"Everyone out!" the order was clear, sharp, and conversational.
Captain Levi's voice cut through the deep breaths and panicked murmurs vying for supremacy in the wake of the shock of seeing normal stone do something as extraordinary as opening up without so much as a creak, nor send up a puff of dust cloud as a memo to the rest of the room.
That would have been crazy enough, but the crazy was just beginning after the slab of wall parted and showed what really happens behind the scenes of 'stoneworks'.
'Everyone out' meant everybody but Armin, who was still chained to the cot in the middle of all of this turbulence. Guilt wrapped around his neck a little tighter when he realizes the razor's edge he smuggled into their base, then pressed up at his comrades' necks.
A cat that can talk with creepy powers? Yeah, that's not suspicious at all. Armin thought bitterly, needing the manacles to come off so that he could have first choice on how thoroughly to kick his own ass before his superiors had at him.
By the walls, I almost got my entire squad killed.
He wanted to press his head between his fingers and squeeze down hard. He couldn't even look anybody in the face. A weight of shame bearing down on his chest like a physical thing.
Armin barely heard Commander Hanji ordering Sasha to unlock his manacles. The words moving like honey in winter to his ears from his commander's lips inside the tiny cell. Sasha's brown hair caught the light at just the right angle and his eyes reacted to the movement. Armin look up to see his comrade's face meeting his gaze. He expected anger or disappointment or some equally less-than-friendly emotion decorated between brown eyes and thinned lips. Instead, understanding and fear and relief and a smile chased with worry, not for herself but for him, gave him pause in his guilt waller.
The manacles around his ankles were the first to go. Armin's lips were moving before he could think better of it.
"I'm-" the words seem to swell in his throat before he swallowed the lump. "Sasha, I'm so sorry."
Words spilled from his lips unbidden, "I put all of your lives in danger and I-"
"It wasn't your fault, Armin," Sasha stopped him, her head coming up sharply from the task of unlocking the cuffs on his wrists. Her facial expression read 'angry', but it wasn't directed at him. "Look at what she put you through, in front of everyone you know, and as a test at that?" What a slut?!" She spat, revolted.
"But I'm the one who brought her in here," Armin tried to protest, feeling pulled emotionally between guilt, and relief and a little defensive for Shakira. Which begs the question, why am I feeling defensive for Shakira?
Sasha was right.
"As if you or anyone else could keep her out if she wanted in." Connie said in Armin's defense, "look at what she made the stone do, man!" the shaved-headed scout exclaimed, hand gesturing to the slab of wall Shakira exited only moments ago as if to say, 'exhibit A'.
"You tried to warn us last night, Armin, and we made fun of you." Erin's voice met his ears next just as the manacles came off his hands with a soft 'click'. A welcome relief from the press of metal into his wrist and ankles celebrated through his body. Even though his hands were covered with thick socks to prevent him from biting himself, resulting in his transformation into the hulking colossal monster that lives inside him, the tight cuffs relentlessly squeezed his wrists as if it wouldn't be satisfied until it cut off his circulation. Armin rubbed feeling back into his hands repeatedly as soon as those things were off, clenching and unclenching his fingers and feeling them slowly come back to normalcy. For whatever that's worth right now.
"If anything were to happen to us, it would have been our own fault for not taking you seriously." Erin maintained.
"Yeah," Floch said, coming closer to the bars. The torchlight behind him jealously trying to cast his profile in shadow, competing with the unnatural overhead disks of light. There was no competition, however. "She probably had you under some sort of spell or something," the red-headed scout said, superstition clouding the light in his green eyes, "or was I the only one that noticed that that thing kept our entire squad out from this cell without so much as lifting a finger? The keys worked, nothing baring our way physically, yet none of us was able to open this cell door. Not even Captain Levi or Mikasa for that matter."
The Ackermans stood at different points in the cell silently listening to the exchange in views from the shared experiences of the Scouts Regiment. One examining the glass door a few feet taller than he, while the other at Erin's side, fingering her red scarf in thought. None of them have uttered so much as a peep since this conversation began.
"If she can do that, I can't rule out anything until there is enough concrete evidence for me to stand on," Floch said resolutely.
