The Survey Corps arrived around three hours later, having had to change their course in order to avoid the large swath of titans that had been congregating around the wall, and they arrived to complete chaos.

"The fuck is this?" Levi asked, while cringing away at the sight of the streets he'd expected to be relatively pristine-well, as pristine as filthy public streets could get-coated in blood and rubble, a sight that had become far too familiar over the past five years.

When they'd entered Wall Rose through the Caleneth district they hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary, nothing that would have really alerted them to any major issues that had occured where they were originally supposed to enter though other than the usual amount of titans there, but as they rode on the rumors began to spread.

And by the Walls did they spread fast.

First it was a rumor that some of the cadets who were supposed to be working on the wall royally fucked up in some way, and then it was of cadets and full fledged military personnel alike abandoning their positions, fleeing into Wall Rose and even towards the Inner city for who knows what reason.

Of course rumors were par for the course when anything when bad by this point, as curious minds and those who simply didn't trust their leader enough always assumed that any small change of plans was due to a catastrophic event or something going wrong with supplies, but to be honest, it was rarely ever anything that big.

And while Levi certainly found the useless blathering of idiots who had no clue what they were talking about endlessly annoying, even he had to admit it was a bit amusing seeing the new recruits shit their pants simply because Erwin decided to shift their course slightly to the left.

Yet something was certainly different this time.

Even before he'd seen the wreck that was now the city of Trost there'd been an uneasy feeling in Levi's gut, as if there was something he should know, should have put together by now but he simply didn't have enough information to.

After all, it wasn't as if he was a genius like Erwin, he was simply here to get shit done, and get it done well.

Though, all things considered, seeing Trost in the state that it was in was not the most shocking part about the whole situation.

It was that there were absolutely no titans.

He'd seen this kind of destruction before, fuck there were miles and miles of it just outside the walls of Trost. Miles of buildings that had been bashed by uncaring bodies, towers with dents that couldn't have been made by anything human, and the remains of people who had been used for nothing but a quick meal for beasts that didn't need to eat.

Yet the fact that they saw none was making his troops uneasy, making him uneasy, as they weren't exactly hard to miss, but that was the issue. There was no screaming, there was no crashing of giants ahead of them, there was just nothing.

In order to facilitate integration into the demolished city as well as to possibly provide aid for any of those who may have been injured within whatever...event had occurred Erwin ordered them to be split of into their normal field designated squads, something that Levi would have to admit make him more anxious than he thought it should have, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Something had happened and he had a sneaking suspicion that titans had everything to do with it.

Their fears were confirmed when they came across their first titan pellet.

Every soldier under his command was immediately on guard, walls how could they not be? There was no way for a titan pellet to be here without the direct presence of titans and while Levi supposed that it could simply be a joke from the Garrison-a really sick and distasteful joke-he ultimately concluded that there was no way for any of them to pull something like this off.

Not because they lacked the machinery or manpower to do so, as Hanji could probably do something like this on her own given enough time, but because they were far too spineless.

His thoughts were justified when a rather frazzled looking woman came flying in off to the side as his men drew their blades at the sound.

"Rico Brzenska of the Alpha squad!" She shouted as she pulled herself into a salute, and what the hell had been going on?

At a quick glance Levi could see that not only was she missing almost all of her blades but her gas was low as well. She seemed exhausted and her hair was rumpled in a familiar way that he knew could only be due to extended flight.

It was obvious that she had been fighting at some point, titans or otherwise and with all the evidence towards the former Levi had to admit that the circumstances were not looking good.

But if there had truly been a breech like five years ago that still begged the question, where were all the titans?

Placing his left arm upwards in an effort to placate his men he responded, "Captain Levi of the Second squad. What is going on here?"

He watched as she pulled her mouth into a tight line. There was something that she was keeping from them, something that she didn't want to admit but Levi was not a patient man.

He didn't have all day to wait for her to spit whatever she had to say out.

"Soldier I'll repeat myself one more time." He spat, pulling his face into his usual glare. "What the fuck is going on here."

"Sir...The Wall was breached."

Armin didn't know what was happening.

Well, scratch that, he knew exactly what was happening but simply couldn't understand why.

After the wall had been sealed he'd spent a good amount of time staring in shock, wondering if what he just saw really happened before he was finally brought off to the side and designated a role for clean up. Not that he was really able to do much anyway.

