When Annie woke up from her unconsciousness, her eyes felt like they were being stabbed by the early afternoon sunlight, it also didn't help that the sun was bearing directly onto her, as if she was set up this way. It was at that point she remembered reaching the top of the wall, then the faint memory of being cut out o
f her Titan form back in Stohess. She tried to stand only to see that legs were tied together while her arms were no longer there, the flesh stopping at the shoulders where there was a slow amount of steam being produced as her body tried to heal itself.
She knew she couldn't transform in her current state, not while her body was focused on healing her wounds and not after transforming a short while ago. Once she had stopped struggling she had the time to take in her surroundings, the only things around were a river and a horse that was tied up against a tree with some supplies laid up against the tree.
"You're awake." She heard a voice from her left side, turning her head she saw Nick, no longer wearing the MP uniform but wearing something that seemed foreign to her, it looked extremely expensive, she hadn't even seen that quality of clothing in Marley.
"What are you wearing?" She asked, half curious as to what it was, and to why he was wearing it underneath his ODM Gear that looked like it had just been cleaned.
"Clothes." He responded simply, not getting why that would be the first thing she said when she woke up. "They're a lot less itchy than the standard military uniform." He explained. "And I think it looks great on me."
"You look like an idiot." Annie deadpanned. "I'd rather look at Eren when he goes on about his Titan killing fantasy."
"I'm sure I could arrange his fantasy to start off with you." He said back to her, seeing her shut up and pale made his point. "That's what I thought."
"Would you care to explain why my legs are tied up and why I have no arms?" She asked, wanting to get straight to the point.
"I tied you up in case you woke up and tried to run." He explained. "And your arms had nearly grown back, so I cut them off again." He said nonchalantly, as if it was a normal thing he had done.
"There is literally no point in doing that." Annie quiped. "I only need an injury to transform, did you forget that?" She asked, trying to scare him.
"But that's not true Annie." He replied, getting her interest. "Using the power of the Titans takes a great toll on your body, and while your body is in a constant state of recovery." He gestured to her non existant arms. "You can't transform."
"That's, that's not true!" She tried to protest, now realising he had her where he wanted her, in the middle of nowhere with no way to transform and get away.
"Now that's out of the way." He spoke up, sitting down on a bearby tree stump as he did. "I have some questions I want to ask."
"I won't tell you anything!" She shouted at him.
"Sure you wont." He deadpanned. "I know that there's four of you inside the walls." He started off with, with her getting confused at the mention of there being four of them. "I know that you're the Female Titan, Reiner and Bertholdt are the Colossal and Armoured Titans." He said. "But what Titan is the fourth one?" He asked her.
"There's only three of us inside the walls." She argued against him.
"Don't play dumb with me Annie!" He snapped at her. "I know Ymir is a Shifter like you three idiots."
"Why would you think that?" She asked him, still confused at his accusations.
"Her name is YMIR, the very first Titan Shifter, ring any bells?" He asked. "Is she the Beast Titan?" He asked.
"No, she isn't with us." She further protested.
"Then would you care to explain the bright light in the winter training exercise a few months ago." He said. "Because it's either her, Krista or Daz, It can't be Krista, and Daz is either the greatest actor in the world, or he gave up on your idiotic plan." He explained. "So which one is she."
"I don't know!" She continued on with her story that Ymir wasn't working with them. "She wasn't with us when we started the mission!"
"Then who was?" He asked.
"Me, Reiner, Bertholdt and..."
"And who?" He asked.
"Our leader." She said. "His name was Marcel, he was the Jaws Titan." She told him.
"He's dead, isn't he?" Nick asked her, guessing that from the way she talked about it, something bad had happened. Seeing her nod was al the conformation he needed.
"He was eaten after we arrived on Paradis Island." Annie spoke up. "I wanted to go back, but Reiner convinced me and Bertholdt to continue with the Mission."
"So Ymir is the Jaws Titan, but that would mean that she was a mindless Titan." He thought to himself. "But for how long exactly, she could be over a hundred years old at the most."
"She isn't a hundred years old." Frieda spoke up. "But I think Annie is telling the truth about Ymir and her friend Marcel."
"Yes it would seem that way Frieda, but there's other things we need to talk about, Like Marco for example."
"I'll leave you to it then." Frieda said, going back to observing once again.
"Annie." He said, talking to her after a few minutes.
