"It all goes down now! Everyone, evacuate the area immediately!" Erwin shouts preparing to transform for the first time into his Colossal titan form.
"For years I've fought them and now I'm about to become one of them. Is there no little bit of humanity left for me to spare inside my soul." "It matters not for I am a soldier of Eldia and humanity. Sacrifice your hearts!" Erwin shouts before a giant beam of light lightens up the whole capital. His feet shake the ground as the new Colossal titan emerges from the light. It had a muscular physique with white muscular fibres over his shoulders and around his arms. The spine of the titan was visibly enlarged compared to the previous Colossal titans supporting more of the bodies weight compared to the others who were supported by bone and musculature alike. The ribs were poking out from his torso uniting in a single point on his sternum. Lastly the head had a sombre look to it with the jaw unable to open strapped to the upper skull by multiple muscles and ligaments. His expression was stern and tough with eyes that were barely visible inside hollowed eye sockets. It looked like a demon, the very same demon the outside world were afraid of. This colossal titan however had something no other colossal titan had, the scouts rushed to his side and climbed on his body using it as a tower from which they launched attacks against the titans below.
"The Pillar of Eldia is here!" The soldiers dubbed the new colossal titan as Erwin marches on through the hoard of pure titans, grabbing and squishing them one by one.
As Erwin approaches Zeke so too are Pieck, Rainer, Porco and Annie who took her titan form to fight alongside Eren, Mikasa and Armin.
"No matter what do not allow Zeke to touch Eren!" Armin shouts as the battle starts.
"Have you seen it? The realm of the Paths." Zeke asks while throwing boulders from afar as pure titans jump in front of him to act as a wall. Suddenly Pieck jumps from behind the fortress walls and attempts to bite Zeke's nape but the beast catches her mid air, rips her body apart and throws her into the other side of the titan crowd. Just as Zeke ripped Pieck apart he made sure to force his thumb through her nape to damage the human body so that she cannot transform immediately again.
"Pieck!" Leo shouts rushing to her side.
"I have seen it numerous times. It looks like sand from which our founder Ymir constructs our titan bodies. I've always wondered where that is. Is that a place inside our minds? A place somewhere on a different planet? Is it in our solar system, is it somewhere in the universe? Can you access it if you travel far enough?" Zeke rips more pieces from the roof of a house and breaks them.
"It bothered me so much that I couldn't know more about that place but then it struck me. I've relived the days before Ymir became the first titan, I've seen her memories and I know her story. In that story there was a tree, an immense tree taller than any colossal titan ever. She entered under its branches and the three gave in revealing a pool inside of which the source of all life resided. Now, if the source of all life remained with Ymir and her descendants, residing now in Eren's spine, where was the tree? Where was the tree of life which held such a being?" Zeke shots point blank stone and metal into Rainer's face making the Armoured titan fall on its belly.
"It was obvious the more I thought about it. The tree must have been imbued with the power of titans and what is the way titan life is preserved? Hardening or crystallisation." Porco jumps to attack Zeke but once again the Beast titan knowing the other shifters' weaknesses is able to counter him and rip his jaw off by striking at the side of the head and pulling it off from inside.
"A place filled with crystal where the three could be. Paradise, the whole island of Paradise is the tree of life who crystallised no longer sustained by the source of all life! Thanks to that I understood what I must do!"
While Zeke was having his monologue things were getting worse and worse. The city has been evacuated however the human army is trapped outside the walls with pure titans blocking the entrances into the city. The few scouts who survived inside the capital are being overrun by this catastrophic amounts of pure titans. People from all over the world gathered into the capital, the local inhabitants were already very numerous and who know just how many people came from outside to visit family and friends just for the occasion. If in one building lived six families and each family had at the very least four members, by multiplying that for the number of houses there might be more pure titans in the city than what the scouts killed since they've been founded.
In the worst position of them all was Leo and Pieck. After she was defeated by the beast titan Pieck's legs and left abdomen were badly injured meaning she couldn't transform into a titan to heal or get away.
"I... I can't move." Pieck says with difficulty between gasps of air.
"Well, I guess this is the part where I make it even." Leo says taking off his 3DM gear and fashioning it around Pieck's torso.
"I don't know how in the world one of these works."
"You don't have to. Everything will be just fine." Leo says pointing the 3DM gear towards the highest tower of the fortress. He takes a second look and aims the hook right at the flag at the top. Once he presses the button Pieck will fly in that direction and fall on top of the tower where no titan will reach her.
"What about you?"
"3DM gear is not projected for two people to fly with it. It will only slow down making us both the perfect target for the pure titans."
"You cannot transform!"
"I'll deal with that!" Leo say before activating the hook and sending Pieck flying through the air.
"Life, you've handed me the winning hand more than once this far. Eren saved my old life and I was given the chance to make everything right. Maybe I screwed up, maybe I made too many mistakes but I'm happy for the life I was given. The moment is the sum of all our past actions combined. No other people in no other life will ever experience what I did. So life, thank you for all of this but! For once..." "Let me see the people I care about one more time after this!" Leo bites into his hand and transforms into the skinless version of the Warhammer titan completely mad with anger. He claws, rips and bites his way through the titan hoard as the battle continue.
"Damn it, their numbers are infinite." Hange says rejoining Levi and a group of scouts surviving at the top of a tall church tower.
"Soon we'll run out of either gas or blades."
"It isn't that bad though. Erwin will get to our position eventually and we'll get to take a hike on the Colossal titan's back."
"What if we run out of air to breath first?"
"Then we'll turn into titans and fall of the tower."
