Although she probably should have expected it, Annie was still shocked once she saw the familiar glow of lightning crash around Eren as she was thrown to the side due to the intense burst of heat. She knew that no matter how close she was, Eren shifting wouldn't be able to cause any real damage to her, as it simply didn't produce enough heat or blast force to do anything other than knock her off balance and sweat a little bit, but it was still certainly uncomfortable.
As the mass of flesh began to twist and contort itself into shape, Annie began to quickly move around and scan the area, just to make sure that nobody else happened to be around or see. She knew from experience that unless you were inside a building or hidden within something tall enough, the bolt of lightning would be visible for miles, but that could be played off relatively easily if it happened to be visible.
What she was really worried about was whether these trees would be tall enough to fully hide Eren.
Aside from the colossal, the biggest titan she had seen after a shift was the beast titan, only seventeen meters tall, which was still taller than the previous holder by a small margin, but not a big deal. The real issue here was that she had no fucking clue how tall the coordinate was supposed to be.
She'd heard accounts in the past that had said it was as big a mile high, towering over all armies in sight and simply overwhelming them with sheer size rather than using any sort of special power. Yet she'd also seen drawings from history books of old which depicted it as a meek little thing, no bigger than five or so meters, according to its size in relation to humans, which left the lovely little range of so big Eren would be seen by every human within the walls and probably regarded as a demon (or god) for years to come, or so small that he could be kicked around by other titans.
Great.
She popped the small blade out of her ring and slid a small line across her thumb, just enough to draw blood, just in case.
Hopefully Eren had shifted due to his goal of trying to grab the knife, and not because he was focused on being angry at Annie, because she had no doubts that she could take Eren down-I mean, this was his first full shift after all, and she already kicked his ass during normal training, so unless his titan ended up being super fucking massive, it'd be like taking candy from a baby-but she did have doubts as to whether she could take Eren down silently.
As long as he had been calm when he shifted rather than in a blind rage, he shouldn't have too much trouble controlling his titan, but even then that could be sketchy.
And the last thing she needed is for the whole camp to come running just in time to see her ripping Eren out of a titan carcass.
She continued to stay on edge as the forming skull rose, up, up, until she started having trouble seeing the exact details of his face. As bones began to appear out of thin air, coagulating into an unrecognizable mess before separating to form a ribcage and arms. As muscle began to run over these bones, a livid red that was soon swallowed by familiar tan skin, disappearing wholly beneath the vast expanse that stretched upwards.
As the body continued to spiral towards the ground Annie became able to make out the small distinct bones that would become the ankle forming within the whirlwind of flesh and heat and breathed a sigh of relief. From where she stood it looked as if Eren's titan would end up being around fourteen or fifteen meters tall, still large for titan standards but a far cry from the mile high stories that she had heard.
She'd have to ask Eren and others later if they had any sort of myth or story about any such thing, very carefully of course.
Once the titan fully formed Annie stepped back into the clearing, still with the small cut across her thumb. Judging by the fact that Eren hadn't moved or roared it looked as if he was relatively in control at worst, and in full control at best, but she could be wrong.
From where she was she couldn't see the exact features of his face, as he seemed preoccupied with staring at his surroundings, for which Annie couldn't blame him.
She still remembered the first time she fully shifted, and although she had planned to shift and had been briefed on what it'd be like, nothing truly prepared her for the massive change in perspective that happened within a split second. It must have been even more disorienting for poor Eren who had no clue what a full shift would be like.
Watching him swivel his head back and forth a few times, she prepared to call out to him, placing her hands in front of her mouth to amplify the sound before Eren finally swung his head down to look at the ground and-woah.
Annie stopped for a second, somewhat stunned.
Eren's face was...gnarly was the only word coming to mind. She'd seen the large elf-like ears before, so while it was interesting that he had such an uncommon trait, it wasn't as shocking as the main feature of his face.
Set where his mouth and cheeks would normally be if he was still human was undeniably a mouth, but rather than holding a normal human shape it split off where the mouth should end into another row of teeth, just a bit higher than the previous row, creating a sort of lightning bolt effect, which she had to admit was kinda cool. It was something she'd never seen before, not even on the titan who's whole ability focused on their mouth.
He also seemed to lack any lips, which was a much less uncommon trait when it came to titan shifters, but still wasn't exactly common, so it was a little jarring to see.
That also meant he probably wouldn't be able to talk, which was...not the worst, but not ideal either considering the situation.
She watched as he continued to scan the area, wringing his hands nervously, and decided to take pity on him and test his hearing abilities simultaneously. "Hey." She started out, just at a normal speaking level. Although she was almost certain that he wouldn't be able to hear her from this far down at a normal level, it didn't hurt to try.
