WARNING:

To any prospective roleplayers who may find this sub, know that r/AoTRP is 99% defunct and we do not host a game here any longer. I am sorry to disappoint you, I really am. We ran two different play-by-post games set in alternative scenarios to the Attack on Titan canon which do not easily allow for the appearances of canon characters, and the second of those ended about four years ago now.

Thank you for understanding and happy hunting, cadets. See you on the beach at the end of the world, near the mythic body of water that extends far out to the horizon.

<"You hear that, Konrad?"> Martin questioned, sipping a glass of lukewarm herbal tea. A black apron wrapped his chest and ran down to the taller man's thighs, his right leg tucked over the other in near girlish fashion as he relaxed against a wooden, reclining chair. His skin was darker brown than most. His head was shaved freshly bald, truthfully due to the man's losing battle with hair loss disguised beneath the veil of religion.

My eyes twitch.

Of course I heard it. Everyone in Marley heard it. A Siren, blaring out into streets and echoing from city to city. I look up from the window grate of our basement- eyeing a swift torrent of black-leather boots sprinting past the window pane.

<"They're here,"> Martin continued, setting down his small glass. He had only managed to drink half of it.

What a shame.

I walk up him, gripping his collared white shirt and rearing back a trembling fist. His eyes stare into mine- a black-pitch void encompassing his pupil. Like an abyss, it fixed onto mine. It spoke of a single, unending sentiment.

Pity.

The faint angle of his brow. The crook of the side of his lips. This man, this traitor, this monster had the audacity to pity me. To pity my entire race.

With a shout, I slammed my fist into that horrid face of his- sending the tall bastard crashing against a wooden shelf. Bottles of wine rattled and collapsed, sprawling across the stone floor with dark red-tainted glass. He slumped down to the floor, his sullen gaze shifting to the label of a nearby broken bottle.

Amber Lago #35 - 747.

For 67 years this wine'd waited patiently for its proprietor and eventual consumption, only to find itself wasted and shattered across the floor.

What a shame, indeed.

I pace forwards, crunching my moccasins against the broken glass. "You are going to end this. You-" I hesitated briefly, swallowing back a lump of fear as I felt my hands briefly quake. "-You are going to-"

<"You are not in a position to tell me to do anything, little man,"> Martin coldly muttered. <"That noise?"> He questioned, a blood trail from his lips evaporating in a sudden cloud of steam. <"That noise is the reckoning of this entire god damn country. This cesspit of mediocrity, aristocracy and vermin. For years upon years, we've sat back. We've watched. We've studied you, hell, I even took it as far-">

His dark-amber gaze fell onto his palm, blankly staring at an open, oozing slice across his skin.

<"As to marry among you. You've been assessed, Konrad,"> he said, eyes shifting back onto mine.

<"And you have been found,">

A pause.

<"Wanting.">

I felt my chest sink to my stomach. My lips parted involuntarily. My eyes widened, the sudden realization striking my mind like a bat across the skull.

His empty gaze. His mechanical tone.

"I-" I stammered, feeling a trembling exhale leave my lungs. "-I'm going to die tonight," I whispered. "Aren't I?"

Martin's gaze was unmoving. His silence, deafening. From the cellar window pane, a distant flash of light erupted with the sound of thunder.

A voice came from upstairs, feminine. ["Honey?"] my wife questioned, speaking into the damp cellar. ["What's going on? There's Sirens and-"]

"GO UPSTAIRS! GET JO AND ELLY AND GET TO THE AIRSHIPS!" I screamed. From my peripheral, I could see Martin's head slowly crane upwards- eyes affixing onto Gwyn's silhouette. She froze briefly, and even from back-lit darkness that encompassed her face, I could tell she was stunned.

Confused.

Scared.

I must have looked much the same.

She opened her mouth to speak. I didn't let her begin.

"GO! NOW!"

Finally, she relented- turning to sprint upstairs. Martin's eyes drifted slowly downwards, finally meeting mine. <"You're not going with her?"> He questioned, slowly beginning to rise to his feet. <"The entire city of Lago is going to be leveled in a matter of minutes. You don't have long,"> he said simply. <"As token to our friendship, I'm willing to give you an entire four minutes. Four minutes to get your children and run.">

He smiled softly. His lanky, think arms stretched out to his sides, as though inviting me for a warm embrace.

I had never been so offended.

In that moment, I thought of many things. Perhaps I could fight him, right here, right now. Man to man. I was older, yes, and my back certainly isn't what it used to be- but this was the moment. I would fight for Marley. For Gwyn. For Jo, for Elly. I would not permit this monster to escape this Cellar. He and I would both die here, and the others like him would-

<"Three minutes and 52 seconds.">

My heart sank- reality immediately crashing down on my head. From the reflection of his gaze, I caught the faintest glimpse of my own expression.

I looked pathetic.

"P-please-" I whispered, fury washing away in the blink of an eye. "Don't do this-"

<"Three minutes and 48 seconds.">

At that point, I could recall running. I sprinted upstairs, leaving the cursed bastard to his counting. I could feel the stain on my pride. I felt I'd failed us all as a man, where perhaps it was not too late to go back downstairs and fight him...but my legs simply refused. I made it upstairs, only to find an open door leading out to the road. Gwyn had already taken the kids and ran for it.

Good.

I stammered outside into the open road, immediately forced to recoil backwards as armed soldiers - clad in beige uniforms with bayonet-mounted rifles - sprinted down the street. Shouting erupted within the dark night, the sky itself changing from a star-addled black to a fire-blazed orange hue. The city was already ablaze. In the distance, I could see one of them-

A Titan.

Tall. Lumbering. Deathly still amidst the burning chaos surrounding his person as he towered the nearby three story buildings. He- I assumed, at least- was of pale complexion. His hair was a shoulder-length cropped black, hanging daintly above his bare shoulders.

His eyes were affixed directly at me across two city blocks away. His gaze awfully reminiscent of Martin's.

Completely and utterly empty.

I froze where I stood, feeling a primal chill run down my spine. In an instant I caught myself wishing Elly would not see the creature, as the sight would certainly make her cry. What a silly thought to think now, of all times.

I turned to my left, preparing to run down the street and follow the Soldiers-

And from my peripheral, I caught a glimpse of Martin at the cellar window pane. He'd sat back down to finish his tea.

'As token to our friendship,' indeed. Once a liar always a liar, it seemed.

Those three minutes and 40-something seconds flew right on by. I'd ran the entire way- I'd yet to find Gwyn and the children, however. I remember casting my gaze back from where I came. A lightning bolt descended from the sky in near divine fashion, coming crashing down directly upon my home. An explosion erupted like that of one of those air-dropped bombs, circular and upwards. The buildings nearby were consumed in hellfire and flattened because a cloud of erupting dust. In but a flash, only one thing stood within that corner of the city.

A monster. Completely lacking in skin, towering as thought he could touch the clouds himself. His gaze was an amber brown, empty and hollow as the Colossal peered forth onto the city of Lago- a mountain of steam erupting from his skinless back.

Today would mark the beginning of the end, I knew. Goodbye, Marley.

God help us all.

The Abyss was a seductress, singing her Siren's Song that called to humanity, begging them to venture forth. She was cloaked in majesty, the verdant landscapes of her upper layer spilling over into the surreal and beautiful vistas below. But her bounties were not a gift to mankind. They were but a lure.

The unlikely travelers had now, by no doubt, learned this truth for themselves. On the one side, there stood a robot, a boy, a cloaked figure, and a overzealous explorer. Already, they had been beset by giant arachnids, and it seemed unlikely that they'd make it very far. And yet, with seemingly no effort, the smallest among them had dispatched their foe and slipped back into the background. On the other, an even more unlikely set of companions, gazed down. Fate had seen fit to push together a cautious youth, respectful of the danger that lay before him, with a brute of a woman to whom fear was a foreign concept. And after fighting her way through a wounded, juvenile Splitjaw, perhaps it should be. Or perhaps the Abyss was simply biding her time.

Before these groups, the second layer sloped downwards to the depths below. In contrast to the Abyss's atrium, this was an entirely unearthly place. Multicolored species of kelp reached for the sky, waving back and forth in a tidal current visible only to them. All manner of strange fish and rays swam through this neritic forest, having apparently never received the memo that there was no water to swim through. Further in the distance, great mounds of coral stretched above the tall arms of the kelp, beckoning to those surveying the landscape.

In the midst of this strange dry sea, surveying from his vantage point, a figure stood watch. As he let go of his binoculars, allowing them to hang around as neck beside the large, black whistle, he allowed himself a smile. "So, ya'll finally made it. Maybe now, things'll start getting interesting around here..."

Washington DC, CDC Headquarters - 11:39PM. 211 Days after Outbreak.

Ludwig reclined in his leather chair, briefly shutting his eyes. A red screen blared shortly before his face, still barely visible even through his eyelids.

It was infuriating.

It was insulting.

It was demeaning.

The Scientist rose a hand to his face, stroking his graying, thin beard. They had tried everything. Every possible concoction of genetic alteration. The country's best cellular biologists under his command, his whim and direction to solve what was undoubtedly the greatest puzzle presented in the history of man. The Rage Virus. A spiritual precursor to rabies, transferred through airborne means as to lay a foundation for a more...direct injection through an already 'claimed' host. A bite.

Ludwig opened his eyes, casting a tired, frustrated glance back at the red screen. He reached out to the keyboard by his waist, pressing 'ENTER' with as much force as he could. The screen flicked away from the red 'VAC. FAILED' interblazed across the monitor, swapping back to a live feed of...

Hell, it was something.

Around 9ft tall and 438 pounds of raw chitin, muscle and a Scythe-like flesh appendage composed of a unique biologically-propagated mixture of Calcium, Iron and the single most compressed, pressurized carbon strands he'd ever seen. Harder than diamond - easily. All attached to a bipedal, eyeless organism with the most advanced, acute cochlear nerves they'd witnessed in biology.

ICARUS, they'd dubbed the entity.

Ludwig leaned forward, resting his elbows shortly before the keyboard. He interlaced his fingers, thinking in bated silence. No amount of sedative, antibiotic agent, or other viral infection managed to do the job. Scorching temperatures were enough to purge the flesh of the host, but the virus still lived. And even then, it would only be a matter of time before it floated about and found another sack of tissue to append to. Had they found measures to attack it? Certainly. But like any good cancer, its cellular hosts multiplied - exponentially so - upon hint of attack.

Killing it was near out of the question entirely.

He took a deep breath, retracing his footsteps.

The creature's capture had been little less than a bloody miracle. A hodge-podge of six nobodies had temporarily crippled it within a Chapel. His right hand tapped the enter key once more - with lightly less force. A series of water-tanks and suspended persons hung in silent sedation, save the one locked up across the facility in solitary confinement - the green-eyed Germaphobe.

Sedated Carriers, the ones in tanks were. The CDC had, admittedly, not too much use for them - though their bloodstreams did provide a continual stream over the past couple weeks of a pseudo-vaccine. Not enough to actually kill the Rage Virus, but rather keep it docile for some time. The very same sedative,

He flicked back to Icarus' display.

Now being pumped into Icarus at a whopping 8 fl oz/hour.

Ludwig's hands ran across his hair in silent frustration. He rose from his seat, tucking his hands into his lab coat pockets. He paced across the pristine-white tile floor, headed for an electronic door with a keycard scanner. His right wrist moved towards it, beeping loudly as a mechanical, automated voice spoke out:

 "DR. LUDWIG, LEAVING PRIMARY LABORATORY: 11:45PM."

His hand returned to his pocket, feeling his oversized wristband shift back into place. His left wrist's smartwatch, however, suddenly vibrated.

He paused.

This better not be the Chief of Staff again.

With a begrudging sigh, he looked down at his wrist. The initial menu screen ran a projection of the condition of the country, one which he did not need a reminder.

 Population Infected: 95%+
 Casualties: ~328,100,000+
 Virus Evolution:
 - Stage 1: T [F]
 - Stage 2: T [F]
 - Stage 3: T [F]
 - Stage 4: T [F]
 - Stage 5: [T] F (CRITICAL)
 Contamination Risk: N/A

"Yes, I know," he muttered to himself. The CDC had failed in its primary directive. The precious, precious weeks the Department of Defense had afforded them along the midwest'd been for not. The United States, proper, had fallen. The last remaining stretches of actual human beings remained in the fringes of Alaska and Hawaii - where much of the remainder of the United States' Government now lingered. The Rage Virus was now sweeping through Mexico in conflagration - though El Salvador and Honduras'd gotten smart and erected a massive bloody wall, halting the Viral Spread up to there. Canada, too, had gone on complete lockdown - though fringe cases had began to appear within the last week.

Britain had locked off its airports, isolating itself from the European Union even further.

China had Militarized along with North Korea, threatening action against Japan, opting to capitalize on the fragile state of the globe. A massive power vacuum had been left amidst the United States' fracture, as Russia had gone and annexed even more of Northern Asian Territories.

The world was, for lack of a better world, in isolated Chaos. Several Epicenters along the United States had been bombed to dirt, leaving radioactive craters to stamp out the Plague prior to its spread - specifically along the Northern States bordering Canada. A 'great scar' rang from the US Border to its Northern compatriot of raw radiation and flatland, buying the Canadian-European Alliance more precious weeks to work.

Ludwig frowned, swiping away the Global Death Count and staring at the small square screen with perplexion. An Unknown text message lingered in his inbox:

 You have what we've been missing. We can kill it.

From his peripheral, along a pristine white wall, a black-dome camera stared at his visage. A brief silence later, to his genuine horror, his wrist began to ring.

San Antonio, Texas - 9:32PM. October 19th, 2018 - 266 Days after Outbreak.

Raindrops pitter-pattered atop her hair, dampening the red headband wrapped around her forehead. She took a deep inhale, staring forward at the shambling, rotting man in the middle of the road. His uniform was enough indication that she was at the right place, a white hardhat was atop his head with a reflective vest across his torso. She broke her concentration for a moment, shifting her gaze from the knocked arrow to the right - affirming her initial assumption with a white sign. 1410 S. Callaghan, San Antonio TX - a fulfillment center.

The Red-Eye turned head away as she looked back towards him, seeing his red gaze shift across the road. Her jaw tensed.

She lightened the tension of her wooden-brown recurve bow, relaxing the drawstring and returning the makeshift arrow back to the hunting hip quiver along her waist.

Saved me an arrow, she quietly thought. Her right hand moved to her hip, briefly counting - 7/8 total arrows, one fired earlier was irretrievable.

Yanaha ducked down before the parked, gray Honda civic shortly along the road. Thankfully, this far out from the Riverwalk, Red-Eyes weren't anywhere near as abundant. She lowered herself to a black-jeans-covered knee, staring forward at the Warehouse. All the side 'garages', she guessed to call them, were closed. Meaning she'd likely have to go through the front door or some form of maintenance entryway. The good news is that there wasn't a single damn car to be found in this place save for the Honda Civic outside, which looked a little too...New to really have belonged to anyone still breathing.

Breathing properly, at least.

She tucked her bow across her chest with its drawstring, reaching to her hip for a 6-inch combat knife. She gingerly paced towards the shambling Red-Eye, feeling her heart-beat accelerate. Carrier or not, these things could still very easily kill you, and she was hardly one for having this one little bastard scream out and alert anything within the area that something was wrong.

Brown, tight and surprisingly comfortable cowboy boots gingerly moved across the concrete. Her eyes glanced down as she drew closer, barely avoiding a small puddle.

That could've been bad.

As she drew ever closer, she rose her knife overhead-

And slammed it down through the Red-Eye's skull, literally stabbing him flat along the back of his head. The Shambler tensed, his arms contorted, spasmed, and immediately fell limp. Yanaha yanked her knife out of the man's skull, wiping it across her lap and kicking the deceased flat onto the road. Food for the dogs, she figured.

The Navajo's red eyes stared at the flat, lifeless body on the floor. Her neck tensed.

She looked over her shoulder, giving the horizon a brief scan before crouching down by the man and reaching into his jeans' back-right pocket. Yep, there was a wallet. She flicked it open, giving it a brief lookthrough. Debit card, credit card, Sam's Club Gift Card, a soggy, worn-out coupon for Whataburger, long-expired condoms-

There.

She pulled out his driver license, holding it shortly before her face and narrowing her eyes.

 HAMMOND, ANTHONY LEWIS
 77275-A POTRANCO RD, SAN ANTONIO, TX 78521
 DOB: 11/5/1999
 SEX: M
 HT:6'-02'
 ORGAN DONOR

A weary sigh left her lips. He was a fucking kid. She reached out with a hand to the Corpse's shoulder, grabbing it and flipping it from the prone onto its back.

His face was barely recognizable from his driver license picture. An unkempt, shitty caterpillar mustache was once over his lip...Now, well, his upper lip was gone entirely. As was much of his face, for that matter - whatever'd infected him had taken a hearty series of bites from his cheeks, forehead and nose before moving to much of his abdomen, which'd by now largely decayed off.

Why was he still in his work clothes? Or here, for that matter. Did he think that the CDC Alarms were a joke? That nothing was really happening? If he just came to work, it'd all blow over in the morning?

She shut her eyes. It didn't matter anymore, she'd done her part.

Yanaha reached into her thick, brown-leather jacket's front-right breast pocket, pulling out a black permanent sharpie. She hunched forward some, blocking the rain with her back. At the bottom of the license she wrote,

 1410 S. CALLAGHAN - DEAD

Her right hand went to her forehead, chest, left shoulder and right shoulder, quietly wishing the man the best at Heaven's gates. Upon finishing, she tucked the license into her jeans' right pocket, where upon it joined the 2 others she'd collected tonight.

Somebody needed to document all this. These names meant something, as did her actions of sending them to God. They simply had to.

Yanaha paced over the small concrete overhang towards the Warehouse opening. The gates were firmly shut, she learned, having given the black metal handle a hearty tug. A calming exhale left her lips.

Good sign.

Her hands clutched the metal bars of the front gate, where she began to pull herself up.

Here's to hoping this place was just as abandoned as it looked.

((OOR))

Y'all know what to do, if you don't/can't join, that's perfectly fine! I'm gonna keep writing here regardless if people join or not, Zombie OVA was too god damn good to resist rebooting. No, this doesn't mean MiA is dead, I figured we could try having two concurrent gigs rolling so folks always somewhere to write.

Here's a good map / full image (can't zoom in much, need to use first link for details)

L'eggo!

“Just think of it like a vacation,” Dr. Ixodes told himself, stepping off the ship and admiring his surroundings. “A vacation to the Gates of Hell.”

Orth was truly a beautiful city. Admittedly, there wasn’t too much to see of it when you first stepped off the boat: a few small buildings and a handful of windmills spilled over the top of the hill and crept down towards the water, thinning the closer they came to the dock. When he first sighted the island from the ship, he’d begun to suspect the rumors he’d heard weren’t true. Now though, cresting the hills that formed a ring around the island’s perimeter, he realized just how incorrect that impression had been.

To say that Orth was like something from a fairy tell was an understatement. It was like nothing he’d even seen before. Clinging to the sides of the hill and descending into the crater’s center, the rows of European-style houses scarcely looked real. Overlooked by a series of windmills like silent sentinels, the town seemed too perfect, too idyllic, to actually exist.

