"-...Raven, the Pile Bunker…-" Ayre's voice was concerned as 621 paused to observe the situation from the top of a stone building at the center of the town surrounded by walls.
The stone building was large enough to allow Loader-4 to stand on top of it entirely as it observed the town, albeit the stone walls and roof supports of the building were letting out creaking sounds that indicated the building would likely fold like a deck of cards if the AC moved too much.
The main reason 621 had paused was to lift the Pile Bunker in the AC's left hand and observe the damage the weapon had sustained when it had hit the wall earlier.
The tip of the spike was cracked and bent, which wasn't surprising- The melee weapon's depleted uranium-tungsten rod was not invulnerable, and was never intended to last for eternity. It was an opportunity weapon, intended to take advantage of a single opening to deal a single, devastating hit that could destroy even the heaviest of AC's, and sustained capability for repeated ramming attacks was more of an afterthought.
The charged hit against the massive wall had, however, broken the spike's previously-sharp tip into a mangled, cracked mess that resembled a blown-open barrel of a shotgun.
"-...I'm surprised. You've destroyed so many AC's with that weapon, yet it broke so easily against that wall. Maybe it was weakened from previous battles… Well, the broken tip should still work to destroy those flesh giants, and the internal mechanism doesn't seem to be too badly out of shape. But I'm not sure how well it penetrates armor anymore-" Ayre noted and then looked 'inward', focusing on 621's body's condition. "-Raven. You're… tired.-"
"...Yes."
621 had been in combat mode, or rather, 'high functioning awareness' state for nearly half a day without a pause, which was taxing the Augmented Human's strength.
Normally the 'combat mode' would be used for mere minutes, at best hours, and once the state ended, 621 would become near comatose for days- Or rather, for however long it took for the AC to return to base via autopilot and air-transport, be rearmed and refitted (during which 621 would be woken briefly to adjust the AC's parts and hear the briefing for the next mission), after which the AC's autopilot would get him to the next battlefield.
"...Ayre."
"-Yes, I've gotten enough data for now. We should withdraw. We can try negotiating with these settlers some other time- Those giants appeared to be attacking the settlers so we should have gained some rapport with them by helping the civilians evacuate and by taking down so many of the giants.-" Ayre reasoned. "-Ah… there's the issue of your sustenance too. I haven't been able to reach your AC Transport, so we may have to barter or take some from the locals… hm?-"
621 adjusted the pose of Loader-4 slightly as its sensors and augmented 3rd-person view revealed a person who had walked to the rooftop of the building where the AC was perched, and had ended up bumping right into the AC's leg.
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Sasha burped while she walked up the stairs of Trost's Garrison HQ with shaky legs.
She was feeling very sated after gorging herself on the rations that had been left behind in the Garrison HQ's pantry, after her hunger-and-terror induced madness had driven her to flee and start eating like a miniature titan that was attracted to food instead of humans. And after she was done with the pantry, she felt as if she had doubled her body weight.
Moreover, she had stuffed a bag full of salted meat that she had found from the officer's ration closet as well as breads, cheese chunks and wine skeins, and filled her 3D-gear's gas canisters in preparation to escape the doomed district- Albeit internally Sasha felt quite hurt that her friends had left her behind. But on the other hand, she couldn't exactly blame them for not sticking around after she had run off.
So while she felt very glad to have had the opportunity to demolish the officer's food pantry, she was very much scared of dying as she came to terms with the fact that she had most likely eaten her last meal.
"Ahh! I'm so going to die…" Sasha sniffled while snot ran down from her nose and tears down her cheeks, well aware that her momentary hunger-induced sense-blackout had most likely doomed her to death in some random titan's jaws. "The others must have reached the wall already and gotten to safety…"
Sasha was so deep in her doom and gloom that she didn't even notice a wall as she walked up the staircase that led to the roof of the Garrison HQ, where the remaining cadets of 104th had been a mere hour or so ago… And Sasha fell on her butt after bonking her head against what felt like a wall of metal.
"Owie… What-" Sasha rubbed her butt and looked up-
The Metal Titan was standing on the rooftop.
Right in front of Sasha.
The metal monstrosity had a halo of yellow-glowing metal around it's head, and Sasha could feel the immense heat that the monstrosity radiated, all the while it's body was drenched in steaming blood and gore.
The metal titan adjusted its position and turned its head to look at Sasha, its strange red-glowing eye-things rotating and whirring like lenses of a telescope.
Sasha opened and closed her mouth like a fish out of a lake.
