In all fairness, Eren had been having a pretty great day.
He'd finally 'graduated'-although he technically still wouldn't be an official soldier until the graduation ceremony-and in the top five no less!
He'd been somewhat blindsided by Annie's sudden decision to switch over to the military police, as it had been something they'd talked about quite a bit beforehand and after a bit of convincing had agreed that their powers would both be most useful and the least noticeable outside of the walls on large expeditions. Yet the day before graduation she'd come to him, claiming that the more she thought about it, the more she believed that it would simply be better if Eren went on expeditions while she stayed inside the walls.
She claimed that if something like the fall of Wall Maria happened again-and walls was that an awful thought-then it would be better to have their resources split. One shifter protecting the outside and one protecting the inside.
Personally, Eren thought that this was slight bullshit, as if they teamed up to effectively protect the outside of the walls the inside wouldn't even need protecting, but after a fairly long argument he'd conceded, as he realized that there was no way to convince her.
To him, it was the coward's way out.
He'd never thought of Annie as particularly cowardly before, hell he still didn't, but he could always tell that as much as she acted like she didn't care, at the end of the day she wanted to please people. She wanted them to be happy and proud of her.
Now this was hidden behind many, many layers of apathy, and it wasn't as if she was afraid of disappointing a person to get her own personal goals, but he could certainly see it in the way she'd ask people if she did a good job instructing them. How she'd spend far too much time investigating a topic that the commander would even somewhat praise her on. How she'd pick a fight with Mikasa over any comment that even implied that her training was ineffective.
It wasn't easy to see, but it was there.
So when Annie came to him, cool and collected on the outside but with a couple nervous ticks, telling him that she was no longer going to join the Survey Corps along with her explanation, the dots connected themselves.
'She probably doesn't trust herself enough.' He thought as he lay awake in his bunk, the day before graduation. 'She doesn't trust herself to be on the front line, to have all those people dependent on her.' and Eren really couldn't find it in himself to blame her that much.
But That didn't mean that he was at all happy with the decision.
Over the year or so that they had been training together she had become something more than a simple ally in the world of titan shifting, she'd become a genuine friend. Someone that he'd have no problem with telling his doubts and worries to, and due to the nature of them, probably the only person.
So suffice to say, he'd miss her quite a bit, but any lingering emotions he had about the whole issue were swallowed up by the pure joy he felt because he was going to finally join the Survey Corps!
Ever since the night of graduation he'd been somewhat lightheaded at the thought because, really, this was his childhood dream! This was what he'd been planning for years, and through all of the people who said he shouldn't do it, that he couldn't do it, he'd continued to work and work and finally he was here.
Standing atop the walls along with the members of the garrison to get a feel for what a job in that division would be like, and he'd by lying if standing up here didn't give him a new respect for the members of the garrison.
As he continued to help clear out a cannon, he peered over the side a bit, seeing all of the mindless titans scrape their blunt fingernails against the wall, and suddenly got a bit of vertigo.
He knew from experience that these titans were many meters high, even dwarfing many of the tallest buildings he'd known in Shingansina, yet from where he was they looked tiny. Almost harmless. As if he could simply reach out and squish them all between his fingers.
It was certainly a bit odd, and he could see how the Garrison could easily grow complacent in their positions, as it almost seemed unfathomable from here that these creatures could cause any type of damage to the massive city held within, but Eren knew better.
The vast expanse of destroyed cities ahead of him, an entire part of their civilization gone and lost at the hands and feet of the titans, the only thing left being partially destroyed houses and the faintest dusting of titan ash from when the cannons secured a lucky shot reminded him.
That being said, the view was still breathtaking, as he could see miles and miles in front of him as the vast land of buildings and forests filled his sight until they faded along with the clouds into the horizon, all blurring together.
It was...glorious, for a lack of a better word, and it made him sincerely regret the fact that he never had the chance to stand atop Wall Maria at the furthermost point of Shiganshina, as it would have allowed him to look out at the vast landscape that the walls had barred him from his whole life.
His birthright that had been taken within the grubby fingers of the titans and turned into nothing but bloodshed and destruction.
He'd see it one day though, a fleeting dream that had recently gained more and more traction as he realized the reality of his powers.
And so he continued to stare out into the horizon, simply admiring the view, the vast expanse that he'd be seeing up close and personal from now on, but for the moment upon a safe area, and Eren was reminded of a bird on a perch.
A small thing that he'd seen when he was younger, being sold by one of the many rich merchants when the expanded market came to town.
It had been a pretty little thing, all white feathers that would occasionally spike up into rich yellow plumage, forming what almost looked like a crown all made out of body and bone, and Eren would simply sit and stare at it. Stare until the merchant would see him and chase him off again, as he had no need for the poorer families of Shiganshina and was simply stopping by, and would listen to it speak.
This bird had everything it could want. Total protection, a pretty shelter, and a caretaker that would feed it and take care of it's every need only for one trade off, it's freedom.
Sometimes when one of the richer families came to buy he'd sit and watch as the man took the poor creature from its cage, placing it upon his arm or the stand to display its friendliness as it desperately flapped for freedom.
A child had once asked why the bird didn't just simply fly away, as it certainly had it within its abilities and would be free in no time, and the main explained that the bird's wings were clipped.
A small bit cut off that destroyed any chance it had to escape, but that wasn't the main reason it didn't try.
According to the man it had been raised sheltered all its life, never experiencing anything more than a slight discomfort, so when it tried to escape it would feel how hard it was to survive outside, how terrifying the world outside of its cage was and become scared. That way, no matter how far it wondered it would simply come running back to the safety of its owner, the one who provided everything for it. It's god, in a sense.
And so Eren thought, as he stood at the very edge of Wall Rose.
He thought about the bird, and humanity, and himself, stuck somewhere in the middle, currently unable to make much of a difference in anything, still bound to the expectations of his superiors.
And then he realized that this line of thoughts was leading straight into what Annie had dubbed 'Galaxy brain time' and decided that no, now, when he was standing right at the edge of a very deadly drop, was not the time to be getting distracted.
So he decided to stop being useless for a minute-but hey, it's not like he was the only one as he could very clearly see Mina and Daz doing almost the exact same thing he'd been doing a moment prior-and turned to pick up the lacquer that he had been tasked with placing on the cannons.
And then there was a burst of steam.
Not enough to knock him over, simply enough to ruffle his jacket a bit and move through his hair, and if not for its warmth Eren would have simply thought it to be a strong burst of wind.
What was more noticeable was the deafening silence, as if someone had suddenly plugged both of his ears with cotton. He didn't hear the whip of wind, the scratch of nails against the wall, the cry of birds as they suddenly evacuated their spots from the wall, and so he turned.
Only to come face to face with the colossal titan.
Eren wanted to scream.
It couldn't be here, it simply couldn't!
It had been less than five years since the attack, five years without any sign of a struggle, without even a single sighting of the colossal or the armored and now in a second one of them was here, standing right in front of him, standing right in front of the wall.
Yet before he could even get the first bit of his voice out a blast of steam hit him harder this time, scalding his face and burning his eyes in the process, which he instinctively covered as he fell.
Luckily for him, his eyes and face healed up fast enough that he was able to grasp for his gear, shooting his wires into the part of the wall in front of him and using them to slow his descent as he continued to fall until he came to a complete stop.