Of course, there was an elephant in the room. In the center of the city, the focal point of the vista, lay The Abyss. A giant, gaping void, clouds swirling within. Just the sight of it sent chills down the doctor’s spine. It wasn’t natural. He could tell simply by looking at it. That was a silly thought, of course. He was a man of science, not of superstition. And yet, gazing at that hole, he knew right away that it was wrong, a crime against nature, and the people of this town were made for having anything to do with it.

As he walked down the narrow lane toward his destination, Dr. Ixodes’s found his gaze lingering upon a group of children. Dressed in brown coats and adorned with red whistles, they were chatting nonchalantly as they strolled past him, no doubt headed for the atrocity at the city’s center. The city’s habit of using orphans as a reconnaissance force was hardly a secret, but seeing it with his own two eyes affected him in a way that hearing tales from afar never could. They’d head into the Abyss, they’d toil, they’d suffer, and they’d ultimately die. They were like sheep to the slaughter, led by the so-called pioneers who would risk anything to learn the pit’s secrets - except their own lives, of course.

But he could dwell on that later; he was here. The man behind the reception desk, snapping to attention upon hearing the ringing of the bell attached to the door, gave him an inquisitive look. New faces were likely an infrequent occurrence here. “May I help you?” he asked.

“Dr. Ixodes,” the newcomer responded, holding out a hand.

“Oh! It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the receptionist responded, enthusiastically shaking the doctor’s hand. “I’m sorry, I was told it would be another few days yet before you arrived. Please, right this way. The administrator will be delighted to see you.”

By the time Dr. Ixodes examined his fourth patient, he knew what he’d find. The girl was no older than ten, with curly brown hair that somewhat inelegantly fell past her shoulders. Of course, her hair was hardly the first thing that jumped out to him. “On visual examination,” he dictated, hearing the scrapping of pencil against paper as the assistant wrote his words down, “the patient appears pale and malnourished. Breathing is labored; use of accessory respiratory muscles note.” Gently lifting the girl’s shirt and placing his stethoscope against her back, he continued, “Breaths are shallow; consolidation heard at the bases bilaterally.” Moving the stethoscope to her chest, he added “Tachycardia is noted; an S3 gallop can be heard.”

As he continued, the array of symptoms only grew larger, though to a certain extent, the examination was one of confirmation, rather than exploration. Forcing a smile as he waved goodbye to the young girl, he exited the room and let out a long sigh.

“Well?” the assistant asked. “What is it?”

“What is it?” Dr. Ixodes echoed in a gruff voice. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Tuberculosis. But Tuberculosis doesn’t give 10 year old girls heart failure. Nor does it manifest as the exact same set of symptoms in every patient.”

“Then what could it be?”

The doctor gave his newly assigned assistant a stern look, a sort of expression he was unaccustomed to using. “I’ll do some cultures and blood tests, and if I can find the right equipment, I’ll see about a lung biopsy from a healthier patient. But if you want my opinion, I don’t think this is a medical issue.”

His assistant hadn’t seemed to have caught on. “If it’s a not a medical issue, then what is it?”

“It’s the Pandora’s Box you’ve built your city around.” he answered curtly.

Dr. Ixodes was no fool. He knew an epidemic when he saw one brewing. By the time he’d stayed in Orth for a week, the futility of his mission had long since dawned on him. The hospital, currently staffed only by him as far as proper physicians went, was well past capacity, with more reports of illness coming in daily. Alone, he could do nothing, and he had no intentions of tempting fate like the mad residents of this city. He could bring medicine, and perhaps attract a few more zealous researchers. But that was all he could promise the people of Orth as he boarded his ship.

His heart broke for the children, to be sure. They had no say so in any of this. But for those who had been foolish enough to build this city, this monument to mankind’s arrogance, he felt but the slightest twinge of pity. They were reaping the rewards of their hubris.

As one visitor departed the city, another entered, unannounced and unrecognized by the majority of the city. In The Wharf, the run-down slums encroaching into the Abyss on the town’s southern side, a single balloon rose above the fog. Pulled below it, in defiance of the laws of physics, was a metal container, roughly 5 feet by 2 feet by 2 feet. As the winds changed direction, the balloon became snagged in the decaying carcass of a long-abandoned shanty house, the box bumping into the remains of a door frame before falling to the ground. A few moments passed. The box, apparently dissatisfied with the silence, emitted a loud, high pitched beep. Nothing responded; this section of town was deserted. Not about to ignored, the box waited another 30 seconds, then beeped once more. And again. And again. Calling out into the silence in the shallow hopes that its call might be heard…

The sound of the cocky motorist, Emi, reverberates through the building as she drives off. The challenge had been 'catch me', but right now people seemed more focused on either:

1. Getting out of the building alive, or

2. Getting a car, and getting out of the building alive

While both options were good, it seemed many had opted for the latter option, leaving to go and find a vehicle as quickly as possible. Grudge and Curse, however, had stayed to fight their way to the hot rod brought in by Roland and Co.

But perhaps one of the most curious cases was the young man, Edge, in the corner of this... circular room. He seemed preoccupied with something, a strange affliction on his hands. They'd warped into a shade of jet black, a disturbing affliction he couldn't help but smile at.

"It's too soon... it's too soon..." he muttered. "Master... please!""

A voice cut through his throat like a razor, garbled and electronic in cadence: "No. This contest bores me. I no longer require the license." it spoke.

"Bring these poor sheep to the slaughter."

In what seemed like an instant, the light returned to Edge's eyes, only to be swallowed up by the same, jet black shade that was now causing his hands to contrast into a formless mass. The young man's body followed suit, twisting to make him scream in pain.

"MASSTERRRR! MASTEEEEEERRRRRRR!"

His voice screamed out for this formless being, only to become as garbled as that which had been speaking moments ago.

Another young man, far across the room from edge, screamed in terror at the sight. Edge was growing, and growing, his formless body and sharp moans echoing throughout the building. And with a quick step, Jeremy bolted from the building. Anyone with a brain would likely do the same.

As Edge continued to rise, it became apparent that this skyscraper would not survive. Indeed, it was mere seconds before the shadowy mass ran out of room and toppled the skyscraper into a crumbling mountain of rubble. Anyone caught underneath such a thing would surely die.

But the rubble was probably the least dangerous thing here.

From Edge's shadowy pile of a body, now half the size the collapsed building had been, razor sharp edges of shadow began to shoot out. Anyone near them was unfortunate enough to be fatally pierced, like Grudge's own meat puppet, Curse. His body was ripped from the young woman's grasp, and sucked into the shadowy mass. A small ripple emanated from his point of entry, like a body gently entering a pond.

"GRAAAAAAAAGH!"

A heartbroken Grudge cursed the world with a raging battlecry. Her aura began to flare up, and she charged the shadowy mass.

"First you interrupt our fight, and then you kill my partner! YOU WILL DIE TODAY, EDGE!"

She seemed fully intent on fulfilling her promise, but was unable to protect herself from the shadowy knife. It pulled her into silent darkness ahead, her screams unable to reach anyone from inside.

Left and right, you see people dying, the impossible monster unable to die. But in the distance, you see a young woman on a motorbike. She's touching everyone she passes by, their bodies being whisked away in a flash of light.

"ALL EXAMINEES TO ME! THE EXAM IS CANCELLED, I REPEAT: THE EXAM. IS. CANCELLED!"

In a voice that echoed clearly through your head, you heard Emi officially cancelling your old orders, and giving you new ones. It seemed like an appropriate tool, considering the crash of the cannons from Gregor's ship. It had reappeared out of nowhere, and began firing an army's worth of ammunition at the monster from above. And, surprisingly, the monster seemed to actually care. It began reaching for the ship, but found the thing just out of reach. It could not scream its frustrations, however, so it did the only thing it could do.

It grew larger.

"Fuck..." you hear again, Emi's voice coming through the psychic comms. "MAKE YOUR WAY TO ME, AND DO NOT ENGAGE THE MONSTER! I WILL GET YOU TO SAFETY! I REPEAT: MAKE YOUR WAY TO YOUR EXAMINER, AND SHE, I, WILL GET YOU OUT OF HERE!"

The roar of her motor signaled Emi's position, and only the roar of the city tried to drown it out.

You'd been given your instructions.

Now, you just need to fulfill them.

[OOC] Hey guys, doing a bit of a soft reset here. Still the same world, story, and characters, but a bit a sudden turn. I have the next place in mind, this is more the transition, and a place to stretch your writing muscles after a few weeks of inactivity. Also, keep in mind that there's no more numbers: this is officially a regular rp, so write the stories you want! You can even reference NPC's all you want, including character deaths, so long as you think it'll benefit the story.

Have fun!

Kaito awoke from his nap mere minutes before the start of the official Hunter’s Exam. He’d never been one to honor planned times, but being the head of a gang had its responsibilities, and waking up in time to drop out of an airship was likely one of them.

He’d arrived in the Captain’s Quarters surprisingly early; being paired up with that nerdy girl had proven to be really helpful in a test that very well could have ended him early. He’d managed to follow her lead and make it through with relative ease, but the same could not be said for some of the other examinees. That spindly kid who’d been hanging out with the Loader had made it there just after Cereza and that news guy. After the rest of that crew arrived, they went around interviewing some of the contestants who’d made it through this preliminary stage, asking their opinions. Most came out with a newfound hatred of riddles, if that hatred hadn’t existed already.

But that spindly guy? He already looked like he was ready to pass out. He’d been paired with that dark looking fucker in the corner that didn’t exist, though, so it made sense. When the crew asked the poor sod his opinion of his dangerous partner, he’d simply shaken his head and changed the subject.

“I don’t think death scares me…” he spoke, softly. “... but that is not death. That is… something else.”

This was all Kaito heard on the subject before he began tuning out. He was tired himself, the early morning wake up not his usual style of sleep schedule. So, right when he’d been opting to take a quick snooze, that rabbit bitch came in and blasted the front door apart. She screamed something about her ‘target’, but was pretty quickly silenced by Gregor.

“She just needs a quick nap.” he spoke, as he laid the girls’ corpse body in the corner.

Finally, the other, slightly more sane examinees began coming forward. The serial murderer, the crazy bagpipe player, the gambler, etc. Kaito felt enough crazy had entered the room to counter the crazy already in it, and felt he could finally get to sleep. As he closed his eyes, he noticed two things: firstly, the way Zalambur tried hard not to look at the ship’s decorated interior, and second: how Shalala made no attempt to hide her looks.

“Nerd…” he muttered, prompting a nasty look from the four-eyed girl right next to him.

Much to his displeasure, Kaito was woken up some time later, likely a few hours, by the sound of Gregor’s voice.

“... over ze center of ze city. Please make your vay to ze meeting point as soon as possible.”

Gregor seemed to be in the middle of explaining the next test. Guess it really was “be on your guard” all the time, here. Didn’t even wake a guy up.

“Ze drop vill start in just a moment. Evervone, please make sure you have your parachutes on.”

Kaito followed the man’s direction, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. His jacket made the sleeves of the parachute slightly tighter, but he made no effort to take it off. Fashion is just as important as status, after all.

“You vill find a young voman down zere named Emi. She vill instruct you on vat to do next, vhen you reach ze center of ze city.” Gregor instructed. “Vith zat said… gundlevatt!”

With as little warning as possible, Gregor snapped his fingers, and the floor disappeared beneath all of you. The sound of the wind sweeps up towards your ears, and you quickly find yourself in freefall. The clouds are all grey as the gales from the oncoming storm threaten to sweep you away. It’ll be difficult not only to operate the parachute normally, but to find the right timing to pull the chord, and get a safe place to land.

”The center of the city…” Kaito thought, as he fell down towards the large, singular island. He couldn't see any other civilization in sight, roads or ports that would lead in or out. From here, it seemed only oddly secluded; looking closer, it becomes apparent that this city is abandoned, seemingly all for the exam. You can even see several alleyway roads, and large, highway-like ramps which sweep around in radical forms and shapes. Kaito remembers playing with toy cars when he was younger, which would come with bright orange, loop-de-loop tracks. These seemed reminded him strongly of that, which only made the anticipation inside of him grow further.

He continued his free-fall, noticing only the wind, but not rain. Surely every other examinee had noticed it too, and was doing their best to resist it. The scrawny kid was failing, the wind sweeping him far to the outskirts of the island. However, his thin form seemed to let him correct the wind’s course whenever it calmed, only for him to be swept up once again.

Kaito strongly doubted that Nerd #2 would make it through this exam.

“Better off that way, probably…” he muttered. He noticed, as he'd been watching the guy flip around, that his craving had become stronger.

"Fuck it." he said. "I gotta do it. They ain't here to stop me, either."

He reached his hands around to the back of his parachute and unclipped a clasp holding to this body. As it flew away, He straightened out and activated his Ren, plummeting down as quickly as he could, all while a cocky smirk fashioned his face. The wind screamed past his ears, and he felt his heart pumping desperately as he broke speeds normally only reachable by cars. His body become covered in a thick, tough aura as he aimed straight for the center of the city.

And proceeded to careen straight through eighteen, solid, stone stories of a skyscraper.

Clearly, Kaito felt himself a bit of a thrillseeker. He also thought himself quite wise.

Then again, eighteen stories.

Kaito was likely dead, now.

The rest of the examinees began approaching the city. You notice no lights, no people; just the natural daylight and a lot of abandoned vehicles.

This seems to be the locale for the next stage of the exam. And your first task is to get to the center.

There’s a strange skip in your step this morning. Perhaps it’s the way the sun shines over the horizon and gleams off the sea. Maybe it’s the early morning joggers, casually saying hello as you make your way up the Lernilo Harbor hill.

Or maybe, perhaps, it’s because today is the day.

The very first day of the 2018 Hunter Exam!

You can see many, many other examinees climbing the hill with you. Some of them with less of a publicly discernible identity than others, but nonetheless, you can spot no less than 500 other examinees at today’s event.

“Indeed, today is quite the event!” a young, female reporter calls out. “Each one of these contestants, including our very own crew from Channel 7 news, have made their way to the true starting point of this year’s Hunter Exam! For those who aren’t aware, this is an official exam hosted by the Hunter’s Association, infamous for its high difficulty and casualty rate. Those who pass, however, are awarded with the title of “Hunter”, as well as a license to prove their abilities! Hunters gain access to plenty of normally classified information and locations, as well as access to any public area they so choose! Additionally, should they decide to, a Hunter may even sell their license, and gain enough riches to last a lifetime! And although none of us know exactly how the exam will begin, you can bet that Channel 7 will be there to cover the whole thing! A first in the exam’s history!”

The young woman covering the event is young a spunky, with a nice, collared t-shirt in anticipation for the intense challenges. Her camera crew, and their writer, Damian, join her on their morning coverage of the exam.

And indeed, a massive pile of people are moving up Lernilo Harbor, at 7am, Tuesday May 9th, 2018. These prospective Hunters have solved the first puzzle of many, and have prepared themselves as best they can for the challenges ahead.

“As part of our Day 1 coverage, we’ll be introducing a bunch of examinees to all you viewers out there!” the reporter cries out.

“Down here, we have a young man, looking rather dapper for something as brutal as the Hunter’s Exam! He’ll steal your heart, as well as your victory! Examinee #238: Felix de Haven!”

“Over here, you can see a pretty tough-looking cookie! Armed to the teeth, it’s Examinee #61: Zeil Strife!”

“Up at the top, we can take sight of probably the most eager entrant so far! Dressed in uniform all the time, apparently, it’s Examinee #67: Bretta Thomas!”

“Down below, you’ll notice a few stragglers, though! Take note of the rather sullen looking, black haired girl… don’t make her angry. Seriously. Examinee #166: Grudge!” the reporter reports, much the delight of the girl openly carrying a meat knife. Beside her, you see a very large looking man, in far less competent clothing, carrying a giant meat cleaver.

“Even further back, you’ll notice a masked figure whom, we believe to be the infamous serial killer with the skull-tattooed face. We won’t rat her out though; death hasn’t come for us, yet. Examinee #164: Calavera!”

“But where darkness lies, justice must come and put a stop to them! Three-year reigning champion of the Stalgeria Wrestling Association’s Grand Battle, and Examinee #100: The Grand Loader!”

Indeed, nearer to the top is a muscly man now wearing a lion mask and cape. Despite his boisterous and loud attitude, you can see a shaking, spindly looking guy walking beside him, looking around to keep an eye out for someone.

“Oh, but we’re not done yet! Here, you’ll find the Dragon Prince himself; Examinee #228: Feynin Dre!” she cries, as a sullen looking young man walks up the hill, his hands decidedly pointing down.

“Oh, but look at that! It’s a pretty sinister looking partnership I’ve spotted, between Examinee #461: Roland Reid, and Examinee #423: Shalala Lelala!”. Indeed, Shalala seems nervous about even being near this man, two days having done seemingly little to close the distance between them.

“Below them is the teenaged mafia boss-to-be, and upcoming male idol! Is there nothing this boy can’t do? Examinee #255: Kaito!” she calls out, noting a young man in a fur jacket with a vicious look to his natural face.

“And speaking of the mafia, isn’t that Cereza? Like, Cereza Lucchesi? Won’t she, like, kill us? No? Well, that’s good to know. Ladies and gentlemen, all the way from the Luchessi Family, Examinee #48: Cereza Lucchesi!”

“Well look at that little flower! I’m hard pressed to believe my own eyes that someone so pretty could be in this exam at all!” the reporter calls, her tone catty. “But, whatever, right? Not like she’s just putting on airs to- yeah, yeah, I’m getting to it. Examinee #316: Tai Silva.” she finishes, anti-climactically.

“I guess we can admire something else while we’re waiting. Like that adorable little girl who’s definitely not going to die, down there! Examinee #49: Usagi!”

Down in the crowd, you can spot a teenage girl, wearing a black hood with a pair of bunny ears, and a short, frilly skirt. She seems incredibly out of place here.

“Well look at that cutie down there! Cool your drawers, Dam, I’m just kidding. Don’t get in this guy’s way, unless you’re sure you haven’t been naughty! Examinee #237: Zero Ilyas!

“Look at the sword on that one! What? No, I meant her actual sword? You saying that’s a guy? Bullshit! Well, dear viewers, why not leave your opinions in the comments on the gender of Examinee #410: Sebastian!

“If you’re going to steal from anyone, it probably shouldn’t be this guy. Real pirates are scary. Coming in as Examinee #161, it’s the Great Captain Zalambur, of the Fluffy Muffin!

“And look at… oh, um, can we skip this one? He gives me the creeps… no? Goddamit, fine, let’s just do it and finish quickly. Examinee #...1? Wow, he got here early. Examinee #1: Edge!.]

“And, finally, our very own hope that the Hunter Exam is within our own grasp, give it up for my boyfriend, and Examinee #14: Damian Tento!”

Damian, the young man who’d been running the cups booth two days ago, blushes and chuckles embarrassedly as the two camera-men, and his apparent fiance, heckle him and his minor nen ability.

