After everything was said and done in the hospital, Erwin made the decision as the Commander to allow Lukas into their ranks, and while none trusted him as far as they could throw him, ultimately he was right. They needed his power for their cause, and while they weren't exactly keen on him taking the Queens power for himself, they agreed to cross that bridge when they came to it.
Though for now, they were leaving the castle the Scouts had used as their headquarters, with the cadets from the 104th being integrated as a part of Levi's squad now to protect Eren, Historia and Lukas to some extent.
Before they left however, Levi and Hange's squads were given the rundown by Levi and Hange about what Lukas had told them. Levi felt it was only fair they knew what they were fighting for. So they were told about humanity outside the walls, how everyone out there wanted them all dead, how Titans were made, what they were and how Lukas fit into all of this.
Levi certainly did not mince his words, but he did make it abundantly clear that if anyone tried to kill Lukas out with self defence, they would have just fucked themselves with a treason charge and the Scouts in the long run.
Most of them were horrified when leaving the room, especially Eren, he had just learned that he had eaten someone to get his power. He didn't know for sure, but his dad had been missing for five years, and since he now had the key to the basement, he could put two and two together.
And to top it all off, they were being loaded up and sent away to hide from the Military Police from the time being, so that they could experiment with Eren's Titan ability without anybody seeing anything they shouldn't.
Once they were all ready to leave and outside, they shouldn't have been surprised to see that Lukas was already sat on the cart waiting for them, but a lot of them hadn't had the time to prepare themselves after hearing about what he'd done, one of them being Petra, who had a very good idea about what he'd been up to when he'd been slacking off during training and ditching them.
A sudden surge of anger overcame her, and despite Levi's orders to not kill him, he didn't say she couldn't hit him over and over again. So the ginger haired Scout stormed over to Lukas, who was sitting on the edge of the cart, she grabbed a fistful of the hoodie he was wearing and her fist caught him square in the nose, crushing the cartilage and turning his nose into a temporary mush.
Now while he wasn't exactly in the position to fight the Scouts, he was not going to sit and let himself get beat up, so when she tried to punch him again, he deflected it, broke her hold on his hoodie, shoving her back with more than enough force to send her tumbling back to the ground.
"I bet that makes you feel strong , doesn't it Petra, punching the big bad Titan when he wasn't expecting it." His face was dripping blood everywhere, all over the cart and the grass.
"How many people did you kill when you ditched training before Shadis took over?" Petra asked him, getting to her feet to face him, the group of Scouts behind her not sure what to make of the situation. "When you were sneaking off at night, how many people did you kill?"
"That doesn't matter. I did what I did to survive." He shot back.
"How many innocent people did you kill while everyone else was sleeping in the barracks?" Petra pressed further.
"You want to know? Fine." He had enough of this pretentious bullshit coming from her. "Two major gangs in the underground, dead. Two very corrupt nobles that would rather send citizens to the slaughter than spare food from the Royal reserves, dead. I've killed more than enough people to last a lifetime. Does that make you feel better now? Does that make me the monster you want me to be? Knowing that I've killed people?"
"Hey, enough." Captain Levi stalked through the crowd behind Petra to the front. "We haven't even left yet and I'm already fed up of your bullshit." He told the both of them. "This situation is far from ideal, but I don't give a shit."
He then turned to Petra. "You don't like the situation, well tough shit, it's what we got, you've just got to deal with it. You don't have to like my orders, but I expect you to follow them to a T. Got it?"
"Yes Captain."
"And you." He turned to face Lukas. "Sit down and shut up. I've heard enough out of you already."
Levi then turned to the rest of the group. "Eld, take Petra and Armin, gather enough horses for us all and meet us at the cabin. The rest of you on the cart." He ordered. "Eren, sit next to Lukas, might as well get acquainted in human form before your Titans meet later on."
With that said, Lukas moved up to the end of the cart, letting Eren sit next to him, Mikasa and Levi across from them, with Sasha, Connie, Jean and Historia getting into the back of the cart while Oluo was tasked with driving the cart to their destination.
"Is it true?" Eren spoke up once they got moving. "That I ate someone to get my power? Is that true?"
"Yes, it's just the way things are in this world." He responded with. "The power is transferred through the consumption of a Titan Shifter's spinal fluid. I couldn't tell you why though, just the way things are I suppose."