"You're awfully cheerful at the idea of turning into a titan."
"Of course I am, I already called in the Beast titan if I transform. Which one would you prefer? I don't know, maybe Erwin will be willing to part with the Colossal titan."
"I hate you for understanding why you singled that titan out alone."
"What can I say Levi? I'm grateful. I was thinking about our battle against the Beast, Armoured and Colossal titan. Leo told us in the past Erwin and the scouts would have died with only a handful of survivors. I didn't experienced that though. Yes I've lost and eye but I would go blind before seeing all my comrades die at the hands of some titans. I got to live life as I like it and if I die because of my actions I'll be happy knowing what light was left inside me can still shine. I'm happier than ever to be alive!"
"Don't say it like that three eyes or you'll get all of us killed."
"Nope, I'm saying it just because the Colossal titan is heading our way! Hey, we're over here! Give us a hand!"
"Hm, I guess is not bad having so many people around after all." Levi says under breath.
"I will not let you hurt Eren!" Mikasa shouts breaking the second set of blades into the Beast's hardened flesh. "I cannot reach the nape like this."
"Fall back Mikasa! There are too many pure titans around Zeke."
"No, I can still take him out." However right in that moment something very unusual happened. A pure titan crystallised right in front of everyone and it sprung up into the air as if it grew roots.
"This is how I learnt to transform even non Eldians into titans... and how I learnt to transform titans into the tree of life." Zeke shouts as hard as he can and crystal spikes spring out of the ground impaling everyone around Zeke. Mikasa turns around and is about to rush towards Eren's position but with her every movement a wall of crystal erupts in front of her blocking her passage.
"This is it brother! The moment all ends!" Zeke says pushing forward to reach and grab Eren.
"Leo!" Pieck shouts at the top of her lungs from the tower seeing all of this happening before her eyes. He was still free, in his insanity Leo jumped on top of the pure titans, squashing, smashing and breaking them underfoot, supporting himself on the giant pile of titans. He was being carried by the pure titans as much as he was fighting them and the second the pure titans started turning to crystal his attention changed towards the only moving target, the beast titan.
In the same instant the three touched. Zeke reached Eren's titan and activated the founder's powers and Leo's teeth sunk into Zeke's nape biting off a chunk of it.
It was too late though as Zeke already shouted and his scream shook the world. Everyone inside the city and all Eldians in the world are teleported inside the real of the Paths revealing Zeke's true intentions.
"I will not allow this." Eren protests while being chained up to the ground.
"It is no longer about what you desire or not Eren. I have activated the founding titan, soon its powers will render all Eldians sterile. What don't you understand, the world will become a better place."
"Or not." Leo says coughing and spewing blood and bile. "Have you ever read the tragedy of the blue bird? It is a folk story told by the people that live in the desert south of the mid-eastern alliance. They say when the wind blows over the dunes of the desert you can hear the cry of a blue bird which once lived there. It cries because the desert took over its land and all its brethren died beside it, now crying out every day and night to find a partner. There are children being born right now, Eldian children which you'll force to face the same fate. You can fill your life with friends but you will never be able to fill other people's lives with yourself. I will one day be a parent and so you and Eren and every single man and woman in this world will do the same. To stop Eldians from reproducing is against life itself. So tell me, what will you chose?"
"My mind is already made up."
"Not you, Ymir!" The little Ymir appears in front of all three, right in the middle between them.
"I am not telling you to do anything, am I not telling you who is right or wrong, but think and for once in your life be free and chose!" Leo shouts at Ymir and she starts crying and running towards Eren in order to reject Zeke's desire to sterilize the Eldians but as she run Zeke came from behind and grabbed her.
"Even you don't understand. Wouldn't your life have been better if you never lived?"
"NO!" Ymir shouts blocking Zeke's desire but his anger overwhelmed both of them.
"Then I will destroy it all since I became the blue bird of the desert." With nobody to share his belief Zeke activated the wall titans starting his genocidal march. He will kill everyone on Paradise island.
A giant flash takes everyone out of the realm of the Paths and back into the waking world. Leo was trembling and shaking on the ground in convulsions. Pieck was being carried down from the top of the tower while Rainer and Bertolt were getting up from under the rubble they were thrown into. Annie appears at the end of the battle finishing off some remaining pure titans and Erwin arrives with his 3DM gear alongside the scouts.
"Where is he? Where did Zeke go?"
"The Rumbling started, we're all going to be killed if we don't get out of here fast.
"We have to find Zeke and kill him before that happens."
"A little problem..." Leo says while continuously spitting blood. "Back in the previous world the founding titan was defeated using a flying boat and the explosion from a Colossal titan. We have neither of those."
"We might not need it. However, how can we make an axe the size of a city?" Levi says seeing over the horizon a giant moving tree anchored to the ground. It was Zeke's founding titan gathering all the Wall titans towards him to start the annihilation of the Eldians.
"Why isn't he sending the titans out to kill all of us yet?"
"We've taken out a quarter of the outer wall meaning a good chunk of Wall titans are already gone. He'll also need a lot more titans to cleans the island from one end to the other. Look around us, all the pure titans are gone, he's planning to turn them into Colossal titans and start from the centre.
"So he did it then?" Magath says arriving on the battlefield. "Of all people Zeke started the Rumbling."
"To kill all the Eldians though and not the rest of the world."
"I cannot believe I got to see this day. The failures of Marley created that thing, not Eldia, not the past but the mistakes Marley did in the present. I wish there was a way to take it all back now. There will be time for self pity later, today however we need to find a way to take that monstrous titan down."