Finally, after the introductions have finished, and the dust has settled, the examinees lay in wait on the top of the hill; at the awaited time, on the awaited day. The area is quiet; even the reporter, now called “Cathy”, has taken a break so she can save her voice.

But as the quiet sets in, the exam finally arrives.

As the sun begins to rise off in the distance, you see a large shape begin to move closer and closer. It’s airborne, and seems mainly to be a huge semi-oval, with large, tall sails.

“Is that… a ship?” Jeremy asks.

“I think it very well may be.” Loader responds. And sure enough, as the light began to obscure from the ship’s shape, it became apparent that it was, in fact, a large, sailing galleon. One meant, normally for water; in the air. And big enough to house the 500 contestants who had made it all the way here this morning.

The ship doesn’t land, and instead hovers next to a cliffside adjacent to the lighthouse. From there, a board slides down from a door in the side, revealing a handsome, slender man in an overly-nice suit.

“Greetings, contestants.” the man speaks, his accent thick and most certainly Boznean. “My name is Gregor, Captain of the Burnt Cookie.” It is my job to show you to the true, first stage of the exam. However, while I am doing so, I have permission to… thin the ranks, a smidgeon.”

He says this, and snaps his fingers. Within a second, hundreds of summoned, aura-made sailors appear out of the ship, a series of backpacks in hand. They begin handing these to each contestant, and disappear immediately after.

“These are parachutes. You must vear them for safety, while riding my ship. I don’t want any of you to die just yet.” he jokes, with a little wink. “Please, come on board. We can discuss the instructions of the first portion of the exam there.”

Gregor spins on his heel and begins to walk back inside his ship, before abruptly stopping and turning back. “Oh, and one more thing… if you vish to forfeit the exam… now is the best time.”

He stares, for a moment, the silence palpable.

“Any takers?” he asks. “No?”

The silence sticks, and with a confident smirk, Gregor waves his hand. “Then let the Hunter Exam officially… begin.”

With that, he steps inside, allowing the rest of the contestants to make their into the first stage of the hardest test of their lives.

Hey everyone! Welcome! So, we're in the actual swing of the rp, and I've got a bunch of content planned. That said, this is very dynamic, so not all of it might come to light, but w/e, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Also, in order to save my sanity, and reduce post length, I'm going to be handling situation updates in two ways:

1. I'll make a comment on Reddit that actually tells you about what's happening in detail. This will be separate from any other comment chain, and will not be a new post (I'll let you know when those go up, seperately).

2. Additionally, I'll also notify people on Discord, in a separate channel, on when new comments go up, changing the situation. This will be a relatively hands-off method of GM'ing, but I'll still be keeping track of your puzzles and shit.

Other than that, it's basically like in the last thread. Interact with some NPC's, see what happens, and get ready for the first test!

Dialogue is in Spanish, however has already been translated for convenience.

Sidenote, this shit be dark, yo. Consider yourself warned.

May 14th, 2017: 1:22am - Approx. 1 year before the Hunter Exam.

A pale white, burn-scarred hand reached forward to the dashboard radio, turning the volume knob with a dull creak. From the driver seat of her recently acquired Ford Ranger, Calavera drove down the MX 150 - the Highway leading down to Mexico city. She wasn’t far now. The truck rumbled dully beneath her, the transmission rattling some as it went on. Green eyes shifted to the radio station...94.5FM, of course. 94.5’d been playing classical music for over a decade now.

God, had it been that long already?

Her eyes shifted back onto the road,clutching a black-leather steering wheel cover. Her right hand reached forward, briefly flicking on a turn signal to come off the highway.

Let none say she was an irresponsible driver.

She gingerly turned the steering wheel, checking her mirrors one final time - and hitting the exit ramp. Her back reclined a tad within her seat, relaxing as the melancholy melody played. What was this piece? Chopin? Ludwig? She shook her head, truthfully unsure. It’d probably been from the mid or late 1800s, given the resurgence of popular piano solo-pieces after Chopin’s death.

Her eyes shifted off the ramp, a set of neon lights piercing the moonlit-sky.

It wouldn’t be far now.

She released a quiet sigh, thinking of the piano. Mom always loved these pieces. Listened to them all the time on Sundays before service on the Organ. Granted, there was never an orchestra or something of the like to reinforce the lonely organ, but perhaps it was better that way. Service was always the highlight of the week.

Wake up early, have a bowl of plain cereal. Sliced banana for flavor.

Go outside, play with her little sister and cousin that stayed with them often enough to practically be a sibling.

Get yelled at by Mom because they hadn’t gotten dressed for service.

Then, finally, pray to God and be grateful for another week on his Earth.

It’d been a simple life. Mom’d done the best she could with what she had, of that, Esperanza had no doubt. It couldn’t have been easy raising three children on her own off a cashier and maid’s salary. Two jobs, one full-time retail and the other per commission.

“What a nightmare.”

The black Ford Ranger approached a seemingly full-parking lot, shortly before it a Night Club of grandiose proportions. ‘La Hora Final’ (The Final Hour), was emblazoned in bold neon font along the very top. It bore a resemblance to the Alamo, she garnered, the building seemingly made of old, durable stone with a set of wide-swung double doors along the middle. The building looked to have once been a Church, given the sharply cut off wooden stake that protruded from the center arch.

Don Antonio had never been subtle with his symbolism.

A massive line of people awaited shortly outside, as armed men in black and purple suits stood by the entrance, most in their late 20s or mid 30s - gel’d back haircuts, brown-gator shoes and cheap earpieces on each one.

Her truck came to a very slow grind over a yellow speedbump. Four brown drums of gasoline rattled atop the truck bed as it went over. As she pulled into the parking lot, a suited-up bright Yellow Honda Civic peeled off the highway, only to vigorously slam on the brakes as her truck gingerly crossed the speed bump. Vibrant white lights reflected off her rear-view mirror, a plethora of honks ringing from the “sportscar.” Loud, pounding music filled her ears, drowning out her piano.

Calavera rose a hand to her brow, briefly blocking off the mirror-cast lights and peering at the passengers. Two young men and two- No, three women at the back. The honking barrage continued. She took a deep breath, putting the truck in park as she finished crossing the speed bump. Her hands went to the black gloves over the dashboard, putting them on with a sigh. She opened her driver side door, a pair of dark workboots striking the concrete as her lungs filled with the stench of cheap marijuana.

<”MOVE YOUR FUCKIN’ TRUCK, LADY!”> The driver screamed. Her hands went to the pockets of her open leather jacket, whipping her head forward to briefly cover most of her face with black hair. A green eye peered forward. The driver was a young man, likely the oldest in the car at around 22. White flat-rim baseball cap, White Sox emblem with a bottle of Corona unsubtly in his hand as his arm hung out the driver window.

The White Sox? Really?

They haven’t won the world series since 2005, what a god-awful team to follow.

Her feet paced forward, the young driver continuing to shout.

<”You got a fucking deaf ear?! MOVE! YOUR! TRUCK!”>

She stood shortly by the driver window, eyes peering over to the back of the Honda. One of those girls was, without a doubt, underage.

A heavy sigh left her lips.

She looked back forward, peering at the driver through a sheet of ill-kept hair.

<”You got a problem? I can move that hunk of shit you call a truck for you if you want. You don’t even got a window for the bed, what- your dad get drunk and smash it out or something?”>

From the interior of her jacket, a hand suddenly shot forward, seemingly materializing a chrome-plated snub-nose revolver. She whipped her head to the right, her hair peeling off her face and revealing her facepaint. The driver’s eyes widened, his dark-brown skin turning three shades paler. His freshly-trimmed eyebrows rose, staring at the jet-black interior of the revolver’s barrel.

<”I-”>

Calavera’s eyes shifted to his dashboard.

He slowly reached forward, cutting the music.

“Thank you,” she quietly spoke. The back of the car’d fallen to a deathly silence. The driver dropped his bottle of Corona out of his car, letting it shatter to broken glass and wasted beer. He slowly rose his hands.

<”I- I didn’t mean it-”> he stammered.

She stared at the man in silence, watching as his eyes briefly scanned over her face. Recognition.

“Death has not arranged to meet with you today,” she plainly remarked. The nose of her revolver gestured to the right.

“Get lost.”

<”C-Cala-”>

Her eyes widened at that, thumb cocking the revolver’s hammer. At that, the man immediately shut up, quickly nodding his head and putting his car in reverse - speeding back towards the highway with a roar of the hilarious 4-cylinder engine.

She tucked the snub-nose back in to her leather jacket’s pocket, pacing to the truck.

“Millennials,” she muttered dully.

Upon returning to the truck interior, she began to circle the parking lot. Her truck was, without a doubt, the single cheapest within a quarter-mile radius. Benz, Subaru, Mustangs and Volkswagen nearly everywhere she looked.

Little doubt lingered. This was the place.

32 years had led her to today. She could nearly feel it - Don Antonio awaited inside.

She continued to circle the parking lot, going row after row until finally entering a row that aligned with the center doorway. She rose a leather-gloved hand to her pale-white neck, reaching behind a black-matte bulletproof vest and pulling out an old, cheap, glow-in-the-dark rosary. It glowed a dull green, having made it decades with the woman.

“Our Father who art in heaven,” she began. Her left hand remained atop the steering wheel, foot resting firmly atop the brake. Her right hand reached to her right, grabbing an Ornate Double-barreled shotgun. She jerked the weapon downward with a flick of the wrist and twist of a bevel with her thumb, exposing two shotgun shells along the interior. She slammed it shut with another flick of the wrist, slinging it over her shoulder by a plain brown-leather strap.

”Hallowed be thy name.” Her eyes looked to the base of the passenger seat, spotting a black duffelbag. Her hand reached outward, zipping it open. Two Uzis awaited inside, three 50-round extended magazines per. Four handgrenades, accompanied by one plain AK-47 with a 120rd drum. She narrowed her gaze, briefly grabbing a cheap, plain surgeon’s mask and pulling it over her face. A pair of transparent motorcycle goggles went over her eyes afterward. She took one lone handgrenade, tucking it between her thighs for a moment.

From the entrance, a bouncer tilted his head, staring forward at the parked truck in the center of the road.

Her hand grabbed a lone bottle of Patron from the bag, hand harshly jerking the wood-cap out and stuffing a plain white towel inside the choke with her thumb.

”Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Her hand reached forward, tucking the duffelbag over her shoulder.

”Give us this day our daily bread;”

She turned on the truck’s highbeams. A white spotlight reached the bouncer’s eyes, instantly pissing the man off. He gestured forward, raising his voice and shouting, <”TURN YOUR FUCKING LIGHTS OFF!”> Shortly by his right, a couple waiting to get inside looked over to the truck as well, [“The fuck is that guy’s problem?”]

Her hand reached inside her black-denim pocket, pulling out a solid gold zippo lighter and flicking it to life.

”Forgive us our tresspasses,”

She held the lighter shortly below the towel, shaking it some as the towel finally caught flame. She tucked the lighter back into her pocket.

”As we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The bouncer began to walk forward, raising a hand to his earpiece.

<”Hey, we got a small situation here upfront. Some shitty truck’s got its high beams on and it ain’t movin.”>

A voice responded through his earpiece. [“Alright, me and Jay’re coming.”]

Calavera’s eyes stared forward as the bouncer paced towards the truck. <”TURN! YOUR! LIGHTS! OFF!”>

She looked over her shoulder, gaze staring through the broken rear-window of the truck bed. Four drums of Gasoline awaited patiently. She took aim, and tossed the alit bottle of Patron over to the bed. It slammed across one of the drums, the fire suddenly spreading along the truckbed.

”Lead us not into temptation,”

The bouncer suddenly stopped where he stood, seeing fire suddenly jettison upward from the truckbed.

<”What the-”>

With that, she reached down, grabbing the hand grenade. Her right hand shifted the truck to drive, slamming on the gas pedal. The tires spun to life, smoke billowing from shortly beneath. Fire erupted from the back of the truck bed, flames singing the back of her neck.

She pulled the hand grenade’s pin.

”But deliver us from evil.”

Suddenly, the truck jerked forward - a cacophony of fire with roaring engine. The bouncer briefly froze in panic, the Ford Ranger running the man the hell over as it accelerated to the club entrance. Calavera tossed the hand grenade to the passenger seat, quickly opening the door and leaping out to the left as the truck continued - slamming into the club interior and suddenly detonating with a conflagration of hellfire and shrapnel.

The club’s roof blew open, stone crumbling downward. A massive cloud of dust erupted from the club interior, covering the entryway.

Calavera rose to her feet, recovering from the roll and immediately unslinging her double-barrel. She took a quick breath, aiming it at a door-guard who’d rolled out of the way - and immediately blasting the man in two with both barrels. Her right wrist flicked the shotgun open, expelling both spent rounds. Her leather jacket whipped open, revealing a belt lined with looped shells. Clik Clak, the weapon rang, a hasty, practiced reload.

She continued forward, blasting both barrels at a suited, pistol-wielding doorguard who’s entire abdomen was suddenly found missing.

Clik Clak.

She pressed through the dust cloud. The neon club interior had turned to a slaughter ground. Where the center of the club once was a dance floor now littered the flaming remains of a pickup truck - bodies scattered throughout the interior.

Cartel. Dancer. Drunk. Sober. Young. Old.

The gasoline didn’t care, and neither did she.

She paced forward through the club’s first floor, boots trampling scorched meat. She looked to her right, spotting a steel-laced bar countertop. A man clad in a black and purple suit clung onto it, agonizingly trying to pull himself to his feet as she shouted in his earpiece.

Her double-barreled roared with flame, cutting the conversation short.

Clik Clak. She paced over to the bar, eyeing a scantily clad woman hiding behind the counter, the barkeep. Blood splattered across her surgeon mask.

Clik Clak.

From the second floor overhead, or hell - what was left of it - came a small squad of suit-clad men, armed with chrome pistols and one with an Uzi. <”DOWN THERE!”> one exclaimed, immediately opening fire. Calavera dove behind the the bar counter, briefly taking cover behind the bloody remains of what once was the barkeep as a torrent of bullets struck the steel, neon-pink countertop.

She quickly slung her double-barrel back over her shoulder, pulling the duffel bag to her waist and drawing both Uzis. Her boots paced over shattered bottles of liquor and blood as she moved to the far end of the bar, crouched low. Amidst a small pause of fire, she peaked an eye upwards, counting-

OneTwoThreeFourFi-

A sudden bullet rang from the second floor, slicing past her head and cutting the skin along her temple. She grit her teeth beneath her surgeon’s mask, taking a series of heavy breaths. She set an Uzi down, peeking her head back around the bar countertop and extending a palm. Aura emitted from her hands, seizing the darkness and shadows from the opposing end of the club. Amidst another lapse in gunfire she rose, swiping her hand from left to right at the second floor in unspoken command.

The darkness responded, an abyss-black wall of shadow forming in diagonal from the center of the clubup to the second floor.

<”What the-”> [“IT’S CALAVERA! CALL RICARD!”]

One gunman quickly turned around, making it back through the door where they’d came.

Her feet pulsed with focused Ren, another barrage of gunfire piercing through the shadow wall and onto where the bar’d once been. With a dash, she sprinted forward, feet stomping along the side, stone wall of the club as she wall-ran upwards - clutching an Uzi forward.

With that, she slammed the trigger - the submachine gun roaring to vibrant life as the closest of the remaining four’s life was snuffed out with a hail of 34 9mm bullets. Her wall-run continued up to the second floor, the woman’s figure piercing the conjured abyss as she kicked off the wall, landing with a roll atop the second floor balcony. The three remaining gunmen trained their weapons forward.

She quickly reached a hand down, grabbing the shirt of the man she’d gunned down and hoisting him upward. The remaining three opened fire, their handguns emptying into the flesh carcass of their fallen compatriot. Calavera pressed forward, the meat-shield’s body violently recoiling as bullets embedded into his back.

Three .40 Caliber rounds pierced directly through her meatshield and embedded itself into her vest, causing her to spurt a small tuft of blood from her lips.

Her eyes glanced downward, spotting a small, matte-black pistol tucked within the man’s bloodied black dress pants.

Her hand reached downward, hoisting the pistol from his corpse and clutching an arm forward - firing with ruthless precision at the remaining three. Two immediately fell, the third struck along his shoulder and recoiling backwards - only to stammer off the balcony railing and fall to his death atop the burning pickup below.

Calavera tossed the body in her hands to the left, allowing the corpse to join the others amidst the burning first floor.

She paced onward, unslinging her Double Barrel.

The call’d been made by now, surely. Ricard was on his way.

Every pupil needed a teacher, and for over a decade he’d been hers. Don Antonio’d likely been warned as well.

She didn’t have much time.

A wooden set of double-doors stood in her way. Her eyes briefly narrowed, staring at the bottom of the double doors - peering at the faint neon-green light beneath.

After a brief, heavy silence...It twitched.

She exhaled sharply behind her bloodied mask, pulling it off her face and letting it fall onto the floor, the goggles following shortly after.

A more obvious ambush there’d never been. Don Antonio must have recently hired these men.

She stepped away from the double-doors, reaching into her duffelbag for one more hand-grenade and her drum-mag’d AK-47. Her boots paced over to a fallen gunman, giving him an unceremonial kick onto his side. Calavera laid down shortly behind him, resting the barrel of her AK-47 atop a half-blown open head.

With a flick of the thumb, she pulled the grenade pin and lobbed it forward.

One.

Two.

Three-

The door erupted to pieces, a massive cloud of neon-blue dust, wood and shrapnel following shortly after. A torrent of gunfire consumed the doorway, yet she did not fire.

Her eyes narrowed, the corpse before her trembling from the occasional gunshot. A stray pierced his abdomen and scraped her face - drawing a sharp line of blood.

She’d counted four muzzle flashes amidst the dust cloud.

<”Did we get her?”>

A hail of 7.62mm was her response - training upon the muzzle flashes amidst the earlier barrage. Screams followed shortly thereafter, as she quickly rose to her feet, marching forward while holding down the trigger. The AK-47 at her hip rocked violently with every single round, swiftly clearing out the remaining four men that’d taken to guarding the doorway.

She paced through the blue cloud of dust, finding herself standing shortly before a dimly lit, black and white corridor. A quiet groan rang from her left, only to be met with a single, brief squeeze of the trigger.

She tossed the AK aside, drawing her double-barrel and pacing down the corridor.

After a moment, she found herself in a long hallway - a literal golden door emblazoned at the end. Along the path were several rooms, aligned along the left and right walls of the corridor.

She flicked her wrist, briefly ensuring both barrels were loaded before continuing forward.

Her shoulder gingerly pressed along one of the wooden side doors, eyes narrowing in acute attention. A faint, feminine whimpering reached her ears. Calavera took a step back, aiming her double-barrel along the doorknob - and squeezing the trigger.

The door handle blasted open as she shoulder-pressed her way inside, shotgun trained forward. A woman’s scream reached her ears, finding herself amidst a dimly lit, small bedroom.

Calavera stared forward, training both barrels towards a young woman in a transparent nightgown.

A prostitute.

<”Please-”> she whispered.

