The 57th Expedition Part I: Encounters

"You're really set on doing this. Aren't you?" Annabeth asked Alto.

"Yes." He replied. "No point in having power if you don't use it."

"You sound like your friend Eren."

"For all his faults, he makes good points." Alto led Rosarie through the streets of Karanes, and into the back of the Scout Expedition. He was surprised when all he got in acknowledgement were a few brief nods, 'Everyone is so focused on the expedition. Wondering who will die.'

"Today! Humanity takes another step forward! Cadets! Show us what you can do!" All 800 Scouts cheered as Erwin yelled:

"Scout Regiment! Move out!"

Alto couldn't help but feel a pang of fear as the expedition engaged their first titan. A ten meter class which was easily dispatched of.

As the order came to spread out, Alto saw his chance to break away from the main body of Scouts, veering straight south, and slowed his horse down.

"Here goes nothing." Getting of his horse and tying it to a tree. and raising his hand to his mouth, he bit down on it and a bolt of lightning struck his body.

Lange Squad

"Ambros, we've got an abnormal on the left." Jurgen said calmly as he rode along side Ambros,

"Right. Reinhard, Moses, take it down." He nodded towards the rapidly approaching abnormal.

"Right!" Moses hooked onto the left foot while Jurgen hooked the right arm. Moses slashed it's ankle causing it to collapse before Jurgen, using the momentum to launch himself in the air, dived down on the abnormal and cut the nape.

"Nice work."

Ymir looked behind her, "Sorry to be a party pooper, but there's another one right behind us." She pointed at a rapidly approaching fifteen-meter titan, with black hair and a body similar to Eren's.

"What the hell? Two abnormals in one go?" Ambros cursed,

"Alright! Me and Jurgen will deal with this one." Without waiting for a response, he hooked into it's right foot and tried cutting the ankle, only to be met by a loud clanging sound before her sword broke.

"What the- its ankle!" Ambros rolled aside, and tried the right left ankle, only for his swords to rudely bounce off.

"It's not just the ankle, it's the nape too." Jurgen rode up to her with her horse.

Then it slowed down and looked at Lange Squad below while keeping a pace closer to a jog. It scanned each member, it's eyes lingering on Mina the most.

Ambros looked at it curiously as he continued to ride "If we can't kill it, then try to lose it!" Ambros sped up with the rest of the squad, but the Titan easily kept pace.

"No use, that thing is faster than all our horses."

Ambros looked at it's legs thoughtfully, "Try slashing the knee pit!" He shouted, and shot for the knees, suddenly, it stepped to the side so suddenly it caused the hook to come loose causing Ambros to kiss the ground.

"Not very lucky today are you?" Ymir deadpanned quietly,

"This is serious!" Mina said to them indignantly, "The way it moved...you'd think it's intelligent!"

Ambros looked at it. "Hold on." He grappled to the side of it's face, and spun around, preparing to slash both eyes, but faster than he could react, it grabbed him.

"Ambros!" Moses screamed. The titan however, did not eat him. It simply dropped him on the floor. Then continued running

Ambros was in shock, and simply kneeled there.

"Ambros? What happened?!" Jurgen picked him up,

"That titan...it's intelligent." Mina looked after it as it ran. "Not even an abnormal can move that fast. And it didn't even kill Ambros, just dropped him."

Suddenly, a smoke signal emerged from a treeline.

"Let's investigate." Ambros said with finality,

"Hey look! It's Jean, Reiner, and Armin!"

"They're missing two horses, probably Buchwald and this other one here." Historia petted the scared horse, "Heeyyy! You guys okay?" Historia rode up to them,

"Historia? Wow, I can't believe that smoke round actually brought you here."

"No. We were nearby and found Jean's horse along the way so…"

"You really saved our lives."

Historia sniffled a bit, "I'm just glad...you're all alright!" She smiled warmly, and the entire area seemed to become warm.

'She's a goddess!' Jean thinks

'God herself!'

'And one day my wife.' Reiner thought to himself.

"Hey. We exist too." Ambros rode around the trio, "Anyway, we'll want to head out soon."

There's something we have to tell you." Armin began as they rode, "We ran into an intelligent titan and-"

"We already know."

"S-sorry?"

"We already saw it. It just followed us for a while then left. We tried attacking it, but it had some kind of hardening ability so we couldn't cut it's vitals. More so, when I tried going for the eyes, it grabbed me and simply set me down before leaving."

"H-Hold on. Are we talking about the same titan? Our's nearly crushed Reiner, and killed several Scouts. I don't see why it wouldn't attack you."

"You mean you haven't seen a fifteen meter titan with jet black hair and a body similar to Eren's?" Mina rode up to him

"No...ours is closer to fourteen meters. With blond hair and almost completely lacking skin. It was female as well."

"Hey hey now." Jean turned to them on Buchwald, "You're saying we have two intelligent titans running rampant throughout the formation?"

"Apparently so." Ambros said grimly, "Which direction was yours going?"

"It was headed up towards the right flank, but then it headed for the Center rear."

"Well it'll be disappointed if it's heading for Eren. He's in the left rear."

"About that...the outer flanks were deliberately misinformed." Armin told them,

"What?!"

"How do you know that?!"

"Me and Jean got conflicting reports with Reiner. And since you guys also got different maps…" Armin said, suddenly, a green flare came from the center,

"A green flare? We aren't retreating?" Mina wondered,

"Yeah...we're only changing course."

"Any soldier has the authority to determine whether a mission has failed or not." Reiner said, "So why isn't anyone saying anything?!"