"Hange said you saw my predecessor, or who you thought had the power before me." Eren said. "Did he... was he tall, wore glasses, long hair and a dark jacket?"
"I think so, I didn't get a good look at him, only a glance before he bashed my face with a wooden plank." It was all Eren needed to get his confirmation that he had in fact eaten his father, and the boy now had his head in his hands, staring at the cart floor.
"I had to eat my grandfather to get my power. I know how unpleasant it can be." He tried to sympathise with him, it was the least he could do. "Now that I think about it, all this happened because I spoke a sentence to someone with power in the military."
"Yeah, we'd be up shit creek if you hadn't done that. Stop talking about the past, like you can change it. It grinds my gears to no end." Levi interrupted. "Enough of your bullshit, unless anyone else wants to ask you something, shut the fuck up."
The rest of the ride was silent, a very awkward and tense silence.
Though when they did arrive, Hange was there waiting for them, she couldn't wait to get this underway, so she pulled them all away from Levi's important duty of cleaning the house they were to be staying in and out towards the forest, where she already had a site in mind for their Titan experiments.
There was a cliff overlooking an open area within the forest, and with everyone present. Hange, Moblit, Levi, Historia and Armin on top of the cliff, with everyone else bar Eren and Lukas on horseback, ODM gear on, with their blades drawn just in case, they were ready.
"Alright! Lets get this show on the road!" Hange yelled to the two shifters down below. "After you transform, wait before you do anything!"
Hange wasn't sure if they had heard her or not, because they had already begun transforming, with Eren biting down violently on his hand, while Lukas preferred the much less painful option of biting his index finger until he bled.
There was a flash of light as the Titan bodies formed from nothing, one was animalistic in nature as it formed, while the other was calm as an ocean breeze. Though after a few moments, Eren seemed to calm down a bit, though still antsy, it was just down to inexperience.
"Hey, you guys!" Hange called for both their attention. "I wanna ask some questions! Just nod or shake your heads!"
"I can talk as a Titan." The voice was deep and gravely. "And you don't need to shout, do you see the size of our ears? It sounds like you're yelling in my ear."
"... This is amazing!" Hange yelled out in pure excitement, her face all red from a real talking Titan. "Think of all the possibilities, we can-"
"Get a grip four eyes." Levi cut into her ramblings. "You can fantasise about talking Titans later. Just get on with your experiment."
"Ahem, of course." Hange adjusted her glasses on her face. "I first want to test your strength against other Titans. So please take turns to punch one another. One full force punch shall do. Eren, you may proceed."
His eyes narrowed as Eren approached him, he wasn't sure what to expect here, and he hoped that there was nobody stupid enough to be directly behind him when it happened.
Eren winded up for a punch, throwing his fist forward into the gut of the White Titan with all his might. The force broke several fingers of his, but it sent the other Titan flying backwards a good thirty metres at least, sliding across the ground until he came to a stop.
"Nice hit." Lukas complimented as he slowly got up and walked back over. "My turn now."
For Mikasa, it took most of her willpower to not cut that cable when Eren was punched backwards, but her gloomy look turned more upbeat when she realised that Eren had hit him further away, and that Eren was in fact stronger than him.
"Hmm, so Eren is physically stronger than Lukas." Hange mused to herself. "That was to be expected though, Eren may be shorter by a metre or two, but his muscle mass is far greater."
"Okay then." Hange clapped her hands together. "Lukas, that thing you did when fighting Annie and when recovering Eren, that was hardened Titan skin right? How do you do it, and can you teach it to Eren?"
"It's not a skill you can learn as a Titan. You either have it or you don't." That dealt a blow to their plans of getting Eren to plug the hole in Wall Maria significantly, and it made Eren feel even worse about himself.
"My hardening is special to my Titan though. It is not connected to my body like Annie's or Reiner's." To demonstrate, out of the ground between him and Eren, a spire about five metres tall spurted from the ground, and as soon as it did, he made it vanish.
"Can you make it stick permanently?" Hange asked, to which Lukas responded yes, and to prove it, another spire erupted from the ground a foot away from her, but it wasn't pointed, it was a pedestal, and on top was an old knights helmet, made from a grey substance, with a moveable eye cover that didn't creak when moved.