Fully uncovering his face, he looked around to see that many of his fellow cadets had had the same idea as him, many locked onto different parts of the wall as others continued to fall.
He also watched in horror as some people plummeted to their deaths, each spiraling downwards as the ground approached closer and closer, unable to do anything but watch.
Some didn't watch however, as Sasha unhooked her wires, and in a maneuver that Eren would never even dream of being able to do, used the wall to continually propel herself downwards, eventually being able to hook onto Samuel's foot, stopping his descent.
But he was only one of many.
All around the wall Eren could hear screaming, and whether it was from those still up above or the horrified onlookers below, he didn't know.
He glanced over to Connie to see if he had any plans of action, or even knew what they could possibly do in a situation like this, but was only met with his horrified face, mouth agape.
"Th-the wall." He stammered as he stared down at its base, and as Eren turned to see what Connie was looking at, his worst fears were confirmed.
Where the gate to Trost had originally been, there was now only a large gaping hole, an exact replica of the one that could probably still be found in Singanshina today. He could hear more screams of horror as more and more people came to the same conclusion that he had.
The titans were going to get in.
Oh walls, it was gonna be Shingansina all over again, but this time, they wouldn't be going down without a fight.
"4th Fixed Cannon Maintenance Squad, prepare for battle!" Eren barked as he shoved the spare blades he had on him into their empty hilts. "The target is right in front of us! This is our chance, don't let it get away!"
As he said this, he shot himself up to the top of the wall, over Connie and the others, where he could see that they weren't following him at all.
Whatever. That was expected.
As he reached the top he braced himself, not to look for an opening or strategise, as at the end of the day every titan was the same, but rather to get a look at its face. At the face of a monster who'd killed hundreds directly, but hundreds of thousands indirectly.
And for a moment, just a flash, as quick as could be, Eren almost thought it looked sad.
However, that didn't matter to him, as it was gone as quick as it came, and to be honest, Eren didn't care if this creature-this fucking monster had any emotions of thinking or what have you, because at the end of the day it still killed people.
It still destroyed his home, and now it was back to destroy more.
He saw the beast rear his arm back, preparing for a swipe that would turn him into little more than a sad pile of meat on the ground and jumped, shooting his wires into the top of the wall several feet to the creature's side, but not pulling himself down yet.
As he reoriented himself he noted with satisfaction that he had been right about at least one thing. Although the titan was big and powerful, by the walls it was slow, slow enough that it probably couldn't even pull itself back once a motion had started, which was probably why it hadn't stopped the trajectory of its arm as it continued on its path toward the wall.
Eren used his wires and a small bit of gas to blast himself behind the monster, hooks embedded in the flesh of it's shoulder where he could finally see the titan had been doing all along.
Its massive arm toppled the cannons as if they had been mere pebbles on the road and destroyed a good portion of the track along the top, so even if they had been able to get more cannons on such short notice there'd be no way to get them into position.
First aiming for the gate and now this? Fuck, it really was intelligent.
And as Eren realized this a thought burst into his head. He'd already somewhat assumed that the colossal and armored titan were at least vaguely intelligent, probably even working together if what happened that day was anything to go by, but he'd never truly thought about what would happen if they really were shifters like him.
Did they know what they were doing? Did they once or even currently live within the walls? Would he cut open this creature's nape to find another human, walls would it be someone he knows?
But now was not the time for hesitance, so with a final shot and reel of wires aimed at the nape Eren threw himself forward, placing all of his human and inhuman strength into a single swing and-
A burst of steam hit him in the face once again, knocking him of balance for a second, but it certainly wasn't going to be the same as before. He could feel his gear straining against the force of keeping him back through the immense pressure, but he ignored it, instead forcing the cables to retract and pull him forward and-
Slicing into nothing.
Eren watched as the steam parted due to the force of his swing, only to reveal absolutely nothing behind it.
The colossal had vanished into nothing but footprints, the exact same as five years ago, only this time it actually answered some questions for Eren.
That appearance and that disappearing act...it was certainly a shifter who had done the job, as there would be no other way for something of that size to simply appear, plus its burst of steam before vanishing was similar to what Annie had described coming out of a titan to be like for those on the outside.
But that may honestly leave more questions than it answered.
The obvious of who and why were present, but more so Eren was curious about the how. How were they able to get here and shift without anyone noticing?
Annie had informed him a little while ago that yes, mindless titans did see him as just a normal human outside of his titan form, so they wouldn't have been able to hide among the titans, simply lying in wait for a time to transform, which really only left one option.
They'd come from inside the walls.
But that still left the who and even more they why. Why destroy your home, why create suffering for all those around you, and why did they stay to do it again?
"Did you get em'?" He heard Thomas call hopefully from above him, and while Eren would have loved to have been able to say yes, he regretfully shook his head, instead replying, "No, it vanished. Just like five years ago."
He pulled himself up to the top of the wall, making eye contact with Thomas before they both went off to find the rest of their designated squad.
Although it had only taken five minutes or so for him and Thomas to find everyone, apparently that had been more than enough time for titans to infest a large part of the city as he could see them as far back as halfway through Trost, albeit in very sparse quantity.
Eren stared down at his hand.
He could shift and end a good part of this now, simply killing any titan that made its way in, but would it be worth it?
Walls, he wanted to kill them, kill them all so badly, but at the present moment he had a pretty high chance that shifting would simply get him killed before he could do much else, and that realization...kinda stung.
It didn't matter if he was on humanity's side, it didn't matter how overt he was in his desire to only kill titans, because as long as he looked similar to one, as long as he was the same size as one, to everyone else he'd effectively be the same as the beasts simply looking for human flesh.
Nobody would spare a glance to him and go 'oh gosh, that titan is friendly! We should keep it alive!' they'd just kill him on sight, regardless of what he did.
Furthermore he'd have to find a safe place to shift and exit even if he did survive, because the government sure as hell wouldn't take kindly to knowing that something that powerful is hiding within their midst.
"-ren, Eren, did you hear any of what I said?" Armin asked as he tapped Eren on the shoulder, breaking him out of his thoughts.
"Oh, um, I'm really sorry." Eren replied fiddling with the triggers of his gear. "Can you say it, but simpler this time?"
Armin sighed but after Mina agreed that she also needed a bit of a run down he explained, "So basically there's these three spots that are kinda hard for titans to get to right? So we're going to move over these areas, staying as close to the taller buildings as we can-" He pointed to the slightly larger houses that made up the district to their left, "-then end up around the supply tower, as it should provide our best leverage for attack along with any extra gas."
"So we'll be aiming for the larger towers and such as anchors?"
"Basically." Armin replied as he began click testing his gear to make sure that his cables wouldn't fail midair. "I chatted with Annie a small bit before I left, and it looks like her team is aiming for something similar, so we'll probably meet up with them along the way."
Annie had helped make this strategy?
Overall it made sense to Eren, but one of the biggest takeaways to him was how closed off the supply tower was from view.
Yes, it was high and a great vantage point for normal humans attacking titans, but it also made it ridiculously hard to see anybody who was behind or inside of any of the small buildings around it. The perfect place to shift.
Was that her plan? To create a good environment for shifting, beat the shit out of some titans then somehow shift back?
