It sounded like a thousand bats had all been set on fire and let loose into the night sky. Reiner jolted up from the kitchen table where he'd been watching Bert do a crossword puzzle. The sound arched over their heads, and exploded like a fire cracker in the night.
He tasted the air, and caught the stench of human urine, and anger. They had come back, and this time they'd come back with a vengeance.
He'd been waiting for this since the day he'd caught them in the woods. He'd known this was coming.
He turned to Armin, and Mikasa, eyes wide. "Keep Eren inside!" he said harshly.
"Why?" Mikasa asked. He could see her hackles rising as he reached for the rifle he'd left by the kitchen door.
"They're in the woods," he said, not bothering to elaborate on who they were. She tried desperately to get him to tell her how he knew, but he wouldn't answer. Eren looked jittery by the window, head turning every which way as he tried to differentiate the scents. Reiner had to admit they were good. If he'd been a puppy he'd be all turned around too.
Annie unfurled a roll of combat and hunting knives on the table, throwing a harness over her back, and straps around her thighs to sheath them on her body. Bertholdt pulled the guns out of the high cabinet over the pantry, and began checking them over as quickly as he could.
Armin and Mikasa watched in horrified awe.
"The traps were set properly?" Reiner asked his pack at large.
Annie grunted her response as she checked the string on her crossbow.
"Good," Reiner said, loading his rifle. "We got them in the dark, and we know these woods. We got them at a landslide of disadvantages. Numbers. Size. Strength. They'll come at us hard, but we'll come at them harder. We got no time to bitch around this, Bert, so you nut up, or shut up and get left behind. I know we've never been in an active combat situation before, but that don't mean we ain't ready for this. If anyone ain't ready it's those pieces of afterbirth out there, so we're moving, and we're moving fast."
"Moon with you," Annie said as she stuffed the last of her arrows back into her hip quiver.
"With you too," Reiner replied, slapping Bert on the arm, sliding a couple of extra guns into a holster, and throwing it on.
Bert didn't say a word. He hooked the strap on his rifle over his shoulder, and followed Reiner out the door. He paused a moment, grabbing hold of the other boy's shirt, and pulling him back. "You'll live?" he asked nervously.
"'Course," Reiner told him, but he knew how Bert felt. That same fear was eating him up inside. What if one of them didn't make it? "You will too," he assured as if his words could stave off something as inevitable, and unknown as death itself. "I'll see you in the morning," he said softly, drawing up closer, and nipping at the boy's earlobe.
Bert nodded, and nipped at his cheek before they parted.
Annie threw up the first howl once they'd spread out. A way to measure their distance from one another, and make sure they could keep each other in their sights while still covering as much ground as possible. It was also a way to make the human's heads turn. Their sounds would echo off the mountain, and the trees, and vibrate in every flower, making them seem as all encompassing as the spread scent made the others seem.
He checked cautiously on Bert when they began their run, and met the other boy's eyes. In the morning this would all seem like a bad dream. In the morning they'd still have a future, and there wouldn't be another Berik. He told himself that, but it didn't stop his mind from giving him the worst possible outcome.
He had the world to loose. He had everything to loose.
He could smell the steel of human traps, and called out a series of half barks as he found his paws for an extra burst of speed. The harness was tight around his wolf's chest, but it had been made to stretch, and encompass the change.
He heard Annie, and Bert on four feet as well, could smell their fur under the scent of earth, and human. He tried to think about what Berik would have done, and repeatedly came to the same answer.
Berik would have protected the pack, and killed the threat. Quickly. Efficiently. Nothing personal. This was not the time or the place for emotions.
A rock tumbled down the embankment ahead of him, and he caught sight of one of them. Marco was standing at the base of a tree, holding a bow, arrow strung, aim one Reiner's muzzle. Reiner dodged around his side, and regained his human form yanking the bow from the other boy's hands.
Marco pulled it back, using the arrow as an improvised knife, and stabbing Reiner in the arm. He smelled the aconite too late to do anything about it, and surged forward, pinning the boy against the tree.
"Why?" he asked, as he pressed against Marco's clavicle, restricting his breathing.
"You killed Carla Yeager, and you turned her son."
"What evidence do you have?" Reiner bellowed, slamming him harder against the tree's trunk, and watching him struggle to pull breath. He was wearing goggles. Reiner ripped them from his face, and threw them on the ground, watching him blink, stunned in the moonlight. "What proof?" he yelled. "What reason?"
"I don't know how your minds work, I'm not an animal!" He screamed back.
Jean's gun came out of nowhere, Pulling Reiner's head back into the smaller boy's chest, and cutting off his air as it squished up into his throat. Marco's knee found his groin, and he pulled the arrow further through his arm, making blood splatted on the ground, and further tattering his shirt.
He reached for a knife at his waist, and Reiner watched for a moment before Bertholdt slammed into them, huge, and black, and snarling.
Jean shouted, and jumped back. He swung his gun around, and trained it on Bert's face, screaming, "What the fuck?"
