AN/Full Disclosure: Yup, it's been a hot second. I could do a bunch of apologizing and groveling which I totally owe you guys who have been waiting and waiting, but I think the best way to say sorry is to explain myself; I'll keep it brief as a I can as to not bore you.

Since the last chapter of this came out, I became very caught up in finishing college. It took priority of my time even more so than usual, but something else happened around this time too and that was that I didn't really know where I wanted this story to go next. I hadn't decided whether it was going to have another five, ten, twenty or more chapters, and I didn't feel comfortable continuing it if I didn't know exactly where it should go. Chapters 1 through 23 had been planned pretty meticulously ahead of time so with no clear direction, this story just sort of sat and I let it slip from my mind and focused on school. But now that I've graduated and am looking for a job and a place in this world, I received a review a couple days ago that reminded me that, despite my lack of continuing this story, I have received notifications again and again for story follows, story favorites, reviews, and most of all, PM's from people asking me when the story was coming back. And then I realized I missed this.

I missed writing for people who wanted to read it and I missed hearing what people thought of what I wrote. And it's clear there are still people who care about this story so to those of you who have waited far too long for this, I am very sorry. I spent the last couple days brainstorming and writing draft after draft before finally going with the one that fits best. I think that even though I'm still not entirely sure where this is going, my best bet is to just run with it, and let the story itself tell me what to write… I'm almost sure this won't be worth the wait, but thanks to anyone who stops by to read it anyway… love you guys.

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Armin had only a moment to feel stupid as Jean caught him flying backwards.

"Arlert, you can't be serious… "

There was no time to muster a reply as Jean stood him upright and yanked the door open that led to the top of the wall, the same door that, in his panic, Armin had forgot opened inwards and had just banged off of.

The tremendous thuds and crashes had been exceptionally noticeable to him and the other members of the 104th that had been staked out in Sasha's room, waiting to hear news. Sasha had been on an upswing of recovery in only a couple days since her injury, owing both to the fact that the bite was mostly superficial and the scare being blood loss, and the fact that she was supercharged with energy after hearing about the entire debacle that had played out with Eren escaping alongside the female titan. Ymir, who had been on the hunt for Krista, had joined them and after lecturing Krista on the pointlessness of trying to spring "that dumbass Yeager" and smothering the blonde in hugs, was the first to point out the absence of their fellow close cadets. Connie and Jean had almost broken into a fresh argument about where Mikasa, Annie, Reiner and Bertholdt were before the thunder of noise had broken them all free of their wondering. Armin would have guessed they would have had to go investigate without Sasha, but she had beaten them all out the door, shaking feeling into her injured shoulder as though the pain had evaporated. This had been minutes ago and as Armin shook off his panicked act, he considered once more all the crazy possible scenarios that could be causing the ruckus shaking the very ground they ran on that he had been playing in his head running over.

As he looked as to what was atop the wall in the misty morning air, he found he hadn't been even close.

A titan unlike anything he had ever seen stood where he had been interrogating Rico not a day ago, bent forward and to its right, fingers plunging into the top of the wall. Armin had time to blink before there was another horrible crunch and the giant beastlike form pulled free a great chunk of wall free and straightening. It was only when Armin felt his arm grabbed by Sasha and pulled around a piece of debris large enough to hide both himself, his other cadets and a couple others as well, he realized he had been standing and staring like a sitting duck.

"You should have stayed below!"

The furious hiss came from Rico who was accompanied by three Garrison members and a Scout, the latter looking considerably shaken. Rico didn't appear particularly levelheaded either, eyes wide and angry as she addressed them. Armin, pulling himself together, saw that he and Jean were both about to speak at once before Sasha blew over them; her injury didn't appear to have quelled her fire as she gestured wildly the way they had come.

"Captain, there is a completely and obviously aberrant titan on top of the wall and we're all just standing around?!"

Her fear was nearly palpable, but so was her fury. Armin heard a sniff and saw the lone Scout turning his head away and a shining line on his cheek. Understanding pulled through him as he moved beside Sasha who was standing nose to nose with Rico now, panic and frustration obvious on both their faces. Armin reached out and took his friend's arm.

"Sash… "

She spun, hair flying furiously.

"What?!"

Armin gestured to the dark green clad figure the furthest from them and the group's attention shifted. Sasha looked at him, eyes still wide and angry, but her expression softening as she caught on to what Armin already had. He stepped forward hesitantly, wincing as another horrible crunching rattled the wall beneath their feet.

"Um… excuse me?"

He made no reaction and Armin looked to Rico, who grit her teeth and looked away. Armin thought about leaving it at that, before Ymir stepped up beside him.

"Yo, crybaby, the fuck happened here?"

Spinning to regard her angrily, the Scout looked at Ymir with hurt and angry eyes, more tears spilling down his face. One of the female Garrison members moved at Ymir aggressively.

"Watch your fucking mouth, cadet! He and his squad tried to take down that… thing and he was the only one who survived!"

