Annie's pilot ship exited out of hyperspace just as Takodana came into view, the chaotic starlit tunnel of the warped dimension giving way to the lush planet. The ship flew slowly as it approached the planet, and Annie carefully plotted how she would investigate the forest-filled land below.
"When I land down there, I have no idea who or what I'm supposed to be looking for. I feel more than a little ridiculous for only having this dream-vision thing to go off of, but I have no other assistance on hand. My best guess is to land silently away from that ruined castle I've studied; that place may be a harbor for unsavory individuals, and I can't afford to waste any time here."
Her ship passed calmly through the planet's atmosphere, and within minutes, Annie found herself flying over the same vast forests and lakes from her dream. At the edge of the forest was a clearing large enough to land her ship, and Annie gratefully set her ship down on the grass, eager to leave and explore the surface.
The instant she had left and sealed her ship, Annie took her blaster out of her belt lock and readied it as she walked carefully into the massive forest, her old soldier instincts rapidly returning. She was keenly aware of every noise around her, from the crunch of the leaves under her feet to the sounds of the wildlife all around her.
Up ahead was a grove, with sunlight pouring directly into it, illuminating the section of the forest with a wondrous golden hue. Annie allowed herself to lower her blaster and peacefully wander into the grove, basking in the sunlight and giving herself a moment to gather her thoughts.
"Here I am, in the place of my dreams. I can't thank Haston enough for helping me leave Inkari. I bet Datenshi was planning on sending me to join the armada at Endor the instant my leave was officially over; he'll have a hell of a time trying to conscript me when I'm off-world!"
Annie gazed up at the beautiful azure sky, wistfully noting that it resembled the natural look Inkari's heavens had shown before the Moff had ordered the planetary shield to be created. For the first time since Mina's death, Annie had found a genuine moment of peace.
Behind her, soft, wary footsteps suddenly resounded, and in a split second, Annie seized her blaster, readied it and whirled around, ready to blast down any would-be attacker. But when she took in the boy standing before her, every fiber of her being went rigid with alarm as she recognized the trespasser.
The emerald eyes that had haunted her dreams for so long now gazed at her with trepidation, as the boy kept his own blaster aimed squarely at her chest, ready to pull the trigger at a moment's notice. He took in her face as well, and the two soldiers stood frozen in time, gawking at each other and unwilling to budge.
A long, tense moment passed, and when Annie finally accepted that she had found the person she was looking for, she lowered her blaster slowly, watching with wry amusement as the tan boy before her followed suit. She smirked at him, satisfied that she was one step closer towards whatever peace her dream had been attempting to lead her towards, and stepped forward casually so that he would hear her better.
"I'll ask this for what will hopefully be the last time between us," Annie coolly said to the newcomer, who was more obviously anxious than she was. "Who are you?"
He gulped, and started to say, "I-I'm…"
Before he could reveal himself, Annie felt her whole body go rigid, a faint blue aura emanating from her as she fell to the ground, groggily aware that somebody else had stunned her before she could react to their presence. Darkness fell over her, and the last thing she saw before going fully unconscious was a tall, raven-haired girl glaring down at her menacingly.
When she came to, Annie found herself bound with handcuffs in the backroom of what appeared to be an old Corulag pilot ship, a massive communications screen in front of her, flanked by several young soldiers sneering down at her, along with the mysterious green-eyed boy gazing at her warily. Annie snarled up at them all and squirmed about in vain, knowing full well that she was cornered.
"Where am I?!" she snapped at them, and the door to her right opened to allow a tall, dark woman in a black body suit to stomp menacingly into the room, followed by a timid looking blonde girl who couldn't hope to be the same age as her companion.
"You are on the Vindictive Empress, my precious ship and your temporary transportation, Imperial scum," the woman answered her coldly. "My name is Ymir, and these here are the Rebel kids that I've picked up over the years."
"I don't want to know your names-" Annie started to snarl back as the rest of the room began to introduce themselves.
"I'm Christa, the ship's medic," the petite blonde girl answered with a shy smile, and Ymir grinned down at her partner in a way that made Christa blush.