The metal titan seemed to stop for a moment to stare at Sasha.
Sasha's brains locked up.
Her life flashed before her eyes, and she recalled one moment when she had felt a similar- if massively less intense- dread after fooling around too much.
'...What is that.' The voice of 104th Instructor, Keith Shadis, echoed in Sasha's head when the 104th had been assembled from volunteers and put to training. At the time Sasha had stolen a baked potato and had realized that it would have been cold by the time the hazing session by Instructor Keith was done, and as a logical result Sasha had tried to eat the potato during the hazing ceremony. As a result Sasha had been forced to run laps on the training yard until she collapsed from exhaustion.
The metal titan adjusted its position more, raising the leg that Sasha had collided against, and putting it down so that the titan could turn its body towards the cadet.
The reverse-jointed leg caused a cracking sound as the foot went right through the roof and caused the metal titan's body to lower to the point where its massive metal chest was roughly in line with Sasha's body.
The titan seemed to observe Sasha, and then turned its head slightly to analyze the bag that Sasha had dropped when she had nearly knocked herself out on the titan's leg.
Sasha's mind was breaking from terror and she did the only thing that she could think to do, drawing from her earlier memories, and the memory of the delicious salted and baked potato that she had eaten during the trainee's hazing ceremony.
She reached into the bag, and brought out a salted piece of meat that she had stolen from the officer's pantry, and… After a not-insignificant feral, instinctive mental struggle, sliced the piece of meat in two with her anti-titan blade.
Sasha offered the smaller half towards the titan. "W-w-w-w-w-waa- waant to s-s-s-s-s-share?"
The titan looked at the offered food… And dropped the massive spike-weapon that had been strapped to its left arm, causing Sasha to scramble backwards in terror. Her legs refused to work, however, seeing that they had locked up in terror, and the end result had Sasha's getaway resembling that of a fish trying to spasm its way across the floor.
Sasha curled up into a fetal pose while snot and tears flowed down her face as the titan reached for her with the monster's now-free hand…
...And to Sasha's terror, the metal titan grabbed Sasha's bag of pilfered foods between its mechanical-looking index finger and thumb.
"NOOOO! MY SAUSAGES!" Sasha cried in despair as the titan stole her bag food, her fear of imminent death making room for the existential despair of having her meat stolen, and the thieving titan put the stolen bag of food into a small recess in it's chest-armor, right front of its helmet.
After that, the titan grabbed the spike-weapon it had dropped, and jumped up.
The Garrison HQ's roof shattered from the force of the jump, causing Sasha to experience the feeling of vertigo and weightlessness as she realized that the roof had collapsed under her and that she was falling to her death in the building that was collapsing around her.
Sasha's life flashed before her eyes for the second time in under a minute…
And as soon as she got to the point where a bloody titan stole her rightfully stolen food... Something snapped in Sasha's head, and her eyes gained a dangerous, feral, unhinged glint.
She fired off the hook of her 3D-gear before the crumbling building could kill her by collapsing on top of her.
"GRAAAAAHHHH!" Sasha reeled in the line of the 3D- gear, causing her to fly forward like an angel of vengeance, foam and spittle frothing from her mouth as she became the living avatar of destruction of (meat-thieving) Titans made manifest, at least in her mind.
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"-Raven, that… uh…-" Ayre sounded a bit surprised as the girl from the rooftop launched a hook of some kind towards Loader-4, and managed to hit the 'core despite the fact it was airborne.
621 had intended on assault-boosting up towards the nearest wall, going over it, and finding a spot somewhere to crawl out of the AC to grab the bag of food stashed away in the recess of the AC's chest, but that plan changed as hook-launcher of the girl from the rooftop ended up hitting the airborne AC's leg.
The brunette girl from the rooftop, seemingly lost to blind rage and frothing like a rabid animal, was rapidly reeling herself towards Loader-4 with blades held high and at the ready, and the girl swung herself up from under the AC with a pendulum-like motion so that she came up in front of the AC, the momentum of the swing carrying her upwards as if she was flying gracefully.
The hook stuck the AC's leg detached and another hook was launched from the girl's waist-gear, this time landing on Loader-4's shoulder while the other line was reeled back.
621 noted the feral insanity in the previously scared-looking girl's eyes as she reeled herself towards Loader-4's head, clearly intending on clipping, or at least trying to clip the AC's head from its shoulders with her blades before the AC could make the rest of its way up the wall-
The mad swordswoman was too close for 621 to prime the Pile Bunker, so instead Loader-4 brought up the Coral Rifle, intending on swatting the insane woman away with the bulky ranged weapon.