"You're not the only one who felt that thing's power, Floch," Jean validated the redhead. The tall man got an unfocused look in his eyes like he was recalling some unpleasant memory under duress. "It felt like something was cutting off my windpipe and it got harder by the second to breathe when she started to leave." Even from where Armin was sitting up on the cot with Jean at the threshold of the cell, he could see the man trying and failing to suppress a shudder.
Heads bobbed in acknowledgment at the same experience.
"I broke out in a cold sweat," Erin told the crowded cell. "Like Jean said, I couldn't breathe either. " Green eyes turn on Armin and he met his friend's haunted gaze. "I swear on my dead comrades, "
Erin never says that sentence lightly, Armin knew. The words filled his gut with fear and made his bowels clench to hear fearless Erin speak like this.
"Armin, I felt the trek of my sweat reverse from a downward track on my face when that thing was cracking open the stone."
No heads bobbed for that one and for a few heartbeats, silence ruled the cell with all eyes on Erin in the wake of his sharing.
Then, unexpectedly, Captain Levi spoke up. "Erin's experience is the same as mine," he told the scouts pooling their results together from their shared strange morning.
A few voices asked no one in particular, " what could mean?"
No answers were forthcoming only murmurs and speculations.
"Mikasa?" Erin asked, turning to her, "what happened to you?" Erin's concern was absolute for his childhood friend, "She doesn't like you very much. Did she hurt you?"
"Just the air-supply problem," Mikasa said, turning away reddening cheeks, probably from how endearing she found Erin's concern for her to be.
"Alright, that's enough of that," Commander Hanji told off the squad. No one had heard her say anything throughout the testimonials. Or even since the 'Shakira exit'. Armin couldn't imagine Commander Hanji not lively as a rabbit, twitterpated over something like this, and to be honest, he was kind of scared to know what she had in store for him. For as much as his comrades were all vouching for him, he didn't think that Commander Hanji was going to let him off the hook that easily. "It's been an interesting morning, we can all agree. But didn't you receive an inescapably clear order just moments ago to clear the cell?"
Inescapably from Commander Hanji's lips felt sinister in context. Her one eye along with her words adding something chilly to Armin's spine automatically. And suddenly, the one to fear is not the five-foot-two Corporal standing with the puzzled expression on his face at the glass door.
"We have a mission to carry out, " Hanji continued, her disarming voice dropping the letters in the sentence like bricks, rippling the pall of quiet that moved in when everybody shut up in unison. "Despite the morning's...distractions," the commander said haltingly as if searching for a diplomatic filling then with a pointed look in Armin's direction to ensure that she conveyed just who she was laying the blame thick on for this hiccup, she switched gears in the conversation. "You all have your assignments and you all know what to do." One eye scans the cell from wall to wall, face after face then a smile appeared under it. However, it had some distance to go before it could reach that eye. "See them done. We leave in 0:45." Hanji said, turning back to what's been purchasing her attention all this time; the section of wall Shakira escaped into. The commander has been looking at that wall as if threatening it to give up its keys and secrets.
The members of the Survey Corps crumpled faster than the stone wall seem to want to cooperate. Feet shuffled out over the stone floor suddenly in a hurry to look busy.
While Captain Levi's actions are tantamount to violence, that is known throughout the squads, even outside the Survey CORPS. Commander Zoe Hanji, however, has an unknown about her that nedges your teeth just to think about what that reaction when it happens, might be. Because that's just it. You can't predict when or what she'll do if she's displeased. But it wouldn't be good.
"Get rid of that food," Captain Levi barked to no one in particular.
Two pairs of feet paused then retraced their course from the stone steps leading to the top level of the base and back to Armin's cell door.
Armin wasn't surprised to see Sasha had volunteered. Food is like a trigger word that controls the interworkings of that girl's brain. And Armin would bet another stay in this no-longer-dank cell, that Sasha isn't going to throw any of it away if she can find some storage place Captain Levi wouldn't find it or chug it down fast enough before anyone notices or it's too late to stop her, meaning that there would only be crumbs left; any punishment be damned later.
