Eren couldn’t feel his missing leg anymore.

That didn’t matter. With his other leg, Eren pushed his foot against the bearded Titan’s lower row of teeth. One of his hands also pushed down to help balance himself. His other hand jammed a sword between two upper teeth, keeping the Titan from closing its mouth. It was an agonizing struggle, far harsher and arduous than any moment of training throughout his three years in the 104th.

But like every single hurdle Eren had overcome during training, he knew he could do the same here today. He has to.

He was already able to save Armin, pulling him off the Titan’s tongue and tossing him with one arm to the nearby rooftop.

The Titan’s hot breath showered Eren from the back as a wave of cool air hit him from the front. Eren’s eyes met Armin’s. His best friend was still on his knees, staring back with a look of absolute horror on his face.

No, Armin had to get up. Keep moving. Keep fighting. Never stop fighting, or the Titans will get him. Just like how they got Thomas. Eren could still hear Mina and Mylius screaming. He had no idea where Nack was, but Eren could give a good guess. The last thing he wanted was for the same to happen to Armin, for him to be caught in a Titan’s jaws again and this time never get to see the light of day afterward.

“I refuse to die like this,” Eren found himself saying. He wasn’t even sure if he spoke loud enough for Armin to hear it. Eren reached out toward him. “Armin. We’re still going to see the outside world. Our dream… I need to see it…”

Eren was forced to face reality. He was losing strength, fast. He was feeling his leg again, or the absence of it – either way, the damn Titan was moving its tongue and Eren’s half-missing leg was on fire again. The jaws were going to close on him.

Still, Eren had to believe he only needed to hold out just a little longer. Armin can grab his hand, pull Eren out fast enough to avoid another piece of him getting chomped. The Titan was moving slowly when it had picked up Armin, so there should be enough time for either of them to press the gas for their ODM gear and get some distance from the monster.

And, and they’ll regroup with one of the other squads! They’ll have the supplies to bandage Eren’s leg, keep him from passing out from the blood loss. If not, they can improvise something from one of the homes in the city. Any piece of clean fabric will do. Eren will have to pick up quickly how to work with ODM gear while missing a leg, throwing his sense of balance entirely off, but he can learn on-the-fly. There’s nothing he can’t–

“Eren!” Armin screeched, lunging forward with his own desperate hand. “No!”

The Titan closed its mouth.

Everything went dark.

Was that… Armin screaming? What was he saying?

Was Armin alive? He had to be alive! After everything, he has to be!

… Where was Eren’s arm?

And… wait.

Was Eren floating?

Floating inside the Titan’s throat?

Snap-hiss.

There was a sound. Where? What was…

Light suddenly shone around Eren.

Yes, he was still inside the Titan’s throat, surrounded by disgusting saliva and the reddened innards of the beast. Eren’s eyes drifted until he looked behind him. There was a single beam of light stabbing through the Titan’s neck. The beam stopped short of touching Eren. He watched the shimmering pole move across the wall of flesh until the skin parted for natural light to slip through. The usual steam from a Titan’s wound mixed with the smoke of burnt flesh.

The opening grew large enough for another object to enter the Titan. Eren could only see a shadow, but it must’ve been someone’s arm, since he felt a hand grab his shirt and pull him through the hole.

Everything was a blur as Eren soared through the air and felt his back hit the ground. A sting ran up his spine and across his limbs. He curled his fingers, feeling nothing but the phantom pain where he lost his arm. A crash filled his ears. Dust and dirt flew over him, probably from the slain Titan falling over.

He tried to focus his vision and look at the roof for Armin. Eren could barely see a thing… except for the dark figure who landed beside him. For some reason, staring at him made Eren’s eyes clear up, allowing him to take in the stranger standing over him.

The figure was as tall and imposing as Commandant Shadis, if not more so. He wore all black. There were odd spots of color Eren could make out on the figure’s front torso and his belt. A black cape hung behind the figure.

He had no real face. His head was completely shrouded in a helmet, vaguely reminding Eren of the art depictions of knight armor from one of his and Armin’s childhood investigations on the world beyond the Walls, before the Titans. It was a strange look, but almost regal with the towering stance the figure stood with.

