This day had become a living nightmare.

Five years ago, at Wall Maria, everyone who survived would know [i]exactly[/i] what this was like...because it was almost the same thing last time.  The day would be quiet, uneventful, and then suddenly out of nowhere...the Colossal Titan stood towering over all, even able to look over the wall itself.  That massive skinless creature looking down on humanity, and then there'd be an incredible impact, leading to the destruction of the outer gate.  The appearance of the Armored Titan was not far after, like it'd been planned, to ram the inner gate and leave humanity open to the threat of Titans.  But why?  What was it all for?  Why did they have to do this?  As the horror show played out, then and now, generally nobody is asking these questions.  They have more important matters to deal with now.  Asking the question why was for scholars and the religious, and at better times than this.  Except...some did both.

While some people, like Eren, were always focused on fighting and some, like Armin, were mainly thinkers by nature, there are those who seem to always pick things apart - tear situations down to their bear bones - and work to figure out how best to handle a situation on the fly.  'Thinking on their feet' is what they call this, or strategy, or just being quick-witted.  Well, whatever you call it, some people had it, and some people had it more than they had interactions with other people.

She stopped her work and took a vantage point halfway up the wall to look over Trost.  It was so much like Shiganshina, and they'd fought so hard to make this untrue.  She had started the day here, showing off to the others with the equipment in her hands now.  Admittedly, they were a bit heavy in comparison to standard Titan-Cutters, but the minor flaws were overcome by how effective a tool it was.  One pass, one strike, and the Titan-Shredder [i]destroyed[/i] the base of the neck, the weakpoint all Titans shared.  Katherine hung off of the wall, feet braced and arms dangling, as she waited.  Around her hands were a pair of reinforced leather gauntlets, which a trio of Titan-Cutter blades were attached.  They were like claws, and they way they were situated even left you hands largely free.  You just had to be careful when scratching an itch or something.

Today had been nothing but killing Titans and making sure survivors could get away.  With the arrival of that new Titan, things had changed.  Suddenly, there was an unknown fighter on the field, punching heads right off of their necks and roaring with an endless rage.  It was frightening, and yet...invigorating.  Wasn't it just what all humans felt at this point, towards the Titans?  Wasn't it the rrage of every human being who fell prey to these things?  It made her strike harder and faster, leaving heavy corpses lying as these thing continued to fight.  She'd almost attacked it when it first appeared.  Thank [i]god[/i] Mikasa stopped her.  It might've been the end of everything if she'd done that.

So now, the wait was over.  What was she doing, just sitting here on the wall?  Not just contemplating events of late.  No no no...  Her job right now was to clean-up the remaining Titans, and so she had swung through areas on her way here, making noise and calling out.  One thing that all the regular Titans had in common: They were easy to lure to one place.  If the cannons had been functional, she would've ordered a salvo right here, but the Colossal Titan wrecked them at the beginning of the battle.  Now, people would see a solitary figure on a wall descend, a brown-haired fighter just drop towards a bunch of 5-7-meter creatures.  You might call this wreckless, but it had all been worked out ahead of time.  There were a few of them, and they'd been harder to spot while still in the city, but not so difficult now.

The very tallest one, she kicked off of the wall to get behind the head of and twisted to slash its neck apart.  Blood spattered from the wound and it began to collaspe.  The others clambered immediately, but she'd kicked off and quickly got to the head of the outer-most one of the group, leaning down to stab with both arms and slash out.  It was easier to reach these points once you got to smaller ones, needing less force as well.  She leapt out of reach of the remaining three and pendulum'd, adding a bit of acceleration as she ran the wall and jumped to get around their fat fingers and strike again.  All she needed was the right height, to adjust as needed, and a bit of momentum.  Soon, these ones were done, but there still might be more...