She waited for a minute or so, simply trying to see if he had heard her even a little but, but after watching him look over where she was a few times he decided to increase the volume.
"Hey!" She said a bit more forcefully this time, as if she were trying to get the attention of someone across from her in the loud mess hall. She still wasn't quite shouting, but it was fairly close, and that got a response.
Eren seemed to freeze in place for a second, and was now looking in the general area of where she was, but it was fairly obvious that he couldn't really see her. Yay for titan eyesight being absolutely abysmal.
"Hey I know you can hear me! I saw you stop!" She called out once more, at the same volume. Now Eren was pretty honed in on her location, as he stopped wringing his hands and simply stared down at where she was, his ears moving from being flat at his side to a more forefront position, which was probably instinctive so that he could hear her better.
To Annie it was...cute, in a way. Cute in the same way that a dog tilts its head towards its owner when it hears its name being called, but a bit out of place on a fifteen meter humanoid creature.
She watched calmly as he slowly, very slowly lowered himself to the ground, taking care to place the majority of his bulk behind him rather than in front to avoid getting closer to Annie. She could also tell the moment that she truly came into his line of sight as his eyes went from darting around her general area to focused directly on her and his pupils expanded to fill a good chunk of his iris.
'Kinda like a cat.' Annie thought as she took in the odd sight that was Eren's titan up close.
Well as close as she could get while he was crouched on the forest floor.
"Oh, good you can actually hear me." She told him as she continued to look him over. While his overall body plan looked generic for a shifter, man that face was odd! "That's good because I wouldn't have believed you if you said you couldn't with those big ass ears."
Annie watched in interest as he went up to feel his ears, realizing that he probably had no idea how his titan looked, as he'd most likely assumed that all titan shifters just look like those mindless beasts that roam outside the walls once shifted.
Maybe she'd make a quick visual representation of his face to show to him later. Just to freak him out.
After watching him tilt his head back and forth a few times, moving his ears back and forth in an attempt to hear something better she decided to mess with him a bit. "Ok Eren, I'm gonna need you to answer and do a few things real quick, you got that?" She asked, chuckling slightly as he almost tipped over from the force of his nod.
Yeah, it seemed he was certainly a bit disoriented from the size change.
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
She held up three fingers and took a small bit of enjoyment in watching Eren attempt to squint and get a better view of her hand. She knew from experience that she would have to be much closer for him to even be able to make out the clear difference between her hand and fingers, as a titan's eyesight really did suck, but it was still pretty funny to watch him start to move forward ever so slightly in an attempt to get a better view, not wanting to tip over, but totally unable to answer her question from where he was.
"Are you just going to sit there and stare at me, or are you going to answer me?" She asked while pretending to be impatient, relishing in the knowledge that Eren would be totally unable to see her facial expressions from where he was.
Eren huffed, releasing a small cloud of steam-a trick that she had elected to not teach him in human form as Eren had the impulse control of a young child with a basket of eggs and would probably start repeating the trick regardless of much of a bad idea that was at any given time-and opened his mouth to respond.
Predictably producing a totally unintelligible sound.
Eren seemed to blink for a second before trying again.
Then again.
Then again.
Although he couldn't really see her, Annie simply watched the whole debacle with a small smile on her face. Eren kept trying to contort his face into different expressions, probably trying to wrangle his non-existent lips into saying words, and she almost wished that they had been by a lake so she could show him how silly he looked at the moment.
Watching him try to figure out what was going on, clacking his jaw open and closed a few times as he kept running his hands over his face, was endearing in its own sort of way. It was like watching a child discover something new, if that child was a fifteen meter monster who had the power to destroy civilizations with one command.
Still, Annie continued to stand there, observing with a familiar fondness. Really, one of these days she'd have to have Reiner and Bertholdt here as well to see Eren shift, as Reiner had had the same talking problem that Eren was currently facing when he first shifted and Bertholdt would probably just be terrified of Eren's face in general.
She'd have to set up a good time for that, especially if she wanted to get Reiner to shift in order to show each other the similarities, as they'd probably be too proud to admit it themselves.
It would definitely be hard to get a good time for both of them to shift though, especially Reiner, because he was, because he was…
Annie felt her blood run cold.
What the hell had she been thinking?
What the hell had she been thinking !?
Of course she couldn't have Reiner shift, fuck she shouldn't even have thought about letting Eren know that Reiner and Bertholdt knew that shifters existed, much less that those two were ones as well.
And what the fuck had she been thinking, becoming fond of the coordinate, something that could destroy her, her father, her hometown, everyone she ever loved and cared about on a simple whim. Something that she'd been specifically warned against falling for their charms before the start of her mission. Something that relied on people being complacent and trusting it to truly use the full rage of its power.
