The Fight for Mankind

RIAN

The forest lay dead ahead and everywhere I turned I felt the endless hordes of Titan surrounding us, ready to devour us all, sending my body into overdrive with the need to either fight or flee.

We're fine, we're okay, we're fine...

"Commander we're surrounded." Aurora hollered as she sent up another red smoke flare before casting an anxious glance in my direction, at this rate the Titans would be upon us before the formation passed through the forest.

"There is a way around," Scout Bachman shouted from behind as he pointed to a narrow opening between the trees and the Titans, "Should we take it?!" 

We don't have that kind of time, if we go around the forest it will be too late.

"Can you get us through?" Commander Erwin asked, his eyes fixed on Aurora who held the greater range on Titan spotting and looking back to me once again with uncertainty, Aurora nodded her head before pointing her withdrawn blade to the heart of the forest.

That means yes but it isn't going to be pretty. 

"The front of the formation, yes, but by the time we enter the forest Titans would be on the rear", Aurora warned as he eyes darted across the trees looking for any sign of Eren and his captors.

They had to have seen us coming, there is no way they could miss the flares unless they were in the heart of the forest though somehow I doubted that was the case.

"We forge ahead, soldiers prepare to fight!" Commander Erwin ordered, and the ringing of steel rang through the air just as we reached the outskirts of the forest and my insides pulled once again as another Titan joined the fold.

"Rian!" Aurora cried out as a flash of light lit up the trees and gritting my teeth, I felt the gush of hot wind brush my face as the odds began to tip against us.

"I felt it too!" I answered and withdrew my blades ready, at least we could count our lucky stars that it wasn't the colossal Titan because the blast would have killed us all by now.

Reiner then... or maybe Ymir or Eren managed to escape...

"Report!" Commander Erwin demanded as he looked between the two of us and our drawn blades.

"Someone has transformed in the forest!" Aurora called back as she kicked into her horse to push the beast faster and following her lead, Commander Erwin and I did the same.

"We haven't got much time! Soldier disperse, the enemy had assumed Titan form!" Commander Erwin bellowed as he finally withdrew his blades, "Find Eren and get him out of there!"

A battle cry rang throughout the formation and leading the charge, Aurora and I was the first to break through the trees just as the first screams of the rear began to filter forward from the MP ranks, just like Aurora said and my heart dropped with guilt.

Are we really going to just leave them to their fates?

"The MPs are going to drop like flies out here!" I grunted as the forest path narrowed and forced my horse closer to Aurora's as Mikasa, Armin, Hannes, Connie, Jean, Historia and Sasha closed the gap behind us to form one offensive unit.

"Let them! We have a job to do!" Aurora snapped, and my eyes widened in shock at the words that had just left her mouth, "Don't look at me like that. We have to find Eren, that's our job! Theirs is to deal with the Titans, that's what they were supposed to be the best at, remember? They chose the interior."

That doesn't mean we should leave them to die!

"As harsh as it is, she's right" Hannes hollered from behind us, "Combat isn't our objective, locate, recover and retreat! That's our goal, and it's high time we got airborne!"