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Seriously, what the hell am I doing?...
Hannes had his hands shakingly placed at the trigger of the rifle. The rifle shot was a pathetic, cracking sound against the symphony of chaos as it passed through Zs'Skayr's intangible skull with a faint phfft of displaced air. The attack was like a spitball against a hurricane, but it was enough. The Ectonurite Lord's triumphant advance halted. His single, luminous eye, fixed on his prey, slowly swiveled away from Eren. The ancient, star-eating malice that had been focused on the boy now shifted, zeroing in on the source of the interruption.
Yet Hannes stood his ground, the smoking rifle trembling in his hands as his heart continuously hammered a frantic drum solo against his ribs. He saw the abomination turn, and the weight of that gaze felt like ice water poured down his spine. It definitely looked pissed off.
Eren's Opticoid body; a grotesque tableau of glowing eyes and a missing right arm; staggered to his feet, the red Titan markings etched across his yellow flesh pulsing faintly. His seventeen eyes swiveled, locking onto Hannes.
"HANNES?!" Eren roared, his garbled voice a mix of shock and panic. "What the hell are you doing?!"
Hannes felt his knees shaking beneath the weight of carrying an unconscious Jochen strapped to his back. The younger soldier's face was pale, his uniform bloodied, but his chest rose and fell (That would be explained momentarily) "Saving your sorry ass, kid!" Hannes shouted back, his voice cracking with fear and bravado. "Now move!"
"A flea," Zs'Skayr's voice finally rasped out, a sound like a grave opening. "A buzzing, insolent little flea." He raised a clawed hand, telekinetic energy; a visible distortion of dark blue light; crackling around his needle-like fingers. The massive chunk of rubble from the shattered shack began to tremble and turn towards its new target. "I shall enjoy swatting you."
Time seemed to slow. Hannes once again saw his death hovering in the air, ready to be hurled at him. He was frozen, a mouse in the gaze of a serpent.
At once Eren reacted on instinct. His Opticoid form, though battered, was fast. He launched forward becoming a blur of yellow and black in the process, while the rubble hurtled toward Hannes like a deadly missile. Eren slammed into the Garisson soldier, his single remaining arm wrapping around Hannes's torso with surprising strength; knocking him and Jochen to the ground sideways just as the slab crashed where they'd stood, splintering into dust and stone sharpel.
"Hannes, you idiot!" Eren yelled, his eyes swiveling to check for injuries. Hannes coughed, spitting dirt, Jochen's weight pinning him. Hannes's eyes then went wide, first taking in the monstrous form, then locking onto the horrifyingly smooth stump where Eren's right arm should have been.
"Kid… your arm… what in the name of the Walls happened to your arm?!"
"Doesn't matter!" Eren snapped, shoving Hannes forward, the Titan marks glowing faintly against his alien skin. "We have to move!" He glanced back at the group; Mikasa, Armin, Carla in her wheelchair, Grandpa Arlet clutching his wounded side; still cornered by thralls near the shack's ruins. "You guys, go! NOW!"
But Zs'Skayr's grating laugh interrupted, a sound like grinding stones. "No escape for any of you," he rasped, his eye glowing with sadistic glee. A psychic command, silent and absolute, echoed through his thralls. The violet-eyed horrors that had been momentarily stunned by Hannes's interruption now surged as one, swarming the route the others had taken, cutting off Eren and Hannes. They moved with a new, terrifying purpose, their jaws snapping and claws reaching.
"They're boxing us in!" Hannes shouted, fumbling for his ODM blades, knowing they were practically useless. Eren's eyes swiveled, taking in the swarm.
"Damn it!" Eren's numerous eyes darted around, calculating, panicking. They were surrounded. He saw the broken, sparking remains of the Sun Gun lying nearby where it had been smashed against the wall. A grimace of despair twisted his alien features. Their best hope was in shambles.
Then, a crazy, desperate idea flashed in his mind.
"Hannes this might be stupid, but I need you to hang on!" Eren yelled.
"Hang on to wha—WOAH!" Hannes yelped as Eren's single arm scooped him up like a sack of potatoes, slinging him over his shoulder with inhuman strength; Jochen still strapped onto Hannes' back.
"Brace yourself!"
Eren didn't run around the swarm. He ran through it.
