After the front line was broken it was easy for Marley to advance on Goryeo. Their secondary lines couldn't hold against the onslaught of titans thrown at them. To speed up the conquest of the island the titan shifters were separated into three groups. Zeke and Marcel would go further north, Annie and Bertolt would go to the west and Pieck and Rainer would go east. The warriors were divided in such a way as to balance out each individual team and optimise their fighting power. Zeke was a long range artillery titan while Marcel could use his Jaws titan to close in on the enemy and quickly destroy their ranks. The Female titan was mobile and versatile while the Colossal titan had the raw firepower to destroy everything. Finally the Armoured titan was a walking wall while the Cart was more nimble and far less resistant to damage.
"They've separated all my targets as far away as possible. The Colossal titan destroyed the first set of walls while the Armoured titan destroyed the inner gates. Lastly Zeke, the main reason so many died." Disregarding order Leo hides in the unit heading north following Zeke. If he would have the chance he would try to get close to Zeke, knock him out then carry him away from camp and eat him. As they move further north the snow grows thicker covering completely the ground and harsh blizzards would ravage both armies' camps.
"Drink this. It won't keep you warm but it will keep you alive!" An older soldier says greeting Leo as he was patrolling around the outer trenches.
"If you get your hands on some newspapers rough them up and place them inside your shoes and clothing. I've seen people dying faster from hypothermia than a bullet wound."
"You've fought in places like this before?" Leo asks taking a sip from the hot beverage.
"The name's Bartholomew, people call me Bart though.
"Leo, nice to meet you."
"This is my second time so far up north. Last time..." Bart stops and takes a deep breath before releasing all the air out of his lungs. "Nah, too gruesome to bother the young recruits."
"I've seen my fellow men charge willingly at enemy artillery, only three survived the salvoes and one of them died not long after with a hole as big as a man's head in his side. I was one of the two who survived."
"Bloody hell, where did they pulled you out from? I think you one upped me. I survived hiding inside a pile of bodies to keep warm from a blizzard but damn. To charge enemy artillery. I guess that's how you did it, isn't it?"
"I did what?" Leo asks surprised. He wasn't sure if the man in front of him knew it was he who shot the enemy artillery back at the first charge or something else.
"I think I should present myself again Leo. My name is Bartholomew Joss, general in charge with the operations above the 60th parallel." Leo nearly spits out his drink and drop it on the floor while taking a proper position in front of the general. His right hand was ready with the sedative just in case someone discovered the fact he changed units.
"We were cleaning out the bodies at our previously conquered location and guess what we've discovered there? While cleaning up the artillery bunkers we found a man who had a wound in his lower jaw with a bullet still inside his skull. Everyone else was killed by titan claws but that man was the only one shot with a rifle. On closer examination that bullet was the exact same model as the ones inside the rifle you left behind. The sergeant remembered you handing him a mid-eastern rifle so we made the connection. How did you do that?"
"Damnation. I've dug my own hole here. I can't act like an innocent novice after I've told him about the battle at Shinganshina. What is he going to do?" Leo thinks grasping harder at his sedative cloth. He was ready to jump immediately if needed to silence the general then run to some other front pretending he was never there.
"We've captured nearly half of the island and with the power of the titans we'll soon conquer the rest of it. Most of the troops here will remain stationed on the island to pacify whatever remains of the locals and keep foreign intervention away. You however won't remain here. General Magath and the higher ups in Marley are planning something involving most of our titan shifters. We'll need good men to compensate our loss and I want you to be one of those men."
"Are you offering me a titan shifter on a silver platter?" Leo thinks nearly salivating.
"Present yourself at the command centre today in the evening and you'll make your acquaintance with the Warrior unit."
"Sir!" Leo salutes before Bartholomew leaves him to his duty.
"Now you've done it Marley. Your gluttony for power has led you to ruin. But wait! They are sending some of the Warriors away, that can only mean they are planning the invasion of Paradise. Damn it all, it's too soon, I cannot stop them." The day passes quickly and in the evening Leo presents himself in front of the largest building in the camp to meet the Warriors. His eyes dart from left to right, up and down. He counts how many guards are there, he remembers the position of every single piece of artillery gun out there. How fast would reinforcements arrive...
"How many would I be able to take down by surprise if I transform right now?" The real answer was zero. He enters the room and finds Zeke and Marcel inside.
"Am I the only one here?" Leo asks while actually thinking: "Why am I the only one here?"
"Oh, so you must be the sniper that killed the enemy artillery and allowed me to charge their position." Marcel says with a bright expression on his face.
"You're the only one here who hasn't met the Warriors yet, or more precisely, you're the only one on the island who has been chosen to meet them." Zeke explains.