However, just as the weapon was about to smash the woman away, she fired the hook that had just about managed to reel itself back to her, and it hit the side of the Coral Rifle.
With a display of split-second acrobatics that was almost impressive, the woman used the two hook-lines to twist herself out of the rifle's way.
621 sighed internally as the swordswoman charged past the swing- The AC's Assault Armor would have resolved the issue of the woman's charge with ease, but the charges of the system were limited and there was a very high chance that even if the woman succeeded in her attack, the woman's blades would at best be only be capable of wounding 621's 'pride'.
The insane swordsman swung at Loader-4's head-
621 activated the 'Shade-Eye' head-piece's armor-mode, causing a sensor-embedded armor plate to rotate from the back of the helmet to its front, covering the vulnerable sensors and momentarily limiting the AC's scanner systems.
The mad swordswoman dropped her blades before they could impact against the AC's face.
Instead of hitting the AC's helmet-face, the woman used the distraction-strike to grab the bag of food that 621 had stored off in the chest-recess in front of the AC's helmet.
The helmet-covering armor plate lifted up as 621 realized the woman's ploy, yet was too late to stop it.
"YAHOOOO SAUSAGES-GET!" The woman screeched her victory with jubilant joy as she flew past the AC from the momentum, completely disregarding the fact that the AC had been nearly at the apex of the wall during the aerial interception and as a result the swordswoman was plummeting to her doom below while hugging the wrapped-up bag of food as if it contained her newborn baby.
"-...Raven, uh…-" Ayre's tone of voice conveyed the equivalent of blinking owlishly as she witnessed the 'fight'.
621 landed on top of the tall wall, causing a few people on the wall who looked like soldiers to scatter in terror after being stuck motionless, staring at the mid-air fight.
Loader-4 turned around towards the falling woman who clung to the bag while giving the AC a middle-finger, before she turned around in turn and just about managed to hook a building with her grapple-gear before she would have splattered on the street, and turned her free-fall into a horizontal swing towards the exit gate of the town in the distance.
"-...That was...-"Ayre continued to 'blink' in confusion.
621 paused to observe as the mad swordwoman's fury-filled face turned into a mess of snot and tears as she swung her way towards the gate, as pale as a corpse. The AC's sensors and optics whirred as they kept the fleeing woman in clear view even as she was nearly a kilometer away.
Several giants seemed to notice the madwoman's passing and began to chase after her, all the while Loader-4 observed her movements, compiling the patterns and the capabilities of the grapple-hook gear she wore.
"-...Raven, I think… you may be overthinking this…-" Ayre sounded a bit worried, as the Coral ghost was likely thinking that 621 had become obsessed with the insane swordswoman, when in actuality the Augmented Human was compiling the capabilities of the gear the madwoman had worn, solely in order to be better prepared against the gear's wielders in the future.
621's stomach growled, and the Augmented Human decided that the present data was enough to effectively engage the food-thief in close combat- After all, as long as the thief held the bag of food, 621 couldn't engage her with the Coral Rifle or the shot would end up vaporizing the food as well as the swordswoman.
The armor-plate of the Shade Eye-helmet rotated forwards to its combat position, and the AC bent forwards while leaving the Pile Bunker on top of the wall. The heavy melee weapon would not be necessary for this fight.
The heavyweight Spring Chicken reverse-jointed legs coiled, and the AC tilted over the edge of the wall… And jumped, using the wall as a springboard to launch into an assault boost towards the woman who was desperately hook-swinging herself towards the gate in the distance.
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"Is that… Sasha!" Armin called as he saw Sasha swinging herself towards the 'rear' part of Trost, with several titans in pursuit as she tried to desperately reach the other cadets. "She made it here!"
"Armin! Be careful!" Reiner called as he tended to Jean's wounds.
"Reiner- It looks like Sasha is going to run out of gas! I need to resupply her! Take care of Jean!" Armin told Reiner as the latter was applying a tourniquet to Jean's chewed-off leg, all the while a trio of nine-meter titan were steaming in the background with their napes cut- The last of the titan trio had gotten a cheap shot at exhausted Jean and had bit his leg off before Reiner could intervene.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!" Sasha was screaming in terror as her maneuver gear ran out of gas, and she ended up crashing down on the street, skidding on the cobblestone pavement and rolling on the street like a ragdoll while she was clutching something protectively against her chest.