The second person, as it turns out, did surprise him.
Mikasa? Armin's eyebrows made a break for his hairline, abandoning his bangs in the rearview.
For some reason, his normally reserved friend was strutting purposefully towards the table with his breakfast on it. The determined look on her face only ever met with little to no resistance when pitted against an enemy A.K.A, anyone who messes with Erin. With the exception of Captain Levi, they all died bloody.
So is that look there because Erin got caught up in Shakira's spell shock-wave or for me?
He quickly countered that last part with lunacy. It's not that its far fetch but Mikasa is in love with his best friend to the point of suicide. It's intense when viewed from the outside how much she loves Erin. Armin had to marvel how Erin could be that thick not to notice or is he just not interested?
Armin turned away from the girls walking towards him, his attention finding Captian Levi standing where the fancy-looking toilet was, using the tip of his boot to test it out if it works by pressing down on the weird-looking silver noob at the front of the tank. The sound of water slashing in the bowl, ending with a violent gurgle answered any misgivings in the shorter man's mind and Armin was closer enough to hear him breathe, "it works."
Commander Hanji was still at the wall, fingers combing over the surface, perhaps trying to understand "how did that kitten do it?"
Clearing his throat interrupted his superiors in their discoveries. "Captain Levi. Commander Hanji," Armin started nervously but resolute. "Before I give my report there is something I have to tell you."
Both officers exchanged looks with each other before turning from what they were doing to look at the teenager at the cot's edge.
"What do you want to tell us, Armin?" Hanji asked pleasantly and Armin bit his bottom lip nervously. What he was about to tell them might be important if not noteworthy but it could also put him in the singularity category twice in 24 hrs and it's already been a rough 24 hrs for him.
"All the things the scout members shared this morning that happened to them," Armin lifted his gaze from Captain Levi's boots to meet the eyes of his superiors, "I didn't feel any of that." He continued before the intriguing expressions playing out on his superiors' faces turned into rapid-firing questions. "In fact, I felt just the opposite of any of that. I felt protected and safe, and stunned to see a wall do something like that, of course." he dropped that part in as casually as he could.
Captain Levi was at his side when he next blinked. The room is tiny, true. But how can someone disappear from your peripheral vision in a nanosecond? Armin nearly jumped back when the dark-haired man stood beside him, head slightly cocked to the side, looking at Armin with what can only be described as confusion portrayed on a face whose three main expressions were scowl, glare, and indifferent boredom. Confusion seemed out of its element on Captain Levi's features.
"How?" he asked, his words slowly touching his lips. The liquor from last night hugging his breath like a dying wish, making each word hit Armin's nose like a staggering punch. "How is that even possible when you were the closest to that thing's power?"
"First," Command Hanji spoke up, "we don't know the scale of the kitten's power. We don't even know what she can and cannot do at this point." The right index finger, seemingly elected from among the rest of her fist, punctuated her words with gestures stabbing at the air in front of her and the ceiling. "There are just too many questions and too few answers for us to go about making collisions just yet. Don't touch that table, girls. We will need to investigate the contents on it in detail before we leave for the mission." She called out to Mikasa and Sasha, and Armin and Captain Levi turned to face them.
The girls paused a few steps away from the table beside the shower stall. Mikasa's face looked impassive but Armin knows what his friend looks like low-key irritated. Her mouth was slightly downturned, frowning at the impediment in her execution, and her fingers reached to fiddle with her scarf threads as a sort of pacifier to her disappointed mood. Sasha was so close to drooling from the side of her mouth, it's a miracle a river of salvia wasn't already running down her chin. So far, the only scents Armin can decipher are the smell of bacon, which, admittedly had his stomach growling in quiet protest at not eating already, and the smell of coffee. The richest, strongest coffee scent he's ever smelled, promising so much deliciousness on the trip down from his lips to his stomach. His mouth might not be far behind Sasha's in the drool contest if he continued to think about it for too long.
"Number two," Commander Hanji was saying as Armin refocused his thought's direction, "It's entirely possible," she stated confidently, "in fact, that tells me a little more about your girlfriend, Armin."