"They must be lovers…"
"I'm Jean, you piece of shit, and you better watch your mouth while you're in our hands!" the tall guy with the horseface shouted in the corner of the room.
To Jean's right, the equally tall girl munching on a hunk of bread told her, "I'm Sasha, and while you're here, I'd love to introduce you to the galactic delicacies I've discovered on my life's journey!"
Annie was about to snap at the girl that she didn't give a damn about her food interests when the unwanted introductions continued with the small blonde boy to Sasha's left.
"My name's Armin, and I'm the ship's technician," he told her softly, and Annie eyed him closely, noting silently to herself that his quiet demeanor was far too similar to her own before she had become an Imperial soldier.
Towering over Armin was the cold, raven-haired girl who had likely stunned Annie back on Takodana. Annie scowled up at her, and in response, the girl continued to glare her down.
"Mikasa." With that, the stoic girl refused to say anything else.
And at the front of the throng stood the boy from Takodana, who breathed shakily and finally told her, "I'm Eren, and we're all members of Rose Squadron, an unofficial splinter cell of the Rebel Alliance."
Annie huffed irritably and said to him, "That's all fine and dandy, but why have I been seeing your eyes in my dreams lately?"
The rest of the room gawked at her, and Eren asked her, "On that note, why were your icy-blue eyes staring at me in my dreams for so long? It was such a freaky sight!"
"Well, how do you think I felt?" Annie cracked back, unamused at how fixated the other rebels were with their conversation. "Here I am, minding my own business in my daily life on Inkari-"
"Did somebody say INKARI?!"
Without warning, the backroom door slid open to reveal a boisterous boy with closely cut gray grinning at her, carrying a small black rod with him as he sauntered into the room. Ymir rolled her eyes as he brushed past her, standing over Annie and chortling like a child.
"Another one?" Annie asked Eren dryly, and he shrugged at her helplessly as the newcomer loudly introduced himself.
"My name's Connie Springer, and BOY am I glad to finally meet an Imperial from Inkari!"
"Why?" Annie asked him, huffing with exasperation at the ridiculous turn of events.
"Because on my self-appointed mission there, a wonky security droid ran right into my path, died in front of me, and gave me full access to its memory core!"
At that, Annie froze up, realizing with alarm that she was now facing the same rebel pilot who was the sole reason Moff Datenshi had ordered a planetary shield to be created.
"This loudmouth brat is the rebel pilot?!"
Connie continued to rant, not taking notice of the fright on Annie's face.
"Ever since then, I've been going through this droid's video log, and for the most part, I found nothing but worthless footage of people living daily lives on the streets...and pursuing some rather x-rated maneuvers, which I won't get into here, because that's not the point. The point is that I need to know...:"
Connie leaned in close towards Annie's face, and he dramatically whispered, "Did you know a girl named Mina Carolina?"
"Mina!" Annie shouted, a horrible sense of dread washing over her as Connie giggled satisfactorily and turned to face the screen.
"Excellent. Then I want you to watch this particular bit of footage and help me understand what the hell those bastards were doing to her."
"W-what?!" Annie said, feeling herself going pale, and the intensity of Rose Squadron's eyes deepening as they all shuddered in unison.
"Connie, what the hell are you plotting?" Ymir snapped at him, eyeing Annie as a thin streak of sweat trickled down her tanned face.
Connie smirked up at the captain and told her, "I'm playing the sleuth, my dear Ymir, and I fully intend to get to the bottom of this incident, with the help of our dear friend Annie here."
They all watched tensely as he inserted the droid's memory core into a port near the screen's control panel, and after a few long seconds, the screen blared into life, revealing a flaming factory on the far outskirts of Gintomi City at night. Out of an alleyway in front of the burning factory emerged Mina Carolina, Annie's joyous best friend, panting from the exertion of traveling as fast as she could towards the factory.
"I need to find that worker and see if he's alright. What happened here? We have strict a protocol in place to avoid this sort of thing! This looks more like arson than a mere accident."
"Excellent guesswork, Miss Carolina."
Annie gritted her teeth as hatred surged with her, and Moff Sebastian Datenshi emerged from the shadows of the street, followed by easily a dozen Stormtroopers wielding crackling EMP rifles. Mina froze up on the spot, and the entire room could see the terror and confusion on her face.
