn’t escape his eyes.
“..keep pretending, but take my horse, you idiot” stefan closes his eyes and hates her for shoving him into this corner with her two hands. he’ll find time to kick her into a mud puddle later. "don't screw this up, captain" there is no ambiguity in his mockery.
stefan bites deeply into his lip. he’s as stupid as his parents, but he’ll at least give them all hell to pay.
there is a great explosion in the forest.
LAIKA OF GS!
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Post by darth vader on Oct 10, 2013 5:54:00 GMT -8
she's a blade
| He could have at least left me his gas tanks she thinks with some irritation, and then where Stefan had been there's only bright heat and light, and she closes her eyes and tugs sharply on the reins as the horse rears, trained for fighting titans and not serving them. He doesn't recognize his master any longer, and the weight on his back is unfamiliar.
The strike of thunder is still ringing in her ears when a soldier--Mina, Thalia registers vaguely, 12th ranked graduate and a somewhat soppy sort of girl, albeit talented--pulls up beside her on her horse. She's breathing heavily, her blond hair streaked with blood and she looks terrified out of her mind. "He--he--he's going to--" and Thalia leans forward and grabs the bridle of Mina's horse, their faces close together.
"Stefan is following the squad leader's orders," she says. "And he's going to save our lives. Who else is left, Mina? I passed a handful on my way here, but not many."
By the second sentence the other girl's eyes are fluttering a little less, her pulse no longer such a jackhammer in her throat that Thalia can see the vein throbbing. "Not many," she answers. "The group here, a few more in the trees, and maybe some behind us or ahead of us. Most of us--"
"It's okay. Mina, what I want you to do is get everyone back to the Walls and report what happened. Can you do that? Those with only 3DMG can double up on the horses, but you're going to get everyone back. Tell them the squad leader is dead and we encountered aberrants. Tell them Stefan shifted on orders to fight them and they need to send a retrieval squad. You're going to be fine, Mina."
Thalia leaves the blond girl with a renewed sense of purpose, wheels her horse around, and turns straight back up the path the way they'd come. They'd passed a corpse tucked underneath a few bushes and it's the work of a few moments to unhook his nearly full gas tanks and replace her own with them. If she closes her eyes, it's no different than rummaging through a corpse's pockets in the inner city. She's just doing what needs to be done. Nothing more, but nothing less.
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LAIKA OF GS!
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Post by redox-kun on Oct 11, 2013 17:53:55 GMT -8
the smoke clears, and stefan still cannot see the face that the military has been persecuting for so long. he doubts that he ever will. what does he look like, he wonders. what is it that people see when he causes them true fear?
he still remembers the faces of the garrison men and women who had to face him all those years ago. their terror is the only reflection that he has ever known.
his hand reaches up to his face, but he decides against it. he’s becoming sentimental, and he lets thalia take the blame for it.
god, this wouldn’t be happening right now if it weren’t for that woman. blaming her for his idiocy - at the rate this is going, stefan practically deserves to be titan food.
not for these beasts, though. a few of them take notice of the new foodstuff among them, although it remains to be seen if they were after his titan form or the human embedded in the neck. he wonders if they even know the difference, if there was a difference.
he pays little mind to the normal titans. those, the scouting legion has been trained to deal with. nothing quite prepares the soldiers for abberants. then again, nothing prepares the aberrants for stefan either. they start to lumber towards them nevertheless.
stefan shifts his foot - his body is proportional enough so that moving isn’t that much different from before, but that’s not enough to win, not enough to survive. it’s not enough to justify the dreams that he had just thrown away. maybe the last lifeline that he had left before he has to wait for the next squad leader to die, and he doubts that the security will ever be this loose again after what has happened.
if he’s going to commit a grave error, then he’s going to make it count.
one of the taller titans lunge forward to take a chunk out of stefan’s chest with its teeth. he blocks the bite with his bony forearm. it’s painful, but not so much when compared to a military lab. the titan’s teeth are dull when stefan remembers the edge of a scalpel. humans are far worse than these animals can be. if he can endure humanity, then he can endure these titans.
stefan raises the other arm and punches out the back of the titan’s neck from the side with the speed of a blade but none of the cleanliness.
it rains blood, and like all rain, it rejuvenates the ground with hope.
LAIKA OF GS!
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Post by darth vader on Oct 11, 2013 21:33:34 GMT -8
she's a blade
| Between the woods and frozen lake. The darkest evening of the year. Her father used to read her that from a worn book with a red leather cover. He kept it on the highest shelf in the living room and only took it down when the nights were long and food was short.
Now, Thalia finally understands. And it no longer matters. There's blood on the leaves and slick and heavy on her hands, and it doesn't matter. Her hook sinks with a satisfying thud into the tree ahead and she lands on the head of a 9 meter class.
One hand curls in his hair. It feels like any other hair she's ever touched, deceptively soft and human to the touch. The titan's arm raises and contorts backwards at an unnatural angle, palm poised to grab her and she raises her blades--
They shine like the winter sunlight on snow, she thinks abruptly and uselessly and carves her pound of flesh out of the titan's arm before moving on.
Thalia doesn't know how long she fights; only that she does. Past her arms turning to lead, past the moment when her hair, slicked back from her forehead with sweat and gore, stiffens and dries with blood, past the moment when she stops registering the titans entirely and becomes nothing more than a series of repeated actions: the swing and the release, the final cut and the gesture forward into space.
There's the sound of horses approaching from below on the path. Mina made it to the Wall with almost everyone alive, carrying a story that was too horrific to be a lie. But Thalia doesn't know that yet and she doesn't notice the rescue squad that approaches, wary. Her hands hang heavy at her sides, gripping dulled blades. She pants for breath. Her eyes stare blankly into space. Her blood sings. |
LAIKA OF GS!
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Post by redox-kun on Oct 17, 2013 18:58:29 GMT -8
the titans notice the rescue squad before he does, only because stefan feels no instinctive inclination to devour human flesh. a few of the stragglers charge the men on horseback, but he pays them little mind. his enemies are right in front of him, and whatever that he cannot take care of will only be further trouble for the soldiers behind him.
aberrants, the scouting legion can handle. sheer numbers, not so much. stefan uproots a young tree before ramming it into a titan’s throat. it’s crude, but effective for a titan with his precision. he uses the tree trunks to knock the smaller ones off their feet before using his weight to drive the stake into their necks repeatedly. chunks of flesh fly, but that’s all that they are. carrion for the birds.
rinse rinse, repeat. LAIKA OF GS!
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