"I came from beyond the Walls, where Humanity enjoys a refined existence. In reality, Humanity does not exist solely inside of the Walls."

Erwin Smith's mind raced with many, many thoughts and emotions as he perused the books and documents spread out before him.

Disbelief at his worldview being irrevocably flipped over.

Excitement at the new truths he would go on to search for.

But most of all, a significant bit of vindication for his father.

'You were right, Papa.' Erwin's hands clenched tightly as the sight of Marcus Smith's grave pushed to the forefront of his mind. 'If Dr. Jaeger is to be believed, the land he came from is most likely where the first King of the Walls took our ancestors from and did something warranted us losing our memories.'

Erwin's eyes flicked to the book containing information on the Titans. So far, only Hange, Levi and Mike had been the ones aside from him to read all of the books. While the three of them had taken the news with less... composure, they'd still obeyed his order of keeping the news from the others.

Arlert and his friends most likely already knew, but going by Dr. Jaeger's information, the Colossal and Armored Titans had definitely infiltrated the Walls five years ago, most likely to steal the Founding Titan from the royal family.

'Project 'Topsy-Turvy' can finally kick off. My contacts within the Cult of the Violet Flame Titan and the Dogma of the Ice Soldier of Trost say they have made great headway in conversions among the displaced residents of Trost. Infiltration of the Church of the Walls is proving to be problematic, however. Well, we can deal with those maniacs later. Eren might be difficult to defend, but there isn't a single resident of Trost who'll be okay with Armin's execution after he Sealed up the hole in their Wall. Add in what he, Eren and Mikasa did for Shiganshina, and they should all be untouchable.'

Before he could get around to thinking of how to finally get started on the coup he'd been quietly preparing for all these years, he still had to properly induct the Shiganshina Trio into the Survey Corps. Maybe he could even get Arlert in on his coup ideas. Most of the reports he'd read about him all complimented his intelligence-

*KRACKATHOOOOM!*

And then the tent Erwin sat in got blown away by a massive gale, two pillars of multicolored lightning crackling up into the sky.

A few minutes earlier

Throughout his entire time in the cadets corps, Reiner Braun had always been struck with a strong and strange sense of want.

It was the most horrible thing ever.

The fact that he desired camaraderie with these devils.

The fact that from an unbiased point, his five years here had been the happiest of his life.

But it was wrong.

Reiner Braun was the Armor. He had a duty to find the Founder and return home with the others. Bertholdt and Annie had to return to their fathers, after all.

As for Marcel...

He would take whatever punishment his friend and leader's family wanted to throw at him. It was all his fault, after all.

He could not- He would not falter. Reiner's heart burned with the determination to not let his mission fail. He would grant Bertholdt and Annie the chance to go home with his dying breath.

His determination, resolve and protective wrath thrummed beneath him, his suppressed Lightning Flames churning beneath his skin, desperately grasping for the chance to surge free.

Reiner stomped down on them. This soulfire- Flames- was apparently a popular thing amongst the Survey Corps. They were technically called the Dying Will Flames of the Sky. Weather themed powers of fire that manifested in seven separate types, each with different and unique attributes.

Reiner had possessed Lightning Flames, which resembled their namesake more than fire and allowed users to enhance their body or even objects with their Flames, making them sturdy and near indestructible.

(Reiner hadn't missed the irony, considering his Titan.)

Bertholdt had possessed Mist Flames, which dealt in illusions. From a stranger's perspective, Bertholdt might have been mistaken for a Rain instead, but Bertholdt being a Mist made sense to Reiner. After all, Bertholdt had always in good at deceiving others, even when he hadn't wanted to. As the Warrior with the Colossal Titan, which was only gifted to the strongest and most skilled candidate, the only reason why he hadn't taken Mikasa's #1 spot was simply because he hadn't wanted to.

Annie, according to her most recent letter when he'd asked, possessed Cloud Flames. With Eren being the only other person in their class with the sixth rarest Flame type, they allowed the user to enhance, multiply or even control the weight or size of things. Reiner always knew that there was no way her small body could have normally trashed him and Eren.

