XXth September 847
"There are three titans who aren't like the others." Hange spoke in our meeting room.
Reiner, Historia, Bertholte, Connie, Ymir, Sasha, Mikasa, and the others were sitting around the table.
Historia joined the survey corps because her score was bad, Ymir followed her. Reiner and Bertholte needed the unit to guard their town but for some reason, Annie didn't join them. The others had their reasons too presumably.
The plan we had discussed regarding my abilities, was that its existence was limited to the top brass of the squad and Mikasa. If word got out about them, I would be under direct fire, and the survey corps would presumably get disbanded.
"The armoured titan, the colossal titan, and the female titan. Their characteristic features are exposed muscles, intelligence, and the ability to disappear..."
.
.
.
"Our next mission is to kill these three titans." The words broke us out of our half-asleep states. Or that might have just been me.
The only sound resonating in the room- the sound breathing, stopped. What Hange said was absurd. But no one could disagree. If any one of those three titans showed up once more, humanity would die.
"How do we do that?" Reiner was the first to ask.
"Well, we'll talk about that with our special unit."
"Since when did we have a special unit?" Bertholte asked. A genuine question. The main feature of the survey corps was that it acted as a whole.
"Since yesterday." Hange put down her chalk. "Now, disperse. Eren, Historia, Mikasa, you three stay back. Your new gear came in today."
"Ah, yes."
The others left and we were the only ones remaining in the room.
"Welcome to the special unit!" Hange loudly whispered.
"I thought this would be it... but why's she here?" I pointed at Historia. I could see why it would be Mikasa and me... but Historia was just undeniably weak.
"I don't know, commander's orders." The backdoor swung open and the higher brass stepped in. "Speak of the devil."
"Who're you calling the devil?" Levi answered.
"Just a phrase. Just a phrase."
I didn't have the patience to deal with their banter anymore so I jumped right in.
"Sir, what was with the whole announcement? How are we supposed to kill the titans when we don't even know when they'll show up next?"
"I don't know." He replied with his earnest eyes.
"Eh?"
"I said, I don't know. We wait I guess. We just wanted to educate the squad in case those three do show up, but that's about it."
"Then what was the whole spiel about the special squad?"
"Ah, that! That's to use your powers!" He pointed around the room. "These people are the ones I decided to inform about your abilities."
Well, all but one person in the room already knew about it.
"Historia?"
"Oh, there's no point in hiding your abilities from her. She'll lead us all one day."
"What are you on ab- Pardon me. What do you mean, sir." It was slightly hard to fear him with his jolly attitude. That was until we were on the field. Then he turned into a beast.
"Secret!"
This was sorta grinding my gears but I let it slide nonetheless. Not much I could've done about it in the first place.
"If I'm getting involved in this, Ymir should know too." Historia stated.
"As you wish... you inform her about this later."
'Why's he so lenient towards her? It's not like she's a big shot or anything.' I thought. Only if I knew back then what I do now.
"So what's our purpose?"
"We'll take the Troste district back." Another bomb was dropped.
"How?"
"Again, I don't know!" He said positively. "Last week we got an order from the king to reclaim the wall. He's probably frightened by the influx of people in the innermost walls."
'Is it fine to talk about the king like that?' It didn't really matter to me, I wasn't all that patriotic in the first place.
"You might not have a plan, but you have an idea at least right? You wouldn't have made the special squad otherwise."
"Eren, you do know me well! Let me explain! Hange." Hange took to the board and drew a large rock of some kind and the wall. "There's a rock the size of a large building in the middle of the city. Our plan is to shove it into the breach in the wall."
"And how do we do that?"
Everyone in the room stared at me.
"Me? Do you guys think I'm a porter? There's no way I can lift that."
"Who said anything about lifting?"
Hange drew some sort of contraption on the wall.
"A carriage?"
"Precisely! You will unload the rock onto this and then drag it to the wall. Once there, you will block the wall using it. Of course, we'll use horses to reduce the pulling load on you."
You wouldn't need a professional to tell that the plan was insane. Even if we somehow managed to load it on, getting the rock to the hole would require constant surveillance from the ground. People will undoubtedly die. But they probably knew that.
"How would we do this while hiding my abilities?"
"At night. The Weekend nights are under the survey corps surveillance. That's when we'll go."
"Why are we doing this?" That time it wasn't me but Mikasa who questioned. She probably asked out of concern for my safety.
"Do you remember what the special squad is for?"
"To kill the special titans, sir."
"The special titans are hell-bent on ending humanity. They have only appeared so far to make sure of that. Once they find out that the wall has been closed off again, they would probably appear again."
"So it's a trap."
"Yes."
I didn't know whether Erwin Smith was a genius or a Machiavellian psychopath, but I felt a definite sense of trust in him.
"What if they show up during the mission?"
"That would be for the best, after all, we did just inform the entire Survey Squad about their existence. It might be a problem if they prevented us from... ah that shouldn't happen. No point in thinking about impossibles. Any other questions?"
"No, sir."
