[center][h1]Trost - HQ[/h1]
[@HecateProxy][@Poi][@Wolverbells][@SheriffLlama][@LordVoldemort][@Solace][@LetMeDoStuff][@FrostedCaramel][/center]

[color=Gray]A mad plan. Suicidal in nature, some might say, but it was the only way out for the surviving soldiers of Trost. They descended into a pit of hell where towering monsters dozed.  Some made it to the gas supplies before they were noticed and the Titans began to awaken to their visitors, slowly lumbering towards the desperate soldiers pelting their way between the lift which had brought them to that death filled basement and the tubes which held their salvation.

Brave hearts all, they gradually filled up their cannisters, distracting and slaying Titans in equal measure to ensure their fellows could do the same but there were more and more Titans and fewer and fewer of them.

[centre][h1][color=8882be]Captain Alice 'Al' Hart[/color][/h1][/centre]

[color=8882be]"Well, ain't this just a right fucking mess?"[/color]

Titan blood still steamed from her clothes and cloak as she entered the armoury, stepping around the corpses lining the hallways of Trost's Garrison HQ to find the armoury, the place where she had heard the cries of battle and death.  Behind her two members of the Survey Corps, she did not know their names, carried between them a downcast looking garrison soldier who avoided meeting anyone's eyes.

They'd returned to Trost to find the main gate cracked open and Titans freely roaming its streets.  Abandoning their steeds and using their Gear to reach the top of the Wall the expedition had split into two groups, most heading with the Commander to find whoever was leading the Garrison forces and the other heading into Trost itself for intel and survivors, nominally under Alice's leadership.  As one who did not care for command, Alice let the various officers below her organise the men and had contented herself with slaughtering Titan's in her path before the garrison soldier had been brought to her, having refilled his cannisters at HQ and then fled, leaving his fellows behind to whatever fate.

[color=8882be]"Looks like y'all have got a bit of grit in you."[/color] She walked through the survivors, noting most of them were cadets with a small minority of Garrison soldiers standing amongst their number.  There were wounded scattered around the room but, as always with combat with Titans, they were fewer than one might expect; most who were wounded by a Titan never escaped let alone have a chance to treat their wounds.  Jumping up onto a pile of crates so that she could look over the gathering soldiers she gazed at their faces, seeing the determination to fight and survive there; these were soldiers who had gotten over the initial shock of facing a Titan and would still fight, at least until the terror truly hit them.  Or until they were dead.  Either way, they could be put to good use.

She saw some emerging from the hole in the floor of the room, a lift shaft as she recalled, gasping with damaged and bloodied blades before looking down into the room below and returning to whatever fight was going on down there.  Leaping of the crates, Alice bounded towards the hole and looked down, seeing the melee below and grinned as she saw one of the cadets' skill, dispatching a Titan all the while using little gas.  All of the survivors down below looked to be above average, desperate and inexperienced but above the average cut she had seen over the last few years.  They had survived this far, so of course they would be worth watching.  Worth saving, so that more of the damn creatures could be exterminated.

[color=8882be]"You lot, let's get these greenhorns out of there.  The more the merrier."[/color]  She stepped off the edge and down into the hole as a Titan passed below her, hands reaching for a cadet struggling with their newly refilled cannisters.  Its hands grabbed the crying lad and he swung wildly at it with his blades but to no avail.  Alice dropped past the Titan, lazily turning her fall into a spin and slicing the nape of the Titan as she passed.  Felled, the lad was released and slotted his cannisters in with fumbling hands before,
 contrary to her expectations, turned back to the fight.

[color=8882be][i]Looks like there'll be some decent candidates here.  If they survive, that is.[/i][/color]

Focussing her attention on the battle before her, she shot her hooks into a beam down the hall and reeled them in, stopping her descent from ending in a leg breaking fall, and instead shot past another Titan, cleanly slicing its nape before she chose another target, nearer the gas tubes the cadets were refilled from and headed off, her heart thudded in savage pleasure as her blades began to sing their sweet tale of hatred and death.[/color]