(Come to think of it, how did Annie already know that much about her Flames? Reiner and Bertholdt had just learned about them in the Survey Corps. Considering the requirements to unlock them and Annie's complaints about the Military Police, Reiner doubted she'd unlocked them there.

He'd have to ask in his next letter.)

These Flames... Where had they come from? Had it been something done by the First King of the Walls? Or was it that the Mother of Devils had granted her descendants this from the start as an alternative to using Titans like Bertholdt suggested?

Well, whatever it was, Reiner had to put them at the back of his mind. Right now, his greatest concern was figuring out how to nab Eren and pump him for information.

Which was probably why he should've thought this out more when Armin had invited both him and Bertholdt to Harmonize with him. The moment he'd offered, Reiner hated how his Flames had churned within his skin, desperately grasping for the promise of seeking Harmony that had already been lost to him once before.

Even Bertholdt had known from the moment the two learned of Sky Flames, that Marcel had been theirs.

And they'd lost him.

But all of that was pushed aside-

"So," Armin sat decidedly uncomfortably on his chair, with Eren and Mikasa sitting at his sides, "which of you is the Colossal and which of you is the Armored?"

-when Armin went and reminded Reiner that he was still the third smartest person he'd ever met in his life.

Armin... knew.

Judging by the lack of surprise on Mikasa's face and only a slight increase in Eren's ever present glare, the two were aware as well.

Then again, these were the Shiganshina Trio. Reiner had never met any other people who fitted the term 'soul-mates' as much as these three did, despite their huge differences in personalities and mindsets.

"A-Armin, what are you talking about?" Bertholdt stuttered, breaking into a nervous sweat worse than usual. "Is this some kind of prank?"

Reiner knew it wasn't. Especially when the three before them had directly lost more to their Titans than anybody else in the Survey Corps.

"Bertholdt." Eren snapped, stomping his boot hard enough to cause a brief puff of Cloud Flames and cracking the stone beneath his foot. "When have I- No, when has any of us ever played a prank on you?"

"You're accusing Reiner and I of being Humanity's most hated enemies!" Bertholdt flailed. "What am I supposed to see this as-?!"

"How did you know?" Reiner cut Bertholdt off, looking at Armin straight in the eye and offering no pretenses. Even if he hadn't known them personally, just the fact that they had lived here meant that he had to be upfront as a courtesy.

It wasn't that he was being sympathetic to the devils. Reiner just knew when it was time to bullshit and when it was time to cut the shit.

"It's in your Flames." Eren answered. "Since we inherit our Titans by..." Eren gulped and pushed on, "eating the previous owner, we're essentially assimilating them in their entirety into ourselves. Along with memories that aren't mine, I've also received an excess of Cloud Flames that don't belong to me. You could probably play it off as having secondary Flames if both you and the Titan's Flames were different types, but someone as Flame sensitive as Armin could definitely sense the Cloud Flames of separate people within me."

'SHIT!' Reiner fought hard not to let his panic show. Reiner was of a singular Flame type, Lightning for both human and Titan. Judging by Bertholdt's slight lowering of his shoulders, he probably didn't have that problem. "Fine, then. "I'm the Armored Titan and Bertholdt's the Colossal."

"W-Why are you telling him, Reiner?" Bertholdt stammered, grabbing on to his friend's arm.

"There's no longer any point in pretending, Bertholdt." Reiner pulled his arm free. "After all, not only is Eren somehow not rushing to rip our heads off-"

"Oh, I'm really tempted."

"-everyone else outside is still going about without worry." Reiner gestured around, aware of the various murmur of the soldiers outside who most likely had no idea of the present conversation. "Therefore, Armin wants something from us."

"You're right." Armin nodded in agreement. "While it wasn't a lie that I wanted to Harmonize with you both, I also want you two... to switch allegiance from Marley to here."

"What?!" Bertholdt hissed, reflexively looking around as if he expected the Marleyan officers to suddenly appear out of thin air.

Reiner was no different, a brief flash of green electricity bursting off him. What Armin just said was... was...

"How do you even know of that name?" Bertholdt whispered.

"Annie is my Cloud." Armin revealed, casually slamming a metaphorical hammer into Reiner's lungs. "She was here a while before you guys arrived, and told me about how horribly we Eldians get treated there."