From what he saw Annie and Mikasa were single handedly eradicating any titan who dared continue to exist within Trost but he realized why they had specifically given him a designation.

It was to keep an eye on him he thought belatedly as some members of the Garrison roughly shoved his hands into a cold pair of handcuffs.

They were arresting him?

Armin couldn't do much but stare in shock as a person pulled him onto a horse, a horse that had certainly not been there about an hour ago when the wall was sealed-they must have grabbed it from one of the surrounding hunting villages during the clean up-and was ordered not to resist.

Truth be told, Armin didn't have any plans to resist, Walls he didn't have any plans to do anything. He still had no idea what he was even being arrested for.

He hadn't run like so many others who had abandoned their positions once they had learned that there was even a chance that they would have to be fighting titans, hell he'd even made it possible to reclaim the supply depot!

But apparently it was something else entirely as he didn't see anyone else being taken away in chains, it was just him.

So he simply sat and watched as the horse he was chained to was led away from the battlefront, towards the gate leading to the rest of Wall Rose, and out into a vast expanse of land.

An expanse of land he'd helped to protect.

Eventually curiosity got the better of him as he leaned forward in an attempt to get closer to the man on his horse ahead of him and asked, "Um...may I know what I'm being detained for?" In a voice as loud as he dared.

The man simply continued on his merry way, making no indication that he had even heard Armin or if he did was simply ignoring him for some reason.

"Um." Armin asked a little louder this time and apparently that got the man's attention.

"What'd you want, kid." He asked gruffly, only taking a moment to pause and glance back at Armin before returning his eyes to the vast expanse of green ahead of him.

Now that bothered Armin a bit, but it wasn't as if he was in any place to be making complaints so he only reiterated his question, once more asking, "What am I being detained for?"

The man turned back to him and stared for much longer this time, a look of disbelief on his face. "You really don't know?"

Armin shook his head. It wasn't as if anyone had made any attempt to tell him and there weren't any laws he knew he broke.

"Kid, you're being arrested for fraternization with a titan."

There wasn't much that stunned Levi anymore after having grown up in the bowels of Sina and being a part of the Survey Corps for many years.

Titans climbing trees? Seen that, seen it more than once. People complaining because their son's body was eaten and therefore not able to be taken back? All the time. People crying in relief rather than fear when they first see a titan because it is more stress inducing to be worried all the time? Not as common, but yes, it had happened before.

But hearing that the Wall had been breached then sealed within less than a day and by a benevolent titan no less? Well forgive him for originally thinking that that Brzenska woman was suffering from some serious war psychosis.

Yet the more he thought about it, the more the whole scenario made sense. Not the benevolent and maybe intelligent titan part mind you because that was something he had yet to wrap his head around, but the lack of titans coupled with what was very obviously the residue of a titan invasion really only gave one solution.

He kept those thoughts within his head though, as he really didn't want to be dealing with explaining his thoughts on the event to the rest of his squad, although those who had heard bits of the conversation were already spreading their own rumors, until he'd consulted with Erwin and Hanji.

Erwin would know what to do. What to say to calm everyone down.

He always did.

So Levi rode on at a relatively slow canter, taking care to look out for anyone pinned beneath debris or struggling but he couldn't find much. All of those he was able to find were either already dead or far too buried to be saved anyway.

It seemed that whatever clean-up crew had already been sent out had done a pretty good job.

With the squads fast pace it wasn't long before they were able to make it through the city, marveling in the sheer destruction that continued to get worse and worse the closer they got to the front of the city, the closer they got to the gate they were originally supposed to enter through.

The sight awaiting them was nothing short of unbelievable.

The boulder that had been planned to be placed in front of the wall in case the colossal appeared was there, doing the job that it had been kept in the town for, and while Levi would have originally assumed that the Garrison had gotten their shit together and done something right for once, that would be ignoring the massive handprints pressed into the side of the boulder.

They were a size that Levi was all too familiar with. A size of hands that he regularly avoided and sliced to bits whenever they came too near for his liking.

So that woman hadn't been lying then.

He continued to stare at the handprints in disbelief because what else was he supposed to do? They'd never even begun to come across moderately intelligent titans much less a benevolent one who was willing to help humanity, so yes, this was quite a bit of a shock.