"What the fuck? What the fuck, Marco! You said half transformations! Like Wolf Man! Not like this!"
Bert opened his mouth, and clamped his jaws down hard on the barrel of Jean's gun as Reiner struggled to tie off his bleeding arm.
Marco readied another arrow, Training it on Bert's temples as the gun came back out of his jaws crumpled, and covered in blood. Reiner saw broken teeth begin to regrow themselves as he swung his leg up, and kicked Marco's bow.
He misfired, sending his arrow off into the distance, and Reiner shifted back, scrambling away with Bert on his heels.
They could hear Annie running circles. She let out another howl as they fenced the humans in.
"Jean, I'm blind," Marco yelled as they tightened their ranks around them, still just out of sight.
Jean had dropped his gun, and was reaching for a pistol at his side when Annie rushed him, fast, and angry, her jaws clipping at the straps on his thighs that held his knives secure.
He shouted out, and reached for her, but she was already gone, taking back to the deeper shadows, and readying her crossbow.
They were using the same poisons. They were fighting with the same tools. Reiner felt his body start to go a bit numb, and hoped there wasn't enough in his system to overwhelm his healing.
Annie's shot caught Jean's cheek, grazing it, and sending blood flying. He shouted, harsh, and brash above the sound of their hard breathing.
Reiner could hear his heart beat. He could hear Bertholdt, and the sound of Annie's muscles straining as she readied another shot. He listened hard, and stretched his ears to check for weaknesses. The sound of stilted steps where old injuries could be set in bones, and muscles.
And then it came again. Bright, and loud, screaming through his head, and into his ears. It mingled in him with the poison his body was attempting to overrun, and he ran into a tree. His hearing was filled with a shrill ringing, and his sight left him altogether so that he lost his footing in the underbrush, and crashed onto his chest, and face.
His paws were dirt crusted, and there was a feeling of cold that set into him as his chest began to hurt. His heart was beating too fast. He could feel it speeding, and fluttering in a way that was entirely unnatural. He pushed himself up, vision coming back, hearing ringing in his ears, and vomited. Bertholdt was saying something, asking questions he couldn't answer, pushing in his chest. He needed to change back, but he couldn't will his body to cooperate. It left him stranded, and unable to communicate properly, his limbs weak, and numb.
The forest was coming back though. At least that. Jean, and Marco were gone, but at least he was able to see.
His paws set beneath him, and he struggled to push himself up, and limp away from the vomit. Bert's hands were a distant echo on his fur, sliding along his back, and down his haunches as he managed to pull himself out of reach. He vomited again, still disoriented from the sudden sound, and light, and leaned against the trunk of a tree.
Marco came out of nowhere, a blade arching down, and cutting along Bert's shoulder. Bert reached behind him, and grabbed, holding him by the arm. Reiner could smell the blood, and the sweat. And through the ringing in his ears, he heard them shouting wordlessly at one another.
He gathered his strength, and in a last ditch attempt to protect Bert leaped over his head, paws striking Marco in the chest, and weight carrying them both down to the ground where they landed with a hard thump, rolling in the dirt, and the bile.
Marco regained his feet first, knife still in hand, arm arching up so that the moonlight caught the flat of his blade. Reiner took a deep breath, paws scrambling again, digits elongating back out into fingers just as Bert slammed into Marco's arm, teeth flashing angrily.
Reiner's chest was tight, and he reached for his throat desperately, pulling at his own skin to try, and allow the air back in. He coughed, and gasped, and writhed despite the weakness, and the numb feeling in everything.
"You're killing him!" Bert yelled, slamming into Marco again, pushing him, so that he fell, and tumbled along the ground once more. "You're killing him for no reason! What did we even do to you?"
"What did you do to Carla Yeager?" Jean asked, a shot firing. Reiner saw it hit Bert in the back of the shoulder, watched the boy cringe, and cower as he turned from the hunter he was aggressing to the hunter who was aggressing him.
"Nothing," he hissed. He changed in a flash, paws hitting the ground, and propelling him forward with snarls.
Reiner caught his foot in the dirt, and tried to pushing himself back along the ground as Marco stood up again, panting.
He hadn't seen the pistol before, but the minute he heard the clasps on it's holster snap open, he knew he was going to die.
He was going to die, and there wouldn't be any morning after. He would be the next Berik, taken out of the world before he was ready, before he'd had a proper chance.
He wheezed hard, and pushed again, dirt grinding into the flannel of his shirt, and wrapping cold tendrils around him.
Annie came crashing out of nowhere, pushing Marco down to the ground again, hands flailing as her knees pinned his elbows down.
"My pack!" She screamed, "You're hurting my pack, and you think you can get away with it?"
Air was coming back. He felt his lungs start to relax, and the numbness start to fade out, and he gasped hard to refill his body, hands spasming in the dirt.
He heard it when Marco's knife stabbed into Annie's side, and got caught. He watched as she started back, and off him, pulling it out to use it as her own weapon.