"What?" She spat back at him, clearly unhappy at him for the moment.
"Why were you wearing Marco's ODM Gear in Stohess?" He asked. "And why did you present his gear when Section Commander Hange's Titan test subjects were killed?"
"Who told you that?" She asked, refusing to look at him.
"Doesn't matter." He said. "But what does matter us why you killed him, did he find out about you three? Or was it something else?" He asked her.
"He... We were discussing what we would do next since Eren had just sealed the hole we created." She replied. "There was a Titan nearby, so I went to kill it. When I came back... Reiner had Marco pinned to the roof of the building."
"Why?" He pressed on.
"Marco overheard Reiner and Bertholdt talking about their Titans while I was away." Her voice was breaking as she relived the memories. "He cried out for me to help him, said that Reiner had gone crazy, I didn't want to do it!" She cried out. "But that bastard Reiner blackmailed me, he threatened my father, the only family I had left. I had to prove to him that I wasn't showing any compassion for your "evil race" as he liked to call it."
"So you took off his gear and left him to be eaten." Nick finisher off for her. "Correct?"
"I didn't want to do it!" She cried out again, tears in her eyes at the thought of having to kill Marco just to appease Reiner and his Marleyan loyalty.
"I get it." He spoke up. "And before you say I don't, I get that you had to make a choice at that moment. Whether to side with Reiner, or Marco. You can't change what happened, and in your shoes, I probably would've done the same thing."
"But what I don't get." He said before she could speak up. "Is why after telling me you wouldn't talk, you're telling me all of this."
"I just want to see my father again." She said. "He said he'd always be there for ne, that he'd always understand me, because I was his daughter."
"Why are you here then?" He suddenly asked her.
"What?" She asked, confused at his question.
"Why are you here, on Paradis Island, instead of living with your father back on the mainland?" He asked.
"Because I was forced to!" She shouted at him, getting more and more angry at him.
"By who?" He asked. "The Marley, or your father?"
"I..." She had to think about this, the easy answer would obviously be to reply with Marley, but then again, her father was the one that forced her to train everyday with little to no breaks, and he was the one that enlisted her in the warriors programme when she was just a child. No he was trying to get under her skin and into her mind to trick her. "What's your point!" She seethed, furious that he tried to use her father against her.
"Your hesitation to answer the question then your anger gives me the answer I wanted." He told her. "Your father forced you, didn't he?"
"No! You're wrong!" She protested. "My father cared about me, he wouldn't-" She was cut off as Nick smashed the bottom of his shoe into her nose, breaking it and successfully getting her to stop talking as she cried out in pain.
"Face the facts Annie." He was dangerously close to her face now, his face blank of any emotion, something she had rarely seen from him. "Your father used you, he was only after whatever the Marley offered in return for making his child into a weapon for them!"
"Citizenship." Annie said after he finished berating her. "They offered Citizenship for Eldians and their families if they became warriors for the Marley Military."
"Citizenship in Marley?" He asked her, curious as to what she meant.
"Honorary Marleyans." She said to him. "Nearly the same rights as normal Marleyans, we still had to live in Liberio though." Before he could ask, she elaborated. "Liberio is a walled city in Marley, All Eldians in live in internment zones, Liberio is where I'm from."
"And the other two Titans, the Beast and Cart Titans, who has them?" He pressed on.
"Our War Chief Zeke has the Beast Titan power, and a girl named Pieck has the Cart Titan." She told him. "But Zeke is Marley's strongest warrior, even I couldn't beat him in a fight."
"So, now that I have everthing I need, what am I going to do with you?" He asked out loud. "From what I've gathered, you have three options, I kill you right now, but then yur power is given to a newborn child, which I don't have the time to search for right now."
"Option two is that I feed you to a Titan, with or without your consent, that way I can control who has the power of the Female Titan, but then I would have to waste time finding a Female of a suitable age to be trainee in hand to hand combat and simultaneously help them control their powers, which I also don't have the time for."
"Or there is option three, you join us in the fight against Marley." He told her. "While the chances of you being killed are still high, they are slightly lower than the other options on the table. And I can't promise things will be the same, they wont. You will be hated by most people, but I think they could see the importance of having you as an ally instead of an enemy."
"You'll get to see daddy either way." He mocked. "Just a different timescale for each option."
"Fuck you." Annie spat at him. "Why haven't you killed me, huh!" She shouted. "Do you even care what happens to me?"
"I think you're misreading the situation here Annie." He proclaimed. "I do not care about you any more, I did, but that was before you revealed yourself to be a part of the attack on Shiganshina."
"I never said-"
"You didn't need to, there were far too many Titans that day for it to be natural, you led them there, you created this hell for us all, you killed two hundred and fifty thousand people, just because you wanted to see daddy again." He seethed at her, not holding his anger back any longer. "You killed her! You-" He stopped, realising that he lost his cool, and had inadvertently given her leverage against him in the form of someone.
"I always thought you were strange Nick." She started off with, starting to smile. "A noble from the Capital comes to join the Military, I wouldn't have seen that coming at all. But I know your secret."
"What secret?" He asked. He didn't have any secrets, well, none that she would've been able to figure out, certainly not without access to Mitras.
"You. Are. A. Fritz." She said, smiling as she did so.
"That's... not what I expected at all, maybe I'll entertain her sheer stupidity." He thought.
"Its hardly stupid Nick." Frieda countered. "It's not hard to come to that conclusion, well with the information she had it would be logical to assume that."
"Thats... an interesting theory." He said to Annie, who was grinning like an idiot. "Except... I'm not an subject of Ymir." He told her, dispelling her theory altogether.
The grin on her face was replaced by a frown. "But you know the real Royal Family?" She asked.
"I do." He confirmed. "Not the nicest bunch still around." He said. "But at least they don't attack their own race."
"You're... Impossible!" She shouted out, frustrated that her attempts of turning the tide of the conversation had failed, until an idea popped into her head once she had noticed something on his left arm, specifically his wrist.
"Hey Nick!" She shouted at him once he turned his back to her to get something. "Who's Frieda?"
He whirled round faster than ever before after hearing her name spoken from someone else's mouth, she had no right to speak her name, even thinking about it made him furious, so when she said it his blank facade began to crack.
"Who is she?" Annie asked. "Is she the girl you were just talking about?" Annie asked as Nick strided over towards her, his fists turning white at how hard he had clenched them. "Or was she just some whore that you spent your money on?"
Nick was seriously regretting not wearing long sleeves now, she had seen the tattoo he had gotten done after Eren's trial, that was the reason he arrived in the early morning the day they shipped out to the Scouts. He would never get a better chance in the near future to get something to remember her by. So he had her name tattooed in neat cursive across his left wrist with three hearts below, signifying how much he meant to her, and Annie had called her a whore, boy was she gonna get it now.
Once he was within range he swung his foot at her head, only to see her duck under it and kick her legs that were still tied together at the back of his other leg, causing him to fall onto his back right infront of her. She brought her legs up and swung them down at his face, breaking his nose upon contact, she had expected this to knock him out, so she was surprised when he shoved her legs off his face and got up once again, blood from his nose getting onto his top.
"That, was a bad idea." He hissed at her, reaching forward and grabbing the remains of her hoodie, wrenching her forward as his knee crushed her nose in return, except hers would heal in hours while his would take weeks, she still wasn't out cold yet so he threw her back against the tree, the collision causing her to bleed from the back of her head, blood staining her hair as he shot his foot forward, crushing her head between the tree and his foot, knocking her out this time.
"That was a bit excessive." Frieda commented, seeing that Annie was barely breathing.
"She broke my nose." He retorted. "And she'll be fine."
"She'll also be lucky if I find a Titan big enough to eat her in one bite." He bitterly thought as he put his nose back into place, one of the many things he learned from his stint in the Underground.
"I gave her a chance." He muttered out loud. "Looks like the legs are coming off as well."
(Several hours later, Stohess District)
Mikasa slowly woke up from her unconsciousness where upon trying to get up she felt a pain on the side of her face and down her left leg. That was when she had remembered what had happened during the battle, Nick had beaten her unconscious while saying he did it for the greater good. "Why?" She thought to herself, leaning up to get a good look at her surroudings, when she looked to her right she saw that Eren was also lying down in a bed, sleeping peacefully.
"Eren." She groaned out, it hurt slightly to talk, but she didn't do much of that anyway, so it wouldn't matter that much. She moved the covers off of her and stood up and nade her way to the chair next to Eren's bed, sitting in it to watch over him while he slept.
"Mikasa!" She heard a voice come from the doorway, she hadn't heard the door open at all, she turned her hea to see Armin and Jean standing at the doorway. "Are you okay?" Armin asked as they stepped inside the room. "What happened when we left?"
"I'm fine Armin." She dismissed his concern, focusing on Eren for the time being.
"What happened out there?" This time it was Jean that asked, pressing the issue she didn't want to talk about.
"My gear malfunctioned." She lied to them, why she didn't know, she just automatically did it. "It failed, and I crashed. End of story."
"You expect us to believe that!" Jean yelled. "Who did it!?" He demanded.
"Calm down Jean." Armin pleaded. "Please Mikasa, tell us what happened when we left?" Armin kept the questions up, wanting to know what happened to his friend.
Before she was given the chance to answer, the door opened behind them revealing Captain Levi, and he didn't look happy at all, he was never happy, but he looked angrier than usual. "Kirstein, Arlert." He spoke. "It's your turn to give statements on what happened today."
"Yes Sir." They both responded, albeit reluctantly, leaving Levi, Mikasa and Eren in the room.
"You look like shit." Levi commented on her appearance, the bruise on the side of her face had turned purple already.
"I would ask you what happened but I have a pretty good idea of what happened." He told her. "Meier attacked you to get you out of the way, then he took off with the Female Titan before she could get over the wall. Does that sum it all up?" He sarcastically asked.
"That's not what happened." She responded. "He wouldn't help her, not after what she did. He wouldn't."
"Sorry to say this, but he did help her." He told her. "And what's worse is that we can't do anything about it, not while Erwin is still in custody."
"Why?" She asked. "Why did he do it?" She asked him. "There has to be a reason."
"I don't know." He said. "But if it were up to me I would cut his tongue and feed it to him."
Before she could respond Eren began to stir, alerting them both to his awakening at the moment. "Eren!" Mikasa cried out, glad to see he was okay.
"Captain Levi?" Eren groaned out, Levi being the first one he had set his eyes on once he had opened his eyes. "What happened, where-" He stopped himself when he saw the massive bruise on Mikasa's face. "What happened?!" He demanded.
"Don't ask what happened Eren." Levi commented. "You should probably ask who did it." He said, leaving the both of them in the room.
"Who was it?!" He nearly shouted at her, struggling to control his temper at the moment because someone had hurt his sister. "Was it him?" He asked. "Was it?"
"Yes." She whispered, while she had lied about it to Armin and Jean, she couldn't bring herself to lie to Eren about it.
"I'm gonna kill that bastard!" Eren seethed. "Where us he?" He asked, attempting to get out of his bed.
"He's missing." She responded. "He... ran away... with Annie."
"What?!" Eren asked, even he was shocked by that. "So he was working with them."
"No he wasn't." Mikasa responded. "He isn't like that, he wouldn't."
Before Eren could say anything else Armin burst through the door shouting at them. "Eren! Mikasa! They've broken through Wall Rose! The Titans! They're coming!"
(Several Hours Earlier, South of Wall Sina)
After his "argument" with Annie which had resulted in Nick recieving a broken nose for his troubles, which was apparently caused by his "poor" negotiating skills according to Frieda, he had cut off her remaining appendages so that there was no chance that she would be able to fight back for a good few hours at least, he had also strapped her to the back of his horse, keeping her in place with some rope he had "borrowed" from the Scout's HQ before departing for Stohess.
In the forty minutes or so that had passed since they had fought, he had moved them both further to the south east, where the rest of the 104th were stationed. He currently had them waiting in the tree line of a forest about 300 metres to the north east of the compound, waiting for any sign of movement from Reiner, Bertholdt or even Ymir, though his number one safety concern was Krista as she liked to be called by him, if they tried to take her then there would be no Royal Blood left on Paradis except for Rod, and that was not an option in Nick's mind.
From what he had recalled from the discussions with Commander Erwin, the man in charge of the 104th was Section Commander Mike Zacharius, the second strongest soldier humanity had to offer, and also the strangest to Nick, because sniffing people was weird, no matter who you were.
Nick was currently sitting against a tree while he ate some lunch, some dried meat he had managed to keep in somewhat edible condition for some time, which went nicely with the rather stale bread he had to force down with the water from his water skin. Halfway through his piece of bread he saw movement of the roof of the main building, followed by the faint figure of a soldier going to the window if the second floor then going back up to the rooftop.
"I wonder what's going on." He thought to himself. "Any guesses Frieda?" He asked her.
"Maybe a combat drill?" She offered up. "Or maybe they were just lazy." She tried to joke with him.
"I doubt that Frieda, the Section Commander wouldn't put up with that." He told her.
"What could it be then?" She asked him.
"Did you just feel that?" He asked her, feeling the slightest of tremors in the ground where he was now standing. "There it is again." He pointed out. Kneeling down to the ground and placing his palms against the grass, closing his eyes so he could focus solely of the tremors of the ground.
Once he stood up, he was quite shocked at his own thoughts. "Titans." He said. "They're here, inside the walls." He told Frieda. "They're mobilising, that's what's happening there." He said, quickly moving to down his food and put all the necessities back onto his horse so he could and saddled up, ready to move out.
His suspicions were confirmed when he saw soldiers and cadets alike all riding out of the compound, moving southwards while they were presumably being given orders by Mike Zacharius who would have to take charge of the situation now.
"You can't take her with you." Frieda said, gesturing towards the limbless and unconscious Annie on the back of his horse.
"I can't just leave her here." He protested. "Who knows how long this could take to clear up." He told her. "For now, she stays with me." He said, riding out of the forest to try and assist with the killing of the Titans in the near vicinity.
As the Scouts and the cadets of the 104th rode out of the compound with Section Commander Zacharius giving them orders. "The second the Titans reach the woods we split up!" He ordered. "I want four separate teams, recruits and soldiers alike in each unit! When I give the signal, we'll scatter in different directions simultaneously. Get the word out to civilians. Do not engage the enemy!" He looked back towards the cadets. "Which one of you is the nost familiar with the area?" He asked.
"Me Sir!" Sasha raised her hand while riding her horse. "My hometown is just to the north of here." She told him. "I know this region like the back of my hand. Connie too, go on tell him." She said while Connie kept quiet and kept looking forwards.
"What's wrong?" She asked him after he didn't respond.
"My village is to the south." Connie said. "That's where the Titans are coming from." He pointed out. "I can lead you to nearby settlements." He told the Section Commander. "But afterwards, let me go home, please?" He asked him.
"Very well." Mike conceded to his request. "Guide the southern team and then go to your village." He said to him.
"Yes Sir!" Connie responded.
"I'll come with you." Reiner offered, riding up alongside him.
"What?" Connie asked in disbelief. "No, you're crazy, they'll be everywhere!"
"You think I care?" Reiner asked him. "I was gonna help you get home anyway, wasn't I?" He said to him. "What about you?" He asked Bertholdt. "You coming?"
"Of course." Berthold replied after a few moments. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."
"As you have guessed, today marks the darkest day in humanities history." Nanaba stated to the recruits. "Look sharp! If ever we needed to give our all that time is now. Don't lose heart!"
"They've reached the woods!" A scout called out. "The enemy is on top of us!"
"Scatter now!" Mike yelled. "Ride for everything you're worth!" He roared as the Scouts and cadets all split up into four teams to warn the towns and villages about the incoming Titan threat. However as they began to split, the Titans started sprinting at them, coming at them at full speed.
"No, they're coming at us full tilt." Mike said as he turned his head to look at the incoming swarm.
"Holy shit!" Connie swore as he saw the incoming Titans as well.
"Gelgar!" Mike yelled at the top of his lungs, turning his horse to face the incoming Titans as he charged straigh towards them. "Take charge of the southern team!"
"Sir?" Gelgar asked confused at first. "Uh, understood." He said, mainly to himself and the Scouts around him.
"Tell me he's not using himself as bait?" Lynne asked.
"I'll go with him, I can help." Another Scout offered up his help to Mike.
"Stay where you are." Gelgar ordered. "We can't spare anymore soldiers." He told him. "Give him some credit, that man's skills are second only to Captain Levi." Gelgar told them. "He'll survive, count on it!"
(20 minutes later)
"Whoa!" Sasha thought in awe as she exited the treeline after seeing a Titan's footprints on the way to her home village, Dauper. "When did that get built?" She thought, in awe of the new buildings at her village. She continued to ride on her horse as she reached a bridge that had been raised on one side, clearing the jump easily on her horse to get across the river.
Inside one of the houses, there was a middle aged woman slowly being eaten by a Titan that was about three metres tall, her legs slowly being devoured as her daughter sat inside the building with them, not knowing what to do.
That was until Sasha who had picked up an axe from outside the house started to swing it at the nape of the Titan as it was crouched down. She was constantly swinging it down at the nape of the Titan, constantly trying to get a clean cut but she was getting nowhere apart from getting some Titan blood on her. "Shit!" She thought. "If I don't cut it off, it'll just keep healing!" She thought as she lost her grip on the axe, sending it flying into a beam getting it stuck up there.
Sasha cried out in fear as she lost the axe, slowly stepping away from the Titan in fear of it trying to eat her, until she noticed the little girl once again. "Oh no." She whispered to herself, realising the choice she had to make now.
"I'm so sorry." She whispered at the mother, walking past her and the Titan towards the girl at the far side of the room as she grabbed the girls hand and began running out of the house with her in tow, while the Titan stopped eating the woman and now focused on the two females trying to get away from it.
"You got a name sweetie?" Sasha asked, trying to keep the girls mind off of the Titan behind them as they ran towards the horse that Sasha had tied up to a pole.
"I know you're scared, but it'll be okay." Sasha tried to tell the girl as she untied the horse from the pole it was tied to.
"What will?" The girl asked.
Sasha turned around, trying to find a suitable response to that question. "Uh, I, actually, Uh." She said as the horse snorted, getting Sasha to turn around again towards it. "Easy now, easy." She tried to calm the horse down, the reigns still in her hands.
"Right so the thing is im gonna take you to-" She turned back to the girl to speak once again but the horse behind her ran away, causing her to shriek in fear. "You do this now!" She shouted at the horse that was running away. "Wait for us!" She yelled, trying to whistle the horse back to her.
"Okay, no need to worry, understand?" She said, turning back to the girl once again seeing that her horse was not coming back. "He'll be right back, I promise." She told the girl, trying her hardest not to panic.
"How come you're talking so nice to me?" The girl asked, stopping Sasha from whistling for her horse once again.
"Huh?" Sasha asked, only to hear the Titan coming towards them, seeing it emerge from the house that it was still in.
"We need to run." Sasha said to the girl, grabbing a bow and four arrows from a neaby crate and grabbing the girls hand to start running again.
"It's gonna be okay!" She shouted out as the Titan started to follow the pair of them away from the house.
"No it wont." The girl said. "Everyone's already gone." She told her. "The whole village, even though mommy's legs were bad. They knew, and none of them came to help her, all I could do was watch."
They kept running towards the raised bridge that Sasha had came across on her horse, with her throwing the bow and arrows over first, followed by the girl, bur she looked over her shoulder to see the Titan still coming at them, causing her to speed up as part of the bridge gave out under her, only her grip on the bridge keeping her from falling into the river below and up after the girl.
"Don't look back! Just keep running!" Sasha said to the girl, still running with her away from the Titan that was struggling to get over the bridge after it's foot went through the part that collapsed underneath Sasha. "It's gonna be okay." Sasha whispered as they kept on running.
(Flashback)
"You're starting to piss me off." Ymir stated as she walked up to Nick and Sasha as they were collecting buckets of water from the well.
"Why you gotta be so friggin polite all the time?" She asked.
Sasha could only laugh nervously as she was trying to avoid the question in favour of collecting the water that she and Nick were supposed to.
"What? You above talking like one of us pleebs?"
"Uh, well, actually-"
"Maybe she talks like that so dipshits like you can understand what she's actually saying." Nick interjected. "Or can you not understand the fancy language we speak?" He sarcastically asked.
"What? You wanna go Meier?" She asked, angered by his choice of words.
"I can kick your ass with my arms tied behind my back Ymir." He told her. "Doesn't bother me cause I'll win anyway."
"Was that slang I just heard from you Meier?" She rhetorically asked. "Didn't think they raised you to be an animal in the interior."
"I didn't think you were raised to be a bitch. Or is that the standard attitude for street rats?"
"And what about her." Ymir pointed at Sasha, ignoring the obvious comment that Nick had made against her. "Scared we'll find out where you're from if you let your guard down?"
"That's it isn't it." Ymir stated after Sasha remained silent. "Oh wow, kinda blows my mind. Why do you even care? It's like a wild boar getting all bent out of shape cause someone's bad mouthing him behind his back. Be honest, the Military is your last hope of being respectable-"
"How about you shut the fuck up before I cut your tongue out of your mouth Ymir." Nick threatened. "As far as I can tell you're not a lizard, so it's not like it will grow back."
"Stop it, both of you!" Krista demanded. "You're both being mean."
"Whatever." Ymir said, shoving Krista aside. "Hey! Are you gonna pretend to be someone you're not for the rest of your damn life or are you gonna be Sasha."
"Take it from me honey." Ymir started. "Acting like people want you to act is a crock of shit! Don't censor yourself."
"Talking polite doesn't make her someone else." Nick argued. "It's how you act that makes you who you are, for example, Sasha acts like Sasha. Krista acts like Krista, and Ymir... acts like a bitch." He spat at her, defending Sasha as he did.
"Um, thank you very much." Sasha replied to Ymir. "I appreciate the advice."
"Really?" Ymir asked, unconvinced by her.
"Ah, sorry." She apologised. "I'm not really sure what to say."
"Leave her alone!" Krista almost yelled, shoving Ymir back. "If she wants to talk politely to people why do you care?" She asked Ymir. "Sasha is who she chooses to be. It's called reinventing yourself, whatever she says it's still her."
"Huh, well aren't we philosophical. I say however she tries to sound on the outside, the inside Sasha will always be a pain in the ass." Ymir stated.
"Knock it off." Krista told Ymir. "Would it kill you to show some compassion every now and again?"
"I think it would." Nick whispered into Sasha's ear, causing her to laugh.
"Hey! What're you laughing at?" Ymir asked Sasha, angry that she could have been laughing at her.
"Uh, nothing! Sorry!" Sasha quickly responded to Ymir.
(Present)
"Really? Why is that coming back now?" Sasha thought to herself as she kept on running with the little girl along the dirt road and away from the Titan. "Of all the stupid things for me to dwell on. Still, it's the only thing I can think about." She smiled to herself about those memories as she kept on running.
"Alright, listen." She said to the girl. "You're gonna be fine, just keep following the path were on. Run as far away as you can, there'll be someone willing to help, I promise. It may take you a little while to find them, but keep on. You'll bump into them eventually." She said to her, spinning around to face the Titan. "Now go! Get outta' here!"
"Don't give up hope!" Sasha yelled as she pulled the bow back, ready to fire an arrow at the Titan as the girl jumped a bit and started to run down the path they were following.
Sasha let the first arrow loose, only for it to sink into the flesh of the Titans neck, bot causing any damage at all. "If I can take out the eyes, it should buy us enough time." She thought to herself as she quickly turned around to retreat a bit, climbing up the nearby hill, raising her to the level of the Titans head as she prepared another arrow, this time shaving the side of the Titans face as it flew past.
"Damnit, only two left." She thought, preparing her third arrow to be shot at the Titan. "Relax." She thought. "It's nothing, just a big, slow moving, target!" She thought as she let the third arrow loose as it flew straight into the left eye of the Titan. "Bullseye!"
"Last arrow, if I miss, that'll be it, end of story, period." She thought as she aimed at the Titan. "I'll be... she'll be." She thought about the girl as she tossed the bow aside, ignoring the galloping of a horse from the direction the girl ran in as she yelled out a war cry and stabbed the arrow directly into the second eye of the Titan, blinding it, but it also had a hold of her, wrapping its arms around her.
Sasha could've used the blood to slip out, but she didn't need to as the right arm of the Titan was sliced off, allowing her to easily break free of its hold on her as she saw Nick wearing hid ODM gear without his uniform as he swiftly and almost elegantly dispatched of the Titan, effectively saving Sasha and the girl from it.
"Hey Sasha." He greeted, putting both of his blades away, still having all of them available for future use.
Sasha was about to hug the life out of him for saving her and the girl down the path until she saw a person on the back of what was presumably his horse, without any limbs, and to make it worse. Sasha knew her.
"Is that Annie?!"
A/N - Thats another chapter down, now into season two of the anime for this story. Annie, however will not be accompanying Nick across Wall Rose territory, instead she will be "missing" for a few chapters at most, as Nick has peope to save and Titans to kill. Since the events at Dauper took place at 3pm at the very latest given the cloudy sky in the anime and a certain death that takes place near the sunset, I think it's plausible that the ground can be covered by Nick in the amount of time given. But enough teasers from me, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!!!