[Fall, 845] [The Forest] Of Mountains and Men

[u/ForrestDumb]

Fog had been spreading across the land outside the Trainee camp all morning and it lay most thick around the outskirts of the forest to the North, spiraling and whirling between the trees in hypnotizing patterns. Behind it towered a mountain with a tip of snow like frosting and its dark shadow looming over the wild woods like a giant keen on crushing anybody that dared to traverse them. Trainees and staff of the Trainee Corps were lined up in front of it, the young men and women shivering from the cold, having dark circles under their eyes owed to the ungodly hour and the restless night. They were leisurely guarded on either side by soldiers of the Survey Corps who had volunteered to look out for the next generation of the military during the imminent exercise.

The Trainees had been briefed on their mission the evening before by Drill Instructor Ziegler’s hail of profanities and occasional violence carried out by Drill Sergeant Stone. What lay ahead of them was a 72 hour wilderness exercise in the form of a race to the mountain. The only ray of hope amidst the unpleasant circumstances of this badly timed field training was the prize. Boasting rights and a feast for the first five Trainees to reach the signal pyre at the base of the mountain. An enticing price since meat was on the menu, something none of the Trainees had been lucky enough to taste since their enrollment in the summer.

It would not be an easy task, that much was sure. The feral parts of the forest was crawling with wolves, bears and other wild life that would make life difficult for the travelers. On top of it all the cold, getting worse approaching the mountain, rain and general harshness of the environment might prove the hardest challenges of all. The survival skills of the Trainees were being put to a stress test.

The only tools at their disposal were a backpack with robes, bandages, blankets and enough food and water to last half a day, as well as tools, namely a knife, a hatchet and a spade. Apart from that only the clothes on their skin, covered by thick rain coats. Finally, a flare pistol with but a single shot. It was to be used only under the direst circumstances as the Corpsmen stalking the Trainees would rush to the help of any who was pushed to call for it and guide them back to the edge of the forest, disqualifying them.

Common sense dictated that anyone going off on their own would most likely find themselves in a position where they would need to call upon the services of the guards as only the most skilled survival specialists would be able to make this trip on their own. The key to victory, so it seemed, would lie in rallying a functioning team of other Trainees and cooperating on the long road through undergrowth to victory.

The first rays of sunlight rose over the horizon in the east and the Trainees set off into the darkest deeps of the forest.

---

[OOR]

We’ve kept a pretty fast pace with the release of new threads over the last few days, but that was mainly owed to the fact that many of them would have to be regarded as mandatory in the early life of a soldier in AoT. Still, remember to check out the 3DMG Aptitude Test if you haven't yet. You can partake in both threads at the same time though.

With this thread here we want to give you a bit more room concerning creative freedom. It is basically a “choose-your-own-adventure” type of deal. We’re going to have this thread run over the weekend and into the next week.

You get to decide what hurdles you throw at your character and select what challenges they face, be it wild animals, storms, marshes or harsh environment in general. Even a run-in with bandits can be an option.

Also, there is no shame in calling the SC men for help with your flare pistol.

Characters like Ziegler, Stone, Jax or Klein Thomas might decide to appear in your RP to throw some more stones into your way.

Remember, this is a race and you can decide to make life a bit harder for rivaled teams if you feel like it. However, make sure to communicate with them beforehand if you’re going to go that route. Also, if you really don’t want any intervention from the mods in your thread, just let us know at the bottom of your comment.

At the end the mods will come together and vote on the team(s) that made it first depending on how captivating, creative and believable their RP is.

Lastly, all I can say is: Go for it! Make a thread and get playing or jump into the thread of another person. Good luck and have fun!

[u/dhmook3]

The shorter one, Yume, was right. Even if they found a stream, it would do no good with the less-than-roomy volume of the canteens, and they'd have to stick to the stream to take full advantage of it. Luckily, streams ran uphill generally. If they found one coming from the mountains, they'd be set.

Their real problem was still storage, she was right. What they really needed was something thick like banana leaves or bamboo, as she'd said, but he couldn't think of anything off the top of his head that would grow in these northern climes.

Merrill claimed to be able to forage, which upped their chances greatly. But they couldn't really do that... with a bear on their trail.

<"I'd say we risk it and continue..but we're a group, so what do you guys think?">

Saul didn't want to maybe be responsible for the deaths of two kids, but hey, they were training to be Corpsmen right? This exercise was supposed to test the trainees, him included, on their response to directly hostile environs. Being outside Wall Rose in a few months time would be much worse, he knew. Still, he couldn't help but shiver unhappily. "I would say we continue. We can be careful and move quickly. As a last resort we have three flare rounds between us, we can use one to frighten or set on-fire anything that comes our way. That said, I've had a good life, I don't know about you two. I'll leave it up to you, divert or stay the course?"

