Attack On Titan: Wings Of Freedom

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

"I need a place to practice, but where?" I racked my brain trying to think of anywhere I could use for practice. Nothing was coming to mind and it was driving me crazy. The whole event with Sonny yesterday had almost entirely disappeared from my mind.

Suddenly someone knocked on the door and entered without waiting for a reply. "Come on." Brantley said as he held out a hand. I sat up and looked at him.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Out. You need a break, you've been thinking to hard about where to practice." He said. I took his hand and he pulled me down the hallway. We didn't speak the entire time we walked and entered the quiet underground.

It was still and not many people were out, so it must have been later in the day. As we walked I could hear mutterings of conversations. Rumors about Sonny had spread like wild fire and seemed a common topic on the streets. There were two major versions of the rumor: one that Sonny was a monster or a Titan in human form and the other was how many people he'd eaten, and how many had joined him. Currently, it was somewhere close to an entire police squad was eaten by him and Bean along with a handful of others from the gang.

Rather than going to the marketplace, Brantley led me in the opposite direction. I hadn't come this way before, but as we walked the buildings got taller with more defined peaks and began to look more and more like the ones above ground. "Where are we going?" I asked finally.

"No where special." He said as he pulled me down a side road. At the end of the alleyway there was a cave cut into the rock hidden by a large bin. We had to crawl to get through the small tunnel, but we kept going.

"Seriously, where are we going?" I asked after we'd been crawling in the dark for several minutes.

"You'll see soon. Just hold on." Brantley replied. I noticed a distinctly excited tone in his voice: wherever he was taking me was something he really wanted to show me. The narrow path led into a large cavern that left me slack-jawed.

At some point water had to have covered the floor, but now it was all gone leaving the at least mile-long cave with a floor of salt. Although the middle was mostly clear of any bigger ones, there were spikes hanging from the ceiling and jutting up floor made of stone that would be perfect for my testing. There were even a few that connected, making large pillars of rock. It was lit up too, by glowing spots that looked like stars covering the ceiling and walls.

"Wow. What is this place?" I asked softly. It was beautiful, a surreal beauty that left me stunned

"Rex and I found it about a year back. I had forgotten about this place, but last night I dreamt about it and thought it might work for a testing ground." He said casually.

"Work? It's perfect!" I cried. I kissed him on the cheek before it crossed my mind and I whirled back around to look at the room. "To bad I don't have my gear..." I whispered.

"Here." I turned just in time to catch what Rex threw at me. "Uniform and all. Show us what that contraption can do." He said.

I smiled and ducked behind a pillar to change, which took me less than a minute. I tossed Brantley my clothes and was still hooking on the harness when I started running. I ran a few steps before firing the hooks into two spikes hanging from the ceiling. I pulled another trigger and with a burst of gas from the cylinder I shot into the air. I landed on the cylinder and let myself rest there for a moment, marveling at the speed of the climb.

Nothing seemed to be hot or smoking and the wires had hooks all held fast. I looked around the room, glancing at Brantley and Rex who were watching me closely.