The only problem with that plan was that there'd be eyes on them from the moment that they started attacking titans, and they wouldn't really have a good place to escape to...unless she had a second part of the plan?
Fuck, it didn't matter at this point, as anything that really gave them a fighting chance would be useful, and to be honest, Eren would prefer that his team get safe before figuring out what the fuck they would be doing, as they were really just sitting ducks standing out here on the roof.
"So the plan's all set?" Eren asked as he prepared to launch his gear, only paying minimal attention to Armin's nod before calling out to the rest of the group, signaling the start of their self set mission.
After the initial launch, the group formed a V sort of shape, with Armin in the very center, trailing towards the back. With each twist and turn he barked orders of which way to go, which maneuver to make, and most importantly to avoid titan interaction at all costs.
Which Eren was not particularly happy with.
They had trained for years-years!-just to be able to fight titans, and now here they were, with the perfect opportunity in hand simply throwing it away so that they could make it to the supply tower a slight bit faster.
To be honest, even with how the titans had been touted as an unbeatable force, Eren couldn't help but feel a bit underwhelmed. Almost all of the ones he'd seen so far-and holy shit, weren't they not supposed to find many along this route?-were dumb and slow moving, barely giving a heads up before the team zipped on by, far to fast to be caught by gigantic hands.
Which brought Eren to his other realization, and something Armin had probably realized long before he did.
The taller buildings weren't acting as barriers for the large titans, rather they were acting as chokeholds where the titans could see them far before they could see the titans.
More than once they'd barely avoided a titan that had simply been crouched, waiting for them behind a corner that they couldn't see around, but there was nothing else they could do.
The amount of large buildings within the area of Trost they were currently in was massive, and it would require heading straight through a bunch of titans that they couldn't handle just to get free, so it wasn't even worth it to try and get out of this trap.
The plan had sounded so solid at the beginning, yet the more the group traveled along the set path, the more it seemed like nothing but disaster was waiting for them.
Which was when the first part of the tragedy that was known as their short miserable lives began.
As Armin led them up, using a large clock tower to provide a height advantage, something came flying at the group, faster than they could react.
Eren was sent flying into a building, sliding down until he was just gripping the roof shingles, but he couldn't really bring himself to care.
As he stared back at the direction of the object, he could pretty easily see it was a titan, wrapped around the clock tower and presumably eating a faceful of brick and hopefully nothing else, but Eren wasn't too sure.
He'd heard a couple people land on the roof above or beside him, but he had absolutely no clue or how many, as he'd been a little too busy eating shingles at the time, so he looked up and took a head count.
Mina, Armin, and Nic were all easy to spot, along with his other group members who revealed themselves as he continued to scan the area, yet no matter where he looked, there was one person missing, one person who had been right next to him in his squad lineup…
Eren glanced back at the titan, still on the clocktower, only to watch in horror as it's head moved to the side revealing Thomas stuck within it's maw. He appeared to be saying something, but Eren couldn't hear it at all.
It felt like a thick cotton had been shoved in his ears, hands on either side of his face as they prevented him from looking away from the awful sight ahead of him, as the titan simply tilted his head back and swallowed Thomas whole.
And Eren felt his blood boil.
How dare they.
How fucking dare they.
How dare they trap them within this sad excuse for a prison that they called paradise. How dare they invade and kill whatever they can get their hands on. How dare they end the lives of men and women, fighting for their lives, for their own sick pleasure because they couldn't even digest them, didn't even need them-
"How fucking dare you eat Thomas!" Eren screamed as he zipped away from his team. Fully intent on ending this and every other titan he could get his hands on existences right here and now. He was done playing nice, he was done simply trying to escape, and now he was fighting back!
He switched his gas output into high, throwing all of his weight into every movement, moving as fast as he could over numerous rooftops, getting closer and closer to that titan, that dreaded beast, that fucking mindless monster that seemed content with doing nothing but hanging onto the clocktower, until he moved over a large crevice and-
Suddenly Eren was tipping over, smashing face first into a ton of roof tiles, many making a residence within his eyes and forehead, efficiently blinding him for the time being.
He could feel the sting of tiles in his face, in his arms, walls, really everywhere, but the worst was his left leg, which stung, oh walls it fucking burned, but it would heal, it would heal, so Eren kicked his leg up, trying to dislodge any debris that had gotten stuck and may have been making his leg numb and-oh.
He'd never tested large scale amputation before.
He let out a small scream as the stump hit the roof tiles again, letting loose a fresh wave of blood that he could see drip down in a small square pattern in the tiles, and for some reason, Eren felt like laughing.
The screams of the rest of his team members rang out, although whether it was from the horror of seeing him lie prone on a roof sans one leg, or from their own demise was unknown, but he honestly wasn't sure he wanted to know which.
The good news was that he could already feel his leg closing, the wound steaming shut rapidly before closing off into a stump, and fuck he hoped that that wasn't permanent. He pulled himself up and wiped his face off, removing large chunks of tile that came along with his hands, but he couldn't quite take everything out of his left eye.
Great, so the left side of his body was functionally useless and he was smack dab in the middle of titan territory, his squad fuck knows where, hopefully still alive, and was totally on his own.
He pushed himself up on a single shaky leg, leaning on it in a crouched position as he used what was left of his left leg to keep him balanced and checked his gear.
As he feared, when he went to hit the button for the locking mechanism all he heard was a soft click, the movement of gears, and then a catch. Nothing had happened, which could only mean one thing.
Something had gotten jammed into the inner working of his gear, and he bet if he took it apart right now it'd be small chunks of roof, just chilling along with the inner mechanism of everything that was actually supposed to be there.
Amazing. Wow this day just kept getting better and better!
Although he was one of the lucky ones.
At least he could shift. If necessary, and it looked like it really was going to be unless Annie showed up soon, he had no real way of defending himself or really getting anywhere since his gear was broken, but of course all of the same issues that he had previously thought of with shifting still applied, so he'd really like to avoid that if possible.
But fuck! Fuck! Even if he was rescued he had no way of explaining why his leg was growing back, he had nothing to say about the safety of his team except for the fact that they'd been attacked suddenly and unexpectedly and trying to hide in this titan infested area was just about as deadly as walking in front of the cannons they still had left and going "Hey, I'm a titan, here's some proof!"
Which left the eternal question, the one he'd been asking himself since the start of this whole fucking mess.
To shift or not to shift?
However before Eren could get any father with this line of thought, a flash of movement caught his attention to his left, and he looked over only to see…
No. No it couldn't be!
Just to his left he watched as a titan picked Armin up with it's gigantic hand, the boy hanging limp in it's grip as the beast began to tilt his head back. Yet as the titan continued it's ministrations, Armin just stayed still, from shock or whatever else he had no idea, as for all Eren knew his gear could be broken as well, landing them both in that same situation with only one determining factor.
Fuck, without his gear there was absolutely no way to get to the titan's nape, and if he shifted it'd take far too long to him to form, and by that time Armin would already be gone, dead, crushed between giant teeth or torn apart at the hands of monsters.
And he couldn't let that happen, he couldn't. Not to Armin, not to the one that had told him about the outside world, not to the one who supported him at every twist and turn, no matter how stupid he had been or was being, he just couldn't!