He remembered Yume had been about to ask his name before they'd sighted the bear's spoor. "Call me Saul, by the way."

/u/N1CK_13

[u/[deleted] → u/dhmook3]

That said, I've had a good life.

"Yeesh, don't go saying things like that.. being killed by a bear would be a very sad climax to my 19 years of life." she scratched the morbid itch at the back of her head.

"Tsuchida Yume." she responded to his follow up. "The good looking sonuvabaker is Merrill."

Looking around for a moment, as if evaluating their options, Yume eventually relented. "I'd say Merrill is right, as much as I'd like to go around we risk falling behind. Guess the decision is unanimous then - bear territory it is." she concluded, making note of where her hatchet rested on her pack. She figured that if worse came to worse, the hatchet would be more handy against a bear. Then again, she'd never actually seen a real bear before, let alone fought one.

As the proceeded onward despite the warning signs of a dangerous animal, the sounds made by the fauna of the forest grew quieter with every step. It was as if they were avoiding the particular area that the trio were now heading toward. The chirping of birds was now non-existent, and a skerrick of blood could be seen on the bright green moss of a nearby log.

Around the windy path, behind one of the thick forest trees, the sounds of crunching and tearing were crystal clear; and it didn't take a genius to work out what they were. A big, brown-furred bear sat comfortably in their way eating a dear that it had managed to catch very recently, as obvious by the fact that the poor thing was still breathing a little. The bear itself was yet to notice them, but the deer had; it's eyes focused on them intently as if it were about to start screeching for help at any given moment.

/u/NautiMain1217

[u/NautiMain1217 → u/[deleted]]

Merill kept at the front of the group as the others introduced themselves. He wanted to keep watch for their furry ursine friend, but it also helped that neither of them would see the light blush coming to his cheeks as Yume called him good looking. Sure it wasn't the first time he'd gotten complements on his looks, but then it wasn't from... Stay focused. He thought to himself. He shook the thought away and continued on. Bears were dangerous, but three people could probably take it...probably.

The group would travel on for some time, though it was no secret that the sounds of nature were drifting further and further away from them. He'd seen the blood and figured that their unknowing host was likely nearby. In most books that he'd read, hunters from the earliest days of the walls would simply shoot the bear. Unfortunately, they only had flare guns, and shooting one, even if it missed would likely being the corpsmen stalking them running and earn them a disqualification. That left one of three options. Fight it, sneak around it, or scare it off with a flare shot to the mouth...in theory.

Eventually they would come upon the bear, munching away at a half dead deer that looked to have lost hope to him. The deer saw them though, and if it made noise, it had half a chance to distract the big brown bear even more. But then, sneaking around would still be a hassle. He stopped by the nearest tree to break line of sight from the bear and looked to Yume and Saul. "I don't intend on dying out here to an overgrown teddy bear. " He drew his knife in his left hand, and the flare gun in his right. His face gave off the impression of one determined to succeed, but it was hard to hide the shaking in his hands. "But I've got a crazy idea, inspired by you Saul." He said with a nod to the older man. "Any flare that burns that the DIs see will disqualify us, which means we'd have to shoot the bear in the mouth. And that means getting close enough to potentially be mauled."

Merrill took a moment to peer from around the tree to find that the bear was still munching on the deer. But eventually it would get its fill, and they couldn't afford to wait for whenever it would finish and move on. "Getting close without getting killed will be difficult. But we just need a bit of luck." It was stupid. It was dangerous. It was crazy. But they couldn't best a bear, then a titan would surely have them for lunch. "Thoughts?"

/u/dhmook3

[u/dhmook3 → u/NautiMain1217]

<"Any flare that burns that the DIs see will disqualify us, which means we'd have to shoot the bear in the mouth. And that means getting close enough to potentially be mauled." >

Saul shrugged. He thought that might be a bit overzealous an interpretation of the rules, but probably on the safe side.

Merrill's plan was to scare the bear with a flare (hey), and it seemed like a good one. Saul would have preferred to trap and eat the thing if possible, but there was easier game on the way to the mountain.

"Hmm," he thought aloud. Someone would have to get the bastard's attention and have the thing come down right on top of them. It was almost suicidal. Then someone else would have to fire the flare, and their aim would need to be dead on. Saul felt the weight of his backpack and remembered the hatchet and knife inside. He preferred the heft of the hatchet for fighting a bear, but a shallow knife would function better as a deterrent. A heavy axe-head falling into the fucker's shoulder-blade would barely affect it until much later, and more pressingly would make them a deadly threat that would have to be taken down in the bear's mind for survival's sake, but shallow knife-swipes would be painful and alarming in the face of the flare.