"Oh my god... this is incredible." Hange tried to put the helmet on, but unfortunately for her, it was too small a fit with her hair tied up.
"Don't put that shit on your head four eyes." Levi scolded her. "You don't know what he's done to it, or what it's made of."
"I could make just about anything if I knew how it was built and worked." Lukas was terrifying the lot of them, they had not expected this, not at all. "I told you, you have no idea what I can be capable of."
"And what about what you did in Wall Maria with all those spires?" Hange expected him to say something like that. "Could you do that again?"
"Not to that scale." He answered honestly. "It was that Titan, its blood got all over my crystal. It's special, we need to capture it."
Eren couldn't believe what he was hearing, that Titan had killed his mom, and he had deprived him of the revenge he needed, and here he was trying to tell them not to kill it, for him to stand by, to not take revenge on the Titan that killed his mom.
Levi was the first to notice Eren starting to lose control. "Hange, Eren's losing it again." He pointed out. "We need to get him out of there now."
Eren wasn't out of control, he was just super fucking angry, and he lunged at Lukas, and using Annie's techniques, he threw and pinned him to the ground.
"Eren stop!"
Eren raised a fist, and threw it down at the face of the White Titan, expecting it to be crushed and caved in, he was surprised that it wasn't, instead his hand was destroyed and his face was perfectly fine.
"Were you not listening to a word I just said?" He asked the out of order teen, having hardened his face to block the blow. "Get off me before I throw you off me."
Eren roared in his face, which was the last straw for Lukas, he was going to attract attention to their position. Fucking idiot.
As Lukas tried to throw him off, Eren grabbed onto his arm like he had done to Reiner to break it off, he was stopped midway through, the arm was hardened from finger to shoulder and stuck in place.
"Nice try, but I've seen that one before." It was the last thing Eren heard before he lost consciousness, feeling the impact of a fist to the side of his Titan head.
Cleaning the cabin they were living in was not the way that Lukas was expecting to start the next day. Levi had demanded it be cleaned by the time he and Hange's squads got back from sweeping the perimeter after the experiment the previous day.
Usually he'd want it done as soon as they arrived, but Hange wanted to experiment straight away, so by the time they got back it was already dark, and the last thing he wanted was lazy cleaning so they could go to bed.
So the next day, he had Eren, Connie and Lukas cleaning the cabin, with Eld supervising the two of them while everyone else was out getting supplies or with Levi on the perimeter sweep.
"Hey Sasha, you even try to steal anymore food and we'll have Captain Levi chop you into bite sized pieces. Got it?" Jean warned the girl as he carried in bags of supplies into the cabin.
"Who me?" Sasha asked. "I would never... probably."
"Hey, did you guys wipe the mud off your shoes before you came in?" Eren demanded, stopping his sweeping of the floor to speak to Jean.
"Huh, are you kidding me?" Jean laid out the heavy bags on a counter. "Do you not see all this stuff we're carrying?"
"You idiot... you really think an excuse like that is gonna fly with Captain Levi?" Eren sounded a little panicked. "Bad enough I had to make your bed for you this morning, now you pull this crap?"
"Oh, shut it!" Jean had enough of his persistent whining. "Who are you, my mom now?"
"We're back." Behind Jean, Mikasa came into the house holding an axe, while Historia was carrying the wood she had chopped up.
"Wait, you were chopping firewood?" Armin came over to ask.
"Gotta stay in shape somehow." Was Mikasa's response.
"You got grabbed by a Titan, you should be in bed recovering!" Armin pleaded.
"I think you're wasting your breath." Eren told him. "I caught her doing sit ups too."
"Oh, so you're a nag and a spy!"
"How the hell is that spying!"
"You know you're only human, right?" Armin persisted with trying to get Mikasa to rest.
"Funny, almost feels like we're back in the cadet corps, doesn't it?" Sasha spoke up, getting the attention of everyone in the room.
"Mhm, chaos." Armin muttered. "Makes you wonder why they chose all of us for this new Levi Squad. Protecting Eren and Historia is such an important mission."
"Because we're all so talented I presume." Sasha swiped a piece of bread, hoping that nobody had noticed.
"Sasha..." Armin noticed. "What did you just shove into your bag?"