It was enough of a shock that he didn't even notice when Erwin rode over to him, General Pixis in tow, jolting a slight bit when Erwin addressed him.

He saw Erwin open his mouth, probably to give a far too long and winded speech that Levi would simply tune out after a minute or so, so he cut Erwin off prematurely, turning directly to Pixis and asking, "So is anybody going to tell me what the fuck has happened here or am I going to have to keep guessing?"

Pixis gave a small smirk as Erwin frowned, obviously not very content with being cut off before responding to him with a, "Well, there was apparently a reappearance of the colossal, however we may have gained a new ally-"

"Yeah, yeah, we suddenly have a titan friend, I already heard about that." Levi said in a deadpan tone. He was getting real fucking sick of people telling him the same shit over and over again. "What I'm more interested in is where this fucker came from and why we've never seen them before."

"That's part of the issue, Levi. We have no clue where it came from." Erwin responded, keeping an air of calm even though Levi could tell that he wasn't exactly in the mood for some sass.

Which was unfortunate because Levi wasn't in the mood to be polite either.

"So you're telling me that a big ass friendly titan appeared out of nowhere and decided to plug up the Wall? Please tell me we at least captured it rather than killing it on the spot."

Erwin coughed into his hand, looking at Pixis to respond.

"Well unfortunately the titan managed to slip our grasp."

Levi just started incredulously at the two. "Its a fucking titan how the fuck do you let it slip your grasp. What, was it covered in lard or something?"

A couple of recruits chuckled behind him but Levi found nothing about the situation funny. A friendly titan had achieved the first victory for humanity against the titans in possibly forever and they just let it go?

Fuck, he didn't even like titans but he could already see this being a logistical nightmare. There was no way that Hanji, and probably Erwin at this point, weren't going to fight tooth and nail to capture this thing now that they knew it existed which only meant one more thing for Levi.

He was going to have to attend more of those fucking funding meetings.

Speaking of Hanji, he could already feel a headache forming from the very imminent rants he was going to have to listen to about how scientifically groundbreaking this thing was but luckily for him Hanji was currently nowhere to be found.

"We didn't really have an opportunity to capture it to be honest." Pixis told him. "It sealed itself outside using the boulder. If we'd tried to capture it any earlier we would have had to leave the wall wide open."

Levi clicked his tongue at that. He couldn't really blame the Garrison for that if that was truly the case but it also opened up another can of worms, namely regarding the things intelligence.

Did it seal itself outside to continue fighting titans or did it leave to avoid capture?

Having heard about the apparent rampage the beast had been on prior to its exit, either option was equally possible but each required a level of premeditation that he didn't want to think a titan was possible of.

"Apparently they didn't let everything slip away with the titan though." Erwin reassured. "A cadet who seemed to know of the titan was singled out and taken into custody so we may be able to learn a bit more about this possible ally."

"Great, so we've captured a kid."

"Levi, you know it is better than nothing."

He only gave a deep sight at that. Yes, it was in fact better than nothing but he was still skeptical of how much information this kid could truly give.

From the way Erwin worded it the kid could either be a wealth of information or a complete dead end that they had grabbed while grasping at straws, and Levi wasn't exactly optimistic about it being the former.

"When are we going to talk to them then?"

"First I have to talk with Zackly and get a court order to-"

"The kid's on trial? For fucks sake are we trying to make it as unlikely as possible that we'll catch this titan?" At this point Levi was done, absolutely done with whatever bureaucratic bullshit was happening.

Yes, he understood how important it was for the morons within Sina to truly decide if this titan was a benefit to humanity (and by extension the kid) but as far as Levi was concerned it'd already proved itself.

Why the hell else would it have fought against its kin and willingly sealed the wall? There was nothing for it to gain by doing so since it left as soon as its task was complete.

Erwin just sighed as Pixis picked the conversation back up. "The longer we wait the farther that titan gets from the walls, so I'd get a move on if I were you." He paused to take a swig from a flask that Levi hadn't even noticed up until this point. "That is, assumin' it wants to stalk off into obscurity again."

"That is a good point, Pixis." Erwin replied in kind, although Levi could tell that the sentiment was more directed towards him. "This titan has shown a willingness to help humans that we've never seen before. Who's to say that it won't come back to the walls."