So Eren steeled himself. The distance between him and Armin wasn't all that much when he actually thought about it, the biggest obstacle simply being time and his difficulty moving with only one leg, but he'd manage, he'd have to.
Otherwise there'd be no way to save Armin.
Placing his hands onto the ground he got on all fours, er, all threes and in a maneuver that would have been absolutely horrifying looking to any onlookers, lifted what was remaining of his left leg and proceeded to bear crawl as fast as he possibly could towards the Area where Armin was still being dangled in the air.
He'd always thought that any bear crawl drills that they'd had to do in training were pointless, simply a torturous exercise that people spent time on if only to lessen the strain of everything else, but in this moment he was thankful as he drew closer and closer to the beast.
Although it was certainly bigger than some other titans-probably standing around ten meters-it was small enough that Eren shouldn't have much of a problem grabbing Armin and ripping him out of the titans hand, using a little bit more than human strength.
But that all hinged on whether it continued to hold Armin for just a little while longer, just long enough that Eren could grab him, just a little fucking longer please.
Yet he was having no such luck, as he became close enough to the titan to touch it, it released its fingers and Eren watched in almost slow motion as Armin dropped, down, down, into the titan's throat, but he wasn't going to let that happen, not today.
He gripped onto the teeth of the titan and threw himself into its mouth, something he'd never imagined doing in all of his time living, and grabbed onto one of the massive teeth to stabilize himself.
Shoving one hand down the creature's throat, he grasped desperately for Armin, only being able to grab the sleeve of his jacket, but that was enough.
Armin immediately grabbed onto Eren's arm, clinging for dear life as Eren quickly readjusted so that he was gripping Armin's wrist as well.
With one smooth motion he pulled Armin up and out of the titan's throat, using the momentum to propel him outwards onto the roof right in front of him.
Which was when Eren realized that he had made a rather large miscalculation.
Although he hadn't really thought about it much before he threw himself into the beast's maw, he'd assumed that he would be strong enough to keep the titan's jaws open long enough for him to throw himself out as well, and he was right in one aspect.
He was able to hold the titan's jaws open, albeit barely, but he certainly wasn't able to push them up any further, and it was honestly a losing battle just to hold them.
If he attempted to throw himself outwards he'd be crushed in less than a second, being able to make it out half way before being severed at best, and having his head taken off at worst, both of which Eren wasn't sure that he could recover from.
Worst of all, he couldn't shift.
He kept trying and trying, using the same feeling of fear that he had felt before when he was bleeding out on the forest floor, when he was sliced by Annie's knife, but nothing was happening, nothing was happening!
There had only been one circumstance that Annie had warned him that he wouldn't be able to shift in, which would be if he was eaten by a titan, but he hadn't been yet, hadn't at all, and yet-and yet nothing was happening!
So this was it then.
He was going to die here, not quite alone but fully helpless and without killing a single one, fuck he hadn't even killed a single titan!
All those people had been right then, all those who told him it was worthless, all those that told him he would die to the first titan he fought, all those who told him that he wouldn't change anything, they had been right.
And he was gonna die here, without doing a single thing, without even getting a chance to use his powers for good, just another number in a long list of deaths.
He locked eyes with Armin, who seemed to be frozen in fear as he laid prone on the roof.
Well, maybe not nothing then.
He could feel the titan increasing the pressure on top of his arms, and his limbs shook with the force it took to just keep himself up, to not get eaten, not yet.
He looked at Armin one more time, giving what he hoped to be a strained smile and not a grimace and said, "Please, find the ocean." as his legs and arms finally failed him, muscles tearing beneath the stress or bearing far too much pressure allowing for the titan to finally close its mouth.
As he slid down the titans throat, his hands scrabbled for purchase, for anything that would allow him to live just a little bit longer, but couldn't grab anything.
And so, as he slid, he allowed himself to fade to black, hoping and praying to everything that could hear that Armin wouldn't follow him.
To say Annie was a bit frazzled would be an understatement.
Overall so far the mission had been going pretty well, and by going well she meant there hadn't been any catastrophic failures or oversights yet, which was a good sign, and also something she attributed to thoroughly talking about it beforehand, and limiting the actual actions each person had to take, specifically Reiner.
"So, let me get this right," Reiner had asked, standing in a group towards the forest edge, far away from any prying eyes of other cadets, "We're going to set up basically a pincer operation using nothing but titans? Highly unpredictable titans?"
"Well when you put it that way it doesn't sound so great, but yes." Annie stated, twirling her hair between her fingers. "After I tell Armin to head to the tower and how to get there, I'll break away from my team and lead some titans around the area, which should hopefully split Eren's team up during the chaos."
"And if it doesn't?" Bertholdt asked, partially asking a valid question and partially implying what nobody wanted to think about.
At the end of the day, no matter what they did, people were going to die. People they'd known, worked with, lived with for over three years were going to die and all three of them were going to be responsible, but it couldn't be helped.
They had to complete their mission.
Or at least that's what Annie told herself, as her hands trembled with the force of what she was proposing to do. Legitimately leading people to their deaths.
After her initial view of those living in the walls wore off and she saw them for what they actually were-people, god they were people just like them living their own lives and trying to get by and they were going to send them to their deaths again-she'd comfortored herself with the thought that she at least wasn't fully directly responsible for all those deaths, as really it was the titans simply picking off whatever they could, not any of her doing, but this was different.
At this point she may as well have been picking up a knife and stabbing Eren's team members herself.
(and she thought of Armin, too smart for his own good but meaning well, and of Thomas who she didn't even have to talk to to know how kind he was, and Mina, sweet Mina, who had offered to share her food and was far too sweet to be involved in such a war, who had offered more than once to help her talk things out-)
"If not once we get to the tower we can pull him away under the guise of shifting or some sort. It's got quite a few blind spots we can grab him from." She replied quickly, picking at her nails. Although they could probably get away simply grabbing him at the tower, she preferred to try and put everything that she could in their favor.
After all, the last thing they wanted was the plan failing, for both her sake and the sake of her soon to be fallen comrades.
Reiner rubbed the back of his head. "So we don't do anything but kill some titans if needed and grab Eren?"
"Basically." Annie replied, turning back to look at some of the cadets who were starting to come out of the mess hall. "Minimize interaction and then get the hell out of there."
And so far they'd gotten lucky.
From what she'd seen, Armin did in fact decide to take the route which encapsulated the bigger buildings-which would have been optimal if Annie hadn't basically been leading titans right into the area, trapping them within the building maze-and she'd been able to lose most of her own team, meeting up with Reiner along the way.
Which was great, everything was going great, except…
Something seemed to be a bit off with Reiner.
He'd always been the most sensitive of the group-something that he'd refused to admit-and Annie knew that he'd formed some pretty strong attachments to these people, and couldn't really blame him.
She'd formed some pretty strong ones too, but Reiner was just...different.
According to him, most of his team had gotten separated after the wall break and he'd seen some shit, but what was odd was the fear.
He seemed to be legitimately afraid for the rest of Wall Rose, going as far to comment on how he hoped nothing like five years ago happened, and while Annie would have originally chalked it up to good acting, they'd been alone at the time.
He had no reason to keep up the act, hell then was the time to drop it, yet he was still acting like that soldier persona he'd created.