Fuck, when did she start thinking of Eren and the coordinate as two separate entities?
(The answer was far before she'd ever admit, as on a deep level Annie knew that she'd never really connected Eren to being the coordinate, and even as the titan stood her in the face, wasn't able to see it, because it wasn't the coordinate she'd been told, it was Eren. Eren who'd get into a stupid fight with Jean over the littlest of things, Eren who ran into trees with the 3DMG more than he'd ever admit, Eren who's first response to finding out he was a monster was to try and see how he could protect people-)
Christ, this was not good.
The longer she stood there watching Eren mess around in his titan form, the more complacent she got. The more she stopped thinking of Eren as the monster he really was and started thinking of him as that rage filled kid who cared a little bit too much for his friends but would never admit it.
So Annie steeled herself, stopped all that she had been doing and called out to Eren, saying something she should have said at the start of this whole debacle.
"I understand that this is probably a bit strange for you, but we really need to focus on one thing right now. Getting you out of there."
Amazing. Just amazing.
She told him to do one thing. One thing and he knocked himself out.
She told him to do something that she had literally never, never seen a shifter mess up and he decided to throw himself into the back of a tree and get knocked out while still in titan form.
And Annie didn't have her gear.
Fuck, this day was just becoming worse and worse.
As she continued to contemplate what she could possibly do in this situation she began to hear a familiar hissing as the rustling of leaves began to grow near, which could only mean one thing.
Other trainees were near, specifically other trainees who were making their way through the forest using 3DMG gear, which was both a blessing and a curse.
On one hand, if Annie was able to take out all of the people who were making their way here, she'd be able to quickly steal the gear and get Eren out, later apologizing and blaming her attacks on thinking they were bandits. But on the other hand, if she failed and they saw the big ass titan that was taking up the majority of the clearing, it wouldn't be hard for them to come to the conclusion that she was protecting this titan, where at best she'd get tried for treason and Eren would get off scott free, and at worst Eren would be discovered and they'd both be killed on the spot.
Neither possibilities for the second option seemed even somewhat favorable to Annie so she whipped around, moving the sound in order to figure out where the trainees would be coming from.
She quickly realized that they were coming in from around the same area that she entered the clearing, which meant that they probably previously knew of its existence, which was a really bad sign.
Fuck, now was not the time to panic.
Annie scaled the lowest tree over the entrance to the clearing, taking deep breaths in order to slow her breathing as she waited.
The noises continued to grow closer, and she could now make out a small bit of muffled talking, all of which sounded like she had been placed underwater. Her hands shook as she forced herself to stay still, as jumping early would only extrapolate the issue.
The voices drew closer, and closer, and then-
'There!' Annie thought as she jumped on top of a large blur, using her momentum to pull them to the group and wrap them in a chokehold. She used her leverage to force their head to face the ground, making sure that they had no possible way to see the sight that was in front of them and focused on applying intense pressure to the front and side of the person's neck, before she looked up and-
"Holy shit, Bertholdt?"
Bertholdt was simply standing in front of her, frozen in shock as he stared down at who she'd been choking, and with one quick glance she realized that it had been Reiner.
He fell to the floor with a gasp once she released him, and for a second Annie was relieved. In this case, Bertholdt and Reiner were the best possible people to be here-with their gear too!-yet she couldn't let go of how much of a disaster this situation could have been if Eren wasn't currently out of action.
"Why are you here!" She hissed as she stood up and dusted herself off.
"We um...well, we heard the blast all the way back from camp and um, though that you might need some help." Responded Bertholdt as he shifted from side to side nervously, and Annie realized that she couldn't really blame him all that much, as she probably would have done a similar thing, albeit much more stealthily.
It was also good to know that the flash of lightning probably hadn't been visible, as they would have certainly commented on it if it had been.
That didn't mean that she still wasn't going to be mad at them though.
"And what if Eren had been conscious right now?" She asked, "What if you guys had both decided to bolt in here while he was trying to work out his first shift without the knowledge that you two are fully aware of his abilities?"
Bertholdt decided to wisely keep his mouth shut while Reiner simply continued to dig his own grave. "Well, we could've just said that we heard it from you."
Annie pushed her thumbs into her temples as she laced her fingers across her forehead. God, why did she even try with this one. "Ok, you know what. Fine, nothing went wrong this time, but don't do that again." She chided, pulling her arms down to cross them in front of her chest. "But the only reason you're getting off easy this time is because I actually need you help."
"With what?"
"Unless you want to do it yourself, I'm gonna need one of you two to hand over your gear and swords so I can cut Eren out of there."