Levi could have continued to argue the point but from where he stood it looked as if continuing would simply lead to the conversation devolving into petty banter.

And while he was certainly petty he was also tired and not fucking willing to deal with this situation any more than he already had.

"Whatever, I'm going to get the fuck out of here before Hanji catched wind of whats going on here." He replied, pulling on the reins of his horse and turning around, only then remembering that yes, he did in fact have a squad on his tail.

Walls, he really was tired.

"Hey, Erwin, I'm leaving these guys with you." He said, turning ever so slightly back to where Erwin continued to sit.

Erwin just smiled back at him, knowing there was no reason to argue at this point. "That's fine by me. I'll see you later at the Sina courthouse."

And with that, Levi rode off.

Bertholdt and Annie were panicking.

Well simply saying that they were panicking would be an understatement because while Bertholdt felt as if things were falling apart and that they really couldn't have fucked this up more, he at least still had his wits about him.

The same could not be said for Annie.

Apparently he had not been the first person to tell her the news that the friendly titan-for some reason whenever he heard that he had the urge to scream that it wasn't just any titan, it was Eren, he was an ally and they needed to stop fucking talking about him like that-had just up and left after plugging up the wall, and to be honest he was sort of glad.

Bertholdt really had no desire to tell her exactly why he'd let the one person they were supposed to capture at all costs escape, and even less desire to tell her that yes, Eren was in fact missing.

But he'd found her staring down at a pile of corpses dully murmuring 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry' over and over and the state of the corpses were...not good to say the least.

It was certainly one of the worse piles, this one full of empty faces and missing limbs, presumably within the belly of a titan.

It looked like they'd died painfully and slowly.

It looked like they'd died crying.

Ah, and there were those nasty thoughts again, the ones that had been pushing themselves to the surface ever since he'd put a hole in that dreaded wall. The ones that told him it was all his fault, that there was no reason for him to do this except his own fucking fear of the unknown. That he was too weak to do anything but follow orders and would never be anything more than a mindless puppet subject to the whims of people who didn't give a shit about his existence.

But Bertholdt continued to push them down. After all, there was no way they could be true.

Maybe the wall was his fault, but he'd heard what these people had done, heard everything from his teachers and classmates.

He was here for a reason, and maybe not everyone here deserved what was coming to them, but they didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing in such dire times. They were going to have to break a couple eggs.

So he pushed forward, placing a hand on Annie's shoulder and dragging her away from the body. After all, no good was going to come from her just standing there and stewing in her own thoughts.

She walked along with him, although Bertholdt really had no clue whether she actually processed that it was him who was coming to take her away or if she just went along with him because she couldn't continue to stand there herself, but either way was fine.

He grabbed one of the small water satchels that was being handed out throughout town-something about a small leather company who was trying to drum up some more business-and pulled her off into one of the broken down houses towards the edge of Trost.

It was almost as if the area had been suddenly wiped of all humans, with fruit still on the counter and a large bowl placed atop the stove, surely full of whatever these people had been planning to eat for dinner.

If not for the caved in roof on one side of the house along with shards of glass and rubble on the floor Bertholdt would have called it normal, homey almost.

But now was not the time to reminisce upon what he'd lost, there were far more pressing matter at hand.

Bertholdt not so gently guided Annie to a chair and forced her to sit down, pushing the water he had towards her face and allowing her to grab it.

Although it took her a second to realize what he was doing, Annie all but ripped the satchel from his hands, drinking it faster than what could have been comfortable.

Once she finished she lowered the satchel down to the chair she was sitting on, moving the cap around her fingers in a motion Bertholdt had only seen her do a few times before, but that he still felt was relatively impressive.

And there the two sat for longer than what was probably safe, the only sound between the two of them being the soft clinking of the cap as it occasionally hit Annie's fingernails.

It was Annie who spoke up first, just asking a simple "So what do we do now." To which Bertholdt could really do nothing but sigh.

Trost had been a total and utter failure, and while nothing could change that the bigger issue at stake was now that the general public, or at least the military was aware of Eren and his capabilities, even if they didn't know that he could turn back into a human, which all but set a massive fucking target on his back that teh entire military would be vying for, wheter it be to kill him or use him.

Which was a problem for them, the titan shifters who would have really preferred to work in secret.