"And that's literally the only reason I'm not currently raging for your deaths." Eren crossed his arms, his eyes looking southwards with disgust. "Not only are you guys treated as slaves, you're actually indoctrinated into serving Marley's army willingly. Those fucking beasts!"

Mikasa finally made a different expression other than her stoicism, her pretty Asian features saddening. "Armin did the math. You guys... probably weren't even teens yet when Bertholdt kicked a hole into Shiganshina. I've only ever killed three people in my life, so I can't imagine that you two are bad people who could shrug off killing around ten thousand people."

Bertholdt's breathing shook as he clutched his knees tightly, no doubt trying to calm himself. Reiner couldn't blame him. Neither of him had tried very hard to pay attention to how many people they'd killed by just breaching the first of the three Walls.

The original mission had been for the Jaw Titan, Female Titan, Armored Titan and Colossal Titan to lay waste to the Devils of Paradise while retrieving the Founding Titan from the royal family.

What the three before Reiner probably didn't know was that they'd all spent a year before so fighting in Marley's wars.

Wall Maria wasn't their first mass kill, just their biggest.

"Armin, I know that you three will probably never fully forgive me for my crimes and I won't ask you to." Bertholdt sighed heavily. "However, I became the Colossal so that my sick father would get proper treatment. Something that I am sure he wouldn't get here even if I considered defecting."

So Bertholdt wasn't betraying Marley? Good, Reiner wasn't sure he could deal with having to neutralize both him and Annie.

How dare these devils try to put a wedge between them?

"And I became a Warrior to..."

Why? Annie and Bertholdt had their caring fathers to return to, while he had...

"...to grant my mother the life she wanted."

By becoming a hero she would surely love.

And to make sure that Marcel's death...

Armin frowned. "I won't pretend to know your backstories. Annie herself had to be coaxed into telling me anything. But she did make it clear that she didn't have any loyalty to Marley at all. As long as we prove that we can safely retrieve her father from Marley and bring him here, she'll act accordingly."

Bertholdt's shoulder's sagged as Reiner felt phantom pains in his face. "Yeah... That does sound like Annie. But the fact that she's not here means that she's still continuing on her original plan within Wall Sina."

"Yeah." Armin winced. "Until we can do something about our government and show a probable way of saving her father, the best Annie could do was at least warn us of her intentions."

Okay, this was recoverable. Annie wasn't actually abandoning her mission right off the bat for the devils.

Reiner could work with this. Leaning forward, Reiner surreptiously stabbed his hand into a nail he could feel sticking out under his seat, making sure not to let the pain show. "So what happens now? Armin, you had a plan to convince Annie, but what about us? Were you thinking that the power of friendship would be enough to make the two of us go 'Sure, let's defect from the military oriented and technologically superior nation and join you guys'?"

Armin winced again. "Before dealing with Marley, we first have to take care of the problems here. We can't do anything with how ignorant everyone else is at the moment."

"That's just one of the many reasons I can't consider throwing in our lot with you, Armin." Reiner loomed over Armin's bent head. "Bertholdt might've been the one to doom Shiganshina, but I was the Titan that doomed the entire territory of Wall Maria. Just how naïve are you to think that we would get away with our lives if we went ahead with this. Eren didn't kill a single human back in Trost, but you saw how badly he got treated back then. Bad enough that you ran away as soon as you could."

Besides, Reiner was also doing this to save the world. If they couldn't find the Founder in time, the one who possessed it still ran the strong risk of accessing the Coordinate and setting off the Rumbling.

"Armin, we're not saying that you're doing a bad thing here." Bertholdt moved to pat Armin's shoulder-

*shing*

-but a slight drawing of Mikasa's blade made him retreat. "but we are the worst people in the world, as far as Eldia and Marley are concerned. We're hated by the Marleyans for simply being born and by the Eldians of the Walls for breaching Wall Maria. Don't you get it? The only ones truly on our side... I haven't seen my sick father in five years. If those Marleyans ever thought of just getting rid of him if they considered him a waste of space, I wouldn't be able to do anything. But that doesn't change the fact that Dad is still in the best possible place for him at the moment. Do you think any of us would like leaving scores of corpses in our wake? We came here expecting the devils they crowed about even in our sleep. But you were all only people. Just people... who didn't even know anything... The only time we had some respite... That we could just spend periods of time at peace... was just the past three years with you guys..."

