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103rd cadet corps second quadrant…
The sun rose over what remained of the 103rd Cadet Corps 2nd Quadrant not with golden warmth, but with a pale, apologetic light that seemed ashamed to illuminate the devastation. It crept over the horizon has it casted long, sharp shadows that made the destruction look even more skeletal, more final.
What had once been a vibrant training ground; a place of shouted drills, clashing practice swords, and the restless energy of hundreds cadets aiming to be aspiring soldiers; was now a graveyard of ash and silence. The fire had been starved, beaten back by the combination of Eren's desperate backburn and the arrival of Garrison water wagons from three surrounding districts. But its appetite had been vast. All that remained was a monochrome wasteland.
The barracks were blackened skeletons, roofs caved in, walls absolutely baked to the core. The ODM training forest was a field of charcoal spikes, the trees reduced to smoldering spears pointing accusingly at the grey sky. The main quad was a lake of ash, stirred into lazy swirls by the morning breeze. The air didn't smell of pine and earth anymore. It stank of wet charcoal, cooked meat, and underlying it all, the sweet, cloying scent of ozone that seemed to have been baked into the very ground.
Outside the scorched perimeter, humanity stirred in a grim parody of life.
A vast temporary camp had sprung up in the fields, a chaotic sprawl of tents, wagons, and milling figures under the cold dawn light. The centerpiece was a triage area. Garrison medics and a few civilian volunteers moved with tired urgency between rows of pallets laid on the damp grass. Here lay the survivors of the night.
The cadets. What was left of them.
Eighty-three souls had been counted. Eighty-three out of nearly two hundred and fifty. They lay wrapped in grey blankets, their faces pale and smudged with soot, eyes staring at nothing or screwed shut against memory. Some were silent, shock having stolen their voices. Others wept quietly, the sound a soft, broken counterpoint to the distant calls of medics. Bandages were everywhere; on burnt arms, slashed legs, wrapped around heads. A girl Petra's age was having a shattered leg set, her screams muffled by a leather strap between her teeth.
Alongside them were the Scouts. Keiji, Abel, and Nifa sat propped against a wagon, being tended to. Their injuries from the gate fight were cleaned and stitched, but their faces were hollow with an exhaustion that went deeper than flesh. Moblit lay on a pallet nearby, his ribs tightly bound, face pale but conscious. He was trying to sit up, watching a point of chaotic energy with weary fondness.
That point was Hange Zoë.
She was a storm of bandages and frantic purpose in the middle of the organized misery. Her side was heavily wrapped, a dark red stain seeping through the white, and one lens of her glasses was a spiderweb of cracks. It didn't slow her down. She was perched on an overturned crate, a thick journal open on her knees, a pencil flying across the page with manic speed.
"—and the wing structure was clearly water-dynamic but with a bio-mechanical rigidity suggestive of reinforced chitin or crystallized protein chains, NOT feathers, Moblit, make a note, NOT feathers—!"
"Squad Leader, please," Moblit rasped, sinking back down. "The notes… are in my head. Which is pounding. Could you… maybe sit?"
"Sit? Sit?!" Hange barked a laugh that was half-hysterical. "Moblit, we have just witnessed a taxonomy-shattering event! We have a baseline! Two—no, three non-Titan biological anomalies with clear interrelation! Obsidian, the demon dog, and the winged creature! The data is slipping as we speak!"
Nearby, Keiji watched her, a faint, pained smile on his face. He leaned toward Abel and Nifa, his voice low. "Thank the Walls she didn't get a good look at the demon dog when it was all… fiery and screaming in our faces. She'd have tried to lick it."
"She did try to lick one of the crystal shards Obsidian left behind," Nifa muttered, checking the bandage on her leg. "I had to pull her away. She said it 'tasted like static and regret.'"
The grim humor died as a new presence cut through the camp's murmur. A contingent of fresh Scouts, their green cloaks crisp against the grey landscape, moved with disciplined silence through the chaos. At their head were two men.
Commander Erwin Smith walked with his customary authority, but his face was a carved mask of deep contemplation. His right arm ended in a neatly bandaged stump, held slightly away from his body. His left hand was tucked behind his back, but his blue eyes missed nothing; the rows of wounded children, the scorched earth, the shell-shocked faces of his own squad.
Beside him, Captain Levi moved like a shadow given sharp edges. His usual expression of bored contempt was honed to a razor's edge of cold fury. His grey eyes swept over the devastation, the triage area, the blackened ruins of the quad in the distance. He took in the sheer, wasteful scale of it.