"It's something that's definitely not bread."
"Why are you all so weird?" Lukas just had to ask. "Can't you all just be normal."
"What are you talking about? This is normal for the Scouts." Eld hopped in to the conversation. "It's you thats the weird one here." He said. "And you Sasha, put the bread back."
Sasha pretended to not know what was going on, she was sticking to her guns about not having swiped any food, which was pretty dumb considering at least three people saw her do it pretty clearly.
Within all the commotion, Captain Levi had arrived, and after inspecting the underside of the table for dust, he was not pleased at all.
"I'm quite certain I gave you enough time." Levi stated. With everyone around Sasha looking like a fool now, while Eren facepalmed.
Levi then pulled out a handkerchief to clean his hand of the dirt. "Forget it. We can discuss your utter failure at a later date." He then diverted his attention between the two shifters. "Eren, Lukas, Hange is anxious to get today's experiment underway."
"Right, yes Sir." Eren responded.
This next experiment Hange had devised was split into two parts, the first was designed to test whether or not Lukas was actually capable of filling in a hole as big as the gate like he claimed. The second part was an endurance test for Eren, to see how much times he could shift within a short amount of time.
Eren's first task was simple, he was supposed to tear a hole in the cliffside, one that would substitute for the Wall Maria gates for now. It took him a while, but eventually there was an opening that looked relatively large enough for Titans to pass through freely. The hole in the cliff wasn't deep, only a couple feet at most, but it was big in diameter, and that's all they needed for this test.
The task for Lukas was simple, cover the hole in its entirety. He had walked up to it rather casually, because instead of pillars blocking the path, they wanted it completely sealed, so he needed to do it the old fashioned way.
His hand touched the edge of the hole, there was a small spark, and the grey substance crept across the hole, slowly filling it. His Titan let out a small grunt as the hardening finished its job, the hole completely sealed, and almost definitely impenetrable.
For good measure, Hange had Eren punch the plugged hole a few times, but that only resulted in broken bones and ripped skin for Eren's Titan, which was probably the biggest lift in morale the Scouts could have right now, they had a way to plug the hole in Wall Maria. The only problem now was if they could trust Lukas enough to get him there and let him do it.
Now that he had finished his experiment for the day, he was now out of his Titan form, stood up on the cliff with Hange, Moblit, Levi, Armin and Historia.
Although at the third transformation, Eren couldn't even stand this time and had just collapsed, looking much worse for wear than the previous two Titan forms that had came before.
"What's wrong, Eren? Get up!" Hange ordered from atop the cliff. "The future of humanity depends on you dammit! Get up!"
"Third time, and his forms changed again." Levi noted. "He's not even ten metres tall this time, and some of his body lacks muscle. Plus, Eren's scrawny ass is hanging out."
"I can see that." Hange answered. "Eren, think you can still move? Give us a signal or something will ya?"
Having had enough of this, Mikasa had leapt from her horse to go to Eren, fearing the worst after three successive transformations.
"Great, the brats at it again." Levi deadpanned as they watched Mikasa run. "Off to the rescue. She never learns, does she?"
"There's no response. We're done here." Hange swooped down below with another shout. "Eren!" With her assistant Moblit following close behind.
They all watched from the cliff as Hange tried pulling Eren out from his Titan, with Moblit yelling at her before Mikasa cut him out completely.
"Not the outcome with Eren we hoped for." Levi took note. "We're still a long way from Eren being ready to take on the Armoured Titan, much less using him to seal the wall." Levi eyed Lukas, who was now sat down against a tree, his eyes closed. Ideally he'd want Eren to be able to do it, but circumstances prevented that.
"Yes, we've known all along we've been grasping at proverbial straws." Armin nodded. "But at least we have someone capable of sealing the wall."
"Capable being the key word there." Levi reminded him. "Willing is a whole different matter." He then turned to look down at Eren. "The plan is strategically sound, and simple in theory. All we need is to get Lukas there. I'm still not convinced he'll do it though. Can't tell what he's thinking, or planning."
"Experiments over!" Hange called out from below. "All troops withdraw at once!"
"You ride back to the house with Eren." Levi told Historia. "Oluo and Eld will stay with you to keep an eye on things. Me and Petra are going with Hange's group. We're headed for Trost."