It was...a bit disconcerting, to say the least, but Annie simply figured he was in shock, as to be honest she was pretty messed up at the moment as well, so she'd sent him on his way, to find Bertholdt, and decided to look for Armin's team (or what was left) on her own.
Which brought her to her current situation.
After flying around the area she'd proposed for Armin to go through for a bit she spotted a familiar bob of blond hair, and hoping that it wasn't Krista, went in for a landing.
By the time that she'd gotten there, Connie had already approached, seemingly coming up from nowhere, and was already shaking Armin who seemed to be totally unresponsive, which was fine, but where was Eren?
There's no way that Eren would have just left him here to fend for himself, and while she'd attribute Armin's reaction to seeing something like a shift, there was a very fucking obvious lack of fifteen meter beefcake titans around, so that couldn't be it either.
"Get a hold of yourself man!" Connie shouted as loud as he dared. "What happened here?"
While Annie had to admire his efforts and tenacity, she thought it was pretty obvious at this point that Armin wasn't exactly in the mood to share his thoughts, and no amount of shaking was really going to snap him out of it.
It was a textbook example of what they'd been told about in class, the main reason why titans were so deadly to people.
On their own, a single recruit well versed in 3DMG should be able to take out quite a few as long as they weren't swarmed, a problem which was hypothetically solved by having large groups of people attack, except it wasn't.
Titans were unpredictable and humans were emotional, so at some point somebody would get scared, mess up and die, and the rest of the group would have no way to recover. People would freeze, let their anger take hold of them, or simply begin to doubt themselves and it was over, and that was the advantage titans had over people, other than size and numbers.
They didn't care if they died, they didn't care if hundreds of them were being slaughtered and simply honed in on their target and what they wanted and struck.
And it was impossible to fight against an enemy that didn't care what happened to the rest of them and just kept coming.
While she normally would have just written Armin off as a lost cause, she couldn't in this case, for many reasons, but the main one was she needed to know where Eren was, and preferably sooner rather than later.
She stood there for a second. Arms crossed as she waited for Armin to snap out of whatever funk he had run himself into when Ymir and Krista appeared, both coming from behind her.
Great. Just what she needed.
"What type of shit show is going on here?" Ymir asked as she gestured towards Connie who was still trying valiantly to shake Armin back to reality.
"Dunno." She responded, attempting to sound much more composed than she actually was. "He was like that when I got here."
"No team?"
"Not that I can see."
"Hm." She responded, looking back at Krista. While Ymir wasn't the most fond of some of the people in Armin's group, especially Eren for a couple of reasons, it wasn't as if she wanted any of them to die.
As Annie looked back over, it actually seemed if Connie had gotten somewhere because Armin looked marginally less out of it and was actually moving a small bit, something that wouldn't save him if a titan suddenly appeared, but still quite a bit better than just being catatonic and chilling on a rooftop.
And then he started screaming.
Annie actually panicked a bit at the sudden noise, as fuck fuck, if you want to attract a ton of titans here really quickly that was the way to do it, and she really didn't want to have to vacate the area before finding out where Eren had gone, but as quickly as it started it died down.
"Armin, Armin!" Connie shouted as he began to get up, not acknowledging that there were others around him. "Are you back with us now? What happened? Where's the rest of your team?"
"Why do you even need to ask, it's obvious that the rest of his team was eaten." Ymir stated plainly, ignoring Krista gently chiding her in the background, and while Annie would have agreed with her under normal circumstances, there was a factor that Ymir didn't know about.
There was no way that Eren could have been eaten, as she'd specifically told him that that was the one thing a shifter couldn't come back from and to turn regardless of the surroundings if he was about to be eaten.
It was the one exception she had allowed to the normal 'don't let anyone know of your abilities under any circumstance' rule, as she really didn't want to be stuck here for years and years because the person they knew was the founding titan got eaten and they had no idea by who.
(and also because she really didn't want to see Eren get eaten because it was a horrible and painful death and he was far too motivated for any of that to happen and she really couldn't deal with the thought of him struggling in a titan's maw, unable to complete what he yearned for for so long)
So he was certainly alive, she just had to figure out exactly where he had gone and Armin was her best be right now.
But Armin just seemed to freeze, fat tears continuing to roll down his face as he pushed himself up to his feet, taking a shaky breath to calm himself.
"Th-that can't be right, Armin?" Connie asked nervously, only to watch in despair as Armin simply nodded, unclipping the broken swords that were still in his holsters. It looked as if he was getting ready to take off, although to where she had no idea, but she couldn't let this chance slip through her fingers.
"Everyone?" She asked, surprised by the shakiness in her voice. "Thomas, and Mina, and even Eren?"
Armin simply nodded again, but Annie wasn't satisfied. No matter what Armin though, he must have seen something. Something that he probably thought was Eren's last moments, but Annie knew better and needed every single bit of information she could get.
She knew she was pushing it now, as too much asking about Eren specifically would definitely raise some suspicion but she continued with, "Are you sure? I mean some of them must have escaped and there's no way Eren could have-"
"He saved me!" Armin yelled, much more forcefully and suddenly than she had been expecting. "I was fucking dropped into a titans mouth and he pulled me out only to go in my place and I don't fucking understand why because I can't do anything!" He ended as he breathed heavily, unshed tears again falling across his cheeks as he tried to calm himself down.
"I'll go regroup with the others." He finally said after a moment, zipping off the roof and towards the supply tower as Connie told him to wait up but Annie simply stood there, frozen.
He what?
He was eaten?
No, there was no way that was possible, it just couldn't happen.
She'd specifically warned him of what to do, the one thing to avoid and he'd never had any reason not to trust her before.
And besides, didn't he plan to kill all titans?
There was just no way that he'd let himself die like that.
There was no way he was dead.
He just couldn't be.
He just couldn't.
Annie hadn't even realized she was crying until the first few drops fell into her mouth, warm and salty as she continued to stare at the rooftops.
He couldn't be dead, but Armin had no reason to lie to her, but he couldn't be dead Armin had to be lying, but he didn't look at all like he was lying, that wasn't the face of a liar, that was the face of someone who was telling the truth and didn't want to be.
It was a look she knew all too well.
She went to wipe her face, but more tears came to replace the ones she pulled away, continuously blurring her vision and falling to her feet, but Annie didn't even really know why she was crying.
Ymir spared her a glance and she watched as Krista shifted nervously, debating whether to comfort her or not-which was stupid why would she need comfort when nothing was wrong-before they both took off together in the same direction of Armin.
Heading towards the supply tower.
Where she was supposed to meet up with Eren.
A mass of guilt hit her in the stomach, fast and hard to the point where she actually gagged a bit as she realized that, no, Armin probably hadn't been lying to her, as it had been too specific, too realistic of a scenario, and too emotional of an explanation for it to have been made up, which meant that that whole plan was a failure.
They'd broken a hole in the wall for no reason, they'd killed possibly thousands of people for no reason, they killed their teammates for no fucking reason-
And they'd killed Eren too.
She'd led those titans right to them, she had known exactly what she had been doing, trapping them within the maze of buildings so that titans could finish off him and his team members one by one.
Fuck, she may as well have strangled him with her own two hands with what she had done.