<”I’m not with them...I’m not with them.”>

Calavera took a step forward in the bedroom, ears acutely listening. She stared at the woman in momentary silence, watching her trembling eyes suddenly glance left. Calavera stepped forward and immediately turned - spotting a naked man a knife - and immediately emptying both barrels into him. His remains flew backwards, smashing against a wooden nightstand.

A sharp scream left the woman’s mouth, only for her to swiftly cover her lips with both palms, stepping backwards towards the room’s far wall. Calavera expelled the two spent shotgun shells, reloading two more and slapping the Shotgun shut.

“How many more are there of you,” she coldly whispered, raising a hand to her lips and wiping her blood off.

<”A-Are you going to kill them?”>

“That depends on the sincerity of your answer.”

The woman’s eyes widened at that, falling to her knees in helpless fashion.

<”There’s...Four of us. One in each room…”>

“How many were occupied when I came in?”

<”J-just mine.”>

Calavera stared at her in silence.

<”I swear.”>

WIth that, Calavera turned around - pacing to the doorway and quickly looking both directions down the corridor.

“Wash your sins and you’ll be received in His Kingdom. Lady Death will welcome you another day.”

She then turned onto the corridor, pacing towards the golden door at the far end of the corridor. The stood shortly by the door, lowering her shotgun. Her eyes looked over her shoulder, seeing the woman take to another room.

Her gaze shifted back forward, free hand moving to her abdomen and feeling the entry wounds of two bullets. Her neck tensed.

Armor piercing tips. Unlucky.

Her hand reached forward, clutching the door handle and pushing the door open.

She paced into a luxurious office space, covered with polished mahogany. Inside sat a single old man in a vibrant scarlet and gold-trimmed suit, staring forward at her from a red leather chair. He gave her a wave of the hand,

<”If you wanted to see me so badly, you could’ve just asked.”>

She extended her double-barrel forward, aiming it at the man - her eyes burning with murderous intent.

“I’ve been after you for three years. Ricard can’t pull you away from me this time. This time, it ends.”

The old Don nodded slowly, pursing his lips in a thin line.

<”It sure does. Ricard’s 6 minutes out, you beat the clock,”> he replied plainly, looking down at a gold watch along his wrist.

“You sound like you knew I was coming.”

<”Of course I knew. Felt it in my bones, the moment the doorman said a truck was being odd outside.”>

He laughed at that, <”I wasn’t expecting you to drive a bloody bomb into my club. Gotta say, that was new. Probably killed most of my men and every last person in there.”>

He gingerly looked to his right at a drawer, shaking his head with an amused ‘ay.’ She aimed her shotgun forward.

The man pulled out a cigar, tucking it to his lips. <”You got my lighter?”>

Her left hand reached to her pocket, pulling out the gold Zippo and tossing it forward. The old man caught it, resting his elbows atop the wooden tabletop and lighting his cigar. <”Thank you.”>

He set it forward across the table.

Calavera paced forward, shotgun still trained - to then snatch it from the table and tuck it to her pocket.

<”How long you been carrying that thing? Eight, nine years?”>

“Eleven.”

He took a puff of his cigar, exhaling with a sigh.

“You took me away from my home,” she began. “Me and so many others. You raided my Church, killed everyone-” her voice began to shake.

He interrupted, <”I didn’t kill your sister, Esperanza.”>

She interjected, “Don’t fucking call me that! You made us all take your fucking Leaf Test, and-”

<”I sold her. I didn’t kill her.”>

He shrugged his shoulders, <”Don’t know if she’s alive or not, don’t care, either. That wasn’t murder. It was business. She failed the test. You passed.”>

He smiled dryly, <”Congratulations.”>

“You bastard.”

He rose to his feet, wincing a tad. Old bones. He released a guttural growl from his throat, taking another puff from his cigar. <”What were you expecting to happen here, Esperanza?”> He paced towards her, staring at her beneath two, lightly fogged, grim and hazel eyes.

<”You think I’d buckle, break and beg for my life? You think I love this world so much that I’d be sad to leave it?”> He chuckled, shaking his head and taking another puff of his cigar.

He exhaled smoke forward, blowing it into the barrels of her shotgun. His eyes narrowed, staring at hers.

<”I can tell why you’re here. Answers. That’s what it’s about. You wanna know why. Why the Murder. Why the Cartel, the drugs, the sex, the whores, money and blood. You want to understand.”>

He stood upright, adjusting his scarlet blazer.

<”Because I could.”>

Her eyes widened briefly at the answer, feeling a dull shadow creep along the old man’s face.

<”That’s the nature of this world. I hate it so damn much that I would do everything in my power to watch it burn. And you, my wonderful little girl-”> he remarked, gesturing forward with his cigar.

<”-Are my gift to the world and Mexico alike.”>

Her eye twitched, a genuine chill of fear gripping her very heart as she stared forward at the old man...seeing what looked to be the Devil incarnate. Don Antonio gave her a wicked grin, <”You and the others’ve been my best work. Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting you to go mental and flip, but-”> he shrugged, <”It worked out better this way.”>

She took a step back, training her double barrel at his head. Don Antonio stepped forward, only to suddenly be harshly kicked backwards by her boot, sending him sailing onto the mahogany tabletop. Calavera extended a hand over her shoulder, balling it into a closed fist. Darkness poured into the room, siphoned from the hallway behind her and surrounded the two in a sheet of black. Her rosary glowed a vibrant green amidst the abyss, hanging vibrantly around her neck.

A colorful, watercolor-painted glass lamp shone down onto the old man. He laughed darkly, staring up at the light as the darkness surrounded him and Calavera.

“Send my regards to Lucifer.”

The Don looked up towards her, giving her a grin.

<”See you then.”>

With that, both barrels fired - ending the old man’s life in a bath of fire and scarlet.

The darkness surrounding the two suddenly faded, leaving the woman briefly gasping for air. She lowered her head, ejecting both shotgun shells - but catching one and tucking it into her pocket.

From behind her, a slow, dull clap caught her ears. Her eyes shifted over her shoulder, seeing a man in a black suit with a European Trilby hat - his face painted in identical fashion to her own with eyes covered by a pair of abyss-black aviators.

“Ricard.”

He bowed his head, politely removing his hat and revealing his white, tattooed & bald skull before tucking it back on.

He spoke, his voice a grim, baritone melancholy.

[“A good show.”]

“A shame you only caught the end of it.”

He shook his head, [“Oh, my dear, but I didn’t.”]

Her eyes widened some at that.

[“I’ve been here the entire time.”]

She turned around, holding her empty shotgun by her side. Ricard had never lied. Her jaw tensed, briefly looking over her shoulder at the old man’s smiling, mutilated corpse.

Of course Don Antonio’s final words came with a lie.

She bit her lip, nodding slowly.

“I finally understand.”

[“Do you?”] He remarked, tilting his head and peering at her from behind his sunglasses.

“With the death of Don Antonio, the Cartel’s going to leave a power vacuum.”

Ricard nodded slowly, crossing his arms and leaning backwards against one of the golden doors.

[“He meant it when he said that you were his greatest gift to the world. With his death,”] he began, his voice bleeding a malicious excitement, [“Drug deals will suddenly go unmet. Lieutenants will squabble for power.”]

“None of them can ever take his place,” she adamantly replied.

[“Of course not. He deliberately chose men who couldn’t - but who would never accept that. Soon,”] he continued, holding his arms by his sides. [“All of Mexico will bear witness to the biggest Gang War since our Nation’s inception.”]

He smiled.

[“It will be magnificent.”]

She narrowed her eyes, looking down at her shotgun.

Ricard shook his head, [“I’m not here to kill you, Cala. I’m here to welcome you on behalf of the Lady herself.”]

She looked back up.

[“To the end-game.”]

Months before Lernilo Harbor.

A black, leather-gloved hand reached forward to a large, dusty boombox - pressing play. A faint speck of scarlet blood remained over the play button as the hand moved away, still fresh. Black, Military boots paced over an ornate red and gold-stitched rug, a series of blood-dampened bootprints lingering as their proprietor reached the hard-wood floor. The black figure's hands reached forward, grabbing a fallen man's own pair and lifting him upward...

...Leaving a trail of torn, ripped intestines as she hoisted him from his waist.

She clutched his hands tightly, her head jerking to the right - an eager gasp leaving her lungs. She tucked his hand to her left hip, stretching her opposing arm outward and marching back across the rug in rhythmic dance. The man's mangled head hung backwards, neck parted by embedded shotgun pellets. Her feet traced forward, light-violet lips rhythmically whispering,

"Uno. Dos. Tres. Quatro. Asi mismo, Ephrain - Asi mismo," she encouraged, shutting her eyes and dancing for a moment with the torso. "Uno! Dos! Tres!" She exclaimed, stretching the torso's arm outward towards a window and letting go of her partner to watch him spin!...only to see his body sail through the cracked, blood-stained window pane. A faint frown appeared on her lips, dully muttering.

"A ninguna mujer le gusta el hombre que no dura. No se que tu esposa vio en ti, honestamente."

With that, she turned back around, pacing for the small, barely-lit room's shattered doorframe. Her glove hand reached forward for the door knob, clutching its brass surface and...pulling it off the cracked wood. She rose a stark brow, holding it shortly infront of her face and peering into her reflection.

Pale-white, tattooed skin. Dark rings of black around her eyeballs and nose - accompanied by purple flora and ornate design. A hand shifted to her forehead, briefly wiping off a speck of blood from her brow. She looked over her shoulder, eyes shifting to what remained of Mr. Ramirez.

"Un regalo. Daselo a tu esposa," she joked, tossing over the door knob and letting it unceremoniously splatter along what yet lingered of his entrails. With that, she turned back forward, pushing the sundered door open.

The living room, or what yet remained of it, was composed of a blood-drenched couch. A half-naked woman's corpse laid atop the cushions...head notably missing, her remains and humility covered by a pink see-through nightgown. A broken table remained at the middle of the room, a dead man having been smashed over its wooden surface - a gaping hole blown into what once was his thoracic cavity. American dollar bills littered his remains, accompanied by broken glass and the remnants of liquor.

Calavera paced over to the small house's kitchen, briefly opening the fridge and peering inside...only finding a bottle of water.

En serio?

She groaned, feeling her shoulders slump in noted disappointment. She reached forward, grabbing the bottle and tucking it to the back-right pocket of a jet-black denim pant. Her head tilted over to the right, light-green eyes briefly scanning over a small oxygen tank that leaned against the fridge. She quietly unscrewed the tank, then turned around, seemingly looking over the living room once more - eyes briefly pausing along a broken, bloodied window.

Her gaze shifted down, spotting a plain manila envelope along the kitchen counter. She reached forward, grabbing it and harshly tearing it open - eyes scanning the papers below.

More drug routes. More link-ups. More kidnappings.

Her expression remained a stark cold, lazily tossing the papers over her shoulder...only briefly coming to pause upon a family picture. The Ramirez family, laying together in a small pool. Two daughters - twins, they looked like - accompanied by a rather plain-looking woman and the deceased Ramirez himself. Her eyes blinked slowly at the sight, only to then flick the picture over her shoulder once more, seemingly in search of something.

"Aha," she whispered to herself, eyes briefly narrowing upon an address.

Her gloved hands tore the address off, tucking the bloody paper into her front-right pocket. She paced over towards the table-smashed man's corpse, briefly leaning forward and sticking a hand into his pocket...fumbling for a moment and pulling out the keys to a Ford Ranger parked outside. Her eyes shifted to his waist, eyeing two 12 gauge shells tucked into his belt loops. She stretched a hand outward, "Muchimas gracias, Caballero."

She rose a hand to her shoulder, briefly pulling a brown leather sling and wielding her Double-Barreled shotgun. With a flick of the wrist, she popped it open, expelling two spent buckshot shells and replacing them with the dead's. Along each barrel, a word had been carved in sloppy cursive-

Paz and Tranquilidad.

She held the shotgun out by her side, turning for the exit way - and stepping over the wooden remains of the door that'd once lingered there. The Night was cluttered with stars, the desert breeze causing her long, black hair to shift over the shoulders As she stepped outside, a subtle gasp for air caught her attention. Her eyes slowly moved to the left, eyeing a younger man crawling away from the small shack in the middle of nowhere.

He clutched his abdomen with one hand, free hand dragging him through the dirt.

She reached shortly behind her, grabbing the bottle of water and giving it a lengthy swig, following shortly behind with Paz in tow. The man's breaths for air grew more ragged as her footsteps grew louder, only stopping as she watched him in contemplative silence.

"Stop!" He shouted, briefly rolling onto his back. A bloodied, white shirt covered his torso, a jagged shard of glass jutting through his stomach - pale, white skin and glasses. Brown hair, combed to the side with a freshly-shaven face.

He held out a palm, <"P-please!">

She tilted her head, her tall legs bending in a lazy squat. She rested her elbows atop her thighs, surprised at the English. She spoke plainly in heavily-accented english, ["What are you?"]

<"W-what?">

["What are you?"] she calmly repeated.

He tensed, head falling backwards onto the dirt as he briefly writhed. She blinked slowly, face a plain neutral.

<"I'm...I'm dying.">

["Yes."]

He took a heavy gasp of air, releasing a pained cry. She briefly shut her eyes, waiting in silence.

<"What does it fucking matter what I am to you?"> He furiously spat, a trail of blood oozing from his lips.

["What you are determines how Death comes to you. Be it peaceful, or in violent. The road you walk led you to me, and thus it was made to end. There is no salvation for you. It is your..."] she continued, briefly pausing to open her eyes and look to the right, seemingly trying to mull something over. She snapped her fingers,

"Como carajo se dice esa mierda," she muttered. "Ah."

She looked back forward, ["Decision*...how you wish to see God. It merely is what it is."]

He turned a shade paler, clutching his hands to his face and beginning to sob.

She took a slow breath, rising to her feet. She paced over to the man, reclining a knee by his head. ["Shh, shh..."]

"Mirame, mirame-" she whispered, gingerly pulling his hand from his face. His tear-filled eyes scanned over the woman's face, bloody lips quivering in frail silence. She extended a palm over his face, tracing her index and middle fingers over his eyes. Her free hand quietly stroked his scalp, feeling his panicked breathing calm ever so slightly with the gesture. She shut her eyes, giving the man a faint smile-

And immediately snapping his neck with a single jerk of the arm.

She rose a hand upward to her forehead, heart, left shoulder and right shoulder in prayer - to then rise to her feet. Her boots briefly turned, gloved hands tucking to the innards of a plain black-leather jacket as she paced over to the parked Ford Ranger. Her right hand produced a plain zippo lighter, giving it a flick and alighting the flame - to then chuck it through the window back inside the kitchen.

The kitchen roof exploded. Stone, rubble, money and flesh alike took to the sky - the Ford Ranger pulling out from the conflagration of flame. She instinctively reached forward, turning up the Radio and beginning to drive back across the Desert back to Monterrey. As she drove, she blinked slowly, eyes looking down at the gas gauge. She had enough.

She hummed quietly to herself, not entirely sure what the hell a 'Badonkadonk' was. At least the rhythm was nice.

English was such an ugly language.

"Fame... treasure... the unknown... these are merely a few of the most common reasons why people leave their homes to become Hunters." a man spoke on the top of a small, wooden crate. He was shaggy and tanned, and the weary bags under his eyes cement his status as a traveler. But his voice was filled with excitement. He'd practiced this speech a thousand times, but it feels as though he'd just experienced giving it for the first.

He took a deep breath in, to prepare for the next captivating line. "To all those who seek any of these... hell, to those who may even seek to achieve greater heights, consider signing up for this year's Hunter Exam!" The man's voice reached into the streets and began pulling in a crowd. He launched a pile of fliers, advertising the Hunter Exam's website. "The Exam is a challenging... hell, it's a brutal test of strength, wits, and will. But those who come out are among the best of the best! The fabled Hunters, with access to enough resources to keep them stable for the rest of their life!"

Hands grasped at the fliers, many a piece of parchment landing on the ground. A young woman in a blue uniform rushed into the crowd, picking up as many as she can hold in her arms. She seemed so out of place, compared to the dark, grimy streets of Meteor; her clothes were clean, prim and proper, a far cry from the stains poverty had left on every pair of pants on the block.

One of the hastily constructed pages landed in a hand with the size and texture of a small boulder, with fingers likewise to match. The burly man pulled the flier down to his face and scoffed when he finished reading it.

"Hmph... Hunters, eh?" he muttered, amongst the sea of adventurous teens and desperate adults. He crumpled the flier up and walked away, tossing it to the ground. From behind him, however, a voice gripped his ears, holding him right where he stood.

"Hey! You're not just going to leave that there, are you!?" it asked. The voice is shrill, and stressed; but it's too young, and trying too hard, to belong to any residents of this dump of a city. The man thought of this, and considered not looking back at all, before humoring his curiosity and taking a look at his audial captor.

"What's it to you?" he asked. He realized he must be in a bad mood, since the holder of the voice (the same young woman in blue who'd be frantically scooping up the fliers like these poor bastards pick up scraps of food) recoiled at the sight of him. His moustache did little to hide his grim smirk, unfortunately, and, in fact, likely made him seem more predatorial. His face was scary at the best of times, seemingly carved out of rock to look perpetually provoked, but today his face looked like someone had pissed in his corn flakes and thrown it in the river.

And he loved corn flakes.

"W-well..." the woman began, unable to figure out what to say at first. "I must urge you to recycle that page, sir! As a Keeper of the Peace, I cannot allow you to-"

"Lemme stop you right there, little lady." he interrupted, his voice carrying enough initiative to interrupt a bull from its charge. "I've never recycled a day in my life. Call me lazy if you want, but I just don't see the point, especially in a place like this." he motioned to the city around him, the sadness practically palpable in the humid, summer air. "You've got problems like crooks trying to steal from others, or women unable to walk home alone at night out of fear for their chastity..."

He takes a look at the preaching man on the podium, whose eyes still shine with admiration for a subject he likely knows little about.

"... and crackpots like this, advertising, inaccurately, for one of the most dangerous jobs in the world." he says, bitterly. He looks back down at the girl, a couple feet shorter than him but with seemingly the energy of 30 men. Her spunkiness and positivity practically leaked out of her, driving her attitude into your brain and making you want to do some good. He let out a sigh; he didn't feel like crushing a rookie's dreams today, but this girl, naively letting out such obvious feelings in a town like this, needed a reality check.

"Suddenly, recycling seems like pissing in the wind, now doesn't it?"

"No it doesn't."

An immediate reply. The man had at least expected a little bit of hesitation, as the woman questioned if what she held close could compete with his own will. But she'd-

"Look, stop monologuing to yourself and listen to me for a second. You seem like the kinda guy who's so used to people being afraid of him that he never stops to listen to others. So you probably wouldn't understand what I mean by "recycling"." she said, holding up the collected pile of, apparently, trash. "Or maybe you do, and that's why you stopped. Doesn't matter. I was planning on re-purposing these for myself, to ask for information on where the exam is actually taking place, buuuuut..."

She strolls up to the man, her confidence slightly wavered by his looks. He had a presence about him, one that made him physically difficult to approach. She took a breath, and counted three paces, before putting on her best, most cute and confident face.

"You already know where it is, don't you sir?"