"Sir." Historia responded, all life seemingly drained from her completely.
Then there was Lukas, still sat at the tree, probably asleep. Levi stalked over to him and gave him a kick, that woke him up.
"Get up. Experiments over. Go back to the house, and clean your gear when you do." Levi ordered. "You're lucky you have that at all. If it were up to me, I'd make you jump every time you want to go down the cliff."
With that said, both groups of soldiers headed off to their respective destinations.
Eren was asleep recovering from the experiment for almost a whole day, and while Captain Levi had gotten back, they were still waiting on Hange and her squad, so they were still working around the house as normal, Historia, Lukas, Connie and Mikasa were preparing the food, while Eld was keeping watch over Lukas specifically.
"What are you doing?" Mikasa asked Eren as he had emerged from his room. "You should still be in bed."
"I'm alright." Eren yawned a little. "I already slept a whole day." He came over to help with the food preparation. "Besides, it's my fault the experiment failed, so the least I can do is help."
"No, you tried, didn't you?" Mikasa tried to reassure him. "Don't beat yourself up."
"All I care about..." Connie's face went dark. "Is getting a chance to bring down the Beast Titan. That hairy bastard took everything from me, I want it dead." His hands started shaking, he couldn't peel the potato in his hands like this.
"It's about time to switch lookouts." He abruptly said, turning to Mikasa. "You ready?" They both turned to leave the cabin.
"Must be nice." Historia commented as they left. "You and the others know what you want." She was talking to Eren, that much was obvious. "Even if it won't be easy to get."
"But with Ymir gone I've lost my purpose." She continued on with. "I don't even know what I'm fighting for."
"Saving her is something to fight for." Eren responded with.
"Maybe..." Historia trailed off.
"I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you Historia." Lukas cut into the conversation, speaking before thinking. "As soon as Ymir went back to save Reiner and Bertholdt, she signed her life away."
"But... Reiner said..."
"Reiner lied. That's what we did, we all lied Historia." He told her the harsh truth. "He would've said anything to Ymir to get her to come with them. You're lucky you didn't go, you would've been shot the moment anybody else saw you."
It only took one look around to see that he had upset her. "Sorry..." He put down the food he was preparing. "I'll go do something else."
Normally he wouldn't have cared that he upset her too much, but it was what she had told everybody the first night they had arrived that had stuck with him, partly because he had seen those memories of hers, he felt what she had felt in the moment, it was not a good feeling.
Everyone had been gathered in the main room, Historia had wanted to tell them all about her past, she felt it was only fair that they get to know who Historia was, because they'd all known who Krista was, not Historia.
"I was born on a small farmstead in the northern lands of Wall Rose. It was owned by the noble Reiss family. As long as I can remember, I've been helping on the farm." She could remember what it was like, the fresh air, the constant sunburns on her neck, all the hard work around the farm she had to do. "But my mother always did the same thing: sit under a tree and read books. She didn't care to work and no one cared to make her. She was a beautiful woman. Most nights, someone would come for her in a carriage, and she'd go off into the city wearing fancy clothes. I was never able to go with her. She barely acknowledged my existence anyways." The looks her mother gave her were burned into her mind, the disgust and hatred was immense.
"For me, that was life as I knew it, but when I learned to read and write, I started picking up books to imitate my mother. It was the first time I was taught how alone I was. In every story I read, parents cared about their children. They talked to them, hugged them, scolded them, tucked them into bed, told them they were loved. I never experienced any of those things. One day, out of curiosity, I decided to try hugging my mother. I guess I just wanted to see what kind of face she'd make. I threw myself onto her, and she shoved me away." Shoved was a very kind word to use, she had been thrown away, like a rodent that needed to be killed. "But that was the first time that my mother had acknowledged me. So it actually made me happy."
"If only I wasn't such a coward, I could've killed it. Those were the first words that my mother ever said to me. The next morning, she packed up her bags and left. I didn't see her for a long time."
A few in the room were gobsmacked to hear what she had been through, while quite a few were thinking about her mother, and how they would teach her a long overdue lesson.
"And then, five years ago, just a few days after Wall Maria fell, I finally met my father." She remembered that her father had turned up out of the blue, with her mother with him, and another girl, one with black hair that she never got the name of. "Behind him, the mother I haven't seen in years looked horribly frightened, along with another woman I'd never seen before. She was beautiful too, but that didn't matter to me. I was going to live with my father."