She was scared. Reiner could smell the fear, and he could smell the blood. Human, and wolf.
The howl caught them off guard. The rushing sound of paws in the dirt, and Armin yelling in the distance. Everyone stopped, and froze as a brown wolf rushed into sight, panting hard, teeth bared.
"Run," Reiner said harshly. "Run!" he yelled, scrambling in the dirt to regain his feet.
Marco, and Jean looked at each other in what was likely panic before listening. They ran. All five of them ran, feet slipping on the ground, beneath the weight of their fatigue, and pain. And when they couldn't increase the distance between them, and the wolf, they scrambled into trees, and held tight to the branches, offering hands down to those still trying to get away from him.
Reiner found himself hauling Jean up into the tree, the other boy's hands wrapped tight around his forearms, goggles emotionless above his gaping mouth.
"You're wobbly," he said, as Reiner braced himself back against the tree's trunk.
"Poisoned arrow," Reiner told him, still taking deep, panicked breaths. Jean's head inclined toward his biceps, where his shirt was ripped enough to show a bleeding, open wound. Reiner failed to mention that it was courtesy of Jean's boyfriend.
"Is that Eren?" he asked.
Reiner nodded. "New turns are crazed. They have no control. They tend to lose themselves in the wolf."
Eren paced, and slobbered, and howled at the base of the tree, digging frantically at the bark, and the roots.
"Bert? Annie?" Reiner called out.
"We're fine," Bert called back. "I think there's a bullet in my shoulder though."
Reiner took a huge, relieved breath. "I hope he didn't bite Armin, or Mikasa," he said to the branches above him. Eren snarled, and rushed the tree, hitting it hard with his shoulder, and neck.
"When were you turned?" Jean asked.
"I wasn't," Reiner told him. "I've been this way all my life."
"Monsters aren't born, they're made," Jean hissed.
Reiner fixed him with a hard glare. "If it wasn't against our laws, I would bite you, and your little fucking boyfriend, and watch how you dealt with bein' something you seem to hate so bad."
"Your laws?"
"As it is, though, I ain't gonna kill you. I'm just gonna sit here, and hate your guts for shooting my best friend in the back, you deformed miscarriage."
Jean flinched, and turned, looking around. "Marco?" he called out. Eren howled.
"I'm good," Marco called back. Reiner looked, and caught sight of the boy in another tree.
"You're terrible!" he yelled over the sound of Eren's insanity. He tried to keep the fear in his throat down. Eren sounded like the one who'd killed Berik, and it made him want to scream when it dragged images back to the surface. "You're all the worst! You're the reason we hide! You're the reason we don't talk to humans! You're the reason we live scared every day, and practice drills where we burn our homes to the ground, and run! You're the problem! All of you! You've killed us for thousands of years! You've killed us for no reason! Just like now! Why are you doing this? Why? We didn't do anything!"
He could see Berik's leg being torn off, and shaken as he punched at the monster's eyes, and nose. He could see the blood on the snow. The pink drool that dripped from the beast's mouth.
"Why?" he asked. "Why? I don't understand! We wanted to help him! We wanted to make sure he didn't do anything he'd regret, but you made us leave him, and now he might have killed his own pack! Now they might be dead, and that's on you!"
He heard Bertholdt's breathing steadying, and Annie's fingernails clenching in the bark beneath her feet.
Jean's face fell. He looked down at Eren awkwardly, and pondered for a moment before swearing.
"God, what was on that arrow?" he asked, touching his cheek. "My face is numb."
"Same as was on yours," Annie answered back. "And you've got no right to cry. Mine didn't cut you deep enough for it to really bitch you around. Look at Reiner, and be grateful you're not worse off."
Eren jumped, teeth clashing shut on the air beneath Reiner's feet. "How long to sun?" he asked, head lolling back against the tree. He still felt weak, but now instead of numbness it was pain that was setting into his limbs.
"Eight hours, I'd say," Bert said, looking up through the branches at the slight silhouette of the moon hanging high in the sky.
"Cunt," Reiner swore. His head was still spinning a bit from everything. Still spinning, and his muscles were still weak. He felt himself slide over, and didn't even have the energy to try and right himself when Jean caught him by the good arm. His fingers dug into the muscle, and pulled him back.
"Are you dying?" he asked. Reiner tried to fix him with a hard glare.
"I ain't dyin' before the sun rise," he bit. "Not on account of two good for nothing puppy hunters. I got someone I promised."
Jean looked at Marco, and licked his lips.
"Let's call a truce," he said. "We don't kill each other until morning."
Reiner's eyes narrowed. "How do I know I can trust you."
"You'll have my word."
"You're word's worth the afterbirth of my sixth child. I invited you into my home, and you lied to my face."
Jean had the decency to at least look ashamed. "I promise," he insisted.
Reiner regarded him warily, but he knew he didn't really have a choice but to agree. "You kill us, and it's war between you, and ours," he said as a last warning. "And ours are stronger together you ever will be."
Jean nodded. It was all the understanding they really needed.