The man recoiled, having not noticed her brief lapse in confidence. Had her whole "shocked" reaction been planned? he asked himself. He didn't have an answer to that question. But he did have an answer for her.

"Or, would you prefer "Mr. Hunter?" the woman asked, a tuft of blonde hair crossing in front of her face.

The fliers had been a lie. A trap cleverly designed by the Hunter's Association, both to advertise the exam, and weed out those who would simply believe the first bit of information they came across.

HUNTER RULE #1: DON'T TRUST UNRELIABLE SOURCES

A man in a brown jacket scribbled this down in an old, leather journal, slapping it shut as he walked down a long pier in front of him. The week-long journey had been arduous, but he'd made it to the port town of Lernilo Harbor. He pocketed the notebook in his travel bag, and adjusted his cap.

"Welp..." he muttered, as several other of the exam takers (who'd survived the trip, at least) got off the boat. "...time to make some cash."

##LERNILO HARBOR

AREA DESCRIPTION:

Welcome to Lernilo Harbor! The next stage of the exam hasn't started yet, so you're free to walk around and explore! There are a few ways you can have arrived (unless you live here):

1. You can just have stepped off the boat, having survived the savage waves that tested your balance on the way here.

2. You can have arrived by airship, the trip up the mountain to get to it a test in itself.

3. You can make it so you took a car, taxi, steed, or just plain hiked it. Either way, the fact you're here means you are, at the very least, not incompetent.

If you have a more creative way of having come here, go for it. Otherwise, here's a description of the town:

Lernilo Harbor is a small, fishing city with a penchant for being a good vacation spot. The town starts at the sea, with a semi circle of shops facing the great, blue mass. Behind that, towards the center of the city, you notice the buildings gradually getting higher up the hillside, until they reach the City Hall, where the Mayor resides. Many of the buildings have a white and blue theme, playing up to the colors of the sea.

The shopping district becomes more exclusive, but more valuable, beyond the initial shops at the port. Up until halfway to the City Hall, the Shopping District becomes more and more expensive, until, suddenly, the residential district starts. There, you can see small crowds of people gathering; perhaps there's information to be gathered, there?

##Lower Shopping District

• Along the edge of town lies the sea. Here, you can visit the town shopping district, where tourist traps and scammers gather to trick folks out of their money in varying levels of illegality. While here, you notice a few, notable spots: a young man, running a street game of "Keep your eye on the cups", a shop advertising unique wares for Hunters, with a hunched, little man standing in front of it, and a mysterious alley-way. You could swear you hear a faint laugh coming from inside, but your bravery will have to be great to venture it. You can also try your luck and try talking to some of the other exam takers, if you want!

##Upper Shopping District

• The Shopping District extends until about halfway up towards City Hall, but becomes more "snooty", for lack of a better word. Oh, wait, snooty is a perfect word. It's more expensive, the people are more demanding, and you might not be able to enter some shoppes on a count of not having enough money. Some of the products here, however, are very valuable, and might make for good bonuses for the Hunter's Exam.

##Residential District

• This is where the permanent residents of the city live. Although people are allowed to live in whichever district they want, the densest collection of housing is around here. You'll find lots of alleyways and private property, but what's surprising is how much more equal everybody lives around here, compared to the Lower and Higher Shopping Districts. You can see simpler houses and shacks right next to bigger, more lavish buildings. Here, you can try talking to some of the residents, and gathering information. There's also a creepy looking, abandoned house near the edge of the district, ripe for the exploring.

##Small Crowd

• Near the edge of the Residential District, not far from the broken down house, is a booth with an old man. Many of the people who joined you on your way here are lining up, seemingly to answer a question. What could it be? Those who walk away seem to be pretty satisfied with themselves. There's a small crowd around the booth, as well, one of which is a young woman in blue who doesn't seem to realize she's the target of a scary looking, burly man behind her.

##City Hall

• The place of government for Lernilo Harbor, and home to the city Mayor. You may even catch the man himself, standing around, talking to his people. The inside is the most regal part of this town, with marble floors and tile walls. Here, you have access to a bank, a receptionist for all of your complaint / compliment needs, and the town lottery keeper. For a small fee, you too can enter the town lottery! First Prize is 100'000 Jenny!

##Lower Edge of Town

• If you keep going along the lower shopping district, away from the road out of town, you'll come to a mountain face, extending from the hill which makes up the town's land mass. It's hard to see, but there's something about this piece of rock that seems weirdly suspicious.

##Upper Edge of Town

• Past the city hall, you can find a beautiful hill, with a great view of the ocean. To the West, you can see the hill turn into a cliff, with a lighthouse near the end. Up here, you can find a young lady in fairly thick clothes, reading from an even thicker looking book.

##Lighthouse

• The town lighthouse, which guides ships to the pier. The front door is locked, and there seems to be no other entrance. The lighthouse is approximately 65m tall.

For more information, try doing various checks, talking to various people, or just generally exploring the city.

OOC: holy balls what a long post

This one counts as a story post, and also an area introduction post (for a city, no less), so I swear they won't be nearly this long from now on. I mean, probably.

This will likely be the only major post I make until the actual start of the roleplay, so fuckin live with it. Explore this place as much as you can, cause I will be giving out actual bonuses to people who complete sidequests. Make sure you've approved your character with me before you head in.

It's been several months since the Tragedy of Trost had occurred. While humanity had scored a resounding, if not controversial, victory over the titans, there had still been a significant loss of life and property. Half a year after the last titan fell, Trost was still busy rebuilding, and they couldn't do it on their own. Despite Trost's status as an industrial city, a number of its complexes either suffered damage from titans, or a shortage of skilled workers who either died in or refused to return to the city. In response to this, the Trost City Council, mostly through the stronger voice of the central government, had requested aid in money and materials from Karanese, Clorva and Hermina districts. While the other districts have agreed to provide the needed materials, they have not done so as quickly as officials within Trost would've hoped. With even more homeless than before, pressure has been building to construct new housing, and the related material has been difficult to produce in the other districts where more liberal and agrarian societies have developed.

The chief problem currently facing Trost as the Summer rolls on is the significant drop in delivered goods from Clorva. The district is a known hotbed for criminal activity and the lands surrounding it fare no better outside of its walls. Despite the best efforts of the military, these troubles have reached the more significant transport arteries within Rose. Only one major road that can handle the loads of requested materials runs between Trost and Clorva, and it unfortunately passes through a Titan Forest along the way. In recent weeks various relief caravans have been raided or gone missing, with survivors claiming that dozens of masked bandits utilizing 3DMG attacked them.

It was a tough story to believe at first. After all, 3DMG was supposed to be a treasured asset to the military and losing dozens of them to criminal elements would make them look bad. But they could only deny for so long, as the attacks got so bad that the majority of suppliers from Clorva have put a hold on shipments to Trost until the threat is dealt with. Not wanting to risk furthering the loss of face, Detective Colonel Riviera has dispatched a group of of his own officers, led by Provost Major Walter Van Hofwegen, to intercept the bandits. They would do so by impersonating a supply caravan of three wagons travelling through the woods and turn the tables on the would-be ambushers. While the elimination of the bandits 3DMG raiders as an effective fighting force is preferred, Riviera has also given instructions for the capture of a few to find the location of wherever they're operating from.

Walter stood at the back of the last wagon and looked back to the officers behind. If he didn't know any better he'd think there were only patches of grass currently occupying the seats of the wagon. A mission like this usually wasn't one reserved for rooks, and yet there they were. The military police truly had been stretched thin since his stint in Utopia. If it wasn't such a muggy day already, he wouldn't have minded playing chaperone to a bunch of newbies. Never mind the fact that they wouldn't be afforded any of the experimental APVMG. There were few cases in which two 3DMG users would enter combat with each other, and that lack of training meant that the coming engagement would likely be a bloodbath.

They were about halfway through the titan forest when the familiar hiss and whiz of Gear could be heard approaching them. The bandits came silently, like professionals.

"Ready yourselves." He said lowly to the rest of the wagon as he drew his blades. As the wagons came to a stop, he decided to recite what he'd told the newbies prior to their departure from Clorva. "Travel in pairs at the least, watch each other's backs, try not to cross wires and for fuck's sake, don't do anything stupid, we're dealing with beasts much worse than any titan."

Moments passed as the sounds of the enemy drew nearer, broken only by the pop and whoosh of a trio of signal flares flying high into the air. "Go!" Was all that Walter would give the recruits before he dashed out of the back of the wagon and turned out into the forest to face his strangest fight yet.

OOC: Okay so the plan here is that our group is playing the role of relief caravan to draw the bandits out. Non-3DMG drivers will be driving covered wagons while the rest will lay in wait beneath the cover. Once the drivers give the signal by firing flares at the bandits, members of the MP are welcome to calmly exit through the back of the wagon or Kool-Aid man their shit out of the tarp covers where slits for an easy exit have already been cut. Get into groups of 2-3 to engage. You're free to make up your own encounters or I can mod in opposing bandits for ya'll to fight with. Obviously humans won't be as easy to take down as titans so strategy of movement is important here. There are probably about 30 or so bandits attacking the group and remember we need at least two of them alive for interrogation, which will be something of a bonus round of RPing here if you guy are up to it.

“Attention!”

Corporal Klaus Reinhart was not a large man, nor was he a particularly intimidating one. His voice cracked as he attempted to speak loudly, and in front of such a crowd, he was struggling to appear calm and confident. He was hardly the best choice to be delivering this speech. But with Commander Ziegler, Captain Laurenti, and 1st Lieutenant Thomas all in a private meeting, the mantle of issuing orders had fallen to him.

He was sure he had seen two privates, a young, black haired woman and a tall, brown haired man enter as well. It was hardly his place to question Ziegler’s decisions, but he couldn’t help but wonder.

As the conversations began to die down and eyes turned towards him, Klaus began to speak. “As I’m sure you are all aware, today marks humanity’s first expedition since the fall of Wall Maria. Our goal today is reconnaissance. We will be attempting to map out the quickest, safest route to Shiganshina so that future operations may retake Wall Maria with minimal casualties.”

Though Trost’s gates had been opened just a month prior, the city had already begun the rebuilding process. While the anomalous titan had caused a great deal of fuss, deep down, the leaders of the Corps were grateful. Had the city fallen, an effort to retake Maria would have needed to be launched from Karanese, a much more dangerous journey.

“To that end, we will start by making our way towards Mylta.” He gestured to the large map which hung on the wall behind him. The town was located perhaps one third of the way from Trost to Shiganshina, seated atop a hill. “We will clear the titans from Mylta and attempt to fortify it, to be used as a supply station in our next expedition. From there, and only after careful observations have been made from the top of the bell tower of Mylta’s congregation, multiple teams will be dispatched to scout the area.

“Approaching Mylta will be dangerous, as we have no way of knowing when we may encounter titans. For this reason, we will be utilizing long range scouting formation.” He knew this formation needed no explanation, it having been drilled into the minds of new recruits previously. At the center of the formation, Commander Ziegler would guide the troops by firing green smoke signals in the direction they were travel. The squadrons on the formation’s flank would fire red smoke signals when they saw titans, allowing Ziegler to change the formation’s direction accordingly to avoid confrontation. Abberants that made their way into the formation would be signaled with black flares, drawing experienced veterans in to handle them.

“New recruits will be placed in ranks two and three. Sergeant Yume will be given command of the squad in 2/3. 1st Lieutenant Thomas and Captain Laurenti will take positions 1/5 and 1/6. Remember, if you have any hesitations, fire a black flare and a veteran will come to your aid as fast as they are able. We leave in one hour; make any final preparations and gather by the main gate. We will form into formation after we have cleared Wall Rose. Dismissed!”

The Survey Corps, mounted on horseback, waited before the front gate of Trost. The Garrison, using mounted cannons, had cleared away the titans from the area surrounding the gate. Nervous glances were exchanged by all. At the front of the group, Commander Ziegler stared forward. There were rumors whispered that he’d found a girl in the corps, but if this were true, he certainly betrayed no sign of it.

With the signal from the Garrison, the gate began to slowly rise. The expedition was beginning. Ziegler spurred his horse forward, raising an arm high above his head. “ADVANCE.” He cried.

OOC: Okay fellows, here’s how this is gonna work. This first thread is going to be the approach to Mylta. Form into groups of two to three. You can GM your own encounters if you’d like, or the mods will be more than happy to throw stuff your way. Remember, if you’re a member of the 102nd, you won’t be on the outside of the formation, meaning you’ll mostly be dealing with whatever slips through the cracks. The key here is to avoid, not to fight. You’ll have opportunity for that when we reach Mylta.

In the resulting anxiety and overpopulation which came with the fall of Wall Maria, widespread unrest became common. No refugee was guaranteed survival, crime rates increased, and fear of the Armored and Colossal Titans was rampant. With the immediate refugee crisis, the Royalty was forced to establish several new taxes and raise pre-existing ones in order to alleviate this problem. As they saw it, major complications stemmed from the high mortality rate of Marians, and their struggle to survive. Lowering the fatality rates of the Marians wouldn’t necessarily solve all of the issues that the collapse created, but anything was better than nothing at this point.

The taxes themselves focused more on collective contributions of goods rather than the traditional collection of individuals’ monetary payments: towns would be required to pay a percentage of their harvested grains, raw materials or clothes, and even a portion of land specifically for Marians. The plan worked and social upheavals began to abate. That had been the case until the tragic Trost incident occurred. Just when the overall situation was looking better, everything broke again with a substantial spike in crime rates, climbing casualties, and declined work rate.

The harsh winter that year froze over many of the roads, especially in the north, making it difficult for the Garrison or MP to timely reach these regions and collect taxes in this time of struggle and need. The failure to collect the taxes only seemed to make the already hopeless situation worse.

After winter had passed and the roads had converted back to a mellow and viable state, tax collectors were sent out once again. However, taking the fact that the military's resources were currently stressed, the process was greatly hindered. In an attempt to speed up the progress, the recently graduated MPs were ordered to travel the northern outskirts. A specific group of these newbies were sent to a particular village tucked away in the mountains -- similar to the one they had walked through as trainees.

The carriage bumped across the ground as it continued its relentless march up the mountain's face. The road was unkempt and often contained large potholes and bumps, causing the vehicle to shake every few meters or so. The trip had been as such ever since they reached the base of the mountain, as not many people came and went from the village and those that did were often used to such difficult roads.

“It should just be a bit further” the Garrison member driving the carriage called from his position in the front, his voice sure and gravelly. It had taken them three days of almost non-stop riding to get to this point with only the briefest of rests so the horses could refuel. Now the destination was in sight.

The mountain began to level out somewhat as they neared, and about a quarter mile away from the village a group of armed men stopped them, nervously glancing at one another as the carriage pulled in.

“What are you doing here,” he asked, glancing between his colleagues and the seemingly average carriage.

The Garrison member in the front let out a gruff rumbling laugh, “Hey, Peter how’re you. It’s been a while”.

The man’s face seemed to stiffen somewhat after recognizing the voice and offered a forced smile and a small fidget, “Ah, hello Michael. We’re managing. I know why you’re here, but I need to ask again anyways … for security purposes”.

After a thoughtful moment, the old Garrison man pointed a thumb in the back. “I’ll have them explain it. It’ll be good to let the greenhorns get some experience, eh”.

OOC NOTES: Hello all, I'm GMing an event created by me. Yay. Everything you should know about the event is in this post, but if I didn't explain something just PM me and I'll add it to the post and answer your questions. For this event, I'm only accepting the first 4-5 people (if that many even participate), so it's first come first serve.

Graduation had passed quicker than expected, and the next few days shined brightly - almost as if Mother Nature herself was trying to make up for all the grief the members of the 102nd had suffered in the last year. Whether or not this small sign of appreciation was enough had yet to be decided though.

The headquarters of the Survey Corps was swamped with heat. Every window was left open, allowing what little breeze there was to enter and spare the corpsmen from the vicious warmth that sun had speared down on them.

The day had started slowly, with the new members of the division gradually getting used to the idleness that the Survey Corps suffered from between expeditions. However, motion had slowly began to speed up as the day went on, with the newbies being called to the courtyard by the man who was once their instructor, Commander Ziegler.

Commander Ziegler... the title rolled off Ahab's tongue very well. A year of being under the man's tutelage had shown him that Ziegler was a very capable leader. He had authority, a strong sense of purpose and - if the situation demanded it - an understanding side which made him easy to talk to. At least, that was the way that Ziegler has acted towards the 102nd. Perhaps Ziegler was a different man on the inside. That didn't matter though. It was obvious that Ziegler was perfect for the role of Commander, and Ahab felt a little safer knowing that Ziegler would be his commanding officer.

The new members of the Survey Corps were all present in the courtyard, all members accounted for. Ahab recognised almost every face that was present. All of them were capable. Members of the Top 10 stood amongst them, some already holding higher ranks than the rest. 'We truly are a force to be reckoned with.' Ahab thought to himself.

Skill didn't mean anything to the titans though. As good as the 102nd may be, there was still a likely chance that the ones who'd joined the Survey Corps would soon be completely obliterated. 'Means we're going to have to be in top form if we want to succeed.'

Ziegler stood atop a small cobble staircase, empowering his authority over the rookies. Beside him stood First Lieutenant Klein, along with a few pre-existing members of the Survey Corps whom Ahab didn't recognise.

Ziegler cleared his throat before calling the soldiers below him to attention. It was unclear what the premise of this little 'get-together' was, but it seemed they were about to find out...

Hey guys! So, the basic premise of this thread is sort of like a careers showcase, except you already have a career - a very suicidal career mind you - and you (the rookies of the Survey Corp) are asking some a selection of pre-existing members stuff instead. Gives a chance for characters who've previously not interacted to now interact, and for some of the more less-composed characters to break down after realising that they're gonna die. So, socialise! Meet new people, ask about squads, hell, break into a fight if you really want to (I'm looking at you, Rink.).

Hey guys!

- What’s up?

Remember when we were talking about shifter applications and kinda released that prematurely resulting into a meltdown of chat?

- Yeah, you suck ass.

About that…

- You mean…

Yes, we are!

###Shifter Applications will be opened!

- That’s cool! My shifter is the Bulldozer titan and he flattens everything and poops out concrete!

- I want to play the mother of Anna. She was supposed to be dead, but she’s actually the Jesus Titan and came back after 3 years. GIB!

However, before get out all your edgy OGs and retcon your character to be the Colossal Titan… Hold your horses!

It’s important for you to understand the importance of shifters. To the plot, to the gameplay and to interactions with other players. Playing a shifter is not supposed to be done for the purpose of being more powerful. Getting to play a shifter is not a reward, but a responsibility.

The sub will not serve your own Eren storyline, but you will serve the sub.

And arguably look cool doing it.

Of course, the contract you’ll get after you shifter app has been approved will include a NDA and shackle you to the mod team for eternity.

/jk

No contract. But it won’t be that easy. It’s going to work as follows.