"Tch." The sound was soft, but it carried like a gunshot in the quiet morning. "What a damn shit show."
He didn't look at Erwin as he spoke, his voice dripping with sarcasm so dry it could start a new fire. "Glad you could finally make it. The party's over. All that's left is the cleaning bill and the body count." He finally turned his gaze to the Commander. "Took your precious time."
Erwin's gaze followed Levi's to the lines of cadets being loaded onto stretchers and into wagons bound for hospitals in Trost and surrounding towns. Children, some no older than fourteen to fifteen, broken and empty-eyed.
"The rot went deeper than we feared, Levi," Erwin said, his voice low. "Rooting out potential sympathizers, verifying every squad leader, every gate guard… it took time. Time we didn't have, it seems." His mind was a chessboard of moves and countermoves. The fake scouts. The deliberate misinformation. The "Duran" team's perfect, poisonous report. It had all been a symphony of misdirection, and they'd danced to it. "We are clean now. For the moment."
Levi's sneer deepened. "Great. So we're a spy-free suicide corps standing in a field of corpses. Those fanatical bastards… what the hell did they gain from all this? A pile of dead kids and a burned forest?"
"Control," Erwin said simply, his eyes hardening. "The elimination of witnesses to an event they considered a 'cosmic infection.' The consolidation of power by removing a variable. They gained certainty. And they have forced us to reveal our ignorance."
His single hand clenched briefly behind his back. The cost of that ignorance was laid out before them in rows.
Levi's attention snapped away, drawn to the whirlwind of bandages and babble. "Speaking of ignorance," he muttered, striding toward Hange.
Hange was now sketching furiously, her tongue poking out in concentration. She'd drawn a rough map of the ridge, then a chaotic series of lines representing the wind vortex. Now she was attempting to draw the Aerophibian. It was… imaginative. The body was sleek, the wings vast, but the proportions were off, the head too rounded. It looked less like a terrifying alien warrior and more like an angry, aerodynamic turnip with delusions of grandeur.
"—and the light emission wasn't photonic, it was psycho-reactive, you could feel it in your teeth, which suggests a harmonic frequency tuned to disrupt—!"
"Four eyes."
Hange jumped, her pencil skidding. She looked up, her brown eyes magnified comically behind the cracked lens. "LEVI! You're late! You missed it! It was glorious and horrible and—!"
"I can see the horrible part," Levi cut in, his gaze flicking to her bloody bandage. "The rest sounds like the usual delusional crap you spew. What's this?" He nodded at the sketch.
"The flying being!" Hange exclaimed, thrusting the journal at him. "A new creature! Allied with Obsidian! It saved us! It fought the demon dog! It has wings, Levi, and it shoots green lightning from its face! It's possibly a reptilian cross from a high-pressure atmospheric ecology, maybe related to birds; or maybe a silicon-based lifeform that—"
Levi held up a hand, silencing her. He looked from the absurd drawing to Hange's feverish face. "Good to know. First you're obsessed with Titans. Then it's crystal monsters. Now it's flying lizards that shoot lights. Your taste in problematic shit is evolving. Unfortunately, your self-preservation instincts aren't." His eyes narrowed. "Shouldn't you be resting? Or did you forget you have a hole in your side?"
"Rest?!" Hange squawked. "Levi, this is the single most significant mission I have to fulfil! I CAN'T possibly rest now!!!"
Mike materialized beside them, his massive frame moving with a slight hitch. His arm was in a sling, his face was bruised, and he looked like he hadn't slept in a week. He placed his good hand on Levi's shoulder.
"Don't bother," Mike rumbled, his voice gravelly. "I tried. She nearly strangled me with her own bandages when I suggested she wait to debrief."
Levi glanced at Mike's sling, then back at Hange. "Charming." He turned to Mike. "So. The crystal Titan was here too?"
Mike blinked. "Weren't you listening?"
"I just got here," Levi said flatly. "All I've heard is screaming, smelled burnt children, and now Foureyes is ranting about bat-birds. So. Crystal Titan. Demon Dog. What's the tally?"
Mike sighed. "Obsidian was here. Fought the Knights. Saved cadets. Then the demon dog… mutated. Got worse. Then the flying creature appeared. They seem to be allies. Both have the same symbol on them. An hourglass shape."