"She's not-" Armin bit his lip abruptly but the correction was already out through the gates of his teeth and in the open.
"Hmm?" Hanji asked, head-tilting as Captain Levi did earlier as if this is the first time she was seeing an 'Armin'.
"Do enlighten me, Hanji," Captain Levi intoned without emotion, seemingly impervious to the awkward atmosphere that just inflated itself between commander and subordinate. "Why is it possible for Officer Arlert to not feel the effects of that thing's powers when he had a front-row seat to the show?" Captain Levi challenged.
Commander Hanji took a deep breath then release it with a sigh, "You're hell at killing titans but you don't know anything when it comes to love, do you?" she rolled her eye for dramatic emphasis while Captain Levi reset his facial expression back to scowl.
"Love?" the man scoffs derisively, sounding like he stepped in something unpleasant, "don't you mean psycho? Delusional? Out of touch with reality?"
"She likes him!" Commander Hanji said slowly with exasperation, "None of that matters. Even though it's true." She backtracked for a second as if a thought popped up in her head at that very moment. "Shakira doesn't care if all of us fear her or think the worst of her," she explained like she was talking to the village idiot. "The only opinion that matters in her mind is Armin's. Any girl, no matter who they are, wants to impress the boy they like. I doubt strangling Armin or giving him a case of the creep factor is a positive step in that direction. And she seems to have done her homework. Look how wrapped she had you, Armin, at points during your conversation."
Armin couldn't deny or defend himself against that. Because he was wrapped. Despite his suspicions best defenses, he was ill-prepared for the assault on his inexperience with girls. And Shakira is more woman than girl. Even if everything she said to him was a lie, he couldn't lie to himself convincingly enough to say that he didn't secretly enjoy everything she had to offer his eyes in their conversation.
Is it wrong for me to feel this way? Armin's thoughts felt torn. A flash of golden eyes and smooth, bare, bronze skin had him feeling uncomfortable in his pants. He tried to clear his head but to no avail.
"I think she landed creep-factor bullseye since she can change from a woman to a cat." Captain Levi monotoned had a strange tone to it, almost as if he was amused. He turned to the blond teen, then said the last thing Armin expected. "Unless you like your pussies hairy, Officer Arlert."
Casually mentioning something so graphic to a fourteen-year-old, no matter what his profession threw at him daily, was really digging. Armin's brain glitch for a second as if comprehending that Captain Levi told a dirty joke to him. The man, with three expressions, just told a joke.
Unfortunately, his reaction to what the captain said was turning his cheek red with embarrassment and he wished the floor would make like the wall and obligingly open up and swallow him whole as it did for Shakira. All of a sudden, his face felt hot and the heat was spreading to his neck fast and furiously.
"'the hell you turning red for?" Captain Levi, asked again with that confusion in his tone and it was starting to grate on Armin's nerves. As if the last couple of hours of his life wasn't punishment enough.
Is this on purpose? Are they making fun of me or something? Do they want my report or not? Armin wonders, but coming up with as much as Commander Hanji got from the stone slab. Anger was creeping up inside of him and he was trying to hold it down.
"Levi," Commander Hanji admonishes, "don't tease him."
"Why the hell would I tease him?" Levi said, "I'm just leveling with him. Congratulations, brat." He said facing Armin with an indifferent expression this time, "you and I are on the same field now that you've seen a woman naked. According to your girlfriend, that is."
"She is not my girlfriend!" Armin snapped.
"Psycho-wife-to-be then," Commander Hanji said smoothly, ignoring the silence that just painted the room pin-drop quiet for two seconds. Without missing a beat, she continues in that relaxed tone of hers, coming to stand before Armin and between Levi, "tell me, Armin. Is she beautiful?"
Her words caught him off-guard. They were so not fit for this situation. As if five seconds ago didn't happen. As if he shouldn't be pressing the panic button on his nerves for screaming in the face of a senior officer. The most response he could manage was, "What?" while looking into the eye of his commander.
"Let's try that question a different way," she said airly, walking over to Mikasa and Sasha, then laying a hand on Mikasa's shoulder lightly, "between Mikasa and Shakira, who's prettier?"