###Shifter Application Process

• We put up a tender to a role that needs to be filled.
• You apply for the role, flushing out the character and backstory that is supposed to fill that role. Depending on the role you can also design a titan form and power.
• We might give you feedback and shoot down some parts of your application immediately. Then you can resubmit with changes. That will especially be the case with Special Powers and Titan Forms. Cause we need to somehow balance that.
• The mod team reviews the applications and selects the one they feel fits the plot and sub the best.
• If your application has been selected you’ll get the go to start writing that character and you’ll work closely together with us concerning plot influence. That ensures that your shifter has actual impact but we’re also gonna use him to steer the plot into directions we have planned.

Apply here

###Application Format:

• The tender you're applying for:
• Name
• Age:
• Sex:
• General Appearance:
• General Personality:
• General Motivation:
• Special Power:
• Titan Form:
• Appearance:
• Titan Power:
• Backstory:
• Your Expectations and Plans:
• Character Personal Storyline:
• Character’s Role in the Main Plot:

###Current Tenders

.

It was a week after graduation, the ride to Yalkell'd been a day-long venture. Both him Anna and just needed to fuck off somewhere, and Ziegler knew just the spot. The two'd kept mostly to one another, a large bit of tension still driving a wedge in their relationship. It was a very light point, very minute, tiny detail-

HE'S DATING A FUCKING TITAN.

Or at least, "dating." It'd been months since they really talked.

His eye twitched, his hips shifting slightly atop the lazy donkey pulling their carriage. Horses were available, but for the sake of being inconspicuous, a Donkey'd be best. Horses were a generally rare sight throughout Yalkell, given the district's focus on hard labor. Horses were for riding, not working, and you'd be pressed to find someone not working in the massive fields shortly outside the once-spacious district.

Of the four districts of Sina, Yalkell was the most affordable, its fertile soil and lush green forests allowing for a fantastic hunting, fishing, and woodcutting industry.

If there was a single word every man, woman and child knew around here, it was work.

Beads of sweat developed along Ziegler's forehead, dripping down his face as the man, donkey, shoddy carriage and Queen of the Human fucking Race began to pass fields of barley. The summer crop was in full swing, as droves of men and women - volunteer refugees, most likely - toiled in the large fields before Yalkell, adorned in sweaty overalls and straw hats. Ziegler himself remained shirtless, wearing the shittiest cotton pants the man owned with a pair of comfortably uncomfortable sandals.

To say things were complicated between him and Anna would be the understatement of the century. Royal Gossip was the forefront of the news along with Titan Shifter conspiracy theories - which were mostly right - developed a consistent atmosphere of paranoia amidst the two. It'd been an awkward couple of months since Trost, the two never having had the chance to truly speak as Anna returned to "Athena" to finish training. Upon graduation, he'd snuck her a small letter, and true to the word - she'd accepted. Despite the world looking like it was going to end,

They were going fishing and there wasn't a god damn thing Ziegler would hear otherwise about it.

The man whistled faintly to himself, seeing a small lake in the distance. He narrowed his eye, seeing a short wooden dock built along the lakefront....And three other wooden boats - all fishing.

Ziegler's head reared backward, "BITCH!" he exclaimed to the air. They'd found his spot! It was his lake, god damn it!

He groaned, bouncing slightly atop the donkey like a child who's toy just got taken away. He sighed, his eye tracing along the lake to the large river that cut through both Yalkell and ran shortly parallel to his home. The donkey pushed onward, approaching a wooden bridge. As the bridge curved upwards, Ziegler's eye caught a familiar sight.

A medium-sized, wooden home with a large woodmill lingered overhead. Shortly before the home, a large, dark woman wearing an expensive bonnet watered a large garden of flowers. The woman's hat was expensive - and that seemed to the be only 'expensive' thing within eyeshot. The home itself seemed old and worn, the wood making its walls having stood for decades on decades. The donkey began to slow down, Ziegler gingerly pulling the reins, "Easy, easy."

The small carriage lingered forward, finally coming to a stop. Ziegler released a loud whistle, climbing off the donkey's back. He stepped forward, beginning to approach the house and the woman watering the plants. She turned, eyeing Ziegler and widening her amber gaze.

<"Oh HELL no,"> she snapped, rapidly turning towards the doorway.

"Momma, come on-" Ziegler pleaded,

<"HELL no!"> the woman retorted, hastily making her way towards the wooden house door.

"It's been two years, you ain't glad to see your own son?"

<"Boy, ain't nobody glad to see your black ass!"> She turned, wagging a finger towards the man, belligerently shouting, <"You think you can just vanish for fucking 2 years, go off and do some big-"> She huffed, stomping her foot on the dirt, <"The fuck is this shit about you running the Survey Corps now? Or some big Titan bullshit in Trost, huffing and puffin' the god damn doors down-">

"Momma-"

Ziegler rose a hand to his face, covering it for a moment with his palm.

<"Don't you 'momma' me, you ungrateful, hungry piece of shit! Coming outta the blue like you-"> She froze midsentence, fixing her gaze onto the man's bandage. Her eyes widened, taking a quick series of steps forward, her voice hushed, <"What happened to your eye?"> "Momma, I just-" She gave him a faint slap across the cheek, <"Shut the hell up and let me look at this.">

Ziegler turned his head away. Grown ass man, Colonel of the Survey Corps,

And son.

The woman continued to speak in hushed tone, gingerly inspecting the man's rugged and scarred face, then noting the large scar along his abdomen,

<"What the fuck happened here?! And why do you stink of cigarettes? Didn't I tell you to cut that shit or I'd whoop your ass? Boy, you gonna wind up marrying that hairy ass palm of yours at this rate!"> she shouted, paying no mind to the carriage a short distance away. Ziegler ran a hand through his hair, loathing his existence as his mother continued to berate the man.

Anna, save me.

The sun, with heavy steps, danced in between the forest's thick canopy -- messily slamming itself on whatever surface it could before desperately leeching onto it. Its warmth was unbearable as Phillips trudged his way through the thin underbrush of the forest, slower than one could possibly imagine, careful to not let even a whisper escape him. Crouching low to the ground he locked eyes with the animal he had been following, a small brown deer. Its head was low to the ground, carelessly grazing on the grass of the clearing.

The creature had yet to notice Phillips presence, too occupied in its meal, so without hesitation, the boy sat on the dirt and continued to watch. He took note of its short stubby steps, small sneezes whenever some bug brushed its nose, and minuscule twitches of the ear whenever Phillips would shift his body into a comfortable position. It was beautiful, he couldn’t think of another way to describe it. Then it was gone.

A loud thump penetrated Phillips ear as several coyotes ran out of the brush, across the clearing, and pounced on the deer. The animal tried to escape, but one of the Coyotes clamped down on its back leg leaving the deer incapable of holding up the coyote's weight. It fell to the grass which it had previously grazed with an inaudible thud, coloring it red. Phillips stepped forwards his ten-year-old voice cracking “H-hey, stop that”, but the animals continued their feast. Leaving his position in the bush he stepped into the clearing “stop that!” tears were streaming down his face by that time. He moved up once again with shaky legs, but two figures appeared before him before he could continue.

“Phillips, what are you doing” the first spoke. He was a larger boy, a wry smile plastered on his face as he slunk his hands over his head. The face of confidence which Phillips had always looked up to and aspired to be every day of his life. Footsteps were forever imprinted on his body as his bones caved inwards.

“Yeah, you’re acting weird” the second spoke. A girl, her voice soft. She wore a small yellow dress which she had boasted about nonstop for several weeks. Always kind, always strong, and someone Phillips had always found strength in. The left half of her body gone in chunks as teeth marks highlighted his mistake.

“W-why. Why are you here” his voice was shaking more than before, and in rhythm, his body joined his voice. He was no longer a child following a deer and the memories of the past came flooding back. Image by god forsaken image. “WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE!”.

In an instant the scenery changed, his vision split in half at each eye. On the left roared a crowd of people and on the right stood a towering figure, several men flying around it in circles. Each of the figures imposed themselves on the scene -- the layer above everything else.

“Don’t worry. There aren’t any Titans. We should be fine” The first one mocked.

“Don’t worry the SC are here now. There’s no need to run, let’s just watch” The second joined in.

“No. No no no no. No. Stop!”. He half screamed, covering his ears as he did so. His body growing to his current size.

“PHILLIPS” They both cried out together. He knew that cry to well. It haunted him no matter where he went. The mix of desperation and blame was all too audible.

“STOP … please just. Just stop. Please”. The voices penetrated into his skull no matter how hard he pressed down on his ears. Slowly he shrunk down into a crouched ball. “I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry”.

“PHILLIPS” They cried.

“I SAID I WAS SORRY”.

“PHILLIPS” and again.

“WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME”.

“PHILLIPS” and again.

And again.

The haze began to lift as Phillips felt his body shake back and forth, blackness consumed his vision only to be filled with light and the image of a gruff bearded man shaking him -- his father had come to visit.

“Get a grip boy” the man spoke, clicking his tongue and shaking his oversized head back and forth.

After a long silence, Phillips sat up in his bed, gripping the sheets which covered him “I didn't ... I failed”.

“Not yet boy. You’re not dead, and you still got your limbs. The army will still take you. You don’t have an excuse to have failed yet”. His father spoke again, taking a seat next to Phillips bed.

“I couldn’t do anything against them. I didn't even last a minute” he tried to explain, a ball of heat just beginning to form in his throat.

“Well then fix that. Get back out and do something. Don’t make up poor excuses. You only got yourself to blame”. Placing both his hands onto Phillips the man continued “You’re not dead. So get back out there”.

“I can’t” Phillips head sunk low, only focused on his untightened hands

Releasing one hand from Phillips' shoulder the man swung it across the boy's cheek, “Bullshit. I didn’t raise a coward. Your mother didn’t raise a coward. So don’t start acting like one now. Do you hear me?”.

“You don’t understand. I couldn’t do a single thing-” he tried again, the tears streaming down his face.

“You cried out for them you know" His father started. He could see that what he was doing before wasn't working, so he'd just have to try a different strategy. "Luli and Rex. Don’t go staining their name with your pathetic voice, and sure as hell don’t go making their deaths unavenged. If not for yourself then for them. I don’t care what you got to do, or if you're afraid, or if you gotta sacrifice someone else. You fight, you survive, and you get revenge. Do you understand me?

In a low whisper, Phillips lowered his head once more and spoke “Yes”

“I couldn’t hear you!" His father roared, slamming a clenched fist into the armchair.

“Yes!” Philips' voice cracked, hot liquid staining his face.

“Good boy, now get some rest. You have a lot to make up for” and then just like that Philip's father hobbled out the room with his crutches, leaving Phillips alone.

/u/AthenaFrei

Now nearing the nine month anniversary of the titan incursion at Trost, the dust had still set yet to fully settle. An attack that lasted little more than afternoon, yet remained all too fresh in the minds of the survivors. One had but to look at the faces of the locals to see the unease. The titans had been repelled, another Shiganshina prevented - and yet, it was not over. Not by a long shot. An abberant of the most unusual kind had surfaced amidst the bloodshed, tearing apart its own kin. There were murmurs, tremors spreading throughout the grape vine that this titan was controlled by - as difficult as it may be to believe - a human being! The Vebercherate, undeterred by the mass mourning, took full advantage of the situation and showed no hesitation in securing several areas of valuable - namely, the streets of Esterbrook, Mackenal and Dean's Port. Furthermore, the gate had been opened from the inside, not smashed. Those responsible had yet to face the full weight of the law.

Until today, that was.

Marching down Islington Way, a unit of heavily armed Gendmarie paraded against the damp cobblestone. Above, the sky wept for Trost, and for the justice that it so rightfully deserved. At the head of the formation was Special Detective Claus Behrmann, adorned in a large, hickory faded trenchcoat, a rifle slung over his right shoulder. The glint of his silver buckle is matched only by that of his pistol's barrel, affixed firmly to his finery. The Detective had been blessed with a full recovery following his combat at Trost - God's way of telling the man that he had not yet fulfilled his purpose, he liked to muse. It had been Behrmann's persuasive interrogation techniques that had bestowed them with this information in the first place, and he was familiar with the suspect - closely enough to be appropriate for the position, but not quite so intimately as to be an obstruction to the investigation. As such, the reluctant hero had been forwarded as head of the investigation.

The formation stops just afore Greyfallow Manor. The old house had fallen somewhat into disrepair over the past nine months, with the western wing devastated by the titan menace, a decrepit front garden from neglect and paint that cracked and crumbled at the touch. The assumption had been that Lord Greyfallow had simply never gotten around to repairing his home, or that his priorities lay elsewhere; certainly, in the months following the Incursion Greyfallow had become a beloved philanthropist, being a key benefactor in several reconstruction efforts. Strange, for anyone who knew him, as the man had been notoriously against the influx of homeless further into the Walls of Dreimaeur, almost extremist in his protests. Yet who could possibly unleash such horrors upon one's fellow man? It was unfathomable. That lead to one other alternative - that Greyfallow himself was a titan, set on destroying the Walls for one such reason or another. At least, that was the conclusion that upstairs had reached. The ground formation was accompanied by a division of maneuver geared soldiers - Military Policemen and Survey Corpsmen alike, for the latter were the "titan experts", so it were. On loan courtesy of Colonel Kain Ziegler, they were the contingency plan should Greyfallow attempt to unleash titans upon Walls again.

Detective Behrmann stopped in the No Man's Land between the manor and his soldiers, eying the formation. His face betrayed nothing of his contempt for the nobleman that cowered inside his home. His voice erupted across the artificial silence, a voice that instilled order, that introduced stability. A comforting voice, in such an uncomfortable, chaotic situation.

"I know you all want revenge. I can see it in your eyes - fuck, I can feel it in the air. It's palpable. But..."

And here Behrmann's eyes narrowed, his voice grew harsh - this was the Behrmann that the Provosts were familiar with.

"If a hair on the man's head is touched, the responsible parties will never again see the light of day. Squadrons Koch, Schwarz, Maier, Lange and Lehmann are to hold formation here - there will be no civilians entering Brewer's Road."

The aging soldier allowed his gaze to fall upon the more agile soldiers - Police and Corps alike - above them. He remained skeptical as to their use - personally, he had already concluded that Greyfallow himself was no titan. Regardless, if he was proved wrong, it would be better to have them than to not. As such, he had consented to their presence.

"Squadrons Klein, Stein and Otto, circle the perimeter. Attack titans on sight - that is your objective."

Finally, Claus turned upon the towering structure in front of him. He allowed his rifle to fall into his open hands, into proper firing form. He sighed deeply and quietly, trying to calm himself before what could be a fatal battle.

"Squad Behrmann, advance!"

Alright, the arrest is a go. I didn't specify who's in Squad Behrmann - it's quite a hefty squad, because with something this high profile the more soldiers the better. This means any MPs can be a part of the team that arrests the man himself (of course, if you so wish you may be part of the defense squads or the maneuver gear squads) SCs are welcome in this thread, but limited to being a part of the perimeter guard I'm afraid. This won't be an action-heavy thread I'm afraid, but should hopefully be enough to keep you going :)

This is set after graduation, and as such you should all be part of your desired divisions. Have at!

July 15th, 846

Fires stoked around searing hot braziers, a large rectangular formation gathering before a large stage. Before the stage stood Colonel Kain Ziegler, in what might be the cleanest uniform he'd worn since the beginning of the trainee cycle. A pristine green trenchcoat, emblazoned not with the Trainee Corps emblem but the Wings of Freedom. Black-shined boots hugged his feet, the man's face cleanly shaved for the ceremony. Hues of orange flame marked his face, tracing contours of human shadows as he began to speak,

"Tonight, you lot finish the mission you started almost a year ago. You wanted to become something more, something greater than where you've been in order to pursue a higher meaning. Some of you came to better yourselves, others the world, and others came to protect and serve their friends and families."

Ziegler stood upright, "You've all seen much death in your time within the 102nd. We have lost several good Soldiers along our training cycle. Their deaths were in the name of every servicemember's aspirations, and the highest pursuit of Military valor and discipline. In honor of the Nation of Dreimauer, Queen Anna Hapsburg, and the 102nd Trainee Corps: the following personnel are posthumously promoted to Sergeant, and are awarded the Bronze Cross in the same of their service and righteous sacrifice."

Ziegler took a short breath, staring outward.

"Private Rousselot, Camille,"

"Private Gedday, Simmon,"

"Private Connor, Ephraim,"

"Private Etienne, Claire,"

"Private Behr, Zachary,"

"Private Rukov, Hugo,"

The list continued for a solid 30 seconds as Ziegler continued to recall the names of the deceased from the 102nd Trainee Corps. A short moment later, the man finally stopped. "We stand on the shoulders of great men and women that have given everything to allow Dreimauer to continue forward. There are those who seek to destroy our walls and welcome the Titans into our homes, exterminating the human race. Make no mistake - we are at war. The stakes of this war are unlike anything we've ever seen before. This isn't a civil conflict between humans, this is a matter of man against extinction. We fight now to grant our Nation another sunrise, and in pursuit of this - we will now honor the 102nd's top performers."

Ziegler cleared his throat, "When I call your name, step forward onto the stage."

He took another deep breath, "10 - Private Eldwin, Maria. Private Eldwin, also known as "Mud" to several here, is an arrogant Soldier with several shortcomings, however her efforts and passion are undeniable. For her hard work, determination and service in the face of horrifying odds, she's number 10 amongst the 102nd."

"9 - Private Carolus, Svensson. Private Svensson is a Soldier of fighter of incredible passion and proficiency. During the Trost Incident, he was among the three which helped seal the gate, saving thousands of lives. For his service in despite of the dangers to himself, along with stalwart determination and mental acuity, he is awarded the 102nd's 9th place."

He cleared his throat, "8 - Private Fiore, Beatrice. Private Fiore's by no means a stellar Marksman, fighter or combatant, but her Leadership qualities and service throughout the past year are undeniable. Clear minds, clear hearts and visionaries are more important than any twist of the blade or clean shot. For this, along with her service during the Trost Incident and meritorious valor, she is awarded the 8th slot amidst the 102nd."

"7 - Private Elmy, Saul. Private Elmy's an old dog, yet remains to be one of the finest Soldiers within the 102nd. Private Elmy had outstanding proficiency in Hand to Hand combat, along with an above-average performance within the Titan Sticks Lanes. Private Elmy also displayed great care and valor amidst the evacuation of refugees within the battle of Trost, caring for those who needed him most and serving within the highest values of Military Customs and Integrity. For this, he is awarded 7th place amidst the 102nd."

"6 - Private Schroeter, Abigail. Private Schroeter bears a dangerous burden for someone in this field - empathy. Private Schroeter has displayed time and time again the seeds of Leadership, while maintaining Professional Composure amidst both the Titan Sticks Lanes, and Hand to Hand trials. For meritorious courage and care displayed amidst the Mountain Incursion, along with valor and courageous determination during the Trost Incident, Private Schroeter is awarded 6th place amidst the 102nd."

"5 - Private Stone..." Ziegler paused, "E. Private Stone's a Soldier of insurmountable passion and will, driving forward in pursuit of excellence and meritorious service. I cannot think of a single time where I've seen Private Stone's resolve falter, even despite lingering above death itself. For courage, stalwart determination and remarkable mental and physical toughness, Private Stone is the 102nd's 5th place."

