"The human face is, after all, nothing more nor less than a mask."

~Agatha Christie

-Emmryn's POV-

"Alright. We are starting Plan B," Erwin ordered the Scouts that had been escorting us. Jean immediately snatched his wig off his head telling the MPs to never call him Eren again before requesting to assist the others. Erwin told him he could go and to grab gear from Squad 4. Jean nodded, and just then several MPs came and informed Dok that there were two titans fighting in the district.

"Are you responsible for this, Erwin?" Dok demanded angrily.

"I make no excuses. I am the one who set this plan into motion in order to capture the female titan," he responded calmly causing Dok to grit his teeth angrily. Suddenly all the rifles of the MPs were pointed at Erwin. That pissed me off.

"Ya know, Erwin. I bet the higher ups would have no qualms if I had you executed right now," Dok threatened, and without thinking, I pushed forward standing with my arms spread out in front of Erwin, a knife that I had strapped to my thigh drawn in a protective stance.

"Look, as much as I think Erwin can be a complete and total shit head and that his plans often end up with innocent people being hurt, he has never implemented a plan that he didn't think was for the greater good," I said with a glare at Dok and all of the MPs who now seemed confused as to whether or not they should point their rifles at me, "So let me be clear, you will have to kill innocent soldiers who have risked their lives time and time again to protect you and the rest of the people in the walls first. And I may just be some former prostitute from the Underground, but I'll tell you this, I'll put up one hell of a fight if you aim those damned rifles at my older brother again."

They all looked at me in shock, and to be honest, the words were coming out as if by instinct. I felt irritated at myself because I had told myself I had written Erwin off. Hell, I had told Erwin that I had written Erwin off. But still, the man had practically raised me, and while he left me in a lot of shitty situations that I wasn't sure I could forgive him for, he was still my older brother. I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked back to see Erwin with a rare sincere smile on his face.

"Don't look too happy about this, Erwin. I still haven't forgiven you for all the bullshit that has happened, especially recently, but I guess, I can't let your gambling ass fight alone," I muttered in irritation as he gently pulled my shoulder back and stood in front of me.

"Nile, you are most likely correct that the higher ups wouldn't mind if you executed me right now, and I would not object," Erwin stated evenly causing me to glare at him, "However, then this would all be your problem." He motioned towards the direction of all the explosions and citizens screaming causing Nile to look quite uncomfortable before finally lamenting and agreeing to let Erwin handle this and let the court decide how to execute him.

"And Cadet Smith," Nile called out to me, and I gave him a questioning look which he returned with a proud smirk, "Glad to see you got your fighting spirit back." I gave him a smirk.

"Thank you, sir," I responded before raising my eyebrows a bit, "But it's Cadet Ackerman now. I'd appreciate it if you could use my correct name in the future." He gave me a proud smirk.

"Understood, Cadet Ackerman."

"Emmryn, you're with me, let's go," Levi said grabbing my arm and pulling me hurriedly towards the sounds of the fighting. We both had our gear with us in case of emergencies. As we approached the sounds of the fighting, I finally caught sight of the monster responsible for the death of my closest friends.

The female titan had chin length blonde hair and blue eyes. She also appeared to be winning in the fight causing me to clench my fight and grit my teeth before finally crying out.

"Don't give up, Eren! You'd better kick this bitch's ass!" I yelled angrily as memories flooded me from my time with my lost squad members, all of which were precious to me.

Petra punching Oluo in the face when she and Eld had finally had enough of him bullying me. Eld treating me like the older brother I had always wanted Erwin to be since returning from the Underground, standing up for me and putting Oluo in his place on more than one occasion. Gunther sharing his food with me as a silent apology after Levi had chewed all of them out in that cluster of trees on the expedition where I had started to finally figure out my feelings towards my now husband.

And then there was Oluo, the most annoying, arrogant, and loudmouthed douchebag of a man I had ever met, but also one of the bravest and most fiercely loyal of our whole team. I missed our back and forth teasing, him stepping in and telling off others who dared do the same out of malice. His wistful looks at Petra and his teasing about me and Levi before anything had even happened.