"Will I get to meet the other Warriors too?"
"In time." Bartholomew and Magath say entering the room. "Zuege, do you know why you're here? I'm not talking about the warriors but why you are here."
"Do they know?"
"You're here to assure Marley's success once the Warriors leave. For far too long Marley had an incredibly dangerous enemy right on its doorstep. Paradise island, north east of mainland Marley has the control of the founding titan and an army of forty metres titans, enough to trample the world underfoot. Do you understand in what kind of situation we're in? Every single passing day we risk an invasion from the island devils and total annihilation. Throughout the years we've trained and refined our Warrior recruits up to the point where they are able to take over a nation by themselves in not very long. We're going to send some of them to Paradise island in order to retake the founding titan and return it to its proper place under our watchful eye. For the sake of humanity the devils must be eliminated and we are the only ones who can do it! Your mission is to make sure Marley survives and prospers while the Warriors put and end to the tyranny of the island devils so that the world may become a better place! Do you understand?"
"Yes sir." "I understand perfectly you hypocrite. You're going to unleash your dogs at innocents for the fear they might mug you one day."
"The you should get to know Zeke and Marcel here. They are the Beast and Jaws titan. Marcel will head for Paradise but Zeke will remain in Marley as a deterrent for other nations to attack us."
"How many titans will we keep in Marley?" Leo asks sitting on the couch."
"We've made plans for how Paradise Island will be invaded. We need the Jaws and Female titan to take the warriors from our port all the way to the closest entrance inside the walls. From there the Colossal and Armoured titan will break through the gates and lead pure titans inside the walls. In the confusion they will head to the innermost district, capture the founding titan then return to Marley."
"So we'll be left only with three titans. Me, the Cart and the Warhammer titan." Zeke adds.
"The Warhammer titan! I've completely forgot about that one. The strongest titan in the hands of the weakest titan shifter." Remembering about the Warhammer titan Leo's eye starts tearing up and he sees glimpses of the past, before resetting the world. He could see the world from Eren's point of view, how he fought the Warhammer and what it could do.
"Hey, are you alright?"
"Shrapnel hit me when I called in a bombardment on my position to hide my gunfire from the enemy. My eye does this from time to time but it doesn't interfere with my duties."
"Anyhow, you should enjoy the cold weather as much as you can since in a few days you, Zeke and Pieck will leave the island and head back to Marley. The remaining Warriors will clean up the rest here and then head for Paradise." Leo and the rest are dismissed.
"Hey, want to see something impressive? Come with us." Zeke says pulling Leo behind him. The three go to the rooftop and Zeke hands Leo a pair of binoculars.
"Look west towards the sunrise!"
"The sun is already setting in the east, what is there to be seen?" Leo says confused.
"Didn't you know? Marley has its own sun." The three look into the distance and far away a lightning hits from the sky then an explosion large enough to be seen with the naked eye from their position. The Colossal titan transformed and utterly annihilated the western enemy base.
"It is the first time I see Bertolt turn into a titan!" Marcel says discussing with Zeke the application of titan powers on the battlefield.
"As if the world needed another reason to fear us." Zeke adds. "This is not even the power of a devil but the power of a veritable god, a god of destruction."
With that display of raw power by the hands of the Colossal titan, Goryeo fell not long after. Nobody was willing to face such devastating power in battle. The mid-eastern alliance stopped sending troops not long after and the line of volunteers dried up faster than an ice cube melts in the desert. They took over a whole country in a single day. For Leo that was terrible news. The Warriors will all return to Liberio from which they'll set sail for Paradise island immediately. For the rest of the night Leo considered how he could take Zeke or Marcel prisoners, take them away from cap and steal their powers. If one Warrior is missing the he could decrease the number of Warriors sent to Paradise. If there are less warriors Marley might want to delay the attack. Unfortunately all he got for his night of planning and plotting was nothing but a stiff neck and no sleep. In the morning he was already on the ship for Liberio.
"Are you alright?" Marcel says approaching Leo who was looking over the edge of the ship.
"Sea sickness." Leo answers with a devastated look. He was faking it, his right eyes has been tearing up ever since he stepped on the ship. First when he was Bertolt and Rainer so up close and witnessed the titans flooding inside Shinganshina. He then saw Petra, Eld, Oluo and all the others who were slaughtered by the Female titan in the forest of giant trees.
"Perhaps I should just sink the ship with all of them on board." Unfortunately they were surrounded by other ships. Even if he managed to destroy that one with his transformation there was nothing stopping them from boarding another ship, besides Pieck could transform into a titan and swim for days with them on her back.
The first attempt at murdering the Warriors was a failure since there was nothing Leo could do to kill them.