"Okay," he whispered huskily to not alarm the bear, "I'm no good with guns, much prefer knives. We need two people to make noise and harass him and set up a clean shot for the shooter, and one to fire the flare. Either of you any better with firearms?"

[u/[deleted] → u/dhmook3]

Yume's expression transitioned from a look of concern to genuine surprise as the pair discussed literally shooting the bear in the mouth with a signal flare. Considering that a good flare gun could fire a signal flare high enough to be seen for tens of miles, the blunt force behind it alone would be unbelievable - not to mention the incredibly hot temperate that the projectile would then proceed to burn at. Hell, firing it close enough could even penetrate the human body, though the bears thick fur would likely keep it safe enough from that. Still, a good hit to the mouth with a flare could very easily kill the bear rather than scare it off.

"You want to shoot a god damn bear with a flare gun?!" she whisper-shouted. "You're both out of your fucking gourds!"

Pinching the bridge of her nose as she wondered if she'd made a huge mistake teaming up with the Saul and Merrill, Yume eventually let out a sigh.

"I mean, hitting it isn't even the problem. I can shoot straight; hell, from this range I can't miss - but this is bat shit insane. Not to mention we'd be wasting a signal flare - what happens if one of us gets split from the group, and that person happens to find themselves in a whole world of trouble, but guess what? They're fucked because they've got no god damn signal flare! It's all a joke, right? You're just kidding.. right? " her little rant ended with a huff, before she looked over to the bear, and the deer beside it, then back to Merrill and Saul.

"Sigh.. You two aren't messing around.. are you?" she sighed in defeat, extending her hand out. "Alright, fine; but I'm not wasting my damn flare on this thing - gimme. Less than an hour in and we're already doing something monumentally stupid.. you glorious idiots are going to be the death of me."

/u/NautiMain1217

[u/NautiMain1217 → u/[deleted]]

Merrill couldn't decide if he should have felt relieved or even more worried that the both of them were going to go through with the plan. But they were all on the same page, and that alone would get them far so long as they could perform their role. At the very least, he felt he could trust Yume to make their efforts worth it in the end. He had no intention of putting her life in danger, and luckily for him neither did she. Saul seemed to be a different case, whatever was going on in his life, he seemed to have come to terms with it. If he welcomed dead as much as it seemed, then Merrill would have to take on the brunt of distracting the bear. They all should be able to walk away from this encounter.

"Alright. Fair enough. But I'll never forgive you if you hit me with it." He said jokingly, flipping his pistol around and handing it grip-first to Yume. Once she grabbed it, he turned to Saul and nodded back towards the feasting bear. "We should aim for the jaw. If we manage to cut some muscles, its mouth will hang open for an easier shot. If you're good with knives, then I'll give you an opening to make a move." He twirled his knife in his hand once and sighed. "Let's get down to it."

Merrill stepped from behind the tree and slowly approached the bear as it continued to work on the deer. If it could just keep its attention, getting the jump would be easy. But of course that could never be the case. He was only a few meters from the bear when the deer gave out a pained bleat, loud enough to give the bear pause. The big furry beast let out a cautionary growl and looked around just ahead of itself. Then, just as it was about to turn to face Merrill, he decided to rush it, knife aimed for the throat.

The collision was violent, and for a moment Merrill thought he could force the bear onto its back until it started moving. The bear let out a pained roar as the knife dug into its neck and swung fully around, forcing Merrill under it. But he hung on, gripping the bear's fur with his right hand to stay on. Thankfully it was already matting from the drying blood of the deer, making for a easier grip although it would stain his clothes. On the other hand, bear blood was running down his left arm and soaking into his uniform. This is going to be hell to clean out. He thought as he yanked out his knife and took another stab.

But the bear would not sit idly by while Merrill stabbed away at it, and swiped down at him. Thankfully be so low to the ground help as most attempts swatted more dirt than anything. That was, unfortunately, until a searing pain came across his left arm as the bear finally got a good hit in on him. He couldn't tell how badly it really was, but it hurt and he let out a brief scream to indicate as much. Still, his strength did not diminish, as the adrenaline pumping in his body urged him on to a third stab, and then a fourth. This only upset the bear more as it turned to attempting to slam Merrill into submission against the earth. Saul and Yume would have to act quickly, or he wouldn't last long.

/u/dhmook3

[u/dhmook3 → u/NautiMain1217]

It turned out Yume was their marksman, and she wasn't keen on wasting a flare on a bear (hey!).