"Armin, it's true that there was a time when I saw everyone on this island as a devil." Reiner started, shifting in his seat. He... Before anything, he needed to say this. "But now, having spent five years with you all, I can honestly say that the contradictions hurt. Yeah, there are some bastards that are truly devil-like, but there're also good people I'd flat out call angels. Like you and Christa."

Reiner sighed heavily, looking at Eren. "Liberio. Paradis. There was no difference. You devils bled just as red as we did. Even if differently sized, you guys also had 'walls you weren't permitted to go past' of your own. If anything, I felt sad for you all, believing yourselves to be the last of humanity while killing off the ones who either weren't stupid enough to believe that nonsense or wanted to leave the huge cattle fence you called Walls."

Armin's hands wringed each other tightly as they shook. Had Reiner struck a nerve?

"Reiner..." Eren trailed off, looking at him differently. Was that disbelief in his eyes? Was it disgust? Was that pity?

It didn't matter anyways. He needed to round up.

"I think that we were just unfortunate, Armin, to be born in this cruel world." Reiner's hand was starting to tingle now as he slowly stopped blocking the Armor's connection to him. "Now that I feel calmer, I can understand Annie's decision a bit better. It's true that Marley treats us horribly and she would not hesitate to take a better life for her and her father if she could. But she's also not the kind to leave it to others, so she has to continue on her mission."

Not to mention about how long she had left to live due to the Curse of Ymir.

Seven fucking years for them all...

"Armin, it's not that your choice is wrong. You just reached out too late with too little. So just like her, we can only keep moving forward in whatever way we can." Reiner's hand crackled loudly, the familiar ethereal streams of golden energy flowing off his form. "Until we exterminate all of you devils and save humanity."

To her credit, Mikasa processed things faster when either Eren or Armin were at risk of dying. The Girl in the Red Scarf pulled an arm back, murder in her eyes as she swung her blade at Reiner.

The blade promptly shattered against the hazy shield of Lightning Flames it was smashed against. Still, Mikasa didn't slow in her momentum as she continued to spin and smash her Storm-enhanced heel against Reiner's raised forearm, burning Bertholdt as well when a few tongues of the red fire splattered over his arm.

"Graaahh!" Bertholdt screamed as he held on to his arm, the red flames eating into it like acid.

"Oi!" One of Levi's direct subordinates rushed into the tent, Oruo he believed, attracted by the noise. "What's happening here..."

Despite the pain of his broken and partially disintegrated nose, Reiner still found it in him to speak.

"Bertholdt and I... were getting back to killing you all."

*KRACKATHOOOOM!*

It was as if a thunderstorm hit the tent they were standing in. The cyclone of energy threw them all off their feet, billowing winds pushing the rest of the Survey Corps back as they shielded themselves from what they were correctly assuming was an attack.

From within the lightning, two figures arose.

Just like Reiner had suspected, his Titan form had changed to reflect his status as an Active Flame user. Other than his eyes, every bit of his Titan body that wasn't guarded by hardened skin had a 'skin' of Lightning Flames above the muscles but beneath the segments.

Bertholdt's Colossal Titan was just as similar. The massive skinless Titan slowly got up from his knees, Storm Flames mixing with the steam wafting off his shoulders and back.

Beneath them, the various soldiers yelled about in a panic.

Reiner therefore found it ironic that it was another Titan that snapped some decorum back into them.

"YOU-"

Eren's roar somehow thrummed through the entire town of Shiganshina as golden electricity and violet fire erupted from his body, revealing the Rogue Titan as he soared towards the massive form of Reiner as he cocked back his burning fist.

"-DAMN BASTARDS!"

'That's perfectly fine, Eren. Hate us. Curse us.' Reiner leapt forward as well, the Armored Titan cocking his fist to match the Rogue Titan's.

*BOOOM!*

'For there's no way... I'm not a devil even worse than you all!'