"Then we were surrounded by men. My mother tried to run off, but she was grabbed by one of them. I begged they let her go, but she screamed that she'd never seen me before. The man who held her asked my father if he was affiliated with us in any way... he told them no and let go of my hand." Historia visibly shuddered at what happened next. "My mother then wished I'd never been born, then the man slit her throat."
Nobody in the room had an ounce of sympathy for her, as far as they were concerned, she got what was coning to her.
"Moments before I was killed, the woman I had never met proposed an idea. If I was sent far away and lived a quiet life, I could be spared. That day, Krista Lenz was born, a few years later, I met all of you. The rest is history."
How she could relive all of that without looking the least but bothered was hugely disturbing to Lukas. He was on the verge of tears from reliving those memories he'd seen, heard and felt from touching her, it took every ounce of his being to not cry in front of everyone else.
Though he didn't doubt the way she remembered, and the fact her mother was killed, that other woman she mentioned, and the lack of mentioning of the black haired girl he saw from her memories. She was either hiding something, or that woman was Frieda Reiss, the Founding Titan, and she'd altered her memories to either protect her, or punish her one way or another.
Lukas didn't even get a minute into doing something else before he was called back into the main room, with Levi and Hange's group now arriving back from Trost.
"What's this about?" Levi asked.
"I'm sorry, Pastor Nick... he was murdered." Hange told them. "Today, in the Trost barracks."
Hange sat them all down and told them exactly what had happened. Pastor Nick was murdered in his room, and two members of the Interior Police claimed to be investigating.
The conversation went on for a while, with the general consensus being that the Interior Police had tortured Pastor Nick for information about what he'd told them.
Levi asked how many nails had been ripped off, and it turned out all of them had been, and he commended the Pastor for sticking by his faith until the end.
"Captain Levi, Sir." Nifa, one of Hange's squad came into the cabin rather quickly. "I have a message from Commander Erwin." She handed him a piece of paper. "I went to tell him about Pastor Nick, but he gave me this and sent me off."
"Get your gear now." Levi ordered as he read the message. "We're leaving. Make it look like we were never here."
"That was close." Connie commented as the MP's raided the now empty cabin, with everything done to make it look like nobody was there. "What if they'd caught us? Would they rip our nails off?"
"How did Commander Erwin know they were headed here?" Armin wondered aloud.
"The Governments passed down some new orders." Levi explained. "There's been a freeze on all Scout activity outside the Wall. We're to hand over Eren and Historia." He told them.
"Captain, I didn't have time to tell you, but some MP's came for the Commander right after I left him." Nifa told him.
"What, like he's some kind of criminal?" Hange asked.
"Looks like they don't know about Lukas yet, that can be our trump card." Levi reminded everyone. "They're bringing this fight out into the open. No more working from the shadows."
"They're trying to protect the Walls secrets at any cost." Hange presumed. "Luckily for us, they don't know that we know the truth. But why would they be after Eren and Historia for. Couldn't the Queen just erase all our memories if she wanted?"
"I think she wanted to." Lukas spoke up. "But there's one person whose memories she can't alter." He turned to look at Mikasa, who looked a little surprised when he turned to her. "You are the only one here who comes from another race. You might be the only one who can stop her."
"Are you sure?" Hange asked him.
"Positive."
"For the mean time, the government wants Eren and Historia, and they're not being subtle about it. Which makes lingering here dangerous." Levi continued on. "We'll move Eren and Historia to Trost."
"We're taking them to the same district where Pastor Nick was just murdered?" Moblit questioned.
"Heading to the interior would be worse." Levi reminded him. "With Trost in a panic it should be easy to slip in. And if things do go all to hell, we can use these in the city." He showed his ODM Gear.
"That's true." Armin agreed.
"We don't know the identity of our enemy yet. I have an idea of how we can change that." Levi said. "Hange, I'll need you to lend me some of your squad."
"No problem." Hange then thought for a moment. "Alright, I'm going after Commander Erwin. Moblit and Nifa are with me. The rest of you will go with Levi."
"Roger!"
And with that, they set off to lure out the enemy.