Reiner gave her a skeptical look. "Why not just wait for him to wake up then tell him how to get out?"
"Because that's how he got into this situation in the first place." She explained as she motioned for Reiner to start unbuckling his gear. When she got nothing but confused looks she decided to extrapolate with, "Told him to pull back and out and he threw himself into a tree."
They were both silent for a second before Reiner's face broke out into a smile then quickly dissolved into a small series of chuckles.
"Reiner, this is serious!" Cried Bertholdt as Reiner began to collapse into full out laughter. Annie looked away as a smile threatened to break out across her face, because it really was absurd, wasn't it.
The being that supposedly had enough power to be considered a god in some sense managed to knock himself out because he had followed her directions just a bit too literally.
Not only was it stupid, it was just so irrevocably Eren that she really couldn't help but chuckle along a bit as well. To be honest, she really should have expected something like this with how literally he had taken just about everything else that she had said, but what's in the past is in the past, so it wasn't like she could do anything about it now.
Once Reiner's laughter began to die down once more she asked, "So is one of you going to give me your gear or are you gonna cut him out yourself?"
"Don't worry, I got it, I got it." chuckled Reiner as he began to unbuckle and pull off the chest straps. "You should probably do it in case he wakes up for some reason so that we have some time to hide."
"Yeah, but you guys have to stay close by in case something happens to go wrong." she retorted as she helped unclip the sword holsters from Reiner's sides and placed them on the ground next to her."
"Like what?"
"Like in case I accidentally stab him and he decides to go batshit while I'm still trying to pull him out."
"You think that's a possibility?"
"I don't think it is, I know it is." Responded Annie as the 3DMG was handed over to her.
As she began to pull the gear on, she internally cursed Reiner for his height and size, as really, nothing was going to fit regardless of who had given her the gear as both of them wore several sizes bigger than what she was used to.
The back plate was far too large against her shoulders and actually restricted her movement, while she'd actually had to punch new holes in the leather for a good chunk of the straps. Even so, the sides of the gear which were unable to be tightened hung loose and were uncomfortable at her sides, making her seriously question whether she'd actually be able to use this gear or not.
Noting her hesitance, Bertholdt piped up, "Hey, if you um, don't feel comfortable or something, I can uh, take your place and cut him out."
"No it's fine." She responded as she placed the sword holsters back on their respective hooks. "Reiner had a point with what he said earlier, and besides I've already got it on, so what's the point of changing now?"
"Yeah, don't worry about it, it'll be fine." Reiner reassured him. "Besides, now that everyone's ready we can officially declare project 'snatch Eren part one' a go!"
"We are not calling it that."
"Woah." said Reiner as he stood underneath Eren to get a better look at his face while in titan form. "That's…"
"Gnarly, right?" Annie finished for him as she used his gear to pull herself up to where Eren's nape was exposed. They really were lucky that Eren had gone out sitting down with his head towards the ground, otherwise this would have been a much more difficult situation.
Not having much else to do at the moment, Reiner continued to study the titan's face, calling to Bertholdt, "Man you should really come over here! It's actually kinda rad!"
Bertholdt, who hadn't really moved since Annie had explained her whole plan, decided to politely decline, as no, he really had no interest in how terrifying a titan's face could possibly look.
"Really, you should come look though. It's not that bad I promise."
"Reiner, I really don't want to."
"Dude, it's like a cross between the jaw and beast titan minus the fur, it's kinda cool."
"I really don't-"
"Look, I really don't give a shit what the two of you want to do, because I'm ready to cut this boy out, and I'm doing it whether I have your help or not." Interrupted Annie as she shot out the hooks on the gear in order to anchor herself.
Normally, this really wouldn't have been a big deal, as she'd just simply cave out a space big enough for the torso and head to pull whoever was stuck out, and chop chop their limbs would be gone, but time constraints made this situation a hell of a lot harder. The unique facial markings would already take a bit of time to fade, which would push their arrival to camp back significantly, but the real issue would be getting trying to free his limbs while he was unconscious.
Due to it being his first shift there were two main possibilities. Either he was very lightly fused to his titan and getting him out would only be a matter of disconnecting his face and simply sliding his arms out, or he'd be so intertwined with the muscle and sinew even attempting to get his face free would be a nightmare, and knowing her luck it was probably the former.
She placed the tip of the sword just above where Eren's shoulder was hidden beneath the thick flesh and then pulled it downwards so that she could have a small bit of leverage when pulling it up through the skin. She really was thankful that Reiner and Bertholdt had showed up with their gear and swords as she knew from experience that this would have been a fucking nightmare without proper gear.