And then that imagery popped up into her head, Eren pinned underneath her as she wrapped her hands around his neck, him begging, pleading her not to do this, that she didn't have to do this, that they were friends as he slowly suffocated-
Annie leaned over the side of the roof as she heaved, a meager bowl of soup coming up as she didn't have much appetite this morning in the first place, knowing what she was about to do that day, but also believing that it would have a point, a purpose.
But it didn't.
The person that they had to grab was dead and all they had to show for it was a titan infestation and hundreds of casualties so far.
And now they were going to have to find the coordinate again, searching through the hundreds of thousands of refugees of Trost attempting to find that one special person that they needed to bring back and not fuck it up like they did this time.
Not kill them like they did Eren.
And that was the real kicker here wasn't it?
The one person that they couldn't kill, the one person who was the key to everything, the one person who supposedly had almost infinite power, dead at the hands of a mindless titan because they cared for their friends more than their life.
Because they were actually a good person, unlike her who had sacrificed everyone in Trost just for a chance to complete her mission.
And that was how Bertholdt found her, sitting on the edge of a rooftop as titans casually strolled closer and closer, still unable to stop the tears from pouring out of her eyes.
"What...are you-um, well are you ok?" He asked as he fluttered around her nervously.
Annie knew that she probably looked like shit, and that him asking was really more of a courtesy than a legitimate question but she still responded with a muffled "M'fine."
Bertholdt seemed to realize that he was somewhat walking on eggshells here, as no, she was very obviously not fine and something had happened and it really had to be big to impact her in such a way that it would seriously affect the mission like this, but seriously, now was not the time to be having a mental breakdown.
"I saw uh, Armin back at the supply tower, but no Eren, so did you find-"
"Eren's dead." She responded in monotone and Bertholdt took a small step back.
That would...that would ruin everything-and it would also explain why Annie was so upset because she certainly cared for Eren a lot more than she let on, a lot more than she really probably should have-but moreso, it could make any future plans a bitch to complete.
"Do you, uh, know how he-" Bertholdt got cut off once more.
"Got eaten right in front of Armin."
Ah.
That would not be fun.
Now, Bertholdt was upset for multiple reasons, one of them being that yeah, Eren had actually been a kind of ok person, aside for the murderous tendencies, but the real issue here was they had literally no fucking idea where the coordinate could be now, and-although he felt bad thinking it-Annie was being kind of useless right now.
"So what's the plan now then?" He asked, grabbing her arm and pulling her up to her feet. "Do we have any idea of what the titan that ate him looked like? We might be able to find the person that came out of it."
Normally if he had pulled her up the way he just had, Annie would have sucker punched him in the gut, but she seemed to be pretty out of it since she just allowed him to set her down.
He knew that she was attached to Eren, much more than she'd ever really admit, but was it really this bad?
"No, Armin left before I could ask." She responded, arms hanging listlessly at her sides.
She knew she was probably being a bit dramatic and she still had a mission to complete, a mission that she was complicating further by not doing anything right now, but she couldn't really bring herself to care.
She'd already fucked it up so bad.
The guilt continued to settle in the pits of her stomach, building and building until she swore that it would burst, and in some sort of way it did.
She felt anger bubble up and rise to the back of her throat, anger from the fact that she had been the one to lead the titans to Eren's group, anger from Eren's team not being able to protect him, anger at Armin because he didn't do anything, but mostly anger at Eren himself.
He was able to shift.
He was able to shift into the most powerful titan know to man but he'd fucking thrown it away and decided to die a 'heroic' death instead.
He'd thrown away everything that she'd taught him and threw himself into a titan's mouth for what? Just to spite her? Just because he was a fucking idiot who didn't think to kill the titan instead?
And that thought just brought forth more and more anger, because didn't he claim that he was going to kill all the titans? So what the fuck was he doing out her dying to one of the first titans he met rather than just killing them.
It didn't add up and it was making her mad.
With a deep breath she whipped herself around, startling Bertholdt who she hadn't realized was standing so close to her.
"We're heading back to the supply tower, and we're going to question the fuck out of Armin."
Meanwhile, once Armin had made it back to the supply tower, he realized that things weren't as bad as he thought they'd be.
They were much worse.
According to some of those who were already in the tower, they were completely trapped, as the surrounding area itself was fairly clear, but now matter which direction you went after you left the plaza there'd be dozens of titans waiting for you.
The elite squad tasked with guarding the tower had been wiped out early on, and the only people who really stood a chance, the garrison, had lost almost all their artillery when the colossal swiped its hand across the wall.
But the undeniably worst part was the supply depot, down below the floor he was standing on.
Ten or so smaller titans had somehow wormed their way in-why the doors for the supply depot were big enough for this to happen was beyond him, but whatever-so there was no way to replenish any of the oh so precious gas that everyone was running low on.
Realistically, it was only a matter of time before this place was swarmed and everyone inside was dead, but for now it was a nice reprieve from the chaos.
A nice time to think about how to break the news to Mikasa.
And he would be breaking the news to her at some point, because there was no way that she would die here today.
He wasn't going to lose two close friends in one day.
And Mikasa was strong, much stronger than any of the other cadets, and much stronger than any person he had seen before.
Even the commander had commented on how she was a huge prodigy, among the very few compliments he had made, and had said that she just might rival up to humanity's strongest one day, so there was no way she'd be taken down here.
But the fact that he couldn't find her here was more than a little worrying.
Before she'd been pulled away to form an unplanned elite team, they had both agreed to meet up with the others if her team got wiped out-an unfortunate tragedy but a real possibility.
According to those around the supply tower who were still able to talk about their experiences, that team had been mostly wiped out early on, so she should be here, but the more he asked around the more he realized that nobody knew where she was.
So there he was, stuck in a supply tower that nobody could get supplies, one of his friends dead and the other missing.
And that gun that was getting passed around now was looking really tempting.
He'd already seen a couple of cadets do it, end their suffering before a titan could get to them while the remaining cadets swarmed their still warm corpse, grabbing gas, blades, anything that could help them live just a little bit longer.
Yet the worst part was that he agreed with them, was almost excited when he heard another shot ring out because that meant more supplies, that meant there were less people here which would attract less titans.
He was always disgusted with himself less than a second later, once the realization of how he'd been thinking hit, but he couldn't deny that it was happening.
And then the rumors spread.
Rumors of another massive titan to the east, over a hundred meters tall and making more holes in the wall.
A fast one to the west, barreling through cities and destroying houses in its wake, it's victims not even knowing what hit them.
That the armored had appeared and was actively prepping to go right through Trost's walls and into the rest of Wall Rose.
But the strangest one of them all was of a titan attacking other titans, around fifteen meters tall and more muscular than anything any cadet had ever seen, it punched and kicked and bit other titans with its lipless maw and sharp claws, killing more than any soldier could ever hope to in their lives in under ten minutes.
That one spread the quickest, the cadets coming in quickly getting sucked up in the rumors, claiming that they thought they saw it but weren't sure. That it was prowling just out of sight of the tower, but nobody was brave enough to go out and check.
It was the most prolific one, and it was obvious as to why so many people were spreading it, as even Armin wanted desperately for it to be true.
But logically, he knew that the odds of something like that happening were close to zero.
Even on the extended expeditions that the survey corps took, there were no sightings of a titan that looked even somewhat similar to what the others were saying, nor were there ever any reports of titans fighting other titans.