In one of his hands was a blade, unlike anything Eren’s seen before, whether from drawings or in-person. It was so bright, a mesmerizing red as blinding as the sun.

This… This Dark Lord had saved Eren. Saved Armin, too, by killing the Titan.

Where did that name come from? Dark Lord? It… It felt right to Eren.

The Dark Lord was looking down at him. “Your fear, your hate,” the Dark Lord said, his voice distorted by what sounded like heavy breathing, but no less carrying a commanding presence. “It gives you power, boy. Harness that anger, that will, and it shall liberate you.”

That glowing sword. It was what killed the Titan, cut its nape, and made a big enough hole to pull Eren out… The Dark Lord saved him from being eaten like so many others…

“I can sense it all,” the Dark Lord went on. “Your fallen comrades. Your lost family. Your stolen freedom. All of it, already taken from you.”

Each word the man spoke sounded right to Eren. He couldn’t explain it. How could this person “sense” these things? Know what Eren has experienced? But it was the truth the Dark Lord expressed. So much taken from him, so many killed, so many lost souls to avenge and take back the world in their name.

Eren’s missing arm and leg still were horrible messes bleeding out, he could tell, but another feeling was shoving those painful sensations aside. The Dark Lord said his anger gives him power? Somehow, instinctively, Eren could practically taste the power emanating from the dark shadow before him as easily as Eren could breathe.

“Will you allow the monstrosities of this land to claim your life as well? Violate and devour what remains of your precious world?”

Eren finally answered him. “No,” he said through gritted teeth. “Every single Titan… I’ll drive them all out. Kill them with my bare hands! They’re all gonna die!”

He suddenly felt a sharp pain from his hand, felt the taste of blood in his mouth, and shuddered at what sounded like lightning striking right next to his ears.

Then Eren knew nothing else, except his anger against the world and the undeniable need to obliterate all of the Titans.

----------------------------------------

Armin blinked.

Wait, where was he?

And… Eren! Where was Eren?!

Armin took in his surroundings. He was on the rooftop of one of Trost’s buildings, on his knees. He still had his ODM gear on, but it was… Most of his body was slimy, covered with saliva from when he was… he was…

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“Eren!” Armin cried out. Eren had saved him. Where was he now?

The Titan had closed his mouth on Eren, a severed arm winding through the air past Armin… only for the bearded monster to fall over, dead. Armin’s gaze had been locked squarely on the Titan’s face, so there had been no time to look for any sign of Eren somehow cutting the nape from inside the throat or of a soldier flying by to secure the kill. Another Titan from behind Armin had crawled onto the roof and was already holding him in its hands… It was the Titan that had killed Thomas, wasn’t it?

Then Armin had blacked out…

“Eren!” he shouted again. He had to find him. Armin stood up and looked closer at his surroundings. Over the edge of the roof, he saw the skeletal remains of the bearded Titan. Yes, that was him. Its limbs and skull were positioned the exact same way as the Titan had fallen in the flashes of Armin’s memory. Steam was still rising into the air from the evaporating corpse.

No sign of Eren, still, but something else took up his attention.

Men, or at least two-armed, two-legged figures that were of the size and had the proportions of normal humans, were scattered around the dead Titan on the streets. More of these strange figures were also on the top of the building across from Armin overlooking the Titan. They all wore strange stark white armor. Most were holding narrow black devices in their hands. They appeared too small to be swords or clubs. From the way the devices were held, were they compact muskets?

Armin caught the eyes of one of these men. He couldn’t see much from this distance, but Armin did see two black shapes where the man’s eyes should be. Were there miniscule openings on those shapes that allowed him to see Armin?

“Hey, kid!”

The voice came from someone on the roof with Armin. His nerves frayed as they were, Armin jumped and instinctively prepared to pull out one of his blades.

“Easy there, kid,” said the man coming to a stop before Armin. He wore a black uniform, complete with boots, a tunic, and a cap with a circular piece of metal on its front. He also had white armor around his chest, though it looked different than what the other figures wore.

