Chapter 35: Confrontation and Retreat

"Now, how do we get inside without being seen?" Said the girl who hadn't thought of this particular issue.

"Yeah, i figured we'd have already been seen, things don't usually go this smoothly, at this pace we might actually go stealth all the way to the end" replied the young green eyed man.

"What do you mean, it was you who kept saying that this was a stealth mission and now you're surprised that it's actually a stealth mission?"

The young man didn't know how to reply, so he changed the topic with a straight face "I think that if we enter from above we'd be seen immediately as two dots are far too easily seen on a sky blue background, so I propose entering at full speed through the broken gate"

She chuckled a bit at his obvious attempt, but let it slide "I think the gate is the best option too, right after we enter we should try to enter a house nearby and think of what to do next, the problem is that we will eventually have to go to the top of the walls, we can see far too little from down below"

"Sounds good, let's go now, the longer we stay in the open the more probable it is that they find us out"

"On my go, three… two… one… go!"

They sprinted to the gate from their hiding place, they were still a fair bit of distance from it, two figure standing and arguing in front of a no man's land would be far too conspicuous after all.

Just as they were about to pass through the gate, everything changed suddenly.

Liesl felt an absurd amount of danger, if before she was running at full speed, the speed she used right now to grab Klemens and escape broke every single speed record.

The terrain in right behind them shock as if it had been bombarded with a meteor, probably because it had been.

"Fuck!" Said the two in unison at the first moment in which they had a moment to breath.

They turned their head to look in the direction from which the meteor had just come from.

And there they saw it.

What was probably the biggest titan they had ever seen, maybe around seventeen meters, but that wasn't were the peculiarities stopped.

The thing was covered with fur on its entire body with two extremely long arms that reached below the titan's kneecaps.

Its abdominal area was hairless, the same could be said for its face, hands and feet.

"Wow, these two are just as monstrous as Reiner and Bertholdt said, that speed is inhuman" said the monkey looking titan to nobody in particular, unfortunately it was too far from them for them to be able to hear it.

"Move, through the gate" shouted Klemens to his friend.

The titan was too far for them to be able to reach it before it threw whatever it had just thrown them, so he chose the next best thing, going to safety.

A few instants later they finally reached safety from the monkey titan inside the wall, but now they were probably surrounded.

"New plan, let's get as far away from any structure or hiding place as we can, the wall facing the outside is the best choice, the city is far too packed with buildings" said Liesl to her companion.

If before entering a structure would give them a place to hide and rest, now it would give their enemies the chance to ambush them.

By transforming right next to their hiding place even Reiner would be able to kill them, after all he had already nearly done so once, with left them in a hospital for a month and Liesl with a destroyed womb.

As they were dashing through the city, this time not conserving their gas at all and going at their maximum possible speed, Klemens said "Since when have they known about us, and who is that Titan, it's far too weird looking to be a normal one, it's probably a shifter, if so why didn't Annie tell us about it? Where does it come from?"

"She did say that they are the only three inside the wall, the others were away at war with some other country, but didn't she say that they were too busy to spare more manpower here?" Replied Liesl with another question.

"Apparently the situation changed, it's already been four years since they came here, maybe the situation outside changed, or maybe she hid it something from us"

Liesl threw a glare at her friend, not because he was doubting her friend, at this point she didn't even care about that, but because he was doubting her judgement in the middle of a life and death crisis, any doubt in a situation like this could be life threatening for the both of them.

"There is no meaning thinking about that now, we'll ask her once we get out of here, for now let's plan our next move, I propose waiting at the top of the external wall of Shiganshina, we have enough provisions for another ten days so that won't be any problem"

"Sounds good, in this situation they'll grow more anxious the more they lose track of us, if Reiner and Bertholdt are with them, they know that wasting time and delaying a confrontation is something you'd never do and they'll think that we're planning something, they'll grow impatient"

"And the moment they launch an attack, they'll have to be far nearer, the city is our domain, titan mode is their only chance and they know it, at this rate we'll be able to know their position, but the moment we jump into the city, they'll lose ours"

Klemens pondered, and being unable to think of a better plan on the fly he accepted "Let's go, we'll think of a better plan when we reach safety"

But they never had the time.

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A two days earlier on top of a wall in Shiganshina, three men could be seen talking among themselves, one having just returned.

"I have news guys, it seems that two friends of yours, the ones both of you are so deathly afraid of, are coming here alone, on their own, I think that a problem just solved itself, if they don't get themselves killed by the pure titans then we can finish the job" said the oldest among the three, but still barely 25 years old.

He had a tall and broad frame, obviously extensively trained, he had short platinum blond hair with matching mustaches and beard and grey eyes, he was currently wearing some military garments with black boots.

After hearing what the man said, Reiner couldn't stop himself from saying "Captain Zeke, excuse for being blunt, but if you think that those two can be taken down from some pure titan, you're completely wrong"

"Oh?" Replied the curious Zeke "It seems that you hold these two people in high regards, do you think the same Bertholdt?"