Just ones of them eating more and more humans.
Even so, against all logic, Armin held out a small bit of hope.
Maybe it was true, maybe there was something that was killing the titans around here that he simply couldn't see, after all those rumors had to come from somewhere.
He had to keep up hope because the alternative was to give up.
And he wouldn't let Eren's sacrifice be in vain.
Mikasa was...worried to say the least.
She didn't doubt Armin or his ability to keep his team safe, but titans were unpredictable and it wasn't as if Armin knew everything so a multitude of things could go wrong.
If it had been up to her, she would have strapped both Eren and Armin to her back and carried them over the wall before heading back to help out the fighting effort, regardless of how hard it would have made maneuvering.
Really it wasn't so much Armin she was worried about, but rather Eren.
It wasn't as if she thought he was weak, after all she wasn't stupid. She knew that he had strength, maybe not enough to kill all the titans on his own like he wished, but he had placed fifth in their training division, but he was rash. He didn't really think things through and that could easily be deadly when the smallest mistake could lead to your death.
But she couldn't think about that too much now, because frankly, she was in trouble.
The gas canisters that they had given the cadets were almost never full, mostly to discourage unnecessary use, but today they had only given everyone canisters about three fourths full, something that was really coming back to bite them now.
Unless she really needed to get somewhere, the majority of her movement simply consisted latching onto whatever was the tallest thing around and attempting to swing from building to building without having to waste any gas, unless she needed to be somewhere quickly.
It wasn't ideal, but she didn't have any other option.
However, despite her best efforts the little red needle that displayed gas use had been in the red zone for far too long, and she was in desperate need of a fill up.
So there she was, running across rooftops and swinging from towers as fast as she could all the while searching for Eren's team, for another elite squad, for anything that could give her a better idea of the situation or help her get to a spot where she can get more gas.
After all, it wasn't as if it was impossible for a person to operate 3DMG and hold somebody else at the same time, so if worst came to worst she could always just combine tanks with another cadet.
Or loot them off of corpses.
However it looked like she wasn't the only one to have this exact idea, as almost all of the ones she came across either had empty tanks or they were gone, stolen by a hopefully luckier cadet.
Which is why when she caught a flash of blonde hair she risked using a bit of gas and calling out.
"Hey! Which squad are you?"
The two that she could see stopped, and began making their way towards her as she moved along the rooftops.
She'd been hoping it was Armin, after all this was about where he said his squad would be, but instead it had been Annie and Bertholdt, and the two looked a bit rattled to say the least.
She wasn't the biggest fan of Annie, but desperate times call for desperate measures and Mikasa could also tell that something was...wrong, to say the least.
Bertholdt seemed to be walking on eggshells around her and Annie herself wasn't her calm composed usual self. She had red eyes and blotchy skin and looked like she just came out of a pretty major crying session, which was really out of character.
Something big must have happened.
"Where are you two headed?" Mikasa asked once she was within a reasonable distance. No need to yell and attract more titans.
"Supply depot." Annie answered, wringing out her hands. "We're planning on meeting up with Armin again."
It was good to hear that they had met up with Armin at some point, as it meant that he was probably still alive, but again?
And what about the rest of his team?
"Again?" She asked. "Why didn't you stay with him?"
Now the smart move for Annie here would have been to keep quiet, to lie, to do anything other than tell the truth because everybody knew how much Mikasa cared for Eren and it didn't take a genius to piece together that he was...no longer with them from what Annie said and was about to say, but in all fairness, she wasn't exactly having a great time today.
"I was a bit...upset, and decided to stay behind for a bit."
Mikasa made a bit of a face at that. So somebody had certainly died before or around the same time she met up with Armin and co™, and it had to be somebody that she had been pretty close to.
She hoped it wasn't Reiner, as for all the stupid shit he'd said and done, Mikasa knew that Eren and a lot of other cadets thought of him as almost a brother.
"Ah." she responded, not wanting to add more fuel to the fire. "I'm sorry about that, but did you talk with Eren? How's he handling things?"
Now it was Annie's turn to make a face as she watched Bertholdt turn from slightly nervous to downright alarmed. What was the issue here? Were Eren and Armin not doing well?
"I, um," Annie spoke as she swallowed thickly, "I didn't get a chance to speak with him. Just with Armin."
Why would they decide to separate? "Did you find out where Eren was?"
"I...did. In a sense."
At this point, Annie knew that she was poking the bear. A part of her didn't want Mikasa to know, saying that it wasn't worth it and to simply let Armin break the news later, but another part of her, a much angrier and larger part was screaming that she deserved to know, that if Annie had to deal with this Mikasa was going to as well.
That it wasn't fair.
"Ok…?" Mikasa asked cautiously. Normally Annie was straight to the point, no nonsense, no bullshit, but she was dancing around something. Did they not know where Eren was? "So where is he."
"He's not with us."
"Well, yes, I can see that." Mikasa replied, more than a bit confused. If they didn't know where he was they should just say it rather than trying to lead her on with some cryptic bullshit.
Annie shook her head. "No that's not what I...He's not with Armin, he's, well, with the rest of his team. In a sense."
Annie knew that she wasn't being clear, and it wasn't as if she wanted to confuse Mikasa, but she was honestly having a bit of a hard time trying to outright say it herself. She didn't want to keep having to say it, and she didn't want to be the one breaking it to Mikasa here and now, but sometimes the world just doesn't give a shit about what you want.
"He's with his team?" She asked, still not getting it.
So that meant Armin wasn't with his team either, which made even less sense than Eren not being with him.
Armin knew that he wasn't that strong on his own, that his real strength came from employing tactics within a team, which Eren knew as well. Besides, Eren had always said he'd rather die than leave Armin at the mercy of the titans so him just deciding to leave with the rest of his team didn't make sense.
He'd rather-
Ah.
They'd been trying to break it to her softly.
Eren was no longer with them.
Huh.
Mikasa wanted to cry, she really did. For a second she'd felt more sadness than she'd ever known flood her body, from the tips of her fingers to her toes and tears bubble at her eyes before it all seemed to shut off.
It was like a faucet to her emotions had been shut, because now not only did she not feel anything regarding Eren's death, but she didn't feel the worry from the low gas like she did before. She didn't feel any fear from the numerous titans roaming around.
She now had a mission, and she was going to complete it regardless of the consequences.
"I see." She responded plainly after not getting a response, but rather watching Annie's eyes meet the floor. "Do you two think you have enough gas to make it to the supply tower?"
Annie's head snapped up.
"I do, but-"
"Ok, Good. I'm going whether you come or not."
And with that she took off, propelling herself forward as fast as she could, regardless of the possible titans that could be ahead.
Annie and Bertholdt stood there for a second, shocked as they watched Mikasa's retreating back.
That was not the reaction they had been expecting.
Annie was the first to snap out of it, saying "What are you standing there for? Are we going to follow her or what?"
"Oh, I um, yes." Bertholdt stammered out before taking his swords back out of his holsters and following after her.
In hindsight deciding to take off as fast as she could, using as much as the gas she had left wasn't the greatest idea as less than two minutes into the flight she could feel the reserves begin to sputter and slow as she had to rely more and more on momentum to fling herself forward, but she just had a little more.