Looking at Ymir, it was obvious that some sarcastic, unfeeling remark was about to leave her lips before Krista took her arm and pulled her gently. Ymir's mouth closed and she contented herself by looking at the solider who had reprimanded her with her usual apathy. She have received more of a talking to, but Jean moved the conversation in a much more poignant direction.

"Captain, where did it come from? What… is it?"

Rico leaned against the debris they were hidden behind, letting her head roll back and sighing, looking like the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

"It climbed the wall. Same way Yeager and the female titan did, I guess. We were called to mobilize when the Scouts chasing them sent up purple flares… we could see them in the distance chasing what looked like a titan before it just… pulled itself over the wall."

Krista had a hand over her mouth.

"It moved that silently?"

Rico shook her head and closed her eyes.

"No, no, we could… I guess we could hear it climbing, but the sound of it coming up was the least of our worries when we saw the Scouts had found one or both of the shifters. Took us completely by surprise. We attempted to fight it, but… "

Another reverberating crunch rattled Armin's teeth.

"… but it's smart. Damn smart. Didn't seem to know how to deal with us at first, but it caught on real quick and wiped out… so many of us. So quick. We never stood a chance."

Jean, who had been growing more and more panicked looking as he listened, stepped closer to Rico, speaking in a higher and more consternated pitch.

"The commander?"

There was a pause that was too long for Rico's answer to have been anything different.

"Dead, one of the first. To my knowledge, we five were the only survivors."

She gave a begrudging look to Armin and his company.

"Well, twelve now I suppose."

Marco dared to peek around their limited shelter before pulling his head back, face somehow managing to become paler.

"What do we do?"

To this, no one had an answer. As the sound of rocky missiles being picked up and fired, the small group of soldiers let the morning drizzle wet their skin, wondering if there even was an answer to Marco's question. Then, in the distance to the left of the wall, the grey blanket of clouds that seemed so impenetrable glowed with a flash of yellow light, rather looking like an enormous lamp had been lit kilometers away only to be extinguished a moment later. Armin stared alongside his companions towards what he had seen, wondering if it had been an illusion, before the same phenomenon happened again, swelling inside the grey morning sky with a bright yellow illumination. Connie spoke through clenched teeth.

"One of them was Yeager… has to be!."

Sasha crouched beside him, eyes glued to the horizon that had resumed its grey coloration.

"And the other was the female then?"

Rico's voice was low and calmer than it had been, as though she had ceased being frantic in favor of being calculating.

"That wouldn't make any sense… then what titan were the Scouts riding after?"

Marco looked at her, eyes wide and expression careful.

"I mean… are you sure that's what you saw?"

Her gaze flicked to him, the usually annoyed expression that Armin had seen her wear several times returning.

"Are you really asking me whether or… "

"Shh!"

Armin's sharp whisper cut through her words like wire against cheese. The captain gave him a look.

"Cadet, what did you just… ?"

"Shh!"

He shushed again with more intensity. The group listened carefully a moment before Krista gave Armin a worried look.

"Armin, I… we don't hear anything."

Feeling his heart jump into his throat, he felt a wave of dread crawl up his spine.

That's what I was afraid of.

"You there."

At the sound of the rumbling voice that was all too loud to be human, the twelve of them spun towards the sound.

The beast titan stood above them, the grey morning sky casting his looming silhouette in a way that made him seem even larger than Armin had known him to be from sight. He had ceased throwing pieces of the wall and had moved to stand above them, looking down with intelligent and beady eyes. One of his overlong arms gestured towards them with what seemed to almost be genuine curiosity.

"Did one of you happen to say the name, 'Yeager'?"

It occurred to Armin then that a titan, the one standing before them now, had just spoke.

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The brief bombardment had come to a close and Levi was taking this respite to hammer Annie Leonhart. Though his intentions must have been obvious to the soldiers around them, this was as much an attempt to give himself time to think of a plan of action as it was to gain information.

"That titan on the wall… what is it?"

He stamped on her ribs again and she gasped and spasmed underneath his boot.

"Is it a shifter like you freaks? Do you know who it is?"

She looked up at him with a bloodied face and stared defiantly at him. Levi took this opportunity to introduce her overlong nose to his heel. As he ground her face with his already bloodied foot, Nanaba came up beside him.

"Captain, should some of us go and… ?"

Levi knew what she wanted to ask, but uncertainty weighed on him. He hated the feeling, the last time he had felt uncertain, he had…

"You can count on us, bro!"

Isabel's face flashed before his eyes and he froze.

Why am I thinking about that now?

It took Nanaba reaching out to shake his shoulder before realizing he had been standing still for several long seconds.

"Captain?"

He cursed mentally and instead of replying to his second in command, he stomped on their captive once more. As Annie cried out, he raised his voice.

"You think I won't kill you now? Bringing you back as a prisoner is a luxury for both of us, but I'm free to decide if that's something that needs to change."