As she began to apply pressure the blade sunk into the skin, slicing with an ease that she had never known was possible with titan flesh before, although it certainly made sense now that she really thought about it. The titan dummies that were always used during training didn't seem to resist these blades much either, but she had just chalked that up to the material being soft.
She continued to push the blade forward, the flesh releasing a soft hiss as it separated to reveal the muscle and sinew beneath, and moved it in an arc around where Eren's head should be, ending just above his left shoulder.
Now for the unpleasant part.
Rolling up the sleeves of her sweatshirt, she briefly contemplated why she ever thought that a cream colored sweatshirt would be the best thing to wear for training, and jammed her fingers into the top of the arc, feeling backwards for a cavity.
Once she found what she was looking for she continued to push into the cavity, separating it from the surrounding skin until she could properly grip the flesh, which was much harder than it sounded.
Trying to hold onto titan flesh was like trying to grip warm raw beef, and felt just about the same, which wasn't exactly a feeling that Annie would describe as pleasant.
Once she felt she had a good grip she placed her feet from under her and ripped the flesh upwards, not only revealing Eren's head but also peeling it off of the majority of his torso.
Sort of like the world's biggest hangnail.
Annie wanted to gag at the imagery but instead focused on slicing off the piece of skin and throwing it down at the two boys who were now relaxing on the ground, paying minimal attention.
Well, down to may not have been the best description of her actions, as in reality once she saw that both Reiner and Bertholdt had stopped paying attention she lobbed the slab of meat directly at the two, actually succeeding to hit Reiner in the back. (Which she secretly thought was kind of impressive)
"Yo, what the fuck was that for!" Yelled Reiner as he wiped titan blood and juices off of his face and kicked the slab away from himself. That really had been a good throw.
Annie just smirked to herself and responded, "Oh, sorry, I was under the impression that you were paying attention in case anything went wrong and would be able to catch it. My bad."
"Why the fuck would I want to catch a big ass chunk of titan meat?" Asked Reiner, but Annie was already ignoring him in favor of continuing to get Eren out.
From what she could currently see, it looked like his arms and and legs were completely enveloped within the titan muscle, but his torso was relatively clear, which was honestly better than she had been expecting.
Once more she placed the tip of her sword into the flesh, this time around where his arms would be, and shoved the blade in with much more force. Using a similar maneuver to what she'd done for the face, Annie made quick cutouts around both of Eren's arms, but didn't make an attempt to pull anything out.
Instead she crouched down in front of his head and began to wriggle her hands into the sides of her first cut, pushing them under Eren's torso and placing a hand on each shoulder. With one swift motion she yanked his torso up, using her legs to brace herself and provide more lift, until she felt something give and his arms were pulled (mostly) from their fleshy prison.
Although she was standing on the very tops of her toes, due to how much taller Eren was than her, she was only able to dislodge his arms, which left his feet very much still stuck in the flesh of the titan.
Annie took the chance to check Eren's face, and yup, as she suspected the boy was out cold, and probably would be for the next half hour or so, which was really good because she certainly was not going to be the one dragging him back to camp.
With one hand still holding up Eren's shoulders, she used her free hand to grip the blade that had been left sticking out of the titan's flesh to disconnect the tendrils of muscle and sinew that still stuck to Eren's face before she carefully placed him back where he had been laying a minute prior.
Now to deal with the legs.
Before she began to cut anything, Annie retracted the anchors of her gear that had previously been embedded within the titan's flesh in favor of relocating them to the tree in front of her so that once Eren's titan started disintegrating she wasn't left falling through the air.
Once more, she placed the tip of her sword into the hot flesh and began to carve out an area for his legs, an action that was becoming horrifically repetitive, and called out to Reiner.
"I'm about to bring him down, can you grab him?"
"I got you!" he called back as Annie prepared to wrench Eren free of his fleshy prison.
Well, mostly free.
The only problem with cutting him out this way, rather than just taking off the limbs and leaving the important bits, was that no matter how close she cut there would still be large chunks of muscle attached to his arms and lower half that they'd have to peel off manually.
And that did not sound like a fun time.
Again, she placed her hands underneath Eren's chest and pulled him upwards, but this time, once Eren was up high enough out of the cavity, she placed both of her hands underneath his arms and pulled.
She was knocked back a bit as he pulled free with a squelch and a hot burst of steam smacked her in the face.
God, he was so much heavier now that he was dead weight and she wasn't trying to throw him.
Once the titan corpse had disintegrated enough, she finally released the lock mechanisms and slowly slid down the tree to the ground, with Eren still prone in her grasp. After a few seconds her feet touched the soft ground and she not so gently dropped Eren onto what she hoped was a relatively soft landing.
Reiner came jogging over and asked, "So how long do you think we'll be waiting here for him to wake up?"