Armin's blue eyes felt like they were trying to opt-out and escape his sockets to leave him in his predicament, they got so wide.
And the 'this is a simple answer' tone in her voice was not helping because it was anything but a simple answer. Now his brain was double-timing on that panic button it found and likes so much. His hands suddenly felt clammy and there was a heat on his nape that had nothing to do with embarrassment. Because now, he was in danger of Mikasa's vexation. She might not say it out loud but you don't need to express words to know that someone is not on friendly terms with you because of something you said or done to rub them the wrong way.
F.E.P. Female Emotional Politics. It's complicated.
"That's-" Armin started, but Hanji cut him off.
"Answer the question, Officer Arlert." That same smooth tone has a bit of edge to it now. It's no longer a choice. It's an order.
Captain Levi grunted an indifferent grunt beside him.
"Mikasa is beautiful in her own way," Armin started, tiptoeing around his response after easing the press on the panic button his brain had.
"That's the version of what the kitten said," Commander Hanji countered, unimpressed.
For some reason, Armin couldn't help but feel like he was being tested here. He just couldn't understand why and for what purpose.
"If the most beautiful women in the Capital were to stand next to her," Armin started again, rapidly spitting the words out before he lost his hold on his nerve. He looked in the general direction of Commander Hanji and by default, at Mikasa, "they would pale in comparison," he noted Mikasa's eyebrows furrowing slightly before he finished softly, "next to Shakira."
His gaze desisted from his friend's direction, not wanting to see what her eyes were saying.
"Oh?" was the slightly surprise reply from the one-eyed commander. "And why is that? Your honest and unbias option as a part of your report, Officer Arlert." She ordered.
"Because she's preternaturally beautiful. That's my honest observation, Commander Hanji." Armin replied stoically.
"Preternaturally? That's one hell was a beauty standard. And that's not because you saw her naked, tits and all, is it?" Captain Levi asked contemplatively, sitting on the edge of the cot, patting the corner of the wall beside it for reasons unknown to Armin.
"No, it isn't, Cap-," Armin paused, his voice flat when he continued more formally, "Corporal," he corrected himself.
There's nothing outwardly disrespectful in his address to his senior officer. It is his official title, after all. Just no one in the scouts calls him that. Right now, he feels like a stranger to Armin rather than the captain he's rode into battle with over and over again. Hanged over as he is before his own mission deploys, and making subtle dirty jokes at his junior officer's expense, and at such an inappropriate time at that. Especially with two female subordinates in the same room. He's more like the new corporal title no one in his regiment cared to call him than the 'Captain' Levi, Armin's come to respect.
The cell grew still in the wake of Armin's measured words. Hanji's brow over her eye patch arched and if he'd continued to look at Levi, Armin would have noticed the man's face drawn in a moment of consideration, molding over what the young officer just flung in the midst of their conversation. The spell broke when someone spoke into the silence.
"Both of you get ready for the mission," Commander Hanji ordered Sasha and Mikasa, who'd exchanged questioning looks between themselves then at Armin and Levi. The former staring straight ahead, back ramrod straight. The latter pushed up from the cot.
The girls left the room before Commander Hanji had to look at them one more time. Armin didn't think Mikasa took the dismissal personally, and his friend only spared him a glance before turning sharply on her heel, leaving the cell in quick retreat. Sasha came close to giving a protest, denied the opportunity for food disposal that she'd plan for, but thought better of it after reading the change in the atmosphere of the cell. She hurried to catch up with Mikasa, whose boots were the only visible part of her body Armin could see from his position in the cell.
Armin took a deep breath, willing readiness into his veins for whatever was about to hit him like a rainstorm from his superiors, now that the crowd was dispensed with and the last sounds of the girls' footsteps were too faint to overhear any whispers of conversation.
"You got something to say to me, brat?" Levi asked invading Armin's personal space.