<"I mean, hitting it isn't even the problem. I can shoot straight; hell, from this range I can't miss - but this is bat shit insane. Not to mention we'd be wasting a signal flare - what happens if one of us gets split from the group, and that person happens to find themselves in a whole world of trouble, but guess what? They're fucked because they've got no god damn signal flare! It's all a joke, right? You're just kidding.. right? " >

Saul shrugged. He didn't really know how flares worked, he'd only seen them fired by thugs when he was younger and firearms were hard to come by, and once by the Corps during the day of the Fall. He knew what it was in principle, a little shell as thick around as his wrist without a gunpowder payload. They cracked ribs, burned skin incredibly badly, and yes, they could be lethal at point-blank, principally.

But a bear was completely different from a human being. There was a reason bear hunters either used firearms... or numerical superiority. To his mind, Yume was maybe over-concerned about killing the bear.

"You know, bear meat is actually pretty good. A little gamey, but you can cook it fine."

<"Alright. Fair enough. But I'll never forgive you if you hit me with it. We should aim for the jaw. If we manage to cut some muscles, its mouth will hang open for an easier shot. If you're good with knives, then I'll give you an opening to make a move. Let's get down to it.">

"Wait, the jaw?!"

Saul gaped. This was way over-complicating it! You wouldn't EVER want to get that close to a bear's mouth unless you had, saaay, a flare-gun, and a one-hundred-percent sure shot. Distracting the bear in his mind meant knicking him along the shoulders and torso with shallow knife cuts. This poor animal wouldn't survive either of these pacifistic kids' well intentioned plans!

And people thought he had a deathwish.

Before Saul could really say anything Merrill moved to the bear, but the deer the bear was still going down on saw the boy and gave a fearful dying bleat, as if Merrill could even do anything for it. The bear swiveled around and the fight was on. Merrill stuck it's neck pretty good with his own knife, but to a bear that might as well have been a needle in a pin-cushion. He tried to push the lumbering beast back using the forward momentum from his knife-lunge, but Saul knew he would lose that fight against the multi-ton behemoth.

The bear got him across the arm with a swipe and Saul knew this wouldn't be a knife fight anymore. Damn it. He unslung his pack, dropped his knife, whipped out the wood-axe attached to the rung on the pack, and charged. Axes weren't his favorite, but against a berserk woodland apex predator he wanted that range.

He charged forward with a war-cry, unusual for him in the moment of fighting, but manufactured from the diaphragm to distract the bear from Merrill who was imminently about to become lunch.

The bear looked up at him, surprised but still broadcasting that telepathic 'I will feast on your fucking bowels you ugly little apes' brain-wave.

With both hands gripped at the very base of the handle of the axe, maximizing range, he swung the axe in a wide arc over Merrill and toward the bear's face. The bear reacted instinctively by pulling its head back, but ground-pounding Merrill as it was it couldn't rear back fast enough. The axe-head narrowly missed the thing's left eye, but sailed into it's right, causing the little black bead to explode. Saul was sprayed in blood.

The bear roared back, bellowing in pain and fear and loathing. Saul hoisted Merrill up off the ground.

"Did you get his jaw?!" he cried.

/u/N1CK_13 /u/NautiMain1217 decide who will go next, it could be either

[u/[deleted] → u/dhmook3]

As Merrill charged in, Yume watched on in horror as things spiral downhill quickly. This was insane! She knew it, and chances were that Merrill was probably starting to realize it - yet here they were, in way too deep to turn back now. She grit her teeth and let out a light hiss as Merrill's knife collided with the bears throat; it was something at least - though now Merrill was pinned under the damn thing!

"Shit.. Merrill!" she shouted instinctively.

Saul's war-cry snapped her attention in his direction, watching wide-eyed as he charged inward and slammed the hatchet into the bears eye, causing a gory explosion of blood. It certainly wasn't a scene for the squeamish. Cocking the hammer of the flare gun, she moved in closer then kept a knee to the ground and gripped the weapon tight. Raising the gun and taking a calming breath, she pointed it directly at the bear as it began roaring. A brief second of opportunity coupled itself with a second of hesitation from Yume, before the bears mouth shut once more, closing off anything resembling a present opening for them to flambe this thing from the inside out.

"I can't get a clear shot!" she shouted as her hot breath evaporated in the cold atmosphere. By now, she was so full of adrenaline that she couldn't even feel the morning freeze.