Annie gave him a dirty look as she began to unclip and pull off Reiner's gear. "We're not going to wait for him to wake up, we're gonna wait for those marks to disappear from his face and carry him back to camp."
"But isn't he like, almost a hundred and forty pounds?"
"That's not my problem, because I'm not gonna be the one carrying him."
By the time Reiner had re-geared up, the majority of the markings had disappeared from Eren's face and Annie and Bertholdt had been able to peel away the majority of the flesh that had been stuck to Eren's arms and legs, making a grotesque pile of meat that quickly steamed away once it hit the ground.
"I just don't get why you insist on me carrying him back to camp." Reiner complained as he began to lift Eren off of the ground, throwing him over his shoulder in the process. "I mean, if we just wait he'll probably wake up in like, ten minutes or so."
At this point Bertholdt was actually the one to speak up, reminding him, "Um, I think she has the right idea, because, um, remember the first time you shifted? It took you, uh, quite a while to wake up afterwards."
Reiner frowned. "Well yeah, but I don't see the problem in waiting for a little bit."
"Yeah, because I'd love to get my ass verbally handed to me by Armin and Mikasa for bringing Eren back far past dinner." Annie replied sarcastically. "You've already got him in the air, and it's only a fifteen minute walk back to camp. Switch with Bertholdt if you're really that weak."
"I'm not weak, I just don't see the reason why I'm supposed to be the one carrying him!"
"Oh yeah?" she smirked, "That sounds like something someone who is weak would say."
Bertholdt just sighed at the display. What Annie was doing would have been obvious to anybody else-except maybe Eren-but unfortunately Reiner seemed to have left his braincells in his bunk today, because he accepted the challenge.
Then really began to regret it after five minutes of walking.
"Fuck, why is he so heavy? I feel like he was lying when he said he was a hundred and forty." Complained Reiner as he shifted from carrying Eren over his shoulder to holding him in his arms, and Annie had to bite back a laugh at the sight.
Eren wasn't exactly a small person, as he was taller than a good chunk of the camp, but he certainly wasn't bulky either, so he was absolutely dwarfed by Reiner, something that was made all too obvious by the way he was being carried at the moment.
"How's your princess doing over there anyway?" she asked as she pushed through a small bit out brush to make their walk back to camp quicker.
"That's not funny." he retorted, "and I swear to god I will smack him awake if he's not up by the time we get to camp-"
The three paused as a groan came from Reiner's arms.
Huh. Speak of the devil.
"Holy shit, I feel like I just got smacked in the face by one of those titan cutouts." Eren exclaimed as he grabbed his head. "How long was I out for?"
"Maybe forty minutes or so." Replied Annie, and then Eren realized about three things at once.
First, he (they?) were moving, as he could feel himself being rocked up and down and hear the soft crunch of leaves underneath at least one person's feet. Second, he was being held by someone and it sure as hell wasn't Annie because her voice had been fairly distant when she'd responded to him. Third, he was being held bridal style, which should have been fairly embarrassing, but he was just so tired, and if he was being honest with himself, being carried this way was much more comfortable than any other way he'd been carried before.
Wait.
His mind rolled back to the second realization he'd had as his eyes shot open. If it wasn't Annie carrying him (and it couldn't be, as whoever was holding him was much bigger and more muscular than Annie. Mikasa maybe?) then who the hell was it?
As he craned his neck to look up he was met with Reiner who was currently glaring back down at him and squeaked (literally squeaked!) as he rolled out of Reiner's arms and onto the hard ground, narrowly missing a thorn bush.
"You ok over there man?" Reiner asked as Eren quickly scrambled to his feet and brushed himself off.
"Yes, yes, I'm totally good." Eren responded as he flushed a bright red. "Everything is fine."
"Well that's nice to know, because you had us all worried with how long you decided to pass out there." Annie told him as she started to walk towards the camp again, deciding that Eren seemed ok enough to walk the rest of the way.
"Oh, I'm sorry." he apologized as he started up a slow walk next to Reiner. "Wait, we? How long has Reiner-" he paused for a second as he realized that Bertholdt was with them as well, which he probably should have expected, "-have Reiner and Bertholdt been here?"
Bertholdt opened his mouth to respond before Eren seemed to have a sort of revelation and quickly put out a, "Not that I'm really worried about anything, but I'd feel kinda bad if you guys just had to wait around just for me to be unconscious the entire time, and I hope you weren't waiting-"
"Don't worry about it man, Annie told us about how you got knocked out so we actually weren't expecting you to wake up for a while." Reiner said, cutting him off with a wave of the hand and Eren's blood froze.
Did that mean that they saw everything? Did that mean they were ok with it?