"Hey! Potato girl made it out!" Ymir's voice came from nearby and Armin noticed that the tall black-haired girl with freckles had used her maneuver gear to land on a nearby building and observed Sasha's fall from there. "Hey! Armin! Get back. Those titans are going to get to her before you do!"
"I can make it!" Armin shouted back as he used his maneuver gear to swing towards Sasha, ignoring Ymir's resigned sigh, and intending on getting a new gas canister to Sasha before she'd get eaten like so many other cadets had been eaten during the desperate defense.
Moreover, there was the issue of the wrapped-up thing that Sasha had clutched against her chest protectively… And Armin grimaced as he had a suspicion of what was in the rolled-up bag, and what would be lost if he didn't get to Sasha in time.
"Ow… my head… My ass…" Sasha moaned aloud as she shook herself off the concussive stupor of getting slammed against the street at high speed, and she checked over the wrapped bag with the tender care of a doting mother. "Ah! It… ah… I'm… I'm so glad… it's alright…"
Armin grit his teeth as he saw a wide-shouldered, pot-bellied nine-meter titan reach towards Sasha as she was sitting on the street, seemingly delirious after the rough landing.
"Hgyaaaah!" Armin crashed himself against the titan's face, burying his anti-titan blades into the giant's eyes. The strike wouldn't kill the monster, but he didn't have time to get behind it and slash at the titan's nape when several other titans were pursuing Sasha behind the nine-meter one, and Armin hoped that by blinding the leading titan he'd turn it into a temporary roadblock for the titans behind it while it recovered.
The blinded titan reached for its face and Armin jumped off before the monster could trap him, leaving the snapped-off blades in the monster's eyes. Armin then landed near Sasha with the help of his maneuver gear.
"Sasha! Gas! Here!" Armin gave Sasha a fresh gas canister, grimacing at the goofy smile that Sasha gave him in turn.
"I made it out, hee… hee…." Sasha had a stupid smile on her face as she gently cradled the bag in her hands back and forth. Her face was streaked with sweat, snot and tears, and it was clear that she had been through a lot after the circumstances had forced the 104th to leave her behind to the Garrison HQ. "I saved… hee… hee…"
"Sasha! Snap out of it!" It pained Armin to hit a precious comrade, but he figured that giving Sasha a quick slap would help her snap out of her stupor.
"Eh?" Sasha seemed to return to reality after getting slapped and she blinked rapidly. "What- I was… but…"
"Sasha- You have a concussion! Give the baby to me, I can get it to the Garrison and you can get to safety!" Armin hurried Sasha. "It isn't crying out- Did it hit its head? Is it unconscious?"
"...Baby?" Sasha tilted her head in utter confusion while cradling the wrapped-up baby back and forth.
Armin groaned and shook Sasha's shoulders. "Snap out of it, Sasha! We don't have time- Watch out!"
Armin pulled Sasha aside as the blinded Titan waved its hands forwards, trying to grasp towards the voices of the two cadets, while several other Titans were attempting to push past the wide titan.
"Sasha- you-" Armin tried to get through Sasha's thick skull once again, but was interrupted as a pair of footsteps landed nearby.
Armin saw to his relief that Krista had seen Sasha's plight and had come as well. And a second or two later Ymir was behind Krista, even though she had not been particularly keen on risking life and limb for Sasha's sake earlier- Although Armin knew that the sole reason Ymir was there now was because Krista had come forward herself.
"Sasha-" Krista analyzed the situation and nodded at Armin while he was dragging Sasha and the baby away from the group of titans. "Armin, Ymir, you two get Sasha out of here, now. Sasha, give me the baby!"
"Eh…?" Sasha bristled as Krista reached for her and, after some struggle, managed to grab the bag from the glutton brunette. "No! Give it back!"
"Krista- Get away from here-" Ymir pulled Krista back by her shoulder as the blinded titan fell over, pushed off-balance by the titans behind it, and allowed nearly dozen titans to swarm forward.
"Ah!" Armin froze briefly out of terror as the swarm came, and Sasha let out a scream and hugged Armin's face against her chest-
Suddenly, a pair of explosions somewhere in the midst of the swarm of titans sent the whole group of cadets off their feet, with Krista curling up protectively around the wrapped baby to prevent it from coming to harm from the rain of debris that was set airborne by the explosions-
A sickening sound of tearing flesh accompanied the whirring of metal and howling gale of red flames as the metal titan bulldozed it's way through the street of titans, using the beam-contraption in it's right arm to point-blank devastate the titans and crashing through the steaming bodies with it's sheer armored mass, all the while the strange double-barreled cannon-like weapon on the metal titan's it's left shoulder smoked like a freshly-fired gun.
Armin hugged Sasha back on instinct as the metal titan's already-bloodied exterior became covered in fresh blood, organs and chunks of titans as it tore its way through the tightly packed mass of titans, leaving behind nothing but gore and shattered bone, and stopping mere ten meters or so away from the cadets.
Several shredded titans were slowly regenerating in the pair of craters that had appeared some distance away in the street, after the metal titan had fired it's shoulder-weapon at them from the air, but the sheer power of the twin cannons of the metal titan had put the majority of the clustered-up titans out of commission for at least a few hours even if their napes were still intact.
The metal titan paused after it stomped on the head of the fallen titan that Armin had blinded, and it then turned towards the four cadets.
"What- Oh no, you don't!" Ymir sprung into action as the metal titan saw Krista who was still curled protectively around the baby, and reached towards her with its free, blood-covered hand.
However, as Ymir fired the line-hooks of her maneuver gear into the leg of the metal titan, the metal titan pulled the struck leg back abruptly and stomped on the line with the other leg, causing Ymir's launch to turn from direct approach into a ballistic arc and slamming her down head-first on the cobblestone street with enough force to knock her out cold.
The metal titan then grabbed the hook that was stuck to its leg with its free arm, pulled the hook out, and flung Ymir's unconscious body through the nearby building's window with the help of the line that was still connected to the tall girl's 3D-gear.
"Ymir! No!" Krista shouted as she saw her close friend get knocked out and tossed off, and the blonde girl scrambled back to her feet while clutching tightly to the swaddled baby that Sasha had saved.
Armin saw the metal titan's movements, and realized that it had expected Ymir to launch the maneuver gear's hooks, and had used the connecting line against her.
The blonde cadet's body was frozen still in terror while his mind still worked, desperate to figure out what the metal titan was after- It had bulldozed its way through the titans with swift ease, after all, and it wasn't the first time it had done so. 'It… Does it know how our 3D-gear works? How- That thing is mechanical, but it can still learn? It is not a 'titan', it can't be… Is it a weapon? But who could make such a thing? It can't have come from the center district, can it? Could we even have that kind of technology? But if it's ours… Why did it attack the cannons? Or the gate? Or tried to grab that baby? If it's not ours… then whose weapon is it?'
Armin then noticed that when he had seen the metal titan earlier, when it had torn apart several fifteen-meter titans and bathed in their blood, it had been using a spike-driver of some sort in its left hand. But now the weapon was nowhere to be seen. 'Did it lose the weapon? Or… Did it run out of charges or ammunition and was forced to discard the weapon?'
Armin recalled the fact that the exit holes of the metal titan's spike-weapon were massive, making him realize that the spike weapon must have used some kind of propellant or explosive charge in addition to the spike itself- In other words, the metal titan could be forced to run out of ammo and be forced to withdraw.
The realization of the metal titan's vulnerabilities was largely semantics, however, as Armin's body had locked up and he couldn't flee to spread the information- And if his body hadn't refused his will, the fact that Sasha had clung to him in terror like a slapdash net made of limbs meant that moving around was more or less out of the question.
The metal titan reached for Krista before the blonde girl could decide between trying to run for it or trying to stand and fight… And the metal titan grabbed the corner of the baggy cloth of the swaddled, unconscious baby, delicately holding the piece of cloth between the titan's forefinger and thumb.
The metal titan tried to pull the baby from Krista's hands- But the blonde girl resisted, and she pulled her anti-titan blade out with her free hand. "Armin! Sasha! Help!"
"Krista!" "No! Let go of that!" The sight of the metal titan trying to steal the baby sprung Armin and Sasha into action, but it looked as if the metal titan had gotten enough of delays as it opened its whole hand and grabbed both Krista and the baby, instead of trying to just snatch the knocked-out infant.
Sasha moved to launch the hooks of her maneuver gear at the metal titan, but Armin stopped her before she could do so. "Sasha! No! It's expecting you to do that- Like it did with Ymir!"
"Armin! It can't get away with the bag! Or Krista!" Sasha called out in desperate fervor and launched the hooks of her maneuver gear at the nearby buildings to form a V-shape with herself at the point, likely intending on simultaneously reeling both of the lines and to launch herself forward at the metal titan in a mechanic similar to the bolt of a crossbow.
However, before Sasha could do so, the metal titan boosted backwards and away from the cadets, and lifted the beam-contraption in its right hand towards them.
