Part 39
Those We Called Friends
The rippled shudder traversed around them. Fury, upon being startled, shot up from her slumber beside Erwin, who too was rudely awoken by the all too familiar thunder around him.
Successive bangs against the Commander's door soon began, as rallying soldiers outside began to scramble in fear.
"Titans…" Fury muttered, placing some hair behind her ear as she shot out of Erwin's bed, fussing to get herself dressed into her Scout uniform. Damn straps everywhere…
"Commander, Sir!" Bellowed a cadet from behind the door. "U-Up on the Wall, Sir! The Colossal and Armoured Titan have been spotted… Sir!"
Erwin gritted his teeth as he too hurried to organise himself. "What sort of Titans are those?" Fury questioned him, as this was the first she had ever heard of these two beings.
"Most likely those allies of Annie Leonhart we were speculating about." Erwin addressed, pulling up his uniform jacket and combing his hair into place. "Fury, I'm going to need you to go up to the Wall and get a better understanding of this situation, seeing as Levi is… decommissioned for now. I need to go and see to Commander Pyxis and Commander Nile of the other two Regiments."
Fury could only nod as she watched Erwin open his office door to a panicked cadet and allowed the soldier to take him to where it was he needed to be. But what could she do? She'd already established that she can't control Shifters. Perhaps the first step would be to find out who these two Titans were.
"I'm betting Eren is up there…" She muttered to herself, as she began to latch her ODM equipment to her petite body. Checking her Cutters to make sure they were still sharp enough to cut through hair. "Damn shithead seems to be attracting more than we need…"
She swiftly left Erwin's office to take herself outside, running as fast as she could. Upon exiting, her eyes were instantly drawn to the top of the wall in the distance. Her deep blue orbs shrunk slightly. Even from where she now stood, it was still clear enough for her to see the Colossal Titan emitting steam from its shedding body. Gritting her teeth with narrowed eyes, she began to latch her anchors onto nearby buildings as she then scaled her way up the wall, where she was met with wounded soldiers who had been caught up in the hot Titan steam.
Her eyes were then taken to the other side of the wall, where she once again saw Eren's Titan form, stood ready to fight as what she figured was the Armoured Titan opposite the boy.
"The hell is going on?!" She asked aloud, her eyes searching for an answer from somebody.
"You're Fury, right?" Came the voice of who she knew was Armin. A close friend of Eren's. "Reiner and Bertholdt… They…"
"Are they the ones who are… Well, them?" Fury asked, pointing up on what she only deemed was a monster. Armin could only nod.
"To be fooled to think they were our friends…" Came the weeping of Christa. "They've taken Ymir and they want to take Eren too."
"But… why do they want Eren?" Fury asked in confusion as Mikasa barged passed her, only to be stopped by Armin.
"We're not sure yet!" Armin exclaimed, calming Mikasa down at the same time, though it only made Fury roll her eyes. "We think they want him because he's a Titan Shifter, like them. With unique abilities."
"The only ability that kid has shown so far is that he gets angry and makes reckless mistakes…" Fury muttered, her eyes landing back down at Eren's Titan once more.
"Like I told Hange last night…" Armin dazed. "I had suspicions over Reiner himself. The day Annie pulled my hood down, it was clear she was looking for someone. Who now we know was Eren. But then… Reiner, he… As he stumbled in to attack Annie in order to help be, she grabbed him and yet… she did not kill him. I hold speculation that he had carved Eren's location into her hand as she ironically left after she let him go. I can suggest this, as only a handful of us knew where Eren was within the formation… And Reiner was one of them due to how much Eren looked up to him for inspiration…"
"Not just that…" Then came the whimper of Hange, who was being aided by her assistant, Moblit. "But after reading through Annie's records… She entered into the Cadet Corps with only two other people… Reiner and Bertholdt."
Though it was much to process, it all made sense to Fury, who listened intently. "We need to make sure these two don't run off into the sunset with Eren then." She instructed. "We need to find out why they want him so badly, as well as this Ymir it seems…"
"Ymir?" Christa interrupted, tears still formed in her eyes. "Don't you know? She's a Titan Shifter too. She saved myself, Connie, Reiner and Bertholdt when we were trapped out on the old Lookout Tower. We were… We were being attacked by some huge, hairy Titan who hounded us by throwing rocks and Titans alike…"
"Crap, how many of you are there?!" Fury barked.
"That Titan killed Miche…" Muttered Connie. "And because of him, Nanaba and Gelgar died trying to fend off the Titans around the tower. Well, that's when Ymir shifted into her ugly self and, I guess she did save us."
"Reiner and Bertholdt just simply stood there and watched…" Christa continued. "It's worrying to think that even through that… They were humanities greatest threat all along…"
"I heard…" Fury muttered. "That Armoured Titan knocked down the gates on the inner wall, right? And this tall thing initially kicked in the gates to the most outer wall?"
"To put it simply… Eren's mother died because of the Titans that entered into the Shiganshina District after their attack." Mikasa hissed. Her eyes only focused on Eren as she then lowered herself down the wall to be closer to him.
"Are you that… Bloodborn people have been whispering about?" Armin then asked Fury to which she could only nod.
"Yeah, Jean told us what you did when we were coming back from the Forest!" Connie exclaimed, grabbing onto Fury's arm which only made her flinch. "You controlled a Titan! Do it again now! Stop Reiner and Bertholdt!"
Snatching her arm away from the small, bald boy, Fury shook her head. "I can't. Trust me, I tried back on both Annie and Eren. They're not just simple mindless Titans. They're in control over their actions. I can't get through to them…"
"Our only other option is to help Eren against Reiner." Informed Hange as she patted Fury's shoulder. What was with people touching her today? "We don't have a Levi, but we have a Fury, an angry Titan and a Mikasa." Hange then grinned, shoving her glasses up as she looked over at Fury herself. "I've only heard how good you are with your ODM from Levi himself. You definitely showed it during Annie's onslaught. We're gonna need all of us to get through Reiner's armoured layers. But most importantly, it's down to Eren to break Reiner's human form out of there."
"Hah! You can count this old drunk in to!" Came the croak of Hannes, running up to the plotting circle. "I've looked out for Eren since he was a kid. The boy's gonna need all the familiar back up we can muster up!"
Gaining a nod from Armin, both he and Hange followed behind Mikasa at scaling down the outside of the wall in order to aid Eren in his current brawl with Reiner.
Fury watched with intent as her eyes once more became distant and unamused by the touch of what was now Hannes hand upon her shoulder.
"You're a pretty thing!" He exclaimed heartily, patting her shoulder to which Fury simply sighed and shrugged him off her; taking her own self down towards the fight, leaving Hannes to take one last gulp from his flask which he carried everywhere with him.