"4 - Private Vasser, Merrill. Private Vasser is a Soldier and Professional, having maintained outstanding Military bearing and discipline throughout the past year in the 102nd. Vasser bears the determination and vigor every Soldier should strive for, consistently performing and perfecting his Military Tasks & Drills. For meritorious service amidst the Trost Incident along with Private Schroeter during the evacuation of the Military Complex, he is awarded the 102nd's 4th place."

"3 - Private Carolingian, Siegfried. Private Carolingian is without a single doubt in my mind the finest Leader to come from the 102nd. A Professional by every meaning and definition of the word, he has shown time and time again the courage and ability to lead and react to an everchanging Military Environment. Private Carolingian is a shining example of what every Soldier should strive to be, demonstrating outstanding 3DMG Aptitude, along with the mental acuity and emotional rigor to stand firm against all that might threaten the Nation of Dreimauer. For this, along with outstanding Leadership within the Gate Operation in the Trost Incident, he is not only the 102nd's 3rd Place, but is here-in promoted to Sergeant - effectively immediately, notary Colonel Ziegler, Kain of the Survey Corps."

"2 - Private Yume, Tsuchida. Private Yume, too, is to be recognized for her Leadership potential, phenomenal Marksmanship and courage against a threat significantly larger than herself. Within the battle of Trost, Private Yume came into direct contact with the enemy and was of paramount importance in the accomplishment of the mission, buying the Gate Squad the space they needed against an aberrant Titan. For this, she is not only granted 2nd place, but is awarded the Silver Cross in the name of her service and valor - notary 1st Lieutenant Thomas, Klein of the Survey Corps. For the aformentioned, as well as continuous valor and Leadership, she is promoted to the rank of Sergeant - effective immediately, notary Colonel Ziegler, Kain of the Survey Corps."

1 - Private Schneider, Hoshi. Private Schneider is the embodiment of outstanding performance throughout all fronts. Scoring the highest marks in the Final Exam in not only 3DMG Aptitude, but Hand to Hand combat as well, Private Schneider stands as an example for the pursuit of excellence. Private Schneider defended her peers within the mountain incursion, demonstrating great integrity and personal courage not only then but also within the Trost Incident, aiding in the evacuation as well as shutting the Gate alongside Carolingian and Svensson. For meritorious service and excellence on all Soldier tasks and Drills, she is not only the 102nd's 1st Place, but also to be promoted to the rank of Sergeant - effective immediately, notary Colonel Ziegler, Kain of the Survey Corps."

Ziegler took a deep breath, maintaining his professional demeanor as the Top 10 stood shortly behind him at attention. "These are the 10 that will lead you through hell and back, Privates. Give them a hand," he said, stepping to the side and beginning to clap. A moment later, he stood upright, "102nd Trainee Corps - ATTENTION!" With a mighty stomp, the 102nd moved to attention within their rectangular formation. Ziegler rose his hand to his chest, a vigorous and proud salute.

"DISMISSED!"

OOR: \o/! Post here, celebrate with one another, and from there you can hit up any faction's recruiter. Ziegler and Klein're gonna be off to the side for the Survey Corps, /u/htts_rp will be on the far side as Major Stone and Colonel Riviera.

Dismissed! o7

It was in the early hours of morning a few days after the tragedy of Trost when Jax knocked against the hard, wooden door in the Military Complex behind which lay the makeshift dorm room of Ilya. The military had called upon her services following the attack, wanting to centralize the medical aid of the city. The mess hall of the complex had been repurposed to house hundreds of beds, seperated by thin sheets, but it was all anybody had and more than anybody could ask for. Space was not enough for a emergency hospital, they needed staff and so they had contracted every medic, nurse and doctor in a radius of fifty miles to come and care for the injured and sick.

Yesterday night, Jax had met up with Duke Hektor, the General of the Garrison. Over the last months, they had exchanged information often. The giant was a source of information not many were able or willing to disclose and a deal with the duke had its own merits. However, yesterday, for the first time since their arrangement, the general had asked something of him that extended upon words. He was asking for actions. Pleading for the bullish man to carry out a mission of highest importance. And Jax had agreed to it, for his own personal reasons.

Unfortunately, the mission was of delicate nature and required secrecy. It was far from official and should in no way be connected to the duke, the military or the royal family. Now, Jax was everything but inconspicuous person. Large, scarred and imposing as he was. He needed a cover. It did not speak well of him that he chose to ask Ilya to provide this for him. While it was a rational and logical decision to use the image of a weak, crippled woman by his side to offset his own appearance, it was far from a morally sound one.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Again. Three times. Now, Jax was able to hear something stir behind the door and it suddenly opened, revealing the old nurse that Ilya was sharing the room with. She looked like an old hag for lack of a better word. Jax pulled up his eyebrows.

"I'm looking for Ilya, is she there?"

1 day after the closing of the gate - Trost Military Complex

Workers labored around the clock as the damages inflicted onto the Military Complex underwent repairs. Several wings of the building had been looted as refugees poured into the facilities, grabbing whatever they could amidst the pandemonium of the Titan invasion. The top floor of the complex had a large, gaping hole along the rooftop, now covered by a large black tarp. Security paced the corridors religiously, having been given tight orders to not let any unapproved personnel enter the complex's executive 4th floor.

Within one of the rooms, was Ziegler. A medium-sized study had been repurposed into a locked down clinic, as Queen Anna laid atop a plain white bed, eyes shut and yet unwoken. Ziegler sat patiently atop a leather cushioned seat, his trenchcoat tightly hugging the man's body. The Complex was notably cold as the Winter continued, the holes throughout the facility doing a horrid job at insulation amidst the crisis.

Ziegler shook his head. How many people're gonna die today 'cause they ain't got a roof?

He chewed on the back of his lip for a moment, shaking the thought from his mind as he looked over towards the sleeping woman. The flesh-burns of lines around her eye sockets had mostly vanished, faded away into obscurity. The woman seemed, mostly, to be absolute pinnacle of health. Ziegler shifted uncomfortably in his seat, straining as the fresh stitches along his abdomen tugged against his skin.

He took a short, wavering breath, feeling his head lighten slightly. The man'd barely slept, finding himself some shitty cot along the second floor besides a Garrison soldier that snored way, way too loudly. Ziegler looked over towards Anna, tracing his eyes across her face and memorizing her contours for a sketch later.

He reclined against his seat, slumping his head backwards and shutting his eyepatch-covered eye, beginning to drift to sleep as he waited for Anna to awaken.

They had a very, very serious conversation to have with Hektor within the near future.

OOR: Short & Sweet, l'eggo! /u/MagicalBaconTree, /u/ForrestDumb

Trost Military Complex - shortly after closing the gate

Among the aftermath of the battle that had raged throughout Trost, Abi sat downstairs in one of the old buildings of the barracks. With a lot of the soldiers still here either assisting cleanup or milling around outside, the little military bunkhouses formed makeshift infirmaries for any of the walking wounded, or anyone with the skills to help those injured. There were even some civilians from nearby areas coming to be looked over. In a cramped side room, the blonde girl sat having her own wounds looked over by Captain Josef.

Abi raised her shirt, showing him the damage done when she'd landed among a pile of debris barely an hour or two ago. The pain had mostly subsided by now, but she could still feel the spots on her back where the sharp rocks had dug into her, especially when Josef raised a gloved finger to inspect them more closely, making her wince as he gave them a once over. Next, he reached for a cloth, cleaning the small cuts and speaking up.

"I thought they gave trainees the order to pull out once the gate went up. First thing I caught wind of was some lady ya sent to make sure your ma was safe. Sounded an awful lot like you were coverin' for em. Heh, you sure changed if that's true. You were never the one to go n' do somethin' stupid like that. What gave ya the idea to stay, anyway?"

Abi paused, Josef's words making her think. He was right that her choice to stay behind had felt like a death wish, almost becoming one when she'd slipped up against the titan that came at the Steam and Leaf. She hadn't told him about exactly what happened to Ross, though she was sure he knew he'd bee killed. In the end, she avoided the question, but she knew the reason she'd remained. Thoughts of the two Vasser siblings as they'd escaped the pub flashed in her mind. She was only doing for them the same they'd gone to do for her mother. That though was abruptly followed by the memory of Merrill, pulling her into that kiss just before he'd left. Damn it, why did she have to think of that now?

"How is it?" She asked, trying to change the subject. She couldn't really look at her own back, and looking for any kind of telling reaction from Josef was like trying to catch steam with your hands. He seemed to accept her dodging the question, getting up and opening a box of first aid supplies.

"You'll live, and it looks like we can save on stitching you up. They've already stopped bleedin, hell, they even look like scarring already. Awful strange, but they ain't deep, so at least at this rate you should be fine in no time, so long as you don't go overdoin' it again. Won't stop it leavin' a mark though."

Josef reached for some bandages, wrapping them around Abi's midriff as he finished his observation. Once he was finished, she got up, lowering her shirt and jacket over the thin material covering her wounds.

She thanked the old man with a nod, making her way out of the building, past a small huddle of people also awaiting treatment, and out into the street. If the passers-by weren't soldiers, hurriedly going about their business, they were the hurt, the sick, or simply the lost. Even here, or perhaps especially here, the fallout of the attack gave way in turn to the strain on those who were left.

The first thing she'd done was visit her mother, and the next had been seeing to her injuries before things got too hectic. Now, she felt a little unsure of where to go next. As much she kept trying to put him out of her mind, whenever she wasn't focusing on something else, Merrill kept popping up in the back of her mind. That time during Solheim when she'd been back to his place she'd thought she had him figured out and that it hadn't meant too much, and yet the kiss during the battle was both surprising and a little terrifying. With a nervous sense of resolution, she decided she needed to know exactly what he'd been playing at. She set off to leave the complex, trying to see if she couldn't find out where he'd be. She'd find him in Trost sooner or later, though she hoped sooner, before her nerves got to her.

OOC: Fuck it, it's long, that's how I roll

This introduces a new meta-thing we're doing to help keep the story on-track and make it obvious what the people in the walls are thinking and feeling about the shit going down near daily.

The Mitras Tribunal will periodically appear on the front-page to generally re-cap events in a digestible and fun way. Keep in mind, some of the stuff in there may sound whack, but there's a kernel of truth in every article.

The Tribunal will pretty much be updated whenever a mod feels like writing a couple paragraphs and posting it with an outrageous title to hilariously recap something, but anyone who wants to can write it if they know what's going on better than we do. Wanna get your Tintin on?

Story below is non-essential reading, just for fun.

The office of the Mitras Tribunal sat on 10th & Scepter Avenue on the west side of Mitras, where it had been for almost two hundred years now. Though 10th & Scepter had seen its fair share of storms, fires, riots even a few bombings and gunfights, the building hadn't changed much aside from a few necessary renovations. For instance, the windows had been fitted with grills after 3dmg had been invented, the doors had been fitted with locks and chains after a masked man had attempted to force his way through to get at one of the secretaries in the 810s, the lettering room had been fire-proofed with asbestos, and the building's waiting room had been halved so that the clerk had an extra door between himself and people in the lobby.

Corbin Crozier's family had owned this building for generations, when the success of the Tribunal's exemplary journalistic work had brought them from the lowly tenements of Stohess into the lauded inner fold of the Sinese middle-income bracket. With naught but pen and parchment in his hand and a feather in his cap, Corben's great-great-grandfather Hieronymus Crozier had broken open a story about racketeering parliamentarians, and during his stay under the Garrison's studious protection here on 10th and Sceptor, he'd fallen in love with his prison and bought the building with the earnings he was making off the breaking scandal playing out all around him.

His great-grandmother had been a truly gifted writer, and her pen had wrought gaping wounds in the reputation of the Military Police with editorials covering the unjust jailing of inventors. His grandfather had brought concerns of overpopulation and starvation to the forefront of the noosphere with cutting edge research in his day. His mother had been a minor deity within the Verbrecherate as a maker or breaker of reputations.

Corbin was now in danger of losing it all. He didn't have the spark for news, truly. Too much happened nowadays, far too fast. The name of 'Trost' was becoming one he dreaded. The Tribunal wasn't selling because it was so easy for other papers to go to ground and take testimonies from refugees about the raw galling horror of the starvation they were enduring, of murder in the streets, and of course... the titans. The market was a bit over-saturated with news of giant monsters.

Corben sat head down in his office, itching at his receding hairline beneath his cap and idly staring up at a few of the articles hung up on the walls that his name was on but he'd had no more involvements in.

THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE QUEEN ANNA

SHIGANSHINA INCURSION: THOUSANDS DEAD

MILITARY HOLDS SECRET CONFERENCE IN TROST

RIOTS ROCK THE SOUTH

HIRAM DURANT SIGHTED IN TROST

QUEEN CRASHES TRAINEE DINNER

RED RASMUS RETURNS: VICTIMS IDENTIFIED IN TROST

THE COLONEL AND THE QUEEN: How close is too close?

These last four headlines had occurred within a week from each-other, and they'd each sold so well that after a month of climbing sales Corbin had popped a bottle of champagne in the printing room and they'd made a dinner of it. Despite that, the paper was still on the decline. Mitras got their news from other sources mostly, and the rags beyond Sina were more desperate which gave them a cunning edge in seeking out gruesome details concerning the wave of homelessness and famine engulfing the southland. It was only the somewhat cynical and distrustful bordering on conspiratorial tone that his writers were taking since the Fall that kept drawing in readers. His plan as of now was to cash in on that.

Corbin needed a vacation, but what he had was a responsibility to feed his staff. To that end he'd put half his salary up as a bounty for information about the alleged 'woman titan' that had attacked Trost. Nobody else had that... yet. And if he could get it, he'd at least keep the Tribune afloat another few weeks while things in Dreimauer continued to implode. Today was another day of interviewing desperately hungry whelps with big mouths and bigger stomachs who were wont to simply make up details to claim Corbin's prize.

He knocked back another shot of scotch and the guard in the lobby rapped gingerly on his offices wooden door with his knuckles. " 'Nother one for you Mister Crozier, says she saw the woman titan appear."

That specific phrase. 'Nother one who saw the bloody bitch pop out of a hole in the ground. Priceless. He thought. If I had a lyra for everyone who saw the bint, I wouldn't need-

The supposed witness awkwardly ambled into view and hovered there in the doorway, looking somewhat abashed and skittish. What Corbin noticed first was that she was no starving refugee. That shot her credibility up ten-fold immediately. She was a noble at that, or at least a trader's wife. She was middle-aged and quite obviously stressed. She wore a suave black dress with a white lily pinned to her bosom, a popular gesture of mourning and solidarity of late for the victims of the Trost incursion. On her head sat a black bonnet that masked her crimson hair and freckle-pocked face, suggesting a subconscious desire for exclusivity and anonymity. Even through the bonnet Corbin could note the fraying, greying hair she tried to dispel by weaving the mound of curled locks into a tight bun at the back of her neck.

She was no femme fatale but Corbin was somewhat surprised to see an interviewee of worth in his office for the first time in a week. He sat up at attention and tried to move the half-empty bottle of scotch out of her line of sight with the back of his hand, but the desk was flat and there was nowhere for it to go. So instead he beckoned forward to her. "Madame, please, take a seat!"

The woman peaked behind her shoulder and moved forward, closing the door behind her. She came over to his desk and slid the interviewees chair out, smoothed her dress over her knees, and gingerly sat down. She barely made direct eye-contact with him.

His interest was piqued. People didn't like to look him in the eye usually... when they feared what their involvement in the press might cost them. A good scoop often involved a bit of foreplay from a frightened witness.

"I understand you have a testimony for me my dear?" he asked, taking the scotch and offering it to her in lieu of real Sinese decorum. Booze would help the story flow, he guessed.

She declined with the flat of her palm. "I'm sorry Mister Crozier, I don't partake. And recently I haven't been able to..." she hesitated and then sighed.

"I understand." he took the opportunity to quickly sling open his desks drawer and stow the bottle inside to salvage what little credibility he might gain back from a woman like this. "How is it you know my name?"

The woman perked up. "Oh yes, I read your paper! It's not my favorite of course, I prefer the Hermina Inquisition if you don't mind me saying."

Corbin smiled and shook his head politely. "Not at all, madame."

"I read them all, you see. The ones that are left I mean..." she whispered, "It's the only way to know what's going on now. I know about the undercity, the blanks, the church's rituals, the cult of thirteen, the miner's fable and the cauldron bedrock theory..." she listed them on her fingers.

He grit his teeth beneath his his smiling lips. Charming, a dog-fucking conspiracy theorist. "My secretary mentioned you might have seen the so-called 'woman-titan' in the flesh, as it were? Do you recall seeing it?"

The woman's eyes went filmy and distant for a moment. "Yes," she breathed languidly, "it's why I've come. It's a terrible secret..."

"Before we start, may I have your name?" he posed.

She shook her head politely. "The Garrison are asking around for witnesses. I've known people who've disappeared in circumstances like that."

"Do I have your legal consent to quote you in upcoming articles?"

"...Yes," she answered coyly, "I'll have to simply be careful. The world needs to hear this."

"Need to hear... what, madame?"

The woman reclined as much as the stiff wooden seat allowed, which wasn't much. She unconsciously leaned far enough backward to slightly unbalance the chair, pushing back and forth from the desk with a foot in thought. "On the night of the attack, my husband and I... well, we lived in the west-end. Do you know it?"

Corben shrugged. He knew articles about the west-end of Trost before the year of the Fall typically involved ransoms, love-triangles, and court intrigue. She was rich, then. He'd guessed as much. "Suffice it to say I do, madame."

"Well, the operative tense being past. We... lived. The soldiers managed to hold them off for a scant hour, but they must have been tied up near the gates. Protection quickly dwindled and we knew we'd have to flee."

"Go on?" Corben licked his lips anxiously. He was ravenous to hear the story part of all this.

"We made for the complex as we'd heard the troops were sheltering people there and it was nearby, but we heard cannons firing 'round the clock. It was just my husband and I. We were the last to leave the home, the Garrison had already come to take the children to the boats. That was where we decided to go. We didn't know if there'd be more boats so..." her voice hitched in her throat and Corben felt a pang of genuine sympathy for her. He could guess what had happened.

"We made for the river but a house collapsed nearby. That diverted my attention and I saw..."

Corben leaned forward, the light from his half-lidded window shutters refracting and playing ghoulishly across his face. "Madame, what did you see?"

"There was a... a soldier. A girl. She flew past me, on one of those devices. I don't know what they're called."

"Omni-directional mobility-gear?" he guessed.

"Yes! I only saw the faintest glimpse but..." the woman appeared distressed. The chair creaked and slid roughly to its rightful place, scuffing the wooden floorboards as she sat upright again. She gesticulated with two open palms trying to shape what she'd seen with an imaginary clay. "She'd flown into a dead end. I know because we were sure a titan was onto us. We'd turned in there to try and duck out of the way. Foolish I know, but when you're afraid you'll do anything. There was nowhere to go."

"Nowhere to go for bipeds." he wagged a finger correcting her. "To a woman equipped with military flight-tech-"

"No!" she shouted. "I know human memory is fallible Mister Crozier. I know I'm an old woman. I know I was scared. I know she could have flown away. But I had a perfect view of that alley, just out of sight. I would have seen her if she'd gone up and over the building. Looking back, I think being around the corner just barely saved my life. My husband had paused to catch his breath when..."