"I hate to say it, but that's right, those two are monsters through and through, we saw them toy around with titans in a frontal confrontation, forget about now that they'll probably try to avoid battles"

At those words, Zeke became even more intrigued than before "Looks like we'll have to prepare a plan in advance for their arrival then, fortunately we have acquired this info, otherwise we might have had a little trouble if they ambushed us"

Bertholdt wanted to ask how he acquired this informations, but before he could do that a titan on all fours with an elongated snout climbed the wall to reach their position.

"Captain, I have mapped the area next to Wall Rose on both sides, we can start the next operation whenever you command"

"Good job Pieck, but before we start that a few friends are coming, we wouldn't want to miss their visit, would we?" Replied Zeke cooly.

"Now, Reiner, Bertholdt, tell me everything you know about these two, if you fear them so much I want to know why"

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The two were flying through the streets of Shiganshina, fully intent on reaching the wall on the other extremity of the city, but they were interrupted by an explosion coming from right in front of them.

A golden pillar of light shot to the sky when a fifteen meters tall armored titan presented itself in front of the two scouts.

"Nice, a want to test how hard his armor really is" shouted Liesl, she had been waiting for this confrontation ever since he sent the two of them to the hospital a month and a half ago.

That time they had left their guard down and didn't have any weapon or equipment, moreover they were taken by surprise by his transformation right in front of them.

But now it was different, it was a fully frontal battle and the two of them had never lost in one of these before, be it against humans or titans.

Well, there is a first time for everything.

Both Liesl and Klemens shot to his location, they were far too fast and Reiner was unable to even react to their approach, but it was useless.

They strength far superior to a normal person played against them this time, the armor was harder than their blades, but their arm strength stopped the sword from bouncing back, blocking the force inside the blades, completely shattering both sets.

"Fuck, this is the worst possible scenario, try the joints and other weak spots, use at most two other blades, we can't waste more on him"

They were using the formations taught to them in the three years of training and it was the first time they used any outside of practice, any confrontation with titans had always ended instantly up to this point.

They lacked experience against an opponent out of their league, it was the first time they even met one, the slowness of the armored titan's movements made it impossible for it to be able to hit any of them, but its armor made it so that they couldn't injure it.

"Last attempt, it's obvious that they knew we were coming, they're prepared for us, we need to get out of here as fast as possible, the mission ends here, let's bail after this" ordered Liesl.

Klemens accepted nonverbally, he also realized that it was the best solution in their situation, they had seen the place and found a good route for the scouts to reach Shiganshina without meeting to many titans, most of all they found out that there is one more titan among the enemies that they had no info about, this is already more than fruitful enough and can be considered a success.

They tried hitting various different places, if the armor didn't work then the joint should have, but even those were harder than normal.

They could pierce slightly at the beginning, but then Reiner decided to grow more armor at the cost of mobility, not that he could hit them in the first place.

Even his eyes were armored.

"Oh, come on, this is ridiculous" said Liesl annoyed at the situation.

"Let's ignore him, forget about the wall, let's go in the land outside, we'll take a very roundabout way to get back, it might take much more time, but we'll get there alive"

"Yes, we have to be fast though, let's get this information to the corps before they depart or it could be a catastrophe"

They left Reiner's armored behind, with all that armor even on the back of his knees made him far too slow to reach them, so there was nothing that could stop them from leaving.

But they sure tried.

Klemens could feel himself being dragged away for the second time in the same day, and for the second time Liesl saved his life.

In the trajectory he had been in an instant ago a new titan with a long face appeared from seemingly nowhere.

This one was fast and far more mobile than the Armored was, but it had chosen the wrong battle, the worst battle possible actually.

Both Liesl and Klemens had already changed their blades to brand new ones after they run away from Reiner and they still had a good amount of gas.

All other titans were too far away, they could see the armored going towards them, seemingly after shedding a bit of the extra armor, the arm of the titan monkey was holding the top of the wall bringing itself up on top of it.

None of the two was an immediate threat, and the one in front of them was at a complete disadvantage, it seemed to be mainly a quadrupede whose main attack method was biting, high movement speed, but low defense.

Klemens and Liesl took advantage of such a weakness immediately.

While the owner of the cart titan, Pieck, expected the two of them to keep escaping, which her own captain had predicted, they attacked fast and precisely.

Had it been anyone else the prediction would have likely been correct, but the two were known to be unpredictable, or reckless, it depended on the observer most of the time.

Before Pieck could realize what happened, Liesl cut away all of its legs while Klemens immediately got on its neck, already slashing down.

Pieck was immediately dragged out from her titan body and knocked out, it wasn't the time to kill her yet.

Klemens took her under his arm and shot away with incredible speed.

And before their enemy could realize what happened, one of their own had been taken away, forever.