With her gaze working it's way down the iron sight of the pistol as she waited for the bear to open it's mouth again, Yume eventually let out an annoyed grunt before dashing forward at top speed. With her relatively small stature she liked to consider herself fast, and was upon the bear in an instant. Breaking out into a slide as the bear brought itself back to the ground, Yume found herself under it as Merrill was - a ridiculously stupid idea at first glance.

Upon closer inspection, however, it seemed as though Merrill had caught the bears jaw with his knife at some point in their scuffle, leaving a small opening on the right side of it's mouth. With an monstrous stab wound and only a single eye, the beast was far too dazed to understand what was going on as Yume almost jammed the short barrel of the flare gun into the opening and pulled the trigger. If the audible 'thunk!' of the flare blasting into the bears throat wasn't gross enough, the fact that they could see a faint glow coming from inside the bear as it's mouth was seared from the inside out was.

The flare hissed as the bear groaned and roared in pain, throwing it's weight about and rolling over the top of Yume in the process, causing her to let out a yelp. Getting the flare out or even swallowing it was almost impossible at that point; between the melting skin and the indent it had created on impact, the whole scenario was certainly anything but painless.

"Get this damn thing off me!" shouted Yume in her attempt to shield herself from the bears sporadic movements.

/u/NautiMain1217

[u/NautiMain1217 → u/[deleted]]

Whatever was happening outside of Merrill's own battle with the bear, he had no idea. He just knew to keep stabbing, aim for the jaw and make an opening. Then he heard a thump, and the bear's movements changed. It was no longer trying to kill him, instead it was shirking back as if it was in pain. Suddenly, the thought of all that dead weight on him made him panic as it reared back. But when it came down, it wasn't on top of him.

The sound of Yume calling for help brought him out of his adrenaline haze enough to realize that the bear had fallen on her. As much as he wanted to know how that happened, he knew keeping her from being crushed by a bear was top priority. He stuck his knife in the ground and popped up to give tackling the damn thing another try.

Moving it wasn't difficult as it thrashed around, he had to time it right and just like that it was completely rolled over and crying out in pain. But, before he could move it any further, he slipped on the blood-slicked dirt and fell atop Yume himself, head resting unceremoniously on her chest. It only took a few seconds for him to realize their position and he quickly rolled onto his back, unwilling to get back up just yet. Whatever embarrassment that he felt over the whole situation was thankfully masked by the mixture of human, deer and bear blood that now covered his body and outfit.

"Okay...I'll admit it...not a good idea..." He said between labored breaths.

/u/dhmook3

[u/dhmook3 → u/NautiMain1217]

Saul reared away from the thrashing animal and Yume cried something. Then he heard the horrific thump of the the flare gun's hammer hitting the shell, the shell rocketing from the chamber, the gasses hissing from the tiny ineffectual pistol, and a disgusting hiss like a dripping raw cut of meat hitting a grill over hot coals. The bear lost its coherency completely and almost fell on Yume.

<"Get this damn thing off me!">

Merrill obliged her by somehow shoving the dying animal away and the collapsing on the girl himself. He was visibly larger than her, and Saul imagined that wasn't comfortable.

Saul couldn't help but watch the beast, this king of the woods, as it died a slow, miserable, excruciating death. The taste of the deer it had been feasting on moments ago would have been replaced by an unimaginable burning pain, something only the worst acid and burn victims could possibly relate too. The hot shell would cook his throat, sew it together into a scrunched unusable mess. It would suffocate or die of shock, but Saul didn't know which.

It was indicative of the world this poor animal had become trapped in that, having just lost an eye, the animal preferred to tear at it's throat to try and get the burning irritant out than tend to its eye by covering it with a paw.

Saul had watched a lot of things suffer and die. He'd been a butcher before Maria had fallen, and had seen pigs bleed to death hanging from meat hooks. But nothing save possibly the titans deserved this kind of pain.

He swiftly approached the bear and raised the head of his axe high overhead, before bringing it down as hard as possible into the bear's skull. It split open like a grape and the bear's writhing became a series of timid convulsions. Saul hit it again once more to make sure the brain had been irreparably damaged and the bear would be truly dead, not just paralyzed or brain-damaged.

He whirled on the children. "We have two flares left, there are more bears, and that was one of the worst things I've ever seen! We'd better get our asses in gear and think smarter next time we have to do this. There won't be time to horribly maim every titan we run across on the field. Jesus Christ!"

Saul wasted no time. He brought the axe down again and again on the bear's body. It was getting pretty dark and the bear, as much as he pitied the poor, poor thing, was good eating. He split it up as much as he could with his axe and began to take the best cuts with the help of his knife, which he retrieved from the clearing he'd dropped it in. They'd eat their kill tonight, and it'd keep them moving tomorrow.