Even so, Trost did do one good thing, it got Eren outside the walls, arguably the hardest part of their mission had been achieved through his own volition and now it was just up to them to be able to steer him in the right direction, however they could do that.

"I don't know." Bertholdt admitted, under no impressions that any of his small ideas could really be churned out into a full plan. "Shouldn't we grab Reiner before deciding anything?"

Annie gave an ugly snort at that, going back to looking down at her cap. "Why should we? Who fucking knows where he is now, probably off leading more innocent people to their deaths." And from her tone alone Bertholdt could tell that he missed something.

She had gone off to get Reiner around halfway through the odd Eren chase they had been on, as the two attempted to lead Armin away from Eren's titan before they came across too many people but she'd never come back.

He hadn't even seen her again until he found her standing in front of that corpse, so it had certainly been some time.

"Do you think that Reiner's given up the mission?" He asked tentatively, not really wanting to broach the topic himself.

Reiner had always been a sort of pillar to him, an example of how to act, how to be, even in the face of extreme struggle, even when neither of them knew exactly how to act.

But he knew that Annie certainly didn't hold the same opinion, often remarking that he was simply a boring yes-man who spent more time attempting to appease people than actually fixing their problems, but even then those remarks had a certain bit of fondness to them.

"No, I don't think he'll give up his fucking mission." She spat, and oh boy he had definitely hit something there. "He'd rather pretend like this whole thing didn't exist than give up."

Well that was good, if not a small bit concerning.

While not preferable they could deal with a Reiner that was nothing but dead weight.

They could not deal with a traitor.

And so Bertholdt went with what he considered the safest and most preferable option in this scenario and continued to ask Annie for her opinion. "So what do you think we should then?"

"God, I don't fucking know." She responded, finally pushing herself up from her chair and moving to readjust her gear. "The whole military knows that Eren, or his titan at the very least exists now so we can throw all hopes of getting him out without anyone noticing out the window," she ducked her head to look out of one of the side windows, for what reason he wasn't entirely too sure, "and Eren himself has decided to fuck off to who knows where outside the-"

Bertholdt watched as she seemed to freeze in time, words suddenly stopping and seeming to hang in mid-air. It was obvious that she had realized something, but unfortunately Bertholdt couldn't read minds.

"Annie, you doing ok-"

"The wall." She interrupted, bringing a hand to cover her mouth. "Eren's outside the wall."

Bertholdt just stared at her in confusion. Was she just now connecting the puzzle pieces?

"So all we have to do now is lead him to the banks right? Or pull him towards the banks, whichever it ends up being, but basically he's already done the most difficult part of this assignment himself."

"Right."

"So all we have to do now is corner him outside of the walls." Annie looked as if she'd hit a jackpot. "And because he'd already out there you won't have to shift early, meaning that if necessary you could be a deterrent."

Bertholdt's eyes widened as he caught onto her line of thought. He knew that Eren being outside the walls would make quite a few things easier, but he'd never really considered how it could be utilized to their benefit.

But she was right. Arguably the biggest issue with Trost was the fact that within the time they had he was only able to transform once, as if he had been able to fend off the Garrison while grabbing Eren would have been a cakewalk.

"And the military knowing about Eren's titan is really more helpful than harmful when you think about it." Annie reasoned, beginning to somewhat perk up about the situation. "They'll most likely be focused on finding Eren's titan while keeping themselves safe, meaning that it'll also be safer and easier for us to find him using their information."

"And it'll be much easier to steer him towards the banks, especially if we can get Reiner's help this time."

Annie seemed to stiffen up a bit at that and not for the first time Bertholdt wondered what the hell had happened, but he knew that asking Annie at this time would simply be throwing salt on whatever wound existed so he decided to keep his mouth shut.

That didn't mean he wouldn't be paying quite a bit more attention in the future though.

"We should probably tell Reiner soon though, because it does necessitate a bit of a bigger change in plans." Annie said while turning to head out the door.

"Hm?"

"I'm going to need to join the Survey Corps."

Armin couldn't tell how long he had sat in the small cell, but by judging how low the torches were burning he assumed it had to at least have been a couple of hours, maybe five at max.

And yet he still had no clue exactly why he was down here.

Sure the phrase "fraternization with a titan" was pretty self explanatory, however that didn't explain why they had just up and thrown him in a cell.