Corben gave her a moment to collect herself. "When the explosion happened. It came from that alleyway. If the girl was still in there, she'd died. My husband was at the alley's mouth and all I know is... he... I didn't find anything left."

Corben reached across the desk and took one of her shaking hands in both of his. "I'm so sorry for your loss madame."

He could guess what came next. She stopped shaking and gently yanked away her hand. He let her go. "The woman titan rose. Not there one moment, there the next. Just the opposite of how Marlin-... how my husband went. The other titan was smaller, I saw it's knees buckle from the force and I watched it fall over. She-" the woman didn't have to specify, "just... strolled out and stepped on the monster's neck. Ground her heel roughly into it's throat until it stopped moving. My uncle killed a mad dog in the slum just like that one time."

Corben's mouth hung open. He only closed it when her eyes seemed to flit to his for validation. He was gobsmacked.

Obviously reports about the woman titan had embellished it's feminine physicality. Titans were horridly androgynous, and even those that bore obvious female traits such as wider hips and the impressions of teats were still just 'titans'. The woman titan had fought with ferocity, intelligence, and grace, all of which set it apart from other aberrants, so those qualities were easily highlighted by news agencies like his. Now there was, fictitious or not, a real human woman in the equation.

"The woman," he whispered, "you're sure it was a soldier?"

"I said she flew with a mechanical device, didn't I?"

"It's easy enough to procure one from the black market-"

"She had a uniform. No obvious insignia I recognized but I'm sure it was military."

"Devoid of insignia?" he poached. What branch? But that was fruitless anyway. It was better if the military's involvement were vague and obtuse, for the story. His mind turned to another detail. Quite a chilling one. "You mentioned there was an explosion before she appeared?"

The woman hesitated a long moment. The silence was deafening. "Have you ever witnessed a strike of lightning up-close Mister Crozier?"

His face visibly paled. Could it be? Shiganshina? "I don't believe I have."

"Me neither, not until that day. That's what it was though, I'm convinced. Like something in the sky reached down and touched that soldier and made her into one of those things..." she sneered.

"Why did you not go to the-" he almost asked the same question. Why had she not gone to the authorities? She'd told him. She feared some kind of cover-up.

Corben's mind filtered out some of the details he'd been hearing all week from various witnesses, pundits, and the like.

The military had been slow to attack the woman titan. It had gone on some kind of maddened feeding frenzy and killed other titans in the way. When the gate had finally shut, the Garrison had been freed up to deal with the threats more strategically, and had turned their guns on the beast and leveled it in a huge volley of fire.

"But I'd fuckin' swear, they'd have missed every shot. Was an artillery gunner back in the day. The shots went wide. They were using unconventional rounds I think," he'd heard one refugee slur at him.

Another. "I saw her use her teeth to shred through the other titans and spit out their napes. I swear to goddess! It was disgusting but the enemy of your enemy is your friend right?"

"They wore Garrison uniforms, but so did the boys in the gate house. Bloody great gun-battle, but it looked like maybe a drug deal gone-off. Had that kind of profile, like the whole thing was a botched job."

"It had hair in a wreath. I wanted hair like that for my wedding day. The other titans had real hair, all stringy and matted, but that she had real hair*!"*

"I was in Shiganshina that day boy! I saw god, in the sky! He traveled on a chariot of lightning, and I saw his judgement pass in his eyes before he smashed in the gate!-"

"I could smell ozone up main street where she was moving. Hung in the air like dog shit on a summer day. A powerful reek."

A picture was forming in Corben Crozier's head. The titans that had attacked Trost had been... lead, rebuffed, in competition for food with the woman titan? The woman titan was allegedly a real woman who had somehow transformed. This alleged alchemical event had been apparently catalyzed by a bolt of lightning, not dissimilar to the one that had struck near the front gate of Shiganshina, just months prior.

The woman titan was supposedly, according to the military, very dead. But there could be others like her. If there was one human titan, perhaps the armored aberrant who'd felled the inner gate in Shiganshina was also human?

Perhaps the colossal titan was human, and could be hiding among the populace?

"Mister Crozier?" the woman asked, popping her head a bit upward and for the first time sharing his absent gaze. "Are you alright?"

He shook out of it. "Yes, yes, quite alright. I think you've earned a reward, madame."

She scoffed. "I couldn't. My husband may be gone but my family will take us in, I am sure. Save your money for the buggers in the lobby. What matters is that the world knows... we may be under a more grave sort of threat from these titans than any of us... had... ever imagined."

Corben's eyes glazed over the various articles tacked on the wall around his office. All of them, inconsequential after today. All of them less than insignificant in the face of the picture forming in his mind.

"I fear you are right madame. Thank you for coming to see me about this." He reached over the desk to shake her hand, but she did not take. Rather, she stood and pushed her chair in and bowed lightly.

"Thank you, sir, for hearing it. I've been looking over my shoulder since Trost, wondering when they'd bag me. But now I know the secret is safe with you... and you surely have experience safeguarding dangerous secrets." She turned and left.

He waited for a moment until he heard her depart the waiting room, the lobby, and the building. "Bernard!"

The guard who'd let the woman in peaked his head through the door. "Mister Crozier?"

"Keep sending them in! The prize pool is..." he mentally did the numbers, "reduced but still considerable, divisible by maybe ten or so men. And have someone clear all this shit off the walls." he gestured wildly at the old newspapers around the office.

"Aye, Mister Crozier." said the guard.

The cool air of Winter had begun to pass, not too long after the horrifying attack that had taken place in the industrial district of Trost. Many had lost their lives, many had lost those they knew, and all members of the 102nd Trainee Corps were in need of a much-sought-after break.

Luckily, in the midst of the whole ordeal, a certain donation from a certain noble had provided the Trainees access to a luxury many nobles would hardly get to see.

You approach a large building, nestled comfortably in the fair streets of Sina. A large, luxurious sign rested above the grand entrance, which read:

#The Eldwin Resort

And tonight, the resort belongs entirely to the soldiers. Inside, there are a variety of attractions to help their weary muscles and tired spirits. Massages, comfortable beds, games and shows, and best of all... a hot spring. Relaxing in this spring (according to Mr. Eldwin) is supposed to revitalize the spirit and make you look a couple years younger.

“It’s all yours, tonight.” the donation letter had stated. “Oh, and make sure to spread the good word of the Eldwin Resort!”

[OOC]: H O T S P R I N G S B O I S

Not too soon after the attack, a lot of Trainees are heavily weary from their first defense initiative. So Maria's daddy decided to make a smart PR move and allowed the 102nd Trainee Corps to have the Eldwin Resort to themselves for a single night. Unwind, and have some (hopefully not dramatic or sadness-tinged) fun!

Three distinct pairs of eyes oversaw three distinct aspects of today’s trials. Ziegler, Stone, and Klein all stood over this year’s Trainees, the 102nd Corps, and prepared to grade them in the most important test of their career.

Taking place in the beginning of June, the soldiers and Trainees alike had been given ample time to get over the bruises and scars they’d accumulated during the attack on Trost. Some might even say too much time, time enough to ensure the Trainees could forget about the incident. But some of those Trainees hadn’t made it back, in fact, which had instilled a distinct, but much appreciated, sense of fear inside this year’s corps.

Today, they would show the results of that fear.

Today was the Graduate Exam.

[OOC]: Welcome to the 102nd Graduate Exam! I'll be posting three trials for your trainee to partake in. Participation from all Trainees is considered mandatory. If you do not participate, you will guaranteed not get a spot in the Top 10.

What do you get for getting into the Top 10, you ask?

Nothing!

That's right, the Top 10 receive the satisfaction of being better than everyone else, and nothing more. Everyone is free to join the MP, regardless of their grade from the exam.

Now, although all Trainees have to have taken the exam, you don't have to post here yet. We're running this event as well as the "Trost Cooldown" event concurrently, despite the fact that the Graduate Exam takes place half a year later. Have fun with whichever one you want, in whichever order you want. Also, although they are here to oversee the exam, Ziegler, Stone, and Klein won't be doing much roleplaying here. They're mainly around for grading. It's up to you to find other partners, get organized, and get good grades.

Oi, as promised earlier from the round table we had in the Discord, we're putting up an open forum to formally address complaints/concerns in regards to the Subreddit through a venue that tries minimize nerd on nerd urination. The template for any thoughts or concerns is as follows:

1. State the Problem Clearly.

2. Establish context. Where did the issue begin, tell us everything you know about the issue as well as any thoughts or opinions you have regarding the matter.

3. Lastly, give us your idea or take on how to address the issue.

Note - this is a spot for serious discussion only. If you post something here, the entire mod team will review it and address it with the succinct attention it merits, while also having a venue that's transparent so that everyone else who shares the sentiment on the issue can have it resolved as well.

I ask that if it's a personal issue that you have with an individual, you take it to a moderator or resolve it in PM directly. This isn't the place for that.

That said, here it is. Post whatever you've got on your minds, whenever you like.

Shifters and Where to Find Them

##Introduction:

With the definite reveal of a shifter character in the RP during the Lightning’s daughter, I bring you the info post to shifters, their lore and your guide to applying for your own shifter character. This post serves as a central hub for titan and shifter lore.

##Information about Shifters

Disclaimer:

Shifter lore is heavily based on the Greek mythology and themes from the Nordic mythology.

###Foundation:

• grounded in mysticism instead of science
• supposed existence of an entity commonly referred to as “titan god / allfather / Zeus / Odin”
• titan god is personification of the chaos/entropy of nature and an antithesis to the concept of human civilization

###Physiology

.

####Basics

• Shifters are immortal (Think Elves from LoTR)
• Shifters can be injured, struck down, poisoned
• Shifters can’t fall ill or die of old age
• Shifters heal wounds like titans
• Shifters have control over the healing process
• Shifters have limited control over their faster metabolism concerning things like alcohol
• Shifters cannot heal wounds that other shifters cause

####Powers

• Shifters possess the power of shifting
• Shifters might possess an additional power aside from shifting, such as:
  • Super Strength
  • Memory Manipulation
  • Illusions
  • Super Agility
  • Super Reflexes
• Shifter Powers can’t be transferred

####Shifting

• Shifters can shapeshift into their titan forms
• Shifting will be accompanied by lightning striking into the shifter
• Shifting consists of rapid growth of titan flesh
• Shifters in Titan Form might possess an additional power in that form, such as:
• Natural Armor
• Crystallization
• Titan Powers can’t be transferred

*Shifting is a reactionary response

• Shifting can trigger as a reflex upon injury
• Shifting can be triggered through self-harm
• With Training Shifting can be triggered through will and focus.

####Coordinate Power

• Titans are part of an inactive hivemind, a neural network
• Coordinate Power gives the ability to connect to this neural network and activate the hivemind
• Coordinate Power is a very hard to learn skill
• Coordinate Power is a very dangerous ability
• Can lead to insanity
• Can lead to death
• The risk is related to the task trying to be accomplished
• Coordinate Power can be transferred through consumption

###Generations of Shifters

.

####Procreation

• Shifters can’t procreate among each other
• Shifters can procreate with humans
• The result is a shifter
• Shifter powers diminish according to corrupted purity of titan blood

####Legends

• There exist many stories and legends surrounding shifters among humans
• Most often feature them as heroes or gods
• Those stories aren’t “true”, but often have a core of truth to it.

####Old Gods

• well over 2000 years old
• original shifters
• origin unknown
• subject to legends of descendants from the 12 Titan Gods, with every Titan God starting a bloodline
• allrounders
• most powerful in general
• can wield the Coordinate Power without repercussion

####Heroes of Old

• Second generation of shifters
• sons and daughters of Old Gods
• more specialized in their powers
• can wield Coordinate Power at a heavy risk

####Descendants

• Younger generations of shifters
• Descendants of Heroes of Old
• even more specialized
• generally weaker than Old Gods and Heroes of Old
• can still excel in their own special domain

####Humans with titan blood

• shifters with blood lines so corrupt that they’ve lost access to most of their powers
• no shifting
• no special powers
• standard powers (fast healing) severely diminished

###History

.

####Old Times

• when humanity started to live in sizeable communities and developed a society, titans appeared
• together with titans appeared the Old Gods
• Shifters protected humans in symbiosis and shifters were treated as gods and heroes for it
• Humanity’s numbers grow and so grew the titan’s
• Differences between shifters lead to arguments, fights and feuds
• Shifters could not protect communities as efficiently as before
• the Age of Titans starts
• Shifters with the Coordinate Power took matters into their own hands to create sanctuaries and safe havens in form of kingdoms shut behind huge walls
• the walls were created with the Coordinate Power

####Factions inside and around Dreimauer

.

#####Royals

Royal Family

• used Coordinate Power to build Dreimauer
• 3rd expansion with Wall Maria happened 300 years ago, done by Anna’s Grandfather who went mad after it
• 4th expansion attempt killed Anna’s father

Royal Guard

• shifters loyal to the Royal Family
• just a name to categorize them

Loyalists

• humans (with titan blood) aware of the titan and shifter lore
• loyal to the government

####Prophecy

• 13 Coordinate Power Users can destroy the titan god
• that would end the Age of Titans
• all titans would wither

#####The 13 Titans

• A group of cultists believing in the prophecy
• attempting to collect 13 Coordinate Powers
• made up of (today)
• 2 Old Gods
• 11 Heroes of Old
• about two dozen shifters of younger generations
• goal is to fulfill the prophecy

#####Nomads

• shifters affiliating with neither faction
• very rare
• live in hiding

###Civilization

• Shifters come mostly from ancient civilization
• Shifters are culturally based around Europe
• Greco-Roman
• Nordic

####Technology

• not been exposed to higher technology than the one of Dreimauer

###The Attack on Dreimauer

.

####Leader

• Loki

####Cultist Force

• Loki
• 4 Old Heroes
• about a dozen Descendants

####Obstacles

• active and numerous Royal Guard
• human fighting capability through 3DMG
• first kingdom with 3 walls

####Loki’s schemes

• lured the SC to the titan heart as human sacrifices to fuel it
• is content with weakening the society of Dreimauer for now
• sowing distrust

####War of Attrition

• Cultists and Royal Guard fighting over control of Maria territory
• secret war going on that only the shifter factions know about

###Disclaimer

To go in-depth about Civilizations outside Dreimauer would require a follow-up post.

FAQ

This is basically all I have so far. I don’t doubt that there remain unanswered questions. Please post such questions into the comments and I will try my best to answer them.

Shifter Application

#APPLICATION PROCESS IS CLOSED RIGHT NOW

When we see the need in the plot for a player controlled shifter character, we'll advertise for bid and take character concept, of which the best will be voted on.

If you are interested in writing a shifter PC (Player Character), please contact us through reddit modmail. In your application provide the following information:

• Faction
• Age
• Special Power
• Titan Form:
• Appearance
• Titan Power
• Background

As of now, no applications for “Old Gods” or “Heroes of Old” will be accepted. The reason for that is that those characters are so integral to the plot that they are being NPCed. On top of that the application process is only open to players who have proven themselves over time to be active members of the community.

Since shifters are powerful beings that most likely will influence the plot, please be aware that every application will be discussed among the mod team and with the applicants. Not every application will be accepted. Biggest deciding factor is if the character as a shifter fits in the world and their backstory. Applications that just turn characters into Shifters with the only reason being the increase in power will not be accepted. To get your application accepted it is recommended to come at us with a story line for their character progression already broadly planned out.

Hopeless.

If you asked anyone in Trost what one word they would use to describe the situation, it would be hopeless. The gate had been occupied. Armed members of some unknown faction had broken in, forced the gate open, and left just as quickly. It was all but impossible to deal with them due to the influx of titans swarming in from the gates. The refugee camp near the gates had been decimated. The streets were littered with the corpses of those who had managed to escape from Maria some months earlier. The bodies of some trainees were scattered amongst them as well, unfortunate soldiers-in-training who were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. And the titans were advancing north at a frightening pace; those waiting in line to move through the north gate knew their odds of making it to safety were quickly dropping. Some were crying. Some were praying. Some were cursing. And some were simply silent, accepting fate and its cruel inclinations.

At the south of the city, as the trainees rushed to evacuate the citizens, the MP was locked in combat alongside the SC to reach the gatehouse. A squadron under the commands of Special Detective Behrmann, Special Detective Steinbeck, and 1st Lieutenant Thomas had already launched an assault on the gate, only to be repelled by the sheer volume of titans. As the brass formulated a plan to secure the gate, the warranted detectives and provosts had been ordered to kill as many titans as possible, retreating as necessary, to buy time for the evacuation. How much time could actually be bought was up for debate, however. The number of remaining corpsman was small, and the number currently in Trost was yet smaller. While the MP was doing their best, few had faced actual titans before.

Wiping the steaming blood from his face, Ajeet Singh landed atop a roof, turning around to admire his handiwork. A 7-meter titan fell to the ground, quickly beginning to evaporate as if it were a puddle of water under the summer sun. He knew he had little time to congratulate himself, however. Three more titans were rapidly closing in on his position. "Hamari le rahe hai" he muttered to himself. He knew that this was well beyond his abilities. There was nothing to do but retreat at this point.

Suddenly, something caught his eye. A bolt of lightning dropped from the sky, crashing into the city streets near the gates. Nearly knocked off balance, Ajeet threw his arms outwards, righting himself lest he fall off the roof. Though a cloud of smoke obscured the gate, another titan was emerging from it. It appeared fifteen meters tall, larger than most of the other swarming the city. But that was not what gave him pause. Unlike most of the titans he had seen, this one’s physique was different. I fact, it was almost feminine. Its blond hair, rather than free flowing, appeared to have been braided along the edges of its head, as if to form a laurel wreath about its head. But perhaps most striking of all was the pair of deep-set brown eyes it possessed. Its gaze was piercing, yet bright, as if a light shone behind those eyes. He gulped, awestruck at just the sight of it. This was no ordinary titan.

This strange new titan took a few steps forward, slowly, deliberately. A nearby 5-meter turned to face it, distracted from the poor Garrison soldier he had been feasting on it. Its form was the last thing it ever saw, as the strange titan’s foot came crashing down upon it, crushing its nape in an instant. Pausing for one moment as if to admire the splattering of streaming organs below, the titan then began moving again, heading straight for the nearest titan, a large 12-meter class. A fist shot out, connecting with the monster’s head and knocking it cleanly off its shoulders.

Few people watching quite understood what was happening, but one thing was very obvious. The beast was attacking other titans, clearing the area around the gate house.

OOC: Alright folks, here’s how this is gonna work. Our strange new titan here is working hard to clear away the titans at the gate house. This will open a path for anyone brave or stupid enough to attempt to force entry into the gate house to lower the gate. Keep in mind that the large apparatus for controlling the gate takes some time to activate and will be a multi-person job.

Rules from the previous thread are still in effect. If you attempt to solo kill any titans, you’re gonna die. However, given that the titans are distracted, a team of trainees might be able to take down a titan together. Don't push your luck though; in general, you should be avoiding them as much as possible.