I missed all of them so much. They were the only family I had since Erwin and I had our falling out. And we were dysfunctional as all hell, but dammit, they were my family. And Levi… Levi had to go through such another traumatic loss that it almost fucking broke him. I felt like going after that bitch myself, but I knew, as I watched Eren get up again and again that this was not my fight. Not this time.

The fight passes in a surreal blur as I watch the two titans and former comrades battle one another, destroying countless buildings in the process. As I saw Annie nearly knock out Eren and begin to run towards the wall, my body moved on its own and without a second thought, I deployed my ODM gear and maneuvered right between her legs in an attempt to cut the tendons in her ankles. However, as I did so, the skin around her ankles became covered with a blue crystal looking substance and my blades snapped in half when they met the crystalised skin.

Cursing under my breath, I maneuvered to the roof of a nearby building as Annie took a giant leap, digging her fingers into the wall and beginning to climb it. My eyes went wide until an ink black blur zoomed past me. I'd never been so thankful to see Mikasa Ackerman, as she made it up the wall and to Annie before ruthlessly slashing through all of Annie's fingers, sending plummeting to the ground below where Eren, who had seemed to have gone berserk, was already waiting for her. He began attacking her without holding back.

My eyes widened and I found myself going towards them as I saw him bite at Annie's nape, but before I could get too close, a sharp pain in my abdomen stopped me, and I landed a couple of meters from the chaos looking down to see my uniform now soaked in blood from where my stitches had come out. Yep. Levi is gonna kill me. I began limping towards the two titans when a blinding light began emanating from Annie. Once the light died down, I just caught sight of a green blur soaring past me and slicing Eren out of the nape of his titan.

"Don't go eating a valuable witness, you idiot!" I heard Levi's baritone voice scold Eren. Shortly after, Mikasa and Armin were there pulling him out of his titan body, and Annie's body was revealed to be encased in the crystal that she had been using to protect herself this whole time.

I gritted my teeth at her cowardice, and to my surprise, Jean went up and began slicing at the crystal in a futile attempt to reach the woman inside, demanding answers and demanding her to face all the deaths she had caused including those of our comrades including Marco and all those we lost in the most recent expedition. I felt for him. I really did, and if I hadn't been in such bad pain, I would probably have done the same thing.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Levi approaching me and he looked pissed causing me to be more than a little nervous as he got within arms reach of me. He roughly grabbed me by the chin and pulled me into a deep and frustrated kiss that lasted only moments before pulling away and grabbing the back of my head and pulling me into his chest.

"You're a fucking idiot. Would it kill you to listen to orders and not run off for once?" he scolded, but the bite that was normally in his tone when he was angry was not there, "How many times are you going to make me think that I'm going to lose you?" That last question was said very lowly to where even I was almost unsure that I had heard him correctly. Not knowing what to say to make him feel better, I wrapped my arms around his waist and nuzzled my face into his chest, not caring that there were probably at least a dozen soldiers staring at us at the moment.

We stayed like that for a moment until a series of gasps caused us to look up and see something that would change the future of humanity and the fight against the titans as we knew it. My jaw dropped and I grabbed Levi's hand, trembling slightly in fear. He had no response, a shocked expression on his face as well as he squeezed my hand, the only comfort he could muster at the moment. Everyone was shocked, horrified, and unsure of what the hell we would do next.

Inside that wall, peeking through the hole left by Annie was the face of a titan, a colossal titan. There were titans in the walls, and the mask on the history of humanity was starting to crumble at this revelation.

End of Book 1

A/N:

Hi everyone! I just wanted to thank all of you for reading my first ever completed fanfiction The Masks We Wear. Fear not, those of you who wanted the story to continue. There will be a book two and I am already starting on ideas for it. However, I really wanted to wrap up this book and take a bit of a break from posting on this story (sort of to let me recharge). I'm estimating that I will start posting chapters for the sequel in around a month, but I'll be working on the story during that time so I can post a couple of chapters at the time. Thank you all for your support again. 3 Love Always, Taeha