If they had truly though that Armin was any sort or threat they would have just up and killed him, not left him to rot in this poorly lit area where they had been oh so kind as to bring him a single meal consisting of nothing more than bread and gruel, although he supposed it could have been worse.

No, this made it seem like they wanted something from him, assumed that he had some sort of answers to this whole situation, and if that was the case they would be sorely disappointed.

All he knew was that he proposed the-admittedly insane-plan to Bertholdt above that titan and then the next thing he knew it was moving to carry it out.

Fucking hell, it still sounded insane even when he was only going over it in his head but everything lined up far to perfectly for it to be total coincidence, which left a couple options, none of which Armin was particularly fond of.

First there was option one, which was that it was in fact a total coincidence and the titan-Walls he was really going to have to give it a name at some point-had already been planning to seal up the wall and decided to on its own, something that Armin really really didn't think was the case, but was still something he'd have to consider.

Option two was that the titan could actually understand him and had gone along with his plan to seal up the wall which was unbelievable for a couple of reasons, including but not limited to the fact that it was a fucking titan and the sheer distance between him and the titan. They'd been very thorough about the distance that a titan could hear you from in class-no less than twenty yards, and yes he did pride himself on memorizing the exact distance thank you very much-and he was certainly much higher up than twenty meters.

Although everything else about this creature was an anomaly so he supposed that he couldn't rule that out either.

The third and final option was arguably the least possible but would certainly be the best case scenario, which would be that he was some kind of titan whisperer.

Walls, he could feel Eren rolling in his grave at the thought-but he wasn't going to think about it too much because Eren was only gone because of him, because of his actions-but if he had somehow gained the ability to talk to or even somewhat control titans that would be a game changer.

Forget using titans to seal up the wall, with the ability to control them he could easily take control of whatever he wanted, do whatever he pleased. After all who would fight him, who could fight against a fucking army of wepaonized titans.

Well, maybe he was getting too far ahead of himself there but it was still an entertaining thought within a time that he desperately needed some entertainment.

But as he continued to ponder his captivity and begin to come to terms with the fact that he would be forced to wait here possibly indefinitely he heard the grinding sound of the door that led to the cells being forced open and allowed himself a small bit of hope.

Although it was probably just another military guard here to make sure that he wasn't up to anything suspicious he had heard that occasionally prisoners were allowed visitors. Considering his current status though he was almost certain that wouldn't be the case for him though.

Still he continued to listen in suspense as footsteps continued to move down, down into the deeper parts of the cells, moving closer and closer to him.

Armin pulled himself off of his bed, mindful of the large chains that they had placed around his wrist and cautiously peered out of his cell to the right.

He had been hoping that it would be Mikasa, or Marco, or Walls forbid even Jean but instead he caught himself staring at the intimidating form of the leader of the Survey Corps, Commander Erwin casually striding down the halls of the prison.

Armin froze. What could they be here for?

He knew that the obvious answer was him, after all the Survey Corps were technically a research division and certainly wouldn't pass up an opportunity to get any information they could from him but he was pretty sure that that wouldn't require a visit from Commander Erwin.

There was also someone else, a second pair of footsteps that he could heard behind Erwin although he hadn't been able to spot them within the poor lighting of the hallway so when the two stopped at his cell he was somewhat shocked to see the vaguely familiar face of Captain Levi staring back at him, and now Armin was somewhat scared.

In the eyes of the military he was sure that whatever information they thought he carried was supremely valuable but the issue still remained that he didn't actually have any information to give.

So if they decided that what he said was not enough...well, he'd prefer not to think of that.

He shrunk back to the small bunk he had been given and sat down at the very edge as the two men ahead of him got comfortable, not exactly knowing how to react.

It was a few moments of silence before Erwin cleared his throat and introduced himself, "Greetings, I'm terribly sorry for the unfortunate conditions of our meeting, but you'll have to bear with me for a moment."

"Ah…" Armin said, not entirely sure how to respond. After all he wasn't stupid, he knew that anything that he said here could be used against him at a later date or used to prove his guilt of his "Crime" and was under no illusions that the Survey Corps would not do so.

They were a part of the military too, arguably the most cutthroat division at that and nowhere near the perfect heroes that Eren hailed them as. If he wanted to get out of here he'd have to play his cards right.

