Eren does not find Armin in the boys' bathroom. He does, however, find two people-shaped holes smashed through the thin wooden walls. Sadly, it seems like he's been missing Armin by just a centimeter this entire day.

Eren Jaeger

Flashback – Six hours ago – after training

Eren had spent the entire training session pretending to be working out, but really, he'd scoured the forest behind the girls' dormitory, looking for a head of blonde hair. Somewhere along the way, he'd almost hug-tackled Krista in gratitude—but Ymir had shown up while he was in mid-flight, and he only barely just grabbed onto a branch before smashing into the blonde.

Attacking Krista in front of Ymir would have pretty much been a death sentence. Whew.

The next word of Armin to pop up occurred an hour later, when Connie announced the most recent deepthroating statistics. Surprisingly, quite a large crowd of (fan)girls gathered around Connie as he drew up a diagram on the chalkboard of a classroom.

"At the top of the list, we have Sasha Braus!"

"Meh, she probably stores food in her gullet all the time anyways."

"No gag reflex, go figure."

"Shush! He's announcing the next one!"

"In second place… Marco Bodt!"

"Eeeee! This proves that Marco is totally Jean's boy toy!"

"I've heard that their mattresses are right next to each other!"

"I've heard that they sleep with each other every night!"

"They're practically joined at the hip anyways."

"Side to side, or front to back?" *wink wink*

"The third highest score goes to Armin Arlert!"

"She's so gorgeous!"

"Oh my gawd, I want her eyes. So pretty."

"Wait, what are you talking about? Armin's a boy!"

"No way, just look at her! Her eyes, her lips, her voice—"

"Dat ass."

"—That too. How does that not scream sexy woman?"

"He could be a sexy trap."

Eren exploded into the middle of the crowd for the second time that day, sending dozens of screaming fangirls in all directions. "Where is he?" he roared. "Where did you see him?"

"Hey look! It's Eren Yeager, who currently holds eighth place! Right above him is Jean Kirschtein at seventh!"

Eren ignored the cheers of Jean's fangirls and his immediate need to put that coward Jean back where he belonged, focusing all his energy on locating Armin instead. "You had to have been with Armin to 'test' him," Eren said tetchily. "Tell me where you last saw him before I shove your own bread down your throat!"

"I might be fast, but I'm not very flexible," Connie quipped. "But I last saw Armin an hour ago, headed towards the first aid station. She looked pretty beat up."

"Armin's not a trap!" Eren howled as he sped off to their tiny makeshift health clinic, which happened to be right next to the exercise room.

Jean was benching weights in the exercise room. Eren didn't get how Jean managed to get such a large entourage of girls following him around, squealing at his every move; the sight of his rival pumping iron wasn't impressive at all, even if said rival wasn't wearing a shirt. His skin glistened with sweat and his muscles stood taut and defined and—

And Eren knew he could bench more iron than that.

Jean needed someone to knock his cowardly, muscled butt down a peg, and Eren was going to be the one to do it.

Three hours ago - meteorstrike

Mikasa brutally murdered his and Jean's muscly man competition simply by being herself.

Before Eren could slink away, though, a gigantic flaming mass broke through the clouds above them and smashed into the forest beyond.

"What was that?" Krista screamed.

Eren's memory quickly flickered over to Armin's book of the outside world—fiery water spewing out the top of mountains, gigantic blocks of ice floating in infinite lakes of salty water, endless hills of dry sand, and things that fell from the sky. Volcanoes, icebergs, oceans, deserts— "A meteor!"

"What's that?" shouted Connie, pointing at the invisible shockwave of force snapping trees and smashing rocks directly in front of them.

"Screw that, run!" Thomas yelled, hightailing it out of there.

"Stand your ground!" Eren roared. "We won't be able to outrun it! Running's for cowards!"

One by one, Connie, Thomas, Mina, and Krista turned around to face the oncoming wave, their faces set with courage and determination. Misaka remained by his side as always while Annie seemed to be running towards the forest, but Eren was more distracted by the blinking outline to his right that showed where Jean had stood ten seconds ago. "Jean, you b—"

The blast of debris-filled wind that smashed into him also slammed his jaw shut onto his tongue while turning him upside down and dropping him on his head. Then the shockwave passed, leaving only dust and wounded trainees in its wake.