Levi closed his eyes for a second. "Wonderful. Just what we needed. A matching set of humanity ending curiosities." He opened them, his gaze sharp. "And the Knights?"
"Gone. The ones that weren't left as crystal decorations or smeared on the ground. Two captured. Two escaped. Their leader, the traitor posing as Rolf… he's dead. Bit a poison capsule when I caught him."
Erwin had joined them, listening. "A clean escape and a silenced mouth. Professional." He looked at Hange. "You are certain the instructors' bodies you found were the real ones?"
Hange nodded, her manic energy dampening for a moment. "Positive, Commander. Mike matched the scent. They were killed and replaced. The moment 'Duran's' team 'found' evidence here, they eliminated the real scouts, took their faces, and came back to control the narrative. They were setting the stage for the purge."
"And we provided the actors," Erwin murmured. His gaze swept the camp, landing on a small group set slightly apart from the main triage; a weary-looking Garrison soldier and two children. "What of our other… witnesses?"
Levi followed his gaze. The Garrison man was helping a medic with a water bucket, but his eyes kept darting to the two kids. The boy, small and blonde, sat clutching a worn satchel, his face pale. The girl, dark-haired and wrapped in a red scarf, stood rigidly beside him, her grey eyes scanning the horizon with an intensity that felt decades too old for her face.
"The 'uncle' and his 'niece and nephew' from Jinae." Levi said, his tone implying he'd already bought a whole warehouse of that particular brand of bullshit. "The ones who just happened to be having a lovely midnight stroll through a military training ground during a monster attack and a medieval knight invasion. And who, according to Foureyes over here, were chatting with the flying lizard."
"Let's go and ask," Erwin said, his voice calm. "Politely."
The four Scouts approached. Hannes saw them coming and stiffened, wiping his hands on his trousers before snapping off a salute to his chest that was more panic than respect.
"Commander! Sirs!" he said, his voice too loud. "Hannes, of the Southern Trost Garrison! Just, uh, assisting where I can!"
Erwin returned a slight nod. "Your assistance is noted, soldier. These children are in your care?"
"Y-yes, sir! My niece and nephew. Armin and Mikasa. We were, uh… visiting the area. Got caught in all this… mess." Hannes's smile was strained. "Lucky that… creature showed up when it did, huh?"
Levi didn't even bother hiding his disbelief. He looked from Hannes's sweating face to the two children. The boy, Armin, met his gaze for a second before looking down, his grip on his satchel tightening. The girl, Mikasa, stared back, unblinking, a silent challenge in her eyes.
"A flying creature that caused significant structural damage in Trost," Levi stated, his voice flat. "According to preliminary reports, it shot through several buildings, terrified civilians, and engaged in a running battle with the 'demon dog.' And you were… chatting with it. Do tell us about this fascinating pen pal of yours."
The sarcasm was a physical weight. Hannes swallowed. "It wasn't like that, sir! It just… landed near us. During the fire. It seemed… intelligent. It helped us get to safety. That's all!"
"That's all?" Erwin repeated, his tone gentle but utterly penetrating. He shifted his gaze to Armin. "You are a long way from Jinae, young man. And you carry a satchel. For a family visit?"
Armin's mind, usually a fortress of logic, was cracking under the dual assault of fear for Eren and the sheer, focused pressure of Erwin Smith's attention. "Y-yes, sir. I… I like to read. Always have my books."
"May I see?" Erwin asked, not a demand, but a request that brooked no refusal. He extended his left hand.
Armin's heart hammered against his ribs. He looked at Hannes, who gave a tiny, desperate nod. With trembling hands, he passed the satchel over.
Erwin took it, his movements deliberate. He opened the flap, his eyes scanning the contents. A few worn textbooks on geography and mathematics. A notebook. And then, a larger, leather-bound sketchbook. He slid it out.
"Do you mind?" he asked, already opening it.
Armin wanted to scream. He couldn't speak.
The pages flipped past rough maps, notes on flora, careful diagrams of simple machines. And then, Erwin stopped. On a page near the middle was a drawing. It was done with care, with observed detail. It showed a creature, canine, powerful, with a smooth, domed head and powerful limbs. It was clearly the "demon dog." But this one was smaller. Its fur was shaded in with orange pencil. It sat in a relaxed pose. In the corner, almost idly, was a small, neat sketch of an hourglass symbol.