His face was unmistakably human, at least, with brown eyes and parted brown hair underneath the cap.

“It’s alright,” the man said slowly. He raised his hands out in a disarming fashion, holding up a clean rag toward Armin. “The medic already checked you. You’re fine, but there wasn’t time to clean up that spit. He’s looking over your friends right now.”

His friends. So Eren was alive?

God, Armin’s hands were shaking as he gripped his sword hilts. He was in no shape to properly fight anyone, Titan or not.

Armin gulped and steadied himself. “Who… Who are you people?”

With a hint of pride, the man said, “I’m Lieutenant Janek Sunber. My men and I are soldiers of the Empire. We’re here to help.”

“... Empire?” An Empire… implied a lot of things…

“You’re a soldier, too,” said Sunber, gesturing at the ODM gear. “Fighting these monsters with those tools. Protecting your home. Right?”

Armin numbly nodded.

“What’s your name?”

There was no hostility in Lieutenant Sunber’s tone or body language. No signs of subterfuge Armin could spot. “I… I’m Cadet Armin Arlert of Squad 34.” He took a few tentative steps forward. Sunber remained where he stood, allowing Armin to take the rag. While Armin kept his eyes on the Lieutenant, he did start wiping off the Titan spit off himself. “You’re all from outside the Walls.”

A grand Empire beyond the Walls, taking the fight against the Titans, and actually winning, finally reconnecting with a weary bastion of humanity in dire need of a savior to keep them from ruin. An Empire that will tear down the Titans, help them reclaim Wall Maria, guide them to the seas of saltwater, the fields of ice, the mountaintops reaching even higher than the Walls into the heavens…

Armin involuntarily sneezed into the rag. He appreciated the abrupt wake-up call anyway. It stopped his mind from wandering. Armin couldn't let himself get hysterical and lost in his fantasies when he was surrounded by foreign soldiers. He really hoped they were truly here to help, but he still needed answers.

Lieutenant Sunber had on a small smile of amusement. “We’re from a little further than just outside the Walls, Wormie.”

Wormie? What did that–

“Armin!”

That voice… and the girl who walked over the other side of the roof into Armin’s view. “Mina?” he yelped in surprise.

Then guilt struck Armin. He remembered it vividly now, freezing as he listened to Mina Carolina and Mylius Zeremski beg for mercy at the Titans lunging for them. Because of Armin’s inaction, everyone was as good as dead. Eren already missing a leg had to save him, a useless excuse for a soldier.

Armin’s failures didn’t register to Mina, every fiber of her being overflowing with relief as she buried him in a hug.

“You’re okay!” she cried, wrought with emotion. “Thank the Walls, they saved you, too!”

Armin returned the hug, but he forced himself to relive those painful memories. It had to be only a few minutes ago at most, given the current state of the bearded Titan. Armin had been so weak, a coward for doing nothing to save his friends and letting them die… He had been so paralyzed with fear and self-pity that he never noticed Sunber and his men saving Mina or the others.

“Mina,” Armin said, seeing her lift her teary-eyed face at him, “who else is still alive?”

Mina sniffled before composing herself, taking another breath as she separated from Armin. “Nack didn’t make it,” she said solemnly. “I saw him…” She shook her head and spoke more hurriedly. “A Titan killed him with a slap. I saw it. Another Titan grabbed my wire. I fell to the ground, against a wall, and saw another Titan grab Mylius by the legs. We both would’ve been dead, eaten alive. But these soldiers saved us!” Mina smiled as she shed more frantic tears. “They even saved Thomas!”

They what?

Thomas Wagner, caught between the teeth of that first leaping Abnormal Titan and swallowed whole. The same Titan which had almost reenacted that horrific scene with Armin, before these Empire soldiers apparently rescued him.

Had Thomas still been alive inside the Titan’s stomach when the Abnormal was killed? Could that mean Eren was alive, too?

But Mina didn’t mention his name at all.

Armin was about to ask her when more figures on the roof approached. He tensed automatically as he tried to keep a cool head and examine them.