"Because we're all thinking one thing: Assume Command has got this!" Armin fired a green flare,

"Are you kidding? At this rate the direction will put us straight at-"

"-The forest of Giant Trees." Ambros finished quietly

The 15-meter titan paused some distance from the main formation, it's neck bent over, it's nape suddenly began to squirm as a body burst through the flesh. Black hair similar to the titans steaming as the user shook flesh off his head,

'I'm assuming I'm not the only intelligent titan here.' Alto analyzed, 'and that the main force of the formation isn't aware of me and think there's only one intelligent titan. My plan was initially to stick with the Lange Squad, but at this rate the entire formation is in danger of being wiped out...' He turns to look at the forest of giant trees. 'I may want to ditch this body for my ODM gear, but I'll wait until I reach the trees.' Sinking back into the nape, the titan looked up and turned toward the forest.

"Alright recruits! Listen up! Spread out in the trees and stay there with your blades drawn! And keep the titans outside the forest at all costs!" Ambros ordered

"Ma'am...shouldn't we be-" But before Jean could finish, Ambros had already gone up in the trees.

"You have orders. Follow them!" He shouted down,

"Tch! Honestly what is Erwin thinking?" Jean hissed to Armin "We should've hit the retreat by now, instead we're playing birdhouse in this damn tourist trap." Jean suddenly looked at Ambros thoughtfully,

"You know, a commander deemed worthless by his, or her, men often find themselves succumbing to mysterious stab wounds."

"That's mutiny!" Armin said, appalled.

"I'm just saying I won't be surprised if someone else does it."

Alto watched the Scouts perched in the trees with his ODM 'This makes no sense. Even Erwin has to know when to hit the retreat. The mission was a bust!'

"Your thinking is very limited in scope." Astell sighed, "You're asking the completely wrong question."

"What should I be thinking about?" His thoughts turned to the female titan, 'Hold on...according to the flare signals, the Female Titan turned towards the rear center somewhere in the center of the Right Flank. But according to the map I picked up-' He pulled out a map he'd stolen from the Scouts some three days earlier. '-Eren is in the upper right flank.' He looked at the map again, 'Which now that I think about it, makes no sense tactically. That'd put Eren at the forefront of the Recon squads, no doubt one of the most dangerous places in the formation. Then that leaves…'

"The rear center. It's the safest place in the formation." Astell finished,

"But why lie about it? Why misinform entire sections of the formation?" 'Unless…' Realization hits him like a ton of bricks,

"Erwin knew. He knew the enemy would make their move, and he used Eren as bait to ensure it, but he deliberately misinformed the ranks because he knew they had a spy." It was absurdly obvious - and genius - in hindsight, "This isn't a supply run. This never was a supply run. This was a deliberate attempt to force the enemy to play their hand,"

"So what will you do now?" Astell asked,

"I'll proceed on ODM Gear into the forest. I'll assume Erwin has already prepared for this in advance,"

"There's another factor we should consider." Dante interrupted "We don't know which of the Ten Titans we're dealing with."

"We can rule out the Colossal, we would know by now." Astell nodded,

"That leaves seven other titans…"

Alto's head was spinning, "Hold on? There are ten titan shifters?"

"Yes," Dante confirmed "Each has their own abilities. Knowledge of the shifters is a closely guarded secret of the Burke and Reiss families."

Alto gulped "Can you tell me what the powers are?" He asked, but before Dante or Astell could respond, thundering footsteps sounded from the front of the forest.

'Looks like I'll be finding out for myself…' Alto readied his ODM gear and drew up his hood, 'I'll enter from the side of the forest, but in doing so I'll need to pass the Scouts…' He sighed, 'I'll try to avoid them.'

"C-Captain! Captain Levi!"

"What?"

"It's just that, since we're in the forest...we've lost all recon capability! So how are we supposed to evade titans? Or defend the carts?!"

"Don't go on and on about what's obvious." Levi rolled his eyes, "Use that pathetically small brain of yours for once. Look around you, at all these big-ass trees."

'He's right. I can't expect to be constantly spoon fed information I should be figuring out for myself.' Eren thinks,

"What the hell? Seriously?" Oluo muttered, "Just what the hell is going on?"

When Eren looked around he saw expressions mirroring the one on Oluo's face. Petra looked off to the side with an extremely fearful expression. Eld looked like he was crapping a brick, and Gunther was sweating bullets. Isabel looked just as panicked as Petra, and even Furlan & Evangelica had stony, blank, looks on their faces.

'Hold on. Don't tell me no one knows what's going on?! Possibly even...Captain Levi?!'

"Hey...Armin? Our objective was to keep titans out right?" Jean asked, voice trembling

Armin looked at him, briefly confused before looking down,

Straight into the horde of Titans,

"So...there's no more reason to fight. Right?"

Then the Titans suddenly turned towards something, or rather - someone - rapidly approaching on ODM gear.

'This is insane!' Was Alto's first thought as he boosted off the shoulder of a titan grabbing for him. Leaping from limb to limb, he deftly made his way through the Titans

'I can't afford to fight them all off. Not in my current state. I barely have enough energy for another transformation. I need to conserve.' Alto thought as he grappled to the first line of trees and shot straight under the main body of Scouts.

"H-Hey!" Several of the Scouts shouted at him, and began to give chase.

'Shit! I got to lose them!' He thought, then looked up at the black smoke signal

"A black smoke round?!" Eren said panickedly

"It's whatever that was coming at us from the right!" Evangelica said cooly,

"Draw your blades." Levi ordered. "If we see it, it'll only be for a moment."

Suddenly, a Scout emerged from the trees on the path beside theirs on ODM gear before a massive flesh-exposed hand swatted him like a fly, following it was the rest of the Female Titan.