Bound at his feet with her face in the rain soaked dirt, Levi grabbed her hair and pulled her to eye level with him; as she screamed through her teeth, he turned her head towards the wall, a stretching grey and slightly obscured obelisk in the morning mist and rain. He could still see the brown form he had deduced to be some kind of titan which was now simply… standing there. That almost made him wish it was still hammering at them with massive projectiles.

"What do you know about this?"

He murmured this last question in her ear, fully prepared to pulverize her with a gut punch if she denied him a reply yet again, but he was stopped in this action as she raised her battered face to meet his, eyes still meeting his with an almost fiery challenge.

"You have a choice, Captain."

She dug into the title with great venom.

"Eren won't win."

Levi heard his troops around him begin to mutter to one another as her three words echoed amongst their ears. He felt Nanaba draw closer beside him to make sure she wasn't missing anything either. Then, as if to annunciate her point, a distant roar from behind them rippled through the light sheet of rain. Annie spat blood onto Levi's chest before continuing.

"He won't win, and when he doesn't, he'll be stolen and his power exploited. So either you can go and save your people at the wall and protect humanity, or try anyway, or go and finish your fucking mission."

She turned her head down, blood dripping from her mouth and nose to mix with the fallen rain against the grass and dirt.

"Though maybe you can let a few more soldiers die while you make up your mind."

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When Janice rode over the hill alongside Mikasa, she had been trying to prepare herself for anything.

It became clear to her as she adjusted her sight that she hadn't done a well enough.

One of the flashes she and Mikasa had seen was indeed Eren who had shifted into his titan form. He was unleashing guttural bellows in between swings of his fists and Janice saw, with an icicle digging into her heart, that he was going toe to toe with the armored titan. The sight of it was enough to bring back gruesome memories of what she had witnessed that day, why she had sworn off everything she had known to join the Scouts and spend her life exterminating titans, but seeing the armored titan now was enough to cause even her regularly emotionless veins with adrenalin.

She and Mikasa skirted their horses far around where the two giants were furiously grappling with one another, towards where a pair of large evergreen trees stood planted in the ground, rivaling the heights of the two monsters that struggled for dominance under their patient arbor gaze. The pair dismounted a ways from them before running to stand just behind the tree nearest them and crouched, raindrops sliding down their hoods.

It was a clear after only a few moments of watching the contest that Eren was being beaten badly. His knowledge of fighting was no good against a foe that had seemingly indestructible plates covering their body; his fists seemed to bounce harmlessly off the armored titan's head and torso, but as Janice watched, whenever it had an opening, it would reach for Eren who would have to jump back and regroup himself.

It's… not trying to hurt him?

"Any plans, Robin?"

Janice was slightly surprised Mikasa was even asking her that and she snorted softly.

"Well I would just say let's watch until one of them wins and leaves their titan form, but since you're probably more interested in saving your boyfriend… "

"He's NOT my… "

"… I'd say our smartest course of action is to try and get Eren to somehow stop fighting the armored titan."

Mikasa looked at her incredulously.

"You don't want him to fight the armored… ?!"

Janice rolled her eyes and dropped her tone to a violent whisper.

"I oughta slap you for that one, Ackerman, of fucking course I want him to fight and to win. I'll remind you I lost everything when that son of a bitch attacked Shiganshina."

The two stared at each other harshly a moment before returning their gaze to the battle waged in front of them

But he isn't winning. He's losing. Badly."

They both feel silent and watched as great hunks of wet earth were torn up as giant feet dug into the ground, stamping and repositioning as their owners made to gain the upper hand. Eren swung with a hard uppercut at the armored titan who took the blow on the chin as though it were a love tap and grabbed Eren's outstretched wrist, and attempted to pull him sharply into a bear hug. Eren seemed to have noticed the effort being made at him and used the momentum of the armored titan's pull to vault over his opponent's head, free himself and scramble away. In that moment, Janice knew what she had guessed to be true, was.

"Eren's can't win, but the armored isn't fighting back."

Mikasa didn't look at her this time, but kept her gaze fixed intently ahead.

"You're right. It's just trying… to subdue him, to shut him down, keep him from moving."

Janice nodded slowly.

"Yep… which means it's certainly after Eren, and doesn't want to damage the goods inside. It's got a valuable prize it's aiming for, and it doesn't want Eren hurt. Your boyfriend has clearly noticed that… "

"Robin, I swear… "

"… and is doing a good job staying out of its reach and grabs."

She sighed.

"But he won't forever, he's going to tire out a hell of a lot quicker than the armored one at this pace."

"I know. So what are going to… "

"PUT YOUR HAND'S UP!"

Blades tapped against their shoulders with equal timing and Mikasa and Janice froze.

"NOW!"

They slowly raised their hands and Mikasa started to turn.

"No! Stay where you are!"

The initial panic that had been singing alongside the screaming voice had dwindled with a slight measure of relief and Janice suddenly realized the voice was very familiar.

"Stand up straight!"

They did so, and Janice allowed a very flat smile to play at the corners of her mouth as these three words confirmed her suspicion.

"C'mon, Bert. You treat all your friend's like that?"