That couldn't be right.
Both of those two were much too calm to have just found out that one or more of their fellow trainees was a monster that could shift into a titan, and couldn't even really control it all that well if his previous shift was anything to go off of.
But what if they were simply pretending for Annie's sake?
It wasn't exactly a secret among the camp that those three were close, and while according to Annie the other two had no clue that titan shifters even existed, it wasn't impossible that they were simply being kind to him now because Annie was here, and to possibly hold his trust until they got to someone they could report him to.
But then why did they seem so casual about it? They acted if hearing about how one of your fellow cadets wasn't as human as they first suspected was an everyday activity and nothing to really be worried about.
Fuck, obviously Annie wouldn't have straight up told them what happened unprompted, which must have meant that they saw something explainable, which left the question of what. What exactly did they see?
He was just about to ask those two exactly what they'd seen before Annie piped up and informed him, "Yeah, sorry about that. I know that it was embarrassing enough to miss a grab and slam yourself into a tree, but I figured that your dignity would recover."
Just out of Eren's sight, she shot a glare to Reiner to keep quiet as she knew that neither Reiner nor Eren really had the ability to be subtle, but holy shit, Eren had only been awake for five minutes and Reiner was already about to give everything away.
Meanwhile, Eren was busy praising the walls that Annie was good at lying, because he really didn't know what he'd do without her.
"Ah, yeah, that's a bit embarrassing. Sorry that you guys ended up coming all the way out here just to learn that I did something stupid again." Said Eren as he scratched the back of his head.
Really, he did feel bad. They probably came all the way out there for something much more important than getting roped into carrying his unconscious self back to camp.
What had they been doing all the way out there with their gear anyway?
Eren began to open his mouth to ask, but before he could he heard his name being called from someplace just ahead, within the camp.
Turning forward he saw that it was Armin, waving a hand to flag him down with Mikasa by his side. At this display he moved onto the tops of his toes and gave a wave as both Armin and Mikasa strode over to the group.
"Well isn't this a familiar scene?" Asked Armin jokingly. "Are you sure you're not replacing us with these three?"
"Ah, no I promise." Eren reassured, mostly due to Mikasa's hurt look at the possibility of them being replaced.
"Huh, this really is the second time something like this has happened, isn't it?" Reiner mused, although this time they had known exactly where they were going to find Eren and didn't simply find him by chance.
They also hadn't found him in an indecent state of undress by a river this time, something that Reiner both regretted and didn't that he had never really asked about.
Maybe Annie would know.
"Yeah, and you don't have to meet up with me every time I walk back from training y'know? I'll find you guys at some point." Eren chided as he stepped a little further out of the forest, effectively putting himself between Reiner and Armin.
"I know, I was just worried because there was this loud noise and burst of light from the forest, and then those two started panicking and getting on their gear, so my brain immediately went to the worst possible solution." Armin admitted as he pointed at Bertholdt and Reiner, who suddenly wished that they were somewhere else.
This had been a small bit of information that they, ehem, neglected to tell Annie, as neither of them really thought that it would come up once they figured out what had been going on.
"Actually that reminds me of something I meant to ask when we were walking back." Eren said as he whipped around to face the two. "Why were you guys out there with your gear anyway?"
"Oh, we rushed off because we um, well, we...uh, well…" Reiner mumbled out before entirely trailing off, as Annie continued to glare daggers into his back just out of line of sight.
"We just got a little, uh worried." Bertholdt explained as he stepped in front of Reiner. "You guys heard the um, weird blast kinda thing right?"
"Yeah, but Annie and Eren train on the other side of the forest, so there wasn't any need to be worried about it." Mikasa said as she crossed her arms across her chest. It was the only reason that she hadn't gone out to investigate, because as much as she worried about Eren somehow getting hurt by anything and everything, she wasn't stupid enough to go running after him for something that had happened nowhere near where he was supposedly training.
Plus, trees fell all the time around camp. One that made a much larger sound upon following wasn't exactly at the top of her list of concerns.
Meanwhile Eren was busy thanking whatever he could that he actually followed Annie's advice for once and decided to lie about where their main training spot was.
According to her it was stupid to give their exact location, as it simply opened up more issues for if others decided that they would like to scope out their area and saw something that they weren't meant to.
Like most things, Eren had thought it fairly stupid and unnecessary at the time, but was now pretty thankful that someone actually had foresight.
Bertholdt began to shift uncomfortably under the stress of everyone listening to him but continued to explain, "um, well, I heard that sometimes they uh, shift areas so I got a little bit-well more like a lotta bit-concerned."
"So why did you guys think you'd need your gear?"
