The wind was ripe with different odors that penetrated Dash’s nostrils with ever wisp he took with his 3DMG. He was able to define a few every time he landed on top of a different building and had to a chance to slow down to the pace of his own gait. One of a dinner still cooking sullied with the rankness of bowels involuntarily released on top of the next, and at present what he assumed was death or at least blood. These weren’t smells he was familiar with, but knew today was just the beginning of long…wishfully thinking at least long career in the military before him. Only if he makes it through today, only if he still gets to graduate.

As if for exclamation the clomping of two 5 meter titans feet almost made him trip over his own natural cadence. They had been following him a few blocks now, taking notice of him after devouring a small group of cadets he didn’t remember ever actually meeting during their training. Made him think of the friends he would lose today, or those who may lose him if he didn’t think of something quick.

They were moving parallel to one another the buildings Dash resided on acting as a divider between their stomping grounds. The one to the right had a cherub face with a quizzical countenance as if it was confused about its natural instinct to only want to eat and destroy what to them may have looked like miniature clothed titans scattering away from it. The other on the left had a horrifying adult head oversized for its body grinning from ear to ear in pursuit.

Dash got the view of the two as he reached the last building on the row leaping off in stride yet spinning himself to face the two smaller behemoths. He was remembering he studies of the district, and if correct he knew the architect of these buildings was keen on including a window from the kitchen that overlooked the streets that a mother could watch her playing children from.

The Titans were converging on his position in the air both simultaneously catching up and twisting their bodies in an attempt to paw at the snack in the air. Dash squeezed the triggers on his blades tight firing the hooks of his 3DMG into the sides of someones home. The connection was made and the follow through yanked Dash back from their grasps, and slingshotting him through the window into the home. His momentum sent him rolling into an eat in dining set which he toppled over like a bowling ball into pins. A screaming pain rushed through his back until he realized the aches and bruises weren’t audible instead it was the mother, with her children who once played in the street, hiding behind a couch in a living room attached to their living room. 

Dash pushed himself up from the ground trying to hush them as quietly as he could as if to lead by example. [i]Why the hell had they not evacuated? Why would they think a couch in their home could block them from a Titan.[/i] “Why the hell did you you lead them here?!” the Mother cried out snapping Dash’s focus back from his inner inquisition. The titans outside had began peering inside the windows of the homes bedrooms of the second floor, shaking the foundation of the building as they rested their limbs atop of it to find the best vantage point for their oversized eyes.

It would be just moments until they contorted their ghoulish frames to peer into ground floor, where they’d find what they’re looking for. Dash had put this family into more danger than they left themselves exposed to by staying there. He lead these titans here, and he would need to lead them away. Dash wasn’t sure if it was his adrenaline or sense of guilt that mask the pain in his back, but it allowed him to make a break for the front door her spotted leading him to the street and between the legs of the adult like titan that was on the left. Dash propelled himself atop the building across the pavement as quick as he could. The Titan creating an archway to the home had not quite noticed. But the baby faced one had, without any sense of restraint it began trying to crawl its way towards him. Crushing down on the home Dash just left causing it to buckle under its weight and collapse. Collapse ontop of the family Dash had just exposed it to. The adult Titan fell in with the building not being coordinated with it cherub counterparts pursuit. leaving them both hindered but the remains of a crushed home beneath them.

[i]This certainly wouldn’t stop them, they would certainly regain their faculties and be after Dash again in moments. They were relentless, he would need to move quick. He would need to an exit rout, they would be ontop of him in moments. They were allowing him to think of all this for way too long, did they develop the ability to toy with their prey? What was taking them so long? Why in the hell was he not taking advantage of the opportunity? [/i]

They found the family.

Dash had believed the family would have been killed as their home came down around them and that was horrifying enough. They weren’t that lucky. The Cherub held the mother in it’s hand, and the Adult with the kids in it’s, one in each. 

Dash began to think of how he could dispatch of the titans and save the family he endangered. The adult was closest to him, and had no means of defending itself against him, but the position of the cherub would be difficult to get around in time, and would notice him again as soon as he made a move anyway. He wasn’t that good, he could think of a million strategies if he had just one other trained cadet of any rank with him, but in this instance he was alone, and he could only save the children.

He would save this children, leaving them with a destroyed home, and without parents unless their father was somewhere out there, but where, and how would they ever get back to him, would they even be able to escape the cherub clutching their mother if he did? They would be alive…

Dash’s thoughts escaped him, with the draw of his 3DMG he triggered it and once again he was whipped into the air, to a building clicks away. He floated thoughtless for a moment, a moment that should have brought him peace, but it was the silence of surviving, and the silence was not guiltless. The pain in his back remained masked but was replaced with pang in his heart. His tears fell behind him in them the reflection of the scene he fled now a few clicks behind him.

His view was replaced with the gathering of some of the top cadets and some of the less ranked but just as recognizable faces of the 108th. If only just one of them was with him moments ago… his last tear fell behind him and he whisked himself towards them. The wind dried his face and eyes before he reached them, but an odor lingered in his nose, a smell he was now and forever would be certain was blood and death. He landed on a knee behind the group speaking as he came to his feet, “We have to do what we can, and we need to do it soon.”