"Although I'm sure you know by now I'm Erwin Smith, current Commander of the Scouting legion and next to me is Captain Levi." At this Levi crossed his arms as he leaned back against the wall, obviously not impressed with the current situation, and honestly Armin couldn't blame him.

"Ah, I'm um, Armin Artlet of the 104th Southern Trainee division." Amrin responded in kind, although he was sure that the two had already known.

Still he didn't want to come off as rude or make a bad impression, after all his life may or may not be within these men's hands.

Erwin simply nodded and gave a kind smile. "Yes, and as I've heard you were quite the academic prodigy among your division."

"Well, I wouldn't call myself a prodigy…"

"Nonsense. I personally know that Shadis is not one to give out praise unnecessarily so you must have made a big impression for him to personally vouch for your intelligence." Erwin continued, and despite his friendly tone Armin became more and more on edge.

It was apparent that Erwin was attempting to put him at ease, place him in a more friendly environment so that he'd be more willing to talk when necessary, but that brought Armin back to the issue of him not actually having any information to give.

So he continued to stay silent, not wanting to give into any trap verbal trap that may be starting to get set up for him and began to plan out his responses carefully.

If he wanted to stay as safe as possible he'd have to give up any real information that he had, but his own personal theories were a different story. There was no reason he would have to-

"Hey Shitwin can you just tell the kid why we're here already? He looks like he's about to crap his pants." Came Levi's calm voice from in front of him, and holy shit he'd forgotten Captain Levi was there and he was also pretty sure that insubidornation of that level had to have been punishable by law.

Erwin gave a soft chuckle at this statement-it must have been a common occurrence then-before apologizing and asking, "Have you been told why you are being held here yet?"

"On the way down I was told it was for fraternization with a titan," Armin raised his hand to the back of his neck in an awkward gesture, "but I'm still not entirely sure what that means." he replied sheepishly.

Truth be told, he had a pretty good idea of exactly what that meant but he wasn't about to incriminate himself by admitting to the events.

Plus making himself look as much like the victim as possible in the scenario couldn't hurt.

Erwin simply gave another reassuring smile before responding with, "According to numerous eye-witnesses you were seen flying along with or ahead of the Rogue titan at Trost and publicly defended it as it approached the wall, going as far as to stand in front of a few of the Garrisons cannons."

"Ah, the Rogue titan?" Armin questioned, although he was pretty sure he knew exactly who they were talking about.

"To simplify things the people have decided that our only known friendly titan needs a name."

"I see."

"That aside, I'm sure that you've realized that that is not the only we've come to see you right." Erwin responded and Armin could feel the mood drop around him.

"No, sir. I didn't think so."

"Good to know." Erwin leaned back in his chair as he pulled a small scroll off of his hip. "To be truthful you're not being held here due to something as silly as 'fraternization with a titan', but rather because you're an important witness."

Now that got Armin's attention.

"Forgive me if I'm putting words in your mouth, but hearing of how you defended the Rouge titan I'm going to assume we both hold the opinion that something as powerful as a titan on our side would be a true waste." Erwin drawled as he handed Armin one of the papers he had within the scroll. "However it seems the opinion is not shared by the entirety of the government."

Quickly scanning over the paper there were a few things that stood out to Armin, one of which being the badly drawn rendition of the Rogue titan in the center of the paper. The beast had been drawn as if it were any other titan, looking like any other of those dumb lumbering beast but with the distinct traits the Rouge titan carried.

He supposed that he couldn't really blame the artist, as he probably would have done the same thing if he hadn't been on the frontline, viewing the titan from up close, but seeing what had been such a clearly different creature displayed as the same as the others felt...wrong.

It left a bad taste in Armin's mouth for a reason that he couldn't explain and frankly didn't want to dwell on, but it wasn't like he could change anything.

The article itself simply explained the trial given with the Survey Corps being pitted against the Military Police and judging by some of the language used it was clear who the journalist agreed with.

What Armin did find interesting though were the terms of the trial. Although Erwin had claimed that he was really only imprisoned due to being a key witness, it looked like a good chunk of the trial was dedicated to his fate as well.

If it was ruled that the titan was an ally of humanity he'd be forced to join the Survey Corps in order to aid it's capture-how the fuck were they going to capture a titan like this anyway?-and if it was ruled otherwise his imprisonment was to be extended until destruction of the titan was possible or if the overall trial decision was changed.