He became a battering ram of sheer willpower, lowering his head and plowing into the wall of thralls. Claws scraped against his skin, teeth snapped at his legs, but he powered through, Hannes yelling in a mix of terror and awe as thralls were sent stumbling aside.
But the horde was too thick. They'd never make it. Eren's eyes scanned for an exit, a higher path, and found one. Reiner's corrupted, armored thrall form was shambling forward, its violet eyes fixed on them, a moving mountain of malice.
Without a second thought, Eren charged straight for it. He put on a final burst of speed, leaped onto its broad, armored knee, used a spiked pauldron as a stepping stone, and then, with a powerful thrust of his legs, launched himself upward.
His clawed foot planted squarely on the thing's face, right between its glowing eyes, using the monstrous Titan-thrall as a springboard. The creature roared in confused fury, swiping at the air as Eren, with Hannes still slung over his shoulder, soared over the heads of the lesser thralls, landing in a stumbling run on the other side of the blockade, catching up to the retreating group.
As he ran, a strange, deep cold; a power he hadn't known he possessed; stirred within his body's core. It was a latent ability, a part of this form's DNA, unlocked by sheer desperation and the need to protect. He didn't fully understand it, but he willed it forth. A thrall lunged at his flank, and three of the smaller eyes on his side swiveled together to form a bigger eye and glowed not with heat, but with a pale, blue-white light. A thin beam of concentrated cryogenic energy shot out, flash-freezing the thrall's leg solid in a block of ice. The creature toppled over, its limb shattering on impact. Eren didn't even break stride, the new power a faint, cold thrum in his veins.
Did he-Did he just did that…
Before Eren could process the ability he had just displayed, he stooped mid-stride while his clawed foot snagged what caught his interest; the broken Sun Gun. He clutched the shattered device, grimacing at the sparking wires and cracked lens. "This better not be useless," he muttered, his heart sinking.
Steam hissed faintly from his right arm stump, unnoticed in the chaos, as the Attack Titan's healing slowly knitted new flesh, too focused on survival at the moment.
Behind them, Zs'Skayr let out a roar of pure, unadulterated frustration that seemed to make the very air vibrate. He dissolved into a cloud of smoke and shot after them, his speed terrifying as he streaked after Eren and Hannes.
"Eren!" Armin cried out as they caught up, his eyes wide with relief and fear. Eren reached the group, panting, his Opticoid form trembling from exertion. He thrust the broken Sun Gun into Grandpa Arlet's hands. "Can you fix this?" he buzzed, desperation in his voice. "It's our only shot!"
Grandpa Arlet, still clutching his bleeding side, examined the weapon, his face grim. "The power core is intact, but the emitter array is busted… maybe I can rig something."
However time was barely on their side as Zs'Skayr was gaining on them faster than anticipated.
"No time, we need to move!" Hannes yelled, hefting the unconscious form of Jochen higher on his back.
Eren snarled, spinning around. Multiple eyes on his face and chest glowed a fierce green. "Keep going! I'll hold him!"
He unleashed a volley of thermal beams, forcing Zs'Skayr to weave and phase, slowing his advance. The Ectonurite swatted the blasts aside with telekinetic shields, his rage growing with each passing second.
"You cannot run forever, child!" Zs'Skayr thundered as his claws glowed with malevolent energy that tore up the ground mere feet behind him, his looming presence a cold shadow that sucked the warmth from the air.
"I don't have to!" Eren yelled back. He took a deep breath, a strange sensation in this form. He closed all but the large central eye on his chest. It glowed brighter and brighter, gathering energy until it was a miniature sun burning in his torso. With a final, guttural cry, he unleashed it; a massive, continuous beam of pure thermal force that slammed into Zs'Skayr like a physical fist, easily breaking through the massive uprooted earth he had used to shield himself.
The Ectonurite Lord was thrown backward, skidding across the earth while smoke rose from his scorched chest. He shrieked in pain and fury but was undeterred from his purpose.
"Foolish child," he spat as his ectoplasmic body was reforming itself. Eren stumbled back slightly, feeling exhaustion etching closer by the second, was there no end to this thing?!
It was then that Grandpa Arlet made his decision. He stopped running. He shoved the broken Sun Gun into Armin's hands.
"Grandpa?!" Armin cried, confusion and dread on his face.
