CHAPTER SIX

The return to Trost seemed a lot longer than the previous trip had been. Bertolt and Reiner sat in the same silence they'd been in since losing to Armin days earlier. Armin had spent most of the journey pondering exactly how to best use his abilities. Zeke would not report back to his men, and they would assume, correctly, that he had been destroyed. It would mean war would be moved up. There had been a campaign of misinformation regarding the people of the island.

Levi and Erwin spent most of the journey trying to process all the information that had come up during the trip. They'd just come to understand how their world worked—the titans would eat, the human race would fight and die, and the cycle would repeat itself—and then they discovered one of their own was an alien. Not only that, but his abilities so eclipsed the average human, that religions could have been written about beings less than Armin Arlert. Yet, what confused both—but especially Levi—was that the young man had no aspirations of rulership. It directly contradicted the notion of absolute power corrupting. Erwin thought about it, and he knew that if he had such power, he would have deposed the king and instituted a whole new government. The willingness of the boy to take orders amazed and impressed him.

Eren Yeager had to be aroused from a stupor of conflicting emotions every so often. Such a long, strange trip it had been. First, he had seen his whole world change when his friend discovered unbelievable things about himself, saved his mother from a titan, and joined the military. Furthermore, Armin had brought a sense of hope that hadn't existed in quite some time. They hadn't talked to many of the general population, but the amount of people living outside the major towns and in land once occupied by titans, spoke to the feeling of empowerment that the auburn-haired youth had provided. Then, if that hadn't been enough, he discovered, upon being eaten, no less, that he himself was a titan shifter, just like the two traitors. What would happen next?

Upon their arrival in Trost district, the news spread rapidly that Wall Maria was intact, most of the titans had been destroyed, and it turned out that there were truths unlike any other. Yes, the story about Marley and Eldia were true, but the fact of the matter was that the conflict was deeper than almost any could have predicted.

Eren and Mikasa met up with Armin about fifty miles out in the wilderness between Wall Maria and Wall Rose a few days later. A giant structure had been built. Standing as tall as a fortress, and occupying several acres of land, it looked less like a castle made of stone and more like metal.

"Armin," Mikasa said, looking up at the building, slack-jawed. "What's this?"

Eren shook his head. "I've never seen something like this before," he admitted.

"Working with the ship that brought me to Earth," Armin explained, "I've been working day and night for three days to put this together. It was an idea that Levi gave me."

It was dome-like, with curved walls that had a dark grey metallic shine. The front door slid open as the trio approached, which startled and bewildered Armin's friends. A man appeared from the side corridor. He had medium-length brownish-auburn hair, slightly tan skin, and a figure-hugging bodysuit.

Both Eren and Mikasa stood in awe of the man. "Are…you…" Eren began, his voice breaking up, "Armin's father?"

Zor-El motioned to the structure behind him. "Yes," he admitted. "Or, at least, what's left of him. My name is Zor-El."

"Zor…El?" Mikasa said. "How is this possible?"

"The things our people were capable of, miss," Zor-El began, "may seem like utter magic to you. But just as your ancestors mastered fire and the wheel, Krypton was a place where our people ventured out into the stars."

"Your son has done so much for us already," Mikasa replied. "It's like an answer from Heaven."

"Corporal Levi and I were talking about how it was strange that there are things we didn't know," Armin said. "Think about it; didn't the textbooks in school say humanity outside the walls was exterminated, instead of saying that humanity outside the walls was believed to be exterminated?"

Eren put two and two together. "You think the monarchy is definitely hiding things from us?" he asked.

Armin nodded. "I think so, and furthermore," he added, "I spoke to my father about it, and we think it's a good idea to create a place like this where people can come to learn. This is just the beginning. The key to everything is knowledge."

"They can't stop you," Mikasa stated. "And if you teach the people, they can't stop them either."

"If my son can change the world," Zor-El agreed, "then so can I."

From the local communities and villages surrounding Trost, the more intellectually inclined and the teachers of the young arrived first. It seemed difficult, initially, to instruct people when their gap in knowledge was so great. Zor-El's consciousness found itself having to go over topics of great simplicity for much of the first few days. Armin helped where he could, using his Kryptonian training to give basic instruction where needed, during part of the day, and managing his duties as a member of the Scout Regiment the other half. With the titan population enormously reduced, the duties of even such established warriors as Levi were reduced by as much as two-thirds.

It wasn't very long, not more than a week, before the military police from the innermost circles of government started arriving. Armin noticed them long before it was brought to his attention. The obvious ploy was, for some reason, to keep the populace uninformed as long as possible, but the efforts of such men as Dot Pixis and Erwin Smith kept even the worst offenders at bay. The King's men might not want progress to happen, Armin knew, but as long as he could help it, the future would be brought to pass.

Armin demonstrated many techniques taught to him about agriculture. Even without the aid of machines, he knew, the productivity of the fields could be raised by as much as sixty percent.

Some of the heads of local government and farm leaders watched with incredulity.

"There's an important resource involved in growing crops," Armin instructed. "Nitrogen. It makes up most of the air we breathe, and some crops remove it from the soil." He held up an ear of corn. "Corn uses up the nitrogen in the soil. It's therefore important to swap one season to the next, with a crop such as these," He held up a pile of various nitrogen-fixing plants, "or various cereal grains in order to fix the soil."

"So," One farmer asked, "what about this irrigation you're talking about?"

"It's important to have a system of irrigation that doesn't rely on the rain," Armin said. He pointed upstream. "I'm going to show you how to build a system that will feed water from a higher elevation to the crops so it will stay watered regularly."

Over the next several hours, he helped assemble a sturdy system of water ducts that would easily irrigate the crops so men wouldn't be hauling buckets back and forth or waiting for it to rain. Next, the blueprints were drawn for newer tilling and harvesting equipment that would allow one worker to be as efficient as three.

After spending the better part of a day talking to hundreds of different farmers and town leaders, Armin returned to his commanders and gave them a heads-up on what he had been up to. Erwin and Levi sat outside with him and looked on at the rapid increase in activity.

"I have to admit," Erwin began, "I was skeptical at first, but even the MPs are getting skittish."

Levi folded his arms. "Honestly, I think they're getting frustrated at their inability to strongarm you into obeying them," he said. He looked Armin in the eye to show he was serious. "We might have to take action against them."

Armin shook his head. "I know," he replied. "I'm just not looking forward to it."

"We've gotten the message to too many people to threaten or kill all of them," Erwin countered. "This nonsense the king is up to is unraveling a bit at a time."

Eren and Mikasa joined Armin during his regular duties with the Scout Regiment. With the decrease in duties, the trio spent more time with each other, catching up on calm times before the inevitable storm. "So, how much do you think the king wants you dead?" Eren asked. "I've heard Erwin talking and it seems like the MPs are upset."

"The king doesn't want the people to advance," Armin said. "In the end, I think there's a delicate balance that's kept between the outside world and our own."

"But you're going to ruin that plan," Mikasa cut in.

"I think I've already done that," Armin shot back.

"So, how's the instruction going?" Eren asked.

"People are learning," Armin said, "and that's what's great. I'm glad everything's working out." He pointed to the farmland out in the distance. "The farmers are getting yields and the businesses are working at higher efficiencies."

"You're changing the world, Armin," Mikasa said.

Armin looked over at the fields and the town. He found himself impressed by the improvements that simple knowledge had given the people. Just knowing some of the basics of physics and biology, not to mention some advanced agriculture, had turned the shops into some small factories, and made the fields produce twice as much food. What bothered him above all else, was the fact that on the other side of the world, Marley probably had much of what they had and more. The war he hoped to prevent was coming. If he had any chance of minimizing loss of life, he had to change everyone's mind. He sighed and shook his head.

That evening, when night reigned overhead, Armin snuck out of his home, dressed in the most normal looking clothes he owned, and took to the sky. Making sure not to be seen or followed, he rose miles into the sky, high enough to see the curvature of the Earth on all sides. Using a combination of vision abilities, he saw the distant shores of Marley. The would-be enemy he would have to see for himself.

A short ten minutes later, he set down on the shores of Marley's closest shore. Using super speed, as well as a bit of stealth—the sun was still up on this side of the world, so he had to be careful—he found himself blending in among the crowd. People didn't really notice him at all.

What he saw surprised him. Bertolt and Reiner had informed him of what life was like outside of the walls, but it hadn't really sunk in until he saw a motor car. Then he saw a blimp overhead. Off in the distance, a vehicle on rails collected passengers, then zoomed off. He looked in various shops and homes and saw electricity and indoor plumbing. He looked in military bunkers and saw repeating machine guns. He saw oppression in the part of the town that Eldians were forced to live in, and he clenched his fists.

When he returned home, a few hours later, he could barely sleep. The first destination he made was to the fortress he'd built. The ghost of his father returned to solid form. "Kar-El," Zor-El said. "You look concerned. What troubles you?"

"Father," Armin said, a look of supreme motivation in his eyes, "we've got a lot of work to do, and the leadership of this nation is going to fight against us. What do we do?"

Zor-El pondered this question for a long minute. "Do you feel that the safety and the will of the people is more important than the kingdom?"

Armin let out a breath, then nodded. "Absolutely."

His father approached. "Then, my son, you may have to put your force behind people opposing the king."

Armin closed his eyes and meditated on the subject for a moment. "I was afraid of that," he admitted.

Going to bed that night, he dreamed of Krypton again. He saw the red sky overhead and his father and uncle watching the skies as transport vehicles shuttled Kryptonians from one part of the globe to another. His uncle Jor-El moved a crib closer to Armin's own. In it, a short-haired boy with black hair cooed as he looked up at the sky. "Kar," Jor-El said to his nephew, "you're going to be sent to Earth with my son, Kal-El."

Armin woke up as the sun touched his hand. He looked up and saw that it was a few minutes after dawn. He stood up and stretched. Blinking a few times, he yawned and exited the house. His hearing stretched across the town, and the usual sounds of sleeping and slowly waking people gave him a sense of peace. The people he had to fight for were all around him. It was only through his effort that they were able to live in peace. The titan threat seemed so far away, and he could see the change in people's personality as they felt safer and safer.

"Ah! Help!"

A voice cried out and Armin heard it an instant later. A quick glance in that direction and he saw three armed men busting into a locked room in a nearby barracks. All of them had guns. One of them had two pistols and a knife on his belt. Their target was a young girl Armin knew as Krista Lenz.

"What the fuck?" the grizzled man with the two pistols shouted. Before either of his partners could do anything, their guns lay in pieces on the ground.

"What the hell are you doing?" Armin said.

"I don't have to tell you a goddamn thing!" the man added.

Armin reached down and drew the man's knife from his belt. In front of his face, he crushed it into steel fragments, displaying afterward his unblemished hand. "You don't have to tell me," he informed the man. "But I'd recommend it."

"Fuck you!"

He threw the man into the other two. "Krista," he informed the girl, "why don't you leave while I'm dealing with this."

"I'm not going to talk!"

Armin burned a warning mark into the third man's hand, causing him to flee. Then he grabbed the grizzled man and his partner by the collar of their outfits and brought them high into the sky.

The grizzled man and his partner had been ready to kill for their cause. However, neither of them seemed to want to die. "I'm going to ask you again," Armin insisted. "What the hell are you doing?"

"You think you can scare us, demon?" the grizzled man asked. "I'm ready to die."

Armin pulled him an inch from his face. His eyes glowed fiercely red. "I'm done with this shit," he said. "There's no excuse for the people to be this far behind. My father and I teach them agricultural techniques they should have learned decades ago. Some of them didn't even know about crop rotation." He cleared his throat, forcefully. "The guns are primitive when our neighbors across the sea have rapid-fire repeating guns."

The grizzled man swallowed a bit. "How would you know about them?" he asked.

"Yesterday," Armin explained, "I flew there. I saw what they're living like. Motorized cars. Aerial vehicles. Fucking steam power. Internal combustion engines powered by petroleum fuel. Electric fucking lights." He huffed. "And here we are, traveling by horse. Travelling downstream in wooden boats when others have metal ships with power. Why is that? I think you know the answer."

"The Fritz family is a puppet," the man said. "The Reiss family is the real heir to the throne."

Armin let out a breath. "Alright," he said. "Now we're getting somewhere. Keep going."

"That girl, Krista Lenz, is actually Historia Reiss. She's needed. It's all part of the plan."

The other man looked at his partner with shock and dismay. "Kenny, what the fuck are you doing?" he shouted. Armin let his grip loosen a bit before catching him again. "Ah! Wait! Please don't drop me!"

Armin glared at him. "Then shut up and wait for me to talk to you." He returned his gaze to Kenny Ackerman. "You're going to give me more information. NOW."

Kenny clenched his teeth. "Alright, fucker, fine," he conceded. "This is how it is. You ever wonder why there hasn't been a war inside these walls? The first unit of the military police have kept the status quo. The Reiss family keeps the government in nice working order, and it preserves the peace."

"I find your 'nice working order' sickening," Armin said. "The people have been living in constant terror and only recently have a sense of living beyond mere survival."

Kenny Ackerman laughed. "You think your heavy-handed act first attitude will hold out forever?" He shook his head. "You are such an arrogant fool. You simply choose to do things and make them happen because you have so much power. Did it ever occur to you that there may be things you can't intimidate your way into getting?"

Those words stung Armin. It was true, he realized. Every time an obstacle appeared in his way, he used his power, or the threat of using his power, and others backed down. He got his way because of who and what he was. His anomalous nature made him a wild card normal people couldn't address. So, they took one look at his capability and stepped aside when he told them to. In a sense, he was as much of a dictator as any king or emperor.

On the other hand, his father's words often came back to him. Of the many conversations he had with Zor-El, he recalled the one regarding his purpose and place in the world.

"Kar-El, what's troubling you?" Zor-El's solid hologram had asked.

Armin had paced back and forth inside the inner chamber. "It seems like I'm just thinking and acting, and people are doing what I want," he said. "How do I know if what I'm doing is in their best interest?"

Zor-El clasped his hands contemplatively. "You were raised by humans," he explained. "You are a child of Earth as much as you are a child of Krypton. You lived among them for years without having any powers at all. You witnessed first-hand all of the troubles they go through. I believe you are equipped to help them through their hard times without worrying about going too far."

"But how will I know when I should do it for them," Armin asked, "and when I should let them try and possibly fail?"

Zor-El put a hand on his son's shoulder. "I can't give you a definitive answer," he said. "But one thing I can tell you for sure, is that right now, they're so far down that they needed you to pull them up, just to see the sun." He looked his son in the eyes. "In time, they will join you in the sun."

Armin, in the present, looked Kenny dead in the eye. "Maybe I'm forcing my will on everyone," he admitted. "But if the alternative is humanity constantly in fear of death, I'm going to take it."

Kenny looked the angry young man in the eyes and saw his unwavering determination. He couldn't do anything about it. The jig was up. "Dammit," he swore, "you're not going to get away with this forever. Sooner or later, you'll find yourself fighting something you can't just overpower."

Armin set them down on the ground. "I know," he admitted to the graying man. "And it scares me every time I think about it."

To say the result of the discovery and attempt was pandemonium would be an understatement. The military's head, Dhalis Zachary, as well as Dot Pixis and the scout regiment head Erwin Smith all found out within minutes of the discovery. The notion of the government hiding any of it fell apart thanks to Armin's use of force. In a sense, neither side got what they wanted. Kenny Ackerman was forced to tell the truth, and the population lost a fundamental trust they had of the crown. The military stepped in to take temporary command, but Historia Reiss retreated from the public light to take in the enormity of the events.

Armin found himself working harder than ever. In the wake of the huge reveal, the old leadership ousted, and a temporary military command of the populace, the auburn-haired youth spent his days teaching farmers, would-be inventors, and got the mining operations going again. His thoughts were solely on the inevitable coming war.

As Eren assisted the scout regiment, Mikasa met her friend out in the fields in between lessons. "So," she said. "You've been busy."

Armin huffed. "Busy? There was damn near a riot when the MPs were doing what they did," he said.

"Yeah," she agreed. "That was…I don't even know what that was." She shook her head. "We keep getting blindly moved around."

"My father and I are teaching people at a faster rate than before," Armin said, a lift in his voice. "Just yesterday, we got our first advanced metal working project going, and I expect that in a few more months, the gap between us and the mainland will be shorter than ever."

Mikasa's words held in her throat. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about," she admitted. "I mean, we're all used to fighting titans, but of the prospect that we might be going to war against fellow human beings? That's not something I want to be doing."

Armin let out a breath. "I'm not looking forward to it." He looked around. "Everything has to be so intricate. The farms are producing more than three times their old production. Nobody is starving in the walls here anymore. The mines are working again for the first time in ages."

"Hell," Mikasa agreed, "we've got industrial processes working again." She grabbed his shoulders. "And that's thanks to you, Armin."

He looked her square in the eyes. "I'm torn about this," he confessed. "Doesn't it seem a little…too perfect?"

"What do you mean?"

He shook his head slightly. "I not only got the two who were the Colossal and Armored Titan to see that we're not entirely demonic monsters, I also got their execution stayed," he explained. "Then, when it's revealed that the true heir to the throne is involved in a plot to keep a puppet king in charge, I step in, and boom, the problem's solved. A few people die in a short riot, but other than that, everything goes back to normal."

"What's wrong with that?" she asked.

"I'm worried something bad is going to happen," he replied. "What happens when a problem arises I can't simply stroll in and threaten my way out of?" He swallowed. "What happens when someone shows up…who can trade punches with me?"

"Armin, I'm sure we'll get through it…" She trailed off. The words sounded disingenuous even as she spoke them. Honestly, it worried her more than him, now that he mentioned it.

"My whole world couldn't possibly have died," he thought out loud. "A civilization advanced enough to make Marley look like a pile of earthworms simply fails to prevent more than two of their kind from surviving the apocalypse? Does that make sense?"

She took a breath and held it. "No, you're right," she admitted.

It took her breath away for a moment how vulnerable he looked. Despite his muscular frame and his now four inches of height on her, he looked like a scared child. The others saw him as a powerful god because his impossible gifts. Beneath them, however, he was Armin Arlert, a teenager who had an enormous weight thrust upon him. "What do I do?"

She looked at him, her eyes hardening into a serious state of conviction. "Whatever happens, we're with you," she said. "I'm with you."

As they approached Trost district, Eren met up with them. He wore a leather shirt and pants different from his normal uniform, and he had an apron on. His entire torso was caked in black soot. Mikasa looked him up and down. Black stains marked his face. "Hey, guys!" he said.

Mikasa stared at him a bit. "What the hell's happened to you?" she asked.

Eren regarded his dirty state. "Thanks to Armin's dad," he explained, "we've got our first major foundry for engine parts built. We're going to be building railways to feed the mines we're opening in the outskirts of Wall Maria, and I've spent the better part of the day installing scrubbers in the smokestacks of the factory."

Mikasa tilted her head a bit. "Scrubbers?" she asked.

"Coal is super-abundant on this island," Armin explained. "But it's really bad for the air. It makes a city's air hard to breathe and coats all the buildings in disgusting black soot. Fortunately, there's a series of chemicals you can spray directly into a stream of smoke to remove the worst of the pollution."

"So," Mikasa said, "how's things going?"

"The military is still trying to get Historia to take the throne," Eren said. "In the meantime, we're working to get our defenses up as high as possible if Marley goes to war sooner rather than later."

"Has anyone talked to Historia?" Armin asked.

Eren shook his head. "So far, she's not wanted to talk to anyone."

Armin decided then and there. "I'll talk to her," he said.

Eren was going to protest, but Mikasa held him back. "Let him go," Mikasa said. "Once he's made up his mind, who's going to stop him?"

Armin made his way into town. The bustle about amazed him a bit, as he had never seen so much work being done. A number of old military bases had been converted into factories in a matter of days. More people had moved from farming or just barely scraping by to building things than ever before. Guns and blades were being built and stockpiled. Miners were bringing in wagonloads of materials for everything from glass-blowing and tungsten for light bulbs, to copper for wire. Using knowledge from Zor-El, Armin recognized, the people of the walls would finally know luxuries Marleyans had known for a while. Power plants were being built. Word had even reached him that the military was preparing to cordon off areas outside Wall Maria to begin mining and building, so more titan extermination would take place. In the meantime, however, the fair-haired youth made his way to a building just outside the main street of Trost.

"Sir," A guard announced. "No one sees…" He trailed off as he saw. "Um, no one is supposed to see Miss Reiss."

Armin put on a calming smile. "Just announce me to her," he instructed the guard, "and if she says no, I'll leave."

The guard turned, spoke to his comrade, then entered the room. A gasp of surprise from inside the room, and Armin knew what would be said next. "Lady Reiss will see you now," the guard said.

"Thank you," Armin complimented.

Armin stepped into the room and bowed. "Historia," he said, respectfully.

"Please don't treat me like royalty," she said. "I'm scared. Everybody is treating me like I fell out of the sky and nobody wants to act like I'm a person."

Armin sat across from her. "Historia," he said, "I know you must hate where you're at. You just learned, in the span of a week, enough to put your world upside down."

She sat on her bed and sighed. "Armin," she explained, "I don't want the responsibility of this."

"I know," he said.

"They're saying I need to be the leader of humanity inside the walls," she stated. "How the hell am I supposed to do that?"

He shrugged.

"Do you have any idea what that feels like?"

He nodded. "Actually, I do," he said.

She paused. "You…do?"

He nodded again. "I'm not going to preach to you about why you should do this," he said. "I'm just going to tell you what I feel like, and you can make your own decision. I won't pressure you either way. Ok?"

She took a breath and nodded. "Okay," she agreed.

"You know most of the details," he admitted. "I won't bore you with what you've already been told. But one thing I've noticed is, when something big happens, people who actually have the authority to make a decision—guys like Levi and Erwin—look at me before they make a decision. Government officials like Zachary, they take me more seriously than some of those above them." He shrugged. "And I'm just a frightened teenager." He chuckled at the absurdity.

She took a chance. "But you're almost a god to us," she stated.

He folded his arms. "Really think about this, though," he challenged her. "In the short time since Wall Maria was breached, just a mere few years ago, we've learned a lifetime's worth of information about the way the world works." He started counting on his fingers. "We learned there are other nations, we learned that titans are or were people, we learned that life exists beyond even the Earth, and we also learned that our world was made this way on purpose by people who wanted us in the dark."

The weight of it struck her as both immense and absurd. "Wow," she gasped. "I hadn't thought of it like that."

"Recently," Armin said, "we learned that you're the heir to the throne and powerful people want you dead to keep that from happening, and others want you to themselves. How many people died in the riot?" He paused for a breath. "Not many. Everybody got used to it. Why? Because they knew I was here."

He stood up. When he did, she saw how others could potentially see him. Not as a young man unsure of his way in the world, but as a force of nature itself embodied in flesh. "Because they looked at you to save them," she concurred.

"I am a leader whether I want it or not," he said. "People notice and pay attention to everything I do. Because on some level, they expect more of me than just about anyone else."

"It's easy when you can work miracles," she rebutted.

"You're right," he confessed. "But I can't change that fact. What I can do, is make the most of the reality I'm dealt. If I have to save humanity, I'm going to make the most of it." He chuckled a bit. "And if we're honest, I'm not entirely selfless; I'd rather be me than some of the others on the front line."

She laughed. "Yeah, I can't argue with that," she said.

"I'm going to leave the decision up to you," he said. "Whatever you do, I'm with you."

"Armin," she said. He paused and turned around. "What do I do?"

"Whatever happens, we're with you," he said, smiling.

"I'm with you."