One was a man dressed similarly to Sunber, black uniform and white chest armor. He lacked the cap, showing a head with curtly cut pale blonde hair. His face had a few bruises, and he was pressing a bloodied piece of cloth against his forehead. Sunber saw him, too, and frowned at him. “Sheckil! How’d you get those…”

Sunber’s words trailed off as he, Armin, and Mina focused their attention on the black giant briskly marching ahead of Sheckil.

This man’s armor was especially distinct from anything else Armin has seen today, and the presence the stranger emanated with each step he took sent chills down Armin’s spine.

“Lieutenant,” the dark figure said, his deep voice accompanied by unusual breathing, “inform the rest of the task force of the renegade giant.” He gestured vaguely in one direction. “So far, it appears to exclusively target other giants unless otherwise provoked, and is moving toward a congregation to the southwest. Attack it only in self-defense should the need arise. Mark down any noteworthy observations, but continue prioritizing our primary objectives.”

Visibly nervous, Sunber gave a hasty salute – one unique to the Empire, Armin assumed, with a hand raised to his temple instead of a chest placed over his heart. “Yes, my lord.” He exchanged a look with the other soldier, Sheckil, before jogging with him down the roof. Armin finally noticed they were also wearing metallic backpacks, though their designs hardly looked like they could carry much inside. Maybe they were the Empire’s version of ODM gear?

The blank eyes of the dark figure’s helmet looked at Armin. Instead of fight, his instincts for flight were going overboard. His grip on his hilts inched toward firing off his gas to escape instead of drawing his swords.

But Armin stood his ground.

“These monsters you fight,” the lord said in that disturbing enunciation of his. “What do you call them?”

Mina was just staring at a towering figure, so Armin forced himself to speak, intelligibly without stuttering. “We call them Titans, sir.”

The lord’s gaze seemed to linger on Mina, causing her to squirm on the spot, before he settled it again on Armin. “Is the nape of the neck their only known vulnerability to permanently put them down?”

The soldiers of the Empire were from outside of the Walls, a world that was overrun and destroyed by Titans, yet they were unaware of one of the first things the cadets of the Walls Military ever learned about humanity’s sworn enemy?

Before Armin’s mind became too distracted, he answered, “That we know of, yes.”

“Can more of you transform into Titans as your friend did?”

Armin’s fear halted, replaced by confusion. “My friend… did what? Are you talking about Eren?” Pulling away from the lord’s scrutiny, Armin tried nudging Mina for answers. She said nothing, her own gaze never wavering from the lord.

What was he talking about? Transforming? Was Eren truly alive or not?

Sunber and Sheckil returned. “Lord Vader,” Sheckil said, using a more professional, direct tone than Sunber’s calming, friendly demeanor used for Armin, “we have a report from the south gate. The native militia posted there have been completely wiped out, and Meremu Company was unable to fortify the gate before the Titans overran the area. We lost contact with Chainly and Frickett, but Captain Bex is moving deeper into the city with a few squads in two Juggernauts. They knew to keep their distance from the renegade giant.”

Lord Vader gave a nearly imperceptible title of his head, considering the information. “Very well. Sergeant Sheckil, once the other wounded cadets are stabilized, deliver them to the top of the Wall at the south gate. Lieutenant Sunber, the rest of your platoon will ensure the safe return of Arlert and Carolina to the northern wall, along with any other soldiers or civilians you encounter on the way.”

Both soldiers dutifully saluted. “Yes, my lord.”

Vader regarded Armin again. The underlying want to flee was still there, but Armin squashed it down as much as he could.

“You, and your friend, Eren,” Lord Vader said. “You both share a desire to see the world beyond these walls. Beyond the Titans.”

Who exactly was this man? “How do you know that? Who are you?” What sort of Empire had entered the Walls?

“I am Darth Vader,” the Dark Lord announced. “You have chosen your friends wisely, Cadet Arlert. Beyond whatever abilities this planet has imbued in your comrade Eren, the Force is strong in him. Allow the Empire to expand your limited perceptions of your pitiful home, and it will grant you the freedom to this world you both desperately long for.”