"Ah, well, it's just a bit um, faster and easier to transport the swords-" Bertholdt paused for a second to shuffle the hilts of the blades which were still stashed nicely in their containers "-just in case we uh, needed them...I mean we didn't really in the end, but it was uh, still good that we showed up."
Mikasa narrowed her eyes at this. "What do you mean it was good? Did something happen?"
Before Bertholdt exploded due to all of the attention directed on him, Annie stepped up and said, "Sorry to burst your bubble, but nothing really happened except for this dumbass throwing himself into a tree and clocking out for a solid bit of time."
Eren stared at Annie in shock for a second. She was really going to throw him under the bus like this? After all he's done to help her out...which actually wasn't all that much now that he thought about it.
Walls he really did usually make things worse, didn't he?
Although he thought that Mikasa would direct her anger at him, she didn't for some reason that was unfathomable to Eren, rather asking Annie, "So could you please tell me the events that led up to this in your 'training'? Just for future reference."
"Sure." Started Annie, not super happy about being challenged on the authenticity of her training, "We were practicing grabs, I pulled to the side, and he ran headfirst into the tree. Need me to explain anything else?"
"Just why you insist on 'training' in the forest when we have a lovely wide open space made specifically for training."
"I've told you this before. One, the leaves make everything a bit softer, which means less of a chance of getting hurt, and two I don't want to deal with gwakers and have people start thinking that I'm suddenly a personal trainer."
"Oh, less of a chance of getting hurt, but now I'm hearing that Eren knocked himself out on something that wouldn't be present in the training field."
At this point both girls were fuming, as this wasn't exactly the first time they'd had this argument but now that Eren had gotten 'hurt' Mikasa actually had some solid material to fire back with, and it was really starting to grate on Annie's nerves.
Armin, sensing that something pretty awful was probably about to happen decided to intervene, stating, "Oh wow, look at that, a whole ton of people just went into the mess hall, maybe we should head in for dinner."
Eren, in his infinite wisdom, shot him a confused look and said, "But I didn't see-" before Reiner quickly slapped a hand over his mouth.
While this diversion may have been enough to distract someone like Eren, neither Annie nor Mikasa were convinced that they actually needed to go somewhere, but both also recognized that now was not the time or place to fight as it would get them nowhere.
"Fine then, well discuss this more later." Mikasa stated with an eerie calm. "C'mon Eren, I bet that you're hungry."
"Ah, yeah, I guess." he said as he began to walk away with Mikasa and Armin giving a small wave as he turned to catch up to the two.
Meanwhile Reiner and Bertholdt breathed a sigh of relief as they watched the retreating backs of the trio before stepping forward themselves to head somewhere other than the edge of the forest before Annie pulled them back.
"I'm going to ignore the fact that you guys decided to pull one the stupidest maneuvers I've ever seen, then decided not to tell me about it, because to be honest, I haven't been fully honest with you guys either, and I've got some stuff to explain."
Once they were a little farther back into the forest in order to avoid any eavesdroppers who may want to listen in, Annie began to explain.
"Although I've said that I've been gaining his trust and such, I no longer think that that's really the full truth." she started, nervously tucking a strand behind her ear.
The two boys stared at her in confusion.
"So are you saying that Eren doesn't trust you?"
"Not at all." She responded. "He certainly trusts me, but nowhere near the extent that we need in order for him to come with us without much fuss. Hell, I think it may have been impossible from the start to get that much from him."
"So what, are we not going to continue with our plan to grab him on his first expedition?" Reiner asked, scratching his head.
They'd gone over the plan in great detail before, deciding that their best option would simply be to use the chaos of a new mission along with some titan attracting powers in order to isolate Eren from the majority of the group, then have Annie swoop in claiming that she was carrying him to safety or to another chunk of the formation.
With this scenario, even if Eren decided he wanted to shift and fight, as long as he trusted Annie she could reliably drag him away from the group, where he would be relatively powerless and unable to fight off three or more shifters if he decided to resist.
Of course, the issue with this was trust. Eren wasn't the brightest bulb but if he decided that he didn't trust Annie and happened to have paid a little bit of attention to the formation plan and landscape, he could easily decide that he didn't want to follow them, and while the three were confident that they could overpower most, if not all of the survey corps, that still left the possibility of them simply taking Eren and running which wouldn't end up well.
So yeah, Eren trusting Annie was a pretty big fucking deal, and if she was having doubts neither Reiner nor Bertholdt were all that excited about the future mission that they had planned.
"No, we should keep that as backup, but I think we should bring back our previous plan. Our plan that we had to out the coordinate before we found out who it was, but tweaked a bit just to grab them instead."
"You can't mean-"
"Trost. I'm thinking that we should bring back the Trost plan."