"Everyone alright?" Krista called in the ensuing silence.

Eren tried to turn his face towards the sound of Krista's voice, but Mikasa blocked his view. "Eren! Are you—"

"I'm fine, go away Misaka."

"I think I broke my wrist," moaned Thomas.

"I think I broke my head," Connie groaned.

"I'm serious," Thomas insisted. "I can't use it without it hurting!"

"Exact same thing here!"

"What's two plus two?" Mina piped up helpfully.

"Ow! It hurts so bad!"

Mina looked at Krista, a grave expression on her face. "He needs serious medical attention."

"Hey, have you guys forgotten? My wrist! Broken!"

"Here, Mikasa, you grab Connie's arms and I'll get his legs," Krista instructed. "Eren, could you support Thomas?"

Eren leapt to his feet. It was hard to see anything more than two meters ahead of him due to the haze of dust, but above, framed against the burning orange sunset, he could see a gigantic mushroom cloud of dust and what suspiciously looked like Titan vapor. "I'm going to kill them all!" he shouted, running towards the smoking forest.

"Stop, Eren!" Mina yelled. "Mikasa, you have to convince him that there aren't any Titans among us! Humanity's not stupid enough to let Titans into the military..."

Mikasa dropped Connie on his head to sprint after Eren. "Eren, I'll help!"

The minute Eren dove into the thick of the forest, it became impossible to see anything beyond the fingers in front of his face. He was pretty sure Mikasa couldn't follow him, but he didn't need her help anyways; furiously charging headfirst at Titans always meant insta-kills, right?

At least, it would in clear air. Right now, he couldn't see a thing. The smoke pushed its way up into his nose and the dust choked its way down into his throat and clogged up his ears, but he pushed forward anyways with years of pure shonen willpower!

Pure Shonen Willpower could not, however, keep him moving in a straight line, and, for the next ten minutes, neither could it ward away dangerous things like the edges of cliffs or pointy tree branches or falling rocks or attacking blondes that appeared out of nowhere to kick him in the shins and knock him onto his back.

"Waugh!"

She stood over him, wind ruffling at the bangs that hid her eyes from sight. Her normally white hoodie was black with dirt and ash and dust. "Don't willingly put yourself into such a defenseless situation," she said quietly. "Because people who can take advantage of you will do so."

Knowing Annie, she wouldn't let him get off the ground without a fight—so he sweep-kicked at her legs, trying to knock them out from under her. She leapt upwards to dodge, but he did manage to catch the tip of her boot, swinging her slightly off balance so that her retaliating stomp missed his gut by a centimeter or two.

Eren rolled away and sprang to his feet—too slow, though, because at that instant, Annie exploded out of a cloud of smoke behind him, her leg cocked backwards, like a spring-loaded gun cocked and ready to fire.

She fired.

Eren shot off into the sky like a bullet.

Fifteen minutes ago

After being rudely brought back to consciousness by Ymir's slap on his ass, Eren was still coughing up dirt. "You didn't molest Armin at first sight, did you?"

"What?" Ymir's laugh was so unconvincing that even Krista didn't believe it, and the small blonde was red in the face and gasping for air and making beautiful little noises that even somebody as asexual as Eren found downright seductive. "Why would I do that?" Ymir finished.

Krista's head tilted back as she let out a breathy moan that sent involuntary shivers running through both Eren and Ymir.

"See! That!" Eren pointed, as if it wasn't already obvious enough, "Every time you see Krista, you do something perverted like grab her boobs or stick your tongue down her ear or do whatever—"

Ymir effectively silenced him by ripping Krista's boot off her foot and slapping him in the face with it. By the time he'd recovered two seconds later, Ymir was halfway into the girls' dormitory.

"Armin better not be scarred for life when I find him!" he shouted before the door slammed shut.

Present

Armin is not at the bathrooms—however, Eren quickly finds him on the path back to the dormitories.

"Armin!" Eren shouts joyfully, tackle-hugging his long-lost friend from behind.

"Ouch!" whimpers Armin as Eren crushes his body.

Eren gasps as blood leaks out from underneath bandages all over the blonde's body—from his arms and legs and the back of his head. "What… what happened to you? How bad does it hurt? Who did it? I'm gonna cut a bastard, tell me who did it."

"It's not Sasha's f—"

"SASHAAAAA!" roars Eren for the heavens to hear.

"I stole food from her secret stash!"

"AAA—Wha?" Eren drops down to his knees in shock. He can't comprehend it. How… Why would… But… "But Armin... you're smarter than that! There's no way you'd do something so stupid!"

Fat tears bubble out of Armin's eyes. "It… it was a dare! Thomas… he said to be like you and forget about brains! He said that Pure Shonen Willpower would protect me even if Sasha was about to chomp my leg off!"

It takes a considerable effort for Eren to hold back his own manly tears. "Armin… wait until puberty kicks in before you try being shonen…"

He wants to fight. Fight and win and kill… but not Sasha. Hunger makes Sasha do crazy things, things she can't control and probably isn't even aware of. No, if there is somebody at fault here, somebody who's so evil as to take advantage of Armin's incredibly low self-esteem regarding his lack of shonen masculinity to wreak havoc across the entire camp… it's Thomas.

"THOMAAAAAS!" Eren roars, ignoring Armin's protesting cries as he gets to his feet and sprints for the dormitories. Thomas must die. Thomas must die! Thomas must—

"Oh hi Eren! I heard you calling. What's up?"

THUMP.

~ Marco Bodt ~

Marco usually showers at least half an hour after the other boys. It's not like he's homophobic or anything; Reiner's just one of those guys who regularly starts all-out naked wrestling matches in the middle of the communal shower floor. Marco showers to get clean, not to rub his willy against the floor with all its puddles of man sweat, hormones, and fungal growths.

When Reiner finally returns from the showers (along with half the cabin nursing various bruises/complaining of itchy patches in private parts of their bodies), Marco sets out with his towel and some soap. Most guys are packing up for the night, so Marco doesn't meet anybody on his way over…

Except Eren, who's dragging something out from underneath a bush.

"Hey Eren!" Marco greets. Eren startles so badly that he drops what he was holding: the mouth of a very large bag. It looks like the gigantic bag of baguettes that Connie had been carrying around earlier, but the loud thump that sounds from inside when the bag hits the ground does not sound like loaves of bread.

"Uh, hello Marco!" Eren answers in a not-at-all nervous manner. "Where are you, uh, going on this fine, erm, night?"

Marco lifts the shoulder that his towel is slung over. "Showers."

Eren lets out a strangled little laugh. "Oh, hey, that's great! Have fun!" He hurriedly picks up the bag and begins to drag it away again.

Marco stops and stares as the bag begins to move and let out little whimpers of pain. "Eren…" he says slowly. "What's in the bag?"

"It's Connie's, can't you tell? Just bread."

"Baguettes don't usually cry for help."

Eren kicks the bag until it falls still and silent again. "What are you talking about?" He then reaches into the bag and pulls out a long, blackened object. "See? Breadstick!"

"That's not bread—it's a rock!"

"That's not what your boyfriend thinks!"

"He's not—"

But Eren throws his whole-grain spear straight at Marco's super wide forehead... and of course he doesn't miss.

Author's Note: Due to lack of response and a lack of time on my part (must study for finals studystudySTUDY), next chapter will be the last. There are still a couple loose ends that I haven't been able to tie up yet, but Marco's chapter ends on a fairly satisfactory and happy note! So I may be just content to leave it at that and write up Annie's epilogue shenanigans with Mikasa and Armin at a later time. Thanks for your reviews!

Next time: Marco doesn't know why he does everything he does for Jean.

"Wait, just how many people are we pranking?"

"Connie for violating me in front of Mikasa. Bertolt for jumping my bones while half-naked. Reiner for punching my head off. Ymir for lying about the size of my abs. Eren, just for being stupid. Anybody else?"