"Mr. Datenshi? What's going on here?"
"You said it yourself, Miss Carolina. This isn't some bizarre accident set off by careless workers; this was my handiwork, all to lure you out here for me to deal with you personally, without anybody to interfere."
"W-what do you mean? Where's the worker that contacted me?"
"Ah, yes. He's right here, my dear."
Datenshi snapped his fingers, and another dozen Stormtroopers with EMP rifles emerged from the opposite end of the street, one of them carrying a charred body of a man whose face was permanently contorted into a dying scream. Out of the corners of her eyes, Annie could see the entire crew of the Empress looking rapidly between her and the screen, their faces all showing how horrified they were by the event unfolding before them.
"No! What did you do to him?!"
"What does it look like? I had him call you out here under the pretense that you could save him and the others, and when I had no more use of him, I disposed of him accordingly. What else does one do with useless tools?"
Mina whirled around, but before she could flee, a handful of Stormtroopers emerged right behind her, backing her towards the burning factory as the others slowly, menacingly surrounded her, their EMP rifles aimed right at her. Connie turned to Annie, grinning and expecting her to speak, but his face fell when he saw the look on her face.
Annie gasped desperately as she felt the panic attack approaching her at lightning speed, the missing piece of the puzzle coldly falling into place before her. Just as she had suspected, Mina had been murdered that night.
"I-I thought you already knew!" Connie told her, panicking as the reality of her terror setting in.
Behind her, Annie heard none other than Mikasa whisper sharply, "Turn it off!"
"Mina Carolina, for intentionally spreading treasonous beliefs among the people of this planet, and for inciting dissent against the Empire, Emperor Palpatine himself has demanded your death."
"For what? For telling my people the truth that we've known for so long? That the Emperor is a murderous monster who cares nothing for the billions of people under his rule? THAT ALDERAAN WAS A NEEDLESS ACT OF GENOCIDE THAT HE ORDAINED?!"
"BE QUIET, YOU FUCKING BRAT! YOU'VE BEEN A THORN IN MY SIDE EVER SINCE YOUR BITCH OF A MOTHER ALLOWED YOU TO USE HER PODIUM TO SPREAD YOUR PROPAGANDA! AND NOW, NOW THAT THE EMPEROR HIMSELF HAS DECLARED THAT YOU MUST BE SILENCED, I'LL TAKE IMMENSE PLEASURE IN GIVING YOU A DEATH FILLED WITH AGONY!"
Annie continued to gasp desperately for air as the panic attack overwhelmed her. She struggled madly in a vain attempt to reach through the screen to snap Datenshi's neck, and save Mina from her impending death. Connie looked at her and clutched at his face in terror at the too-late realization that he had unveiled a horrid truth kept from her and the rest of the Inkarin.
"CONNIE, FOR FUCK'S SAKE, TURN IT OFF!" Mikasa screamed at him, glancing at the agony on Annie's face as the rest of the Empress joined her in screaming at him.
"TURN IT OFF YOU IDIOT!" Ymir shrieked, shielding Christa behind her as the others yelled desperately at him.
Connie nearly attacked the control panel, but nothing he did was able to pause nor power off the screen. To his horror, the video continued to play despite his repeated attempts to jam the main button.
The Stormtroopers discharged their weapons at once, and before Mina could so much as flinch, more than a dozen electrical charges violently coursed through her body, sending her crashing to the ground as she shrieked in pain.
"NO!" Annie screamed, thrashing helplessly in her bondage, unable to tear herself away from the horrific sight before her.
On the screen, the Moff cackled with cruel, sadistic laughter as he watched Mina squirm in agony, the Stormtroopers continuing to fire more electric charges into her already crippled body.
"ANNIE!"
At the sound of her dying best friend shrieking her name as her final word, Annie let out an endless shriek from the bottom of her heart, filled with her rage, horror and despair at the atrocity playing before her. She collapsed to the ground and continued to shriek, as Eren followed suit, clutching at his head and screaming in terror and pain.
Everything around her went dark, and the last thing Annie heard was Connie sobbing madly at the horror of what he had unleashed.