Armin tackled Sasha down to the street before she could launch herself at the titan.
It was the right thing to do, as the metal titan fired a screaming beam of red light at precisely where Sasha would have been, had she launched herself, and the missed shot ended up carving a black crater to the face of Wall Rose behind them, only a few meters above the gate where the civilians were still evacuating out of the district.
Armin heard the screams of the civilians as they saw and heard the beam weapon hit the wall above them- But Armin couldn't spare more than a passing glance at the direction before he had to drag-throw Sasha through the window of a nearby abandoned shop, taking cover within as the metal titan fired it's beam weapon again, gouging a long gash into the spot on the street where Sasha had been mere second ago.
"What- What the hell! Why is it so hell-bent on killing you specifically, Sasha? And why did it want that baby?!" Armin shouted at Sasha with adrenaline pumping through his veins as he rolled up from the floor of the shop, and grabbed the glutton-girl by the back of her trainee corps jacket, intending on dragging her to safety one way or the other.
"What baby?!" Sasha screamed back over the sound of odd 'whizzing', and Armin paled as he had heard the 'whizz' once before.
"Out!" Armin grabbed the collar of Sasha's jacket and her belt, and used Sasha's head as a battering ram to break through the back door of the shop, throwing her out in the process.
Armin quickly ran after Sasha, grabbing the disoriented girl by the leg, crossed the street while dragging Sasha behind him with the sheer power of adrenaline alone, and took cover in another building by lifting Sasha up and using his 3D-gear to hop straight through the building's large second-floor window, all the while using Sasha's body to cushion the crash.
The hasty evacuation proved to be the right thing to do as twelve explosions rocked the district in quick succession, and the first shop that the two cadets had used for cover exploded to splinters behind them from the repeated missile strikes.
"...It's that flare-weapon the metal titan used against the wall-cannons- Sasha! What did you do for the metal titan to have that kind of grudge against you?!" Armin called while peeking halfway through the broken window of the building, intending on keeping an eye on the metal titan as it jumped up in the distance and hovered up backwards towards the top of the wall.
The metal titan was scanning the district with its beam-weapon hand and occasionally fired a red beam at something that Armin didn't see. "Dammit, Krista got kidnapped! And Ymir is defenseless! As soon as that titan is out of eyeshot, we need to go back and help Ymir out before the titans get to her!"
"Hey! I didn't do anything to that titan! It stole the food that I had rightly plundered!" Sasha commented with mortal indignancy in her tone. "So I took it back from the bastard- And then you showed up!"
"The baby- what?!" Armin paused to stare at Sasha, completely off-guard after the brunette's answer. "The… what?"
"I found sausages in the officer's quarters! Real meat sausages!" Sasha ran to the window and pointed at the metal titan in the distance, as it was almost halfway up the wall near the entry gate of Trost. "YOU THIEVING BASTARD! GIVE BACK MY SAUSAGES! AND KRISTA! AND SPECIFICALLY THE SAUSAGES! THOSE WERE MY SAUSAGES, YOU METAL THIEF-"
Armin saw as the metal titan's helmet-face snapped to point at Sasha, even though the metal titan must have been several kilometers away by now.
Sasha let out a muted 'eek' before running away from the broken window and jumping out of the window on the opposite side of the building.
The jump was followed by a muted shriek of terror, and Armin jumped after Sasha, snapping new blades into his anti-titan swords in the process, and then buried the blades into the neck of a three-meter titan below that had accidentally ended up cushioning Sasha's fall.
The building that the two had been in the moment prior caught fire as a red beam of light pierced it, leaving a roughly human-sized scorched hole through the whole building in the background.
Armin's soul was at calm peace as he sheathed his anti-titan swords once confirming that the three-meter tall titan was dead, almost as if he had reached the tranquil spot at the center of the storm.
He realized that he had risked his life, and Krista had most likely sacrificed her life, to protect what had turned out to be Sasha's stolen food stash.
"Uhm, your smile is creeping me out, Armin?" Sasha's tone wobbled a bit as she got back up on her feet.
"Okay, go get your food back. Knock yourself out, Sasha. I'll go see if there's anything left of Ymir." Armin said and ran in the opposite direction, intending on curving back around so that when the metal titan was busy shooting Sasha full of holes he could get to Ymir without issues.
"Wait- Wait for meeee!" Sasha screamed and ran after Armin, terrified tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry! I'll share the meat with you next time! At least a quarter of it, please don't leave me alone!"