Erwin's expression didn't change. He held the book up. "You are quite the artist, young man. This is a very… specific-looking dog. Not like the descriptions we have of the purple, glowing beast. This one is orange."
The air froze. Hannes's face went ashen. Mikasa took half a step forward.
Before Armin could form a lie, a whirlwind of bandages and cracked glasses inserted itself between him and Erwin.
"OH! YOU DRAW TOO?!" Hange was inches from Armin's face, her one magnified eye peering at him with insane curiosity. "The detail on the shoulder musculature is excellent! And you saw it up close? The winged creature? The way it moved—did you notice the articulation at the primary wing joint? It spoke to you, didn't it? It had a voice! What did it really sound like? Was it just guttural? Or all resonant?"
Armin recoiled, overwhelmed. "I—it—we didn't—!"
"Hange," Levi said, grabbing the back of her collar and pulling her back like a misbehaving cat. "Give the kid air. He's about to faint into his own satchel." He looked at Armin, then at Mikasa. "So. The creature talks. And you understand it. Convenient."
Mikasa's voice cut through, cold and sharp as a blade. "It saved our lives. It saved all of these lives." Her grey eyes locked onto Levi's. "It went to stop the demon dog when no one else could. Something you failed to do."
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the distant sounds of the camp seemed to hush. Levi looked down at the ten-year-old girl who had just implied his incompetence to his face. His expression was unreadable, but a dangerous glint entered his eyes.
"How utterly bold of you," he said softly, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper.
Mike shifted uncomfortably. "Levi. Come on. You're the adult here."
"Am I?" Levi didn't break eye contact with Mikasa. "Because I'm sensing a story here that's buried under a mountain of very bad lies. These kids know more than they're saying. A lot more."
Erwin stepped in, his voice a calm, authoritative wave that broke the tension without dispelling it. "Regardless," he said, taking the sketchbook and carefully placing it back in the satchel, which he handed to a trembling Armin, "this is not the place for this discussion. You will all be escorted to our headquarters. For debriefing and your own safety. After which, you will be free to go."
It was a command, not an offer. Hannes opened his mouth to protest, but the sound of hooves beating a rapid, urgent tattoo on the hard earth cut him off.
A horse burst through the loose perimeter of the camp, its rider weaving skillfully through the clutter. A second horse, riderless, trailed behind on a lead. The rider was an old man, his posture erect in the saddle, his face lined but sharp-eyed. He pulled up sharply in front of the group, the horses snorting plumes of steam into the cold air.
"Pardon the interruption," Grandpa Arlet said, his voice calm but carrying. He tipped his head slightly to Erwin and Levi. "I hope I'm not interrupting official business. I've come to collect my… relatives."
Hannes's relief was so profound he nearly sagged. "UNCLE! Thank the Walls! We got so turned around in all this…"
Arlet's gaze swept over Hannes, taking in his disheveled state, then over Armin and Mikasa, his eyes lingering on their pale, worried faces. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.
"A strange time for a family visit," Hange commented, peering at him.
"It is a strange world, Squad Leader," Arlet replied evenly. "It seems to get stranger by the hour." His eyes then landed on the kids who looked utterly relieved.
"Come along, children. We've troubled these busy people enough." He gestured to the spare horse. "Hannes, your mount, I believe? You must have forgotten it in your heroic haste."
The dismissal was masterful. The lie was now a family affair. The escape was being handed to them on horseback.
Levi's hand twitched, but Erwin's left arm came up, blocking him subtly. The Commander's eyes were fixed on Grandpa Arlet, calculating, reassessing.
"Is there a problem, Commander?" Arlet asked innocently, meeting Erwin's gaze directly.
There was a long, taut moment. Erwin saw the sharp intelligence in the old man's eyes, the unflappable calm. He saw the way the children immediately moved toward him, a flock finding its shepherd. He saw the pieces; the sketch, the knowledge, the timing; and they didn't fit the simple "lost family" story. They fit something else entirely.
"No," Erwin said finally, his voice cool. "No problem. You are free to go. The roads are safe… for now."
He lowered his arm. Levi shot him a look of pure, furious disbelief but said nothing.
Grandpa Arlet nodded. "My thanks. Come, children."
Armin and Mikasa scrambled onto the spare horse behind Hannes. With a final, unreadable glance at the Scouts, Arlet turned his horse and led the way out of the camp at a trot, not a gallop; the pace of people leaving, not fleeing.