Whatever that meant.

Of course Armin certainly had a preference on the outcome of the trial however there was still one thing he really didn't understand.

"Um, sir." He asked, waiting for an acknowledgement. Once Erwin met his eyes he continued with a, "Why am I to be held if the outcome is not in your favor?"

"Due to the circumstances, namely that you seemed to be cognisant of where the titan would be along with being heavily protective of it many people have come to suspect that you and the Rogue titan have a sort of bond." Erwin stared him back down, his expression turning cold. "I'd suspect it would be for research and information purposes."

"But that's not true! I just-it had already killed a lot of titans so…"

"So you claim that you have had no previous relation to this titan?"

"Sir, with all due respect when would I have had any sort of access to a titan, much less a benevolent one."

Erwin shifted for a moment, moving to pull out another scroll of papers, however this time he didn't bother to sort through them. "According to your military file you were present in Shingansia during the time of The Fall along with two other cadets. Is it not impossible that you made first contact during this time?"

"I didn't meet any titans during the fall, I did nothing but run." Armin seethed. Deep down a part of himself was screaming that this was a trap, that they were simply trying to rile him up to get more information, but fuck it. It wasn't like he had any more information to give anyway.

"So if we take those other two cadets in for questioning, Mikasa Ackerman-" Armin saw Levi stiffen a bit at that and filed it away for later. "-and Eren Jaeger, they will tell the same story."

"You can try." Came Armin's snarky reply and he realized a moment too late that that was not an appropriate response to tell a Commander, holy shit he was so dead.

Erwin raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And pray tell why that is."

"Eren got eaten."

And just like that all of the tension in the room seemed to flow away, replaced with nothing but an understanding dread, something that Armin was not particularly fond of.

He had staved off the horrible pit in his stomach that had been there since Eren had died by taking a page from his own book. By steeping himself in nothing but anger and confusion-although he controlled that first emotion much better than his late friend-and forgetting about what had happened.

But that admission had brought all of those memories back, that awful punch to the gut because fuck, Eren got eaten right in front of him. Eren who had been with him since he was a kid, righteous in his own way and far too focused in his own form of justice even if it was wrong half the time.

Eren who had pulled him out of his pit after his grandfather had been taken, Eren who had always had dreams and inspirations and wasn't shy about telling them to other people. Eren who refused to compromise and was awfully endearing in his own way.

Eren who had gotten fucking eaten.

Tears began to prick at Armin's eyes again as he remembered and all he could think was 'wow, this really is a bad time.' but luckily for him it seemed the two men in front of him understood.

They had to, to be honest. One doesn't survive in the Survey Corps without seeing a couple people lose those close to them.

"I apologize." Erwin said softly as he moved to crouch down in front of the cell. "The final person count hasn't come in yet. We didn't know."

Armin wanted to say something, really just anything to prove that he wasn't a weak fucking child who couldn't even hold a normal conversation about those who had passed without breaking down into tears.

He knew that shit like this happened, that nobody stayed at your side forever but…he just hadn't really expected it to be so soon.

So instead of speaking he just lowered his head and kept his mouth shut, trying to will back the tears that were continuing to pool, threatening to slide down at any moment.

Erwin's voice still cut through the cell with a cordial, "We'll be sending down another one of our members to greet and brief you on the trial tomorrow around ten. I hope to see you then."

Armin could hear the shuffling of chairs as he got up and nodded his head in understanding, still not taking his eyes off of the floor until he began to hear trailing footsteps leading away from his cell.

He pulled his head back up and wiped at his eyes only to find them damp again moments later so he gave up, burying his face in the hard pillow that had been supplied for him, reminiscent of the ones each cadet had been given at camp.

And so he pretended it was.

Pretended that none of the day had happened, that he wasn't in a tiny cell but rather in an overcrowded, far too loud barracks with nothing but mindless chatter filling the space around him.

That if he opened his eyes he'd see Eren on the bunk across from him, doing something stupid but oh so typical and challenging Jean to a fight over it.

But the silence within the cell was deafening, there was nobody chattering around and nobody to see if he opened his eyes now, and so Armin didn't.

And while thinking of what could've been, what should've been he fell asleep.