"I'm curious," Armin started after taking a moment to inhale bravery into his lungs to say what needed to be said, and trying to keep from backing down even if it cost him a couple of teeth. "Why is my senior officer drunk on the morning of his own mission where the lives of his subordinates depend on his every word? And why is he not in control of his cognitive facilities in the middle of usurpation in his base from a potential enemy we've never dealt with before? Ordering Mikasa and Sasha to throw away evidence before investigating any of it first?" The smell of his stale morning breath backlashing his nostrils from his heated words but Armin didn't have the care or the time to be self-conscious about that right now. He tried to keep his emotions at bay but he was slipping up the more he dwelled on Levi's carelessness. "If I may be so frank," Armin continued not waiting for permission, "I'm skeptical about going on this morning's mission without my captain. And I don't see him in this cell at the moment, sir." The words sounded harsher than he intended them but he wouldn't take them even if he could.
Armin stared straight ahead, his gaze catching the slim space of wall between the shower stall and the table. His chin jutting out, his back upright and at attention, waiting for the outcome of his outburst to erupt in violence and anger and blood. His blood. No one talks to Levi Ackerman like that and gets away with it but it needed to be said. The consequences be damned. He wasn't a coward nor would he be a blind subordinate, not in this regard. Not when the lives of his entire squad were hanging in the proverbial balance. If Levi wants to wail on him because he's willing to tell him to get his shit together, so be it.
It's already been a shit storm of a morning, what's a few more pieces? Armin thought resolutely.
"Message received, Officer Arlert," Levi said taking a step back from his person.
Armin's head turned towards the source, blue eyes blinking lamely at the man. It's not exactly what he was expecting the man would do. Not what he'd just been preparing for him to do to him, so much so that his muscles tensed from memory in anticipation, in case there was violence. But he wasn't expecting understanding.
"You're right. My current state is careless, and there is no excuse for it." Levi said, almost apologetically.
Armin nodded once, "I appreciate your understanding of the matter, Captain."
"Now that you boys have kissed and made up," Hanji clapped her hands together twice, "we'll get to the point of why we're still in Armin's cell." She said, tsking her tongue at them, "I mean, really Armin, we were just teasing you a little. Did you think we would blame you for this?"
Armin blinked at her for a second, never mind that she just switched gears in the conversation again. He continued on the trail she started. "Honestly, Commander," Armin stated, looking pointedly at his superiors, then at the cell in exaggerated glances, "you did put in a cell overnight then this morning happen in this cell,-"
"Yes, let's talk about that for a bit." Hanji interrupted sharply, all business, "describe our usurper in detail please since she was so disposed to you alone."
Armin took a deep breath. Almost voluntarily, his mind began imagining Shakira; her toned body, exquisite feminine features, sublime and superlative to any woman he'd ever paid attention to long enough to think of what to say to them, should they ever give him the time of day.
He attempted to be stoic, as he realizes that his report had officially begun. But it seems as if that part of his personality has abandoned him in the face of the best memories he's had in years. "Um," he stutters.
"Training to be a tomato in case this Scout thing doesn't work out, Officer Arlert?" Captain Levi inquired scathingly, "about to explode in your pants or should we wait for you to ejaculate before we can get on with the rest of the report?"
Levi might as well have slapped him hard enough to see constellations in his vision from the effects of that tone but did the trick of snapping him out of his daydreaming and focused his wandering thoughts. "Sorry, sir," Armin said hurriedly, awkwardly clearing his throat. "Shakira, first name only as far as I am aware." Armin spoke formally, "five-foot-one, with waist-length purple hair,-"
"Purple hair?!" both Hanji and Levi exclaimed together, faces sporting varied expressions of disbelief and curiosity.
"Yes." Armin succinctly answered before continuing his report. "She has deep-bronzed skin completion, athletically built, with golden eyes."
"I saw that this morning," Captain Levi stated calmly, his grey eyes burning with the memory, "I thought it was a trick of the lights." He gestured to the overhead lights with a thrust of his pointed chin. A bit of dark stubble living for the moment on the usually well-kempt Captain's jawline, shaved some of his youthful features away from a face hiding years of experience and the walls only knew what else. "She really has golden eyes?" He reiterated, ensuring that he heard his subordinate correctly.
"Yes, sir. She does." Armin answers dutifully.
"Shakira has the same color eyes as a cat, doesn't she? If I recall correctly, Armin."
"Yes, Commander," Armin replied.
"Only the eyes are consistent with her transformation," his commander observed thoughtfully, her index finger tapping her chin.
"What about her skin color?" Levi intoned, "I saw the back of her hand when she reached for her satchel, they're darker than Ymir's." the shrewd Captain provided, "as far as we know, Ymir came from the Marley. The kitten could also be from the same place. Maybe she was sent here."
Armin was shaking his head before he realized that he was doing it.
"You disagree with Captain Levi's argument, Officer Arlert?" Commander Hanji said, bring him up short in his thoughts.
"Um-" the blond stuttered, "it's, it's just weird, commander."
"Yes, I believed we're covered that," Hanji said sarcastically. At least, it sounds like she was being sarcastic.
"No." Armin said, shaking his head again, "What I mean is that it just feels bigger than that. Bigger than what we think we know so far. We might not even be at the tip of this, whatever it is."
"Explain yourself clearly, Armin." Commander Hanji ordered him softly but there mistaking the firmness in her voice.
Armin took a calming breath to organize his jumbled thought patterns before he spoke again, letting the strategist inside him take charge of his words. "If Marley has the technology to use cross-dimensional thresholds, why use it like this? They've been sending us titans for years now to breach our walls. Why not use a dimensional threshold to open a wormhole into the heart of Wall Sina, and unleash an army of titans?"
"All these questions and new terminologies!" Hanji whined dramatically. Her fingers imitating a hair pulling above her head as she started to pace back and forth. "What the hell is a wormhole?"
"I'll explain later," Armin soothed.
"Hanji." Levi reproved, irritated. He gave the signal to Armin to continued but not before cursing something foul under his breath and starring daggers across the room at his target.
Armin felt like he was between an old married couple. It was very uncomfortable, which made him dive further into the realm of strategy and logic.
"A lot of things don't add up, I agree," Armin said, catching Hanji's eye with his glance, "but I'm willing to bet that Shakira is not from Marley. I'm not taking it completely off the table." Armin said quickly when he saw the protest on his superiors' faces.
"There was a mention about a chase," Hanji said abruptly, pausing in her pacing, "also wasn't she shot?"
Another off-guard question Armin had forgotten to think about in the chaos of last night and boggle of this morning.
"So where's the blood? Or doesn't your wife-to-be bleed, Armin?" Captain Levi asked snarkily. "that could be a problem for any future litter you two might want to have."
It seems dirty jokes are a side-effect of being hungover for Captain Levi. Armin thought wryly. But he did have a point. Where's the blood?
"Hmm. That's right." Hanji joined in, "she was underneath your uniform last night in the dining hall, but there is no blood anywhere on you."
"When I found her in that meadow, she was bleeding," Armin told them, ignoring their razzing. "And that's another thing." Armin said, thinking out loud, "Why me? Why not Erin if she's from Marley and they're after a titan. He's the compass. The key to controlling all titans. If they wanted to deal us a military blow, then why reveal herself to us this morning? Objectively speaking, Shakira was holding the knife handle while we were holding the blade. She had every advantage and the drop on us. Why not take out you or Commander Hanji."
"You think Kitten can take me?" Levi challenged Armin, his grey-eyed stare steady and it almost convinced Armin that it wasn't all bluster if his facial muscles didn't betray a wince from over-sensitivity given from the overhead lights assault on the Captain's abused optic nerves.
"With all due respect, Captain," Armin said, facing the man that might punch him in the face for what he was about to hear with his own steady eye contact, "until you can walk through walls, create construct out of thin air, or snap thunder from your fingertips, right now, you are not humanity's strongest."
"Someone's brave this morning," Levi said warningly.
"Could be the shock of seeing tits for the first time shuts down a teenage boy's brain." Hanji speculated, "what was it that you used to describe her, Armin? Preternaturally beautiful? Wow! If that true, that could make any male think with his dick for a spell," Hanji said absently as if she remarking on something mundane. "Nothing a good pop in the mouth can't cure. Which I was so sure you were going to do that a second ago, Levi."
"Let's chalk it up to shock as the last strike."
"Yes, now continue with your report, Officer Arlert," Hanji order.