The moment they were out of earshot, Levi rounded on Erwin. "What the hell was that? You just let them walk—ride—away! That old man is in on it! The kids are lying through their teeth! They're connected to those things!"
"I am aware, Levi," Erwin said, his gaze still following the retreating horses. "But we have eighty-three traumatized cadets, a regional disaster, two hostile non-titan entities on the loose, and a fanatical order that has infiltrated us once already. We do not have the resources to detain and interrogate a civilian family based on a suspicious sketch and bad timing." He turned, his blue eyes glacial.
"Not yet. They are a thread. We will follow it. But right now, we have a tapestry of fire to manage. And we need to understand what our captured guests have to say."
He meant the two Forever Knights in the dungeon. Levi's fury banked, replaced by a colder, more focused anger. He gave one last look in the direction the horses had gone. "Tch. Fine. But that girl… she's got a death wish."
"Or something worth defending with that much fire," Mike murmured.
On the road, well away from the camp, the false calm shattered.
"Grandpa, you came just in time!" Armin burst out, the fear and stress finally overflowing. "They were asking about the drawing, a new alien the omnitrix unlocked—they know we're lying!"
"I could see that from a mile away," Grandpa Arlet said, his voice tight. He glanced back at Hannes. "You did well to keep them alive, soldier. But the lie is thinner than rice paper now."
"Where's Eren?" Mikasa asked, the question she'd been holding back like a spear in her chest. "He hasn't returned. It's been hours."
Grandpa Arlet's gaze fell, tension etched on his features. "I don't know, kiddo…there are rumors surrounding the entire wall Rose. Garrison talk. They're saying the dog—an orange dog—was seen in the city. And that it… it took a child."
The words landed like stones in a still pond. Armin felt the blood drain from his face. Mikasa went utterly rigid, her knuckles white on her sides.
"No," Armin whispered.
"It has to be a mistake," Mikasa said, but her voice lacked conviction.
Grandpa Arlet's face was grim. "I feared it would come to this. The moment I heard 'demon dog' and 'knights' in the same breath, I knew they'd be involved. I have… history with their kind." He didn't elaborate. "The kid's unlocked a new alien, you say? So how was it?"
"It had wings, though more of a bat compared to buzzrot's. And he crashed…A lot," Armin confirmed miserably. "He wasn't used to it. He was trying to help, but… Grandpa, those Knights. They saw him transform. They saw the Omnitrix symbol."
The old man's eyes widened fractionally, the only sign of the alarm that shot through him. "That is… problematic. If they make the connection between the symbol and the shapeshifting, Eren becomes more than a witness. He becomes a specimen. The most valuable one in their 'cosmic cleanse.'" He spurred his horse to a faster trot. "We need to find him. Quickly."
"We'll help!" Armin said immediately.
"No," Grandpa Arlet said, his tone brooking no argument. "You two are going back to the camp. To Mrs Yeager till I return." He looked pointedly at Hannes.
"Who, by the way, is going to murder you slowly, soldier. She knows you took them."
Hannes paled. "How?!"
"Who is the only adult who knows these three and had access to Wall Rose territory?" the old man asked rhetorically. "She came to me at first light, frantic. I promised I'd find you."
Hannes groaned, imagining Carla Yeager's wrath. "I'm a dead man. And if Eren is really…"
"We'll find him," Grandpa Arlet said, his voice firm. "I have my ways." His mind was already racing; tracking points to the Omnitrix's unique energy signature, a risky proposition but all he had. "But you children have been through a war zone. You need rest, food, and the safety of walls. Carla would have my head…and other parts; if I brought you into another hunt."
"But Eren—" Mikasa started.
"—is my responsibility as much as yours," he finished gently but firmly. "And right now, he is out there, possibly injured, but very much alive. The Garrison is hunting for a 'child-eating orange demon.' The Knights will be scouring the countryside for a shapeshifting prize. The best thing you can do for him is be safe, so I don't have to split my focus."
The logic was irrefutable, and it tasted like ash in their mouths. They rode in silence for a while, the only sound the clip-clop of hooves and the distant caw of crows over the scorched fields.
"How will you track him?" Armin asked finally, his brilliant mind already working on the problem.
Grandpa Arlet allowed a grim smile. "Let's just say I didn't spend decades among the stars without learning a trick or two for finding lost things." He glanced at the rising sun. "First, I deliver you two to a very angry, very worried woman. Then… I go hunting."
Chapter 29-31 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.