She just had to get to the supply tower and she'd be able to replenish her gas canisters and everything would be fine.
It would be fine.
Although she was mostly focused on the tower, she could see from the corner of her eye that she had attracted quite a bit of an audience, with some notable characters like Jean and Connie trailing not too far behind her.
Good.
If she wasn't going to make it to the supply tower at least others were.
It wasn't thirty seconds later that she felt her gas supply sputter for a final time and then totally shut off, sending her careening towards the ground, but more so towards the dozens of titans littering the area who were more than happy to be given a free snack.
She'd been expecting the fall, but hadn't quite expected it to hurt so much as she rolled over roof tiles and smacked the ground with an audible sound.
Somebody was yelling behind her and she saw the trails of gas overhead as a few people flew past her, either not realizing she'd fallen or simply not having enough gas to help her out, but either way it seemed like she would be totally ignored.
And maybe it was better this way.
What was she even going to do once she got to the supply tower anyway? Get some supplies then go out and die in a blaze of glory?
The only thing that that would accomplish would be wasting supplies that others could be using to escape and wouldn't even put a dent into the oncoming titans, so it wouldn't even be worth it to do.
She already knew that Armin was somewhere safe, and her being there wouldn't make much of a difference. After all, he was a genius. Regardless of who was there, he'd be able to make it out, to do something.
But she wouldn't.
She knew it was only a matter of time before she died here, as she could already hear rumbling footsteps rounding the corner in front of her as well as something behind her, something big, so for now it was just a matter of which one got to her first.
And it looked like it would be the one rounding the corner in front of her.
It was a slow moving titan, one she would have had no trouble taking down with functional gear, but without it, even the best of soldiers was at the mercy of these giant beasts.
No matter how much she kicked, punched, or stabbed, the titan would just regenerate in seconds. Trying to fight off one without any way to get to its nape was just a waste of energy.
But would Eren think that way?
Would he sit here and simply let a titan eat him because he didn't have a reliable way to fight back?
Would he have just given up?
No. No he wouldn't have.
Her eyes widened as the giant grew closer, it's hands splayed out as if it were a child going to pick up a piece of fruit and she was brought back to a memory.
A memory of days when things were simpler, when joining the military hadn't been necessary for survival. When her biggest worry was whether Eren would fall out of the tree he'd decided to climb simply because he saw a tasty looking fruit at the top.
She'd never figured out what the fruit was, and they'd never been able to get it, but Eren had tried.
He'd tried and tried and tried, even though he knew it was useless, even though he'd failed so many times before he just got up and kept going.
He just kept moving forward.
So what the hell was she doing here, giving up just because she thought it was useless before she'd even tried? Why was she just deciding to give up without a fight?
If she didn't fight she couldn't win!
And so she reached back to the few swords that she still had in her possession, short and dull and whipped it out in front of her, trying to bat away the titan with nothing more than a blade the length of a kitchen knife.
To her credit, although it was an entirely useless endeavor, she took pleasure in watching the blade cut through the titans fingertips like butter, the beast recoiling slightly as it looked down at it's bloody finger stumps.
It almost looked offended at the fact that she was fighting back, as if it expected her to be easy prey, something it could simply scoop up and eat without any problem.
But she wasn't going to go down that easy.
The titan reared up on her again coming back down with more force and more vigor and Mikasa knew she was done for. She swung her blade once more, but it didn't deter the titan in the slightest.
It simply kept moving forward and forward, getting closer and closer, until it suddenly wasn't.
She was knocked off of the ground by something behind her, something big and forceful and fast and her vision went black for a second, or it must have as she didn't remember closing her eyes, but one second the titan ahead of her had had its finger splayed wide and within striking distance and the next it was being knocked back by a gigantic fist.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
She couldn't see it but the titan-it had to be a titan, nothing else was that big and powerful-from behind her must have been leaning right over her, looming as it found a piece of prey that it wanted, and was it an abnormal?
Nobody had ever observed titans fighting over people, but it had long been theorized that it was possible in certain isolated situations, so it wasn't completely irrational to think, except a titan purposefully fighting another over prey would imply something that nobody wanted to think about something that nobody truly thought was possible.
And then the titan behind her roared, no screamed.
Mikasa covered her ears as it bellowed, a sound unlike any other she'd heard from a titan because this didn't sound like the thoughtless noises and growls they usually made, this sounded as if all the rage of humanity had been compressed into one creature and then turned loose, it sounded wrathful, and it sounded desperate.
No sooner had the beast behind her stopped than the one in front of her decided to roar back, but it was mindless, nothing like the bellow she'd heard a second earlier and was cut short by the beast moving forward, over her, and slamming it's fist into the titan's face once more.
She could hear the crunch of bone as the titans skull caved under the force as it fell to the ground, but she knew it'd get up in a moment or so. It wouldn't take that long for the titan to heal unless its nape was destroyed.
Really, she should have left at that point, should have bolted and never looked back because this titan-Walls was it even really a titan?-would turn back and kill her the first chance it got, but for some reason she couldn't.
She just fell to her knees and stared at it, and couldn't even think of a good reason as to why.
She watched in horror as the titan began to lift itself off the ground, steam pouring from the gaping cavity around it's eye socket, but it barely even got a few inches off the ground before the beast before it was lifting up its foot and crushing its head.
And then it stomped again.
And again.
And again.
Until the titan beneath it was nothing more than a pile of red meat, skull and nape almost liquefied from the force of those stomps, and that was when she realized that this really was no regular titan.
It was far too muscular and proportionate, Walls it looked just like one of those professional fighters she'd encountered so far back in the past aside from its face and ears, and its nails came to a point, to claws for ripping and destroying.
But most of all it was different in how it moved.
She'd never heard of a titan throwing a punch before, only open handed slaps meant to grab and grip, and the idea that a titan would stomp, aiming for another's nape was simply preposterous. It moved with precision, as if each movement was getting it closer to its goal, whatever that could be, and locked its eyes onto its prey.
There was no way that this could be happening.
But all the proof was right there in front of her, roaring once more as she urged herself to get up, to get out of there, because she had to tell the others.
This thing-this thing had intelligence. There was no way it couldn't.
It certainly didn't have human intelligence, but it didn't need to in order to be dangerous. A titan like this could wipe out a good chunk of humanity in the walls before anything could take it down, if anything really could.
But why had it saved her? And why wasn't it looking back towards her?
The beast had been standing still for a couple seconds, exhaling steam clouds in a panting like motion as its ears twitched from side to side. It was waiting for something, but Mikasa had no idea what.
Then, without any warning, its face snapped to the right, locking onto something before it took off, leaving her in the dust and confused.
What had...what had just happened?
The titan had ignored her? And killed its own kind? But why?
Why was the question here as this titan defied everything she'd previously known within a span of five short minutes, then simply ran off to do whatever else it had planned.
It couldn't be too far, not at all, as she could still hear it bellowing, its cries vibrating within her chest as they carried on throughout the distance.
She was so out of it that she didn't even notice Connie grabbing her until she was being thrown onto a roof Connie screaming "What the fuck is that!" in her ear as he gestured towards the titan that had passed,no saved her.
"I don't know." She responded as she just continued to stare off into the distance where it continued to rampage. "I really don't know."