"Listen to me," the old man said, his voice low and urgent, yet impossibly calm. His eyes were fixed on the recovering Zs'Skayr. "This ends now. I can buy you the time you need."
"No!" Eren protested, turning from his enemy. "We're not leaving you!"
"You will," Grandpa Arlet retorted back, his voice brooking no argument.
"Mr Arlet please, this is foolishness on your part!" Carla cried, gripping her wheelchair. "You're hurt!"
Armin, clutching the broken Sun Gun, shook his head as he stumbled to the front of his defiant grandfather, a desperate act of stopping him. "Grandpa, you'll die!"
He looked at Eren, at the missing arm, at the determined set of his alien features. He looked at Hannes, carrying his friend. At Mikasa, protecting his mother. At Armin, clutching the broken tool of their salvation. The old man's face hardened slightly, the Wrecker within him rising.
"I've faced worse than this ghost," he growled. "Go, now! That's an order!" With a strength that belied his injury, he turned and began walking toward Zs'Skayr, pulling a small, cylindrical device from his belt; a backup, something kept for absolute last stands.
Eren hesitated, his eyes swiveling between Grandpa Arlet and Zs'Skayr. This isn't right, he has to do something. The old man is charging to his death, literally! However Hannes, still carrying Jochen, grabbed Eren's arm. "He's right, kid. We move, or we're all dead!"
With heavy reluctance, they decided to do as the veteran wished, making their way away from the threat. Zs'Skayr got to his feet (Tail???), his eye burning with promised vengeance. He saw the old man approaching alone.
"A noble sacrifice? How quaint." He hissed with cold mockery.
"A distraction," Grandpa Arlet corrected, a grim smile on his face as he thumbed the device. It began to hum with a low, powerful energy. "Let's see how you handle a localized energy surge, you overgrown ghost."
A dome of shimmering, golden energy erupted from the device, enveloping both Grandpa Arlet and Zs'Skayr. It wasn't sunlight, but it was intense, chaotic energy that disrupted the Ectonurite's phasing ability, trapping them both inside.
The group stared, horrified, from outside the dome. They could see Zs'Skayr snarling, lashing out at the old man who stood unflinching, buying them precious seconds with his life.
Eren wanted to scream, to fight, to break the dome. But Mikasa's hand was on his carapace. "Eren…"
With a final, agonized look at the brave old man facing down a nightmare, Eren turned. His heart, in whatever form it took, felt like it was shattering. But he ran, leading the shattered remnants of his family and friends away from the light and into the uncertain darkness.
"GRANDPA!" Armin screamed from the distance, tears streaming down his face as he nearly ran back to go after his last family relative hadn't Eren grabbed hold of his best friend and carried him away.
"I'm so sorry Armin." Was all Eren could say as they ran.
Enraged shrieks of Zs'Skayr echoing behind them, contained for now, but not for long. The cost of their escape had just become unbearably high.
_______________
The shimmering energy dome hummed, a prison of light and sound. Inside, the air crackled with pent-up violence. Zs'Skayr floated, his form rippling with annoyance at the containment, his single eye fixed on the frail old man who dared to trap him.
"Your sacrifice is meaningless, human," Zs'Skayr rasped, his claws flexing. "I will break this toy and then I will break them, piece by piece, in front of you."
Grandpa Arlet stood hunched, one hand pressed against the bleeding wound in his side. His breathing was labored, his face pale. He looked every bit the defeated, dying old man.
"You sure about that…Zs'Skayr?"
The smirk on Zs'Skayr's face faltered slightly. Now that he thought of it, he hadn't mentioned his name to these pestilent humans aside from Eren. The brat must have definitely told his precious people…but why does it sound like this senile earthling before him knows him…
Grandpa Arlet let his hand fall away from his injured side he was clutching. The change on his face was instantaneous and horrifying. The pained grimace melted from his face, replaced by a look of cold, ancient weariness. The slight tremor in his limbs stilled into the absolute steadiness of a predator. He slowly straightened his spine, the act seeming to add decades of muscle and power back to his frame. The effort was visible, a great strain, but he did it nonetheless.
And his eyes… they flashed. Not with the mindless violet of a thrall, but with a sharp, intelligent, familiar amethyst light. The technology in his hands, the small cylindrical device, reconfigured itself with a series of sharp, metallic clicks. It unfolded, flowed, and expanded, wrapping around his arms and hands until they were encased in thick, formidable gauntlets. Alien markings, long dormant, glowed with a soft blue light along the forearms.
A wry, tired smirk touched the old man's lips. It was the expression of a soldier who'd hoped his war was over, but was grimly prepared to fight it one last time.
"Now," he said, his voice no longer gravelly with age, but sharp and clear, layered with a power that made the very air vibrate. "Where were we?"
Zs'Skayr recoiled as if physically struck. His ectoplasmic form wavered, not from injury, but from sheer, incalculable shock. The arrogance, the malice, the cosmic disdain, it all evaporated, replaced by a primal, recognized fear.
He knew that smirk. He knew those eyes.
An angered and desperate male creature burning with purple energy of an Anodite and clad in the wreckers' uniform glared venomously at a downed Zs'Skayr.
"This ends now."
Zs'Skayr's eyes narrowed.
"You…"
"Yeah, long time no see ecto-lord."
________________
The world was a blur of panicked motion and distant, fading screams. Eren's Opticoid form, fueled by pure adrenaline and desperation, ate up the ground, carrying them deep into the labyrinthine outskirts of the refugee camp. The chaotic symphony of Zs'Skayr's rage grew fainter, replaced by the ragged sound of their own breathing.
But one sound was constant, a frantic drumbeat against Eren's chest.
"Let me go! Eren, let me GO!" Armin's voice was raw, tears streaming down his face as he pounded his fists against the unyielding skin of Eren's torso. "We have to go back! We can't leave him! He's my GRANDFATHER!"
One of his wild swings connected squarely with one of the smaller eyes on Eren's shoulder (Ouch T_T). Eren flinched, a pained hiss escaping him as he instinctively squeezed that eye shut. "Armin, stop it! He did that so we could live!"
"I DON'T CARE!" Armin screamed, his composure utterly shattered. "He doesn't get to make that choice! Not like that! We could have fought! YOU could have fought!"
It was then that the Omnitrix chose its moment. The familiar, critical BEEP-BEEP-BEEP cut through their struggle. A red flash engulfed Eren, and his powerful, multi-limbed form dissolved, leaving a ten-year-old boy and his best friend tumbling gracelessly to the hard-packed earth in a tangle of limbs.
They skidded to a halt, dust coating their clothes. Armin scrambled to his feet instantly, his body trembling with a mixture of grief and fury. He made to run back the way they came.
Eren was faster. He launched himself forward, his own body screaming in protest from its accumulated injuries, and wrapped his arms around Armin's waist, dragging him down. "Armin, no! You can't!"
"GET OFF ME!" Armin shrieked, elbowing, kicking, fighting with a strength Eren didn't know he possessed. It was a raw, animalistic struggle. "He's all I have left! You have your mom! You have Mikasa! What do I have if he's gone?!"
"You have me!" Eren yelled back, his voice cracking as he struggled to contain his friend with his one good arm. "You've always had me! He told us to go! He knew what he was doing!"
"HE WAS HIDING THINGS FROM ME!" The accusation tore from Armin's throat, a truth he'd been choking on for the past few hours.
"All of it! That book! The Omnitrix! He knew about that… that thing and he never said a word! And it was on YOUR wrist, Eren! It came out of YOUR device! This is all happening because of that stupid thing on your arm!"
He was sobbing now, his struggles weakening into helpless spasms of anger and despair. "We should have… you should have tried harder to control it… I should have figured it out sooner… I'm just… I'm nothing in a fight. I'm useless. I'm always just… nothing."
The words hung in the air, heavy and toxic. Eren felt them like a physical blow. He saw the same thought flash in Armin's wide, terrified eyes; the horrifying, unspoken end to that sentence: '…and my grandfather is dying for nothing.' Armin choked on it, his face crumpling with the shame of nearly saying it aloud.
The fight went out of him. He went limp in Eren's grasp, his body wracked with silent, heaving sobs. Eren's own anger deflated, replaced by a cold, hard lump of guilt and shared grief. He didn't let go, just held his friend tighter as they knelt in the dirt, two boys crushed under the weight of a horror they were never meant to bear.
Hannes, setting the unconscious Jochen down gently against a broken fencepost, watched them with a grim, weary expression. He'd seen men break under less. Mikasa stood guard, her knife still out, her eyes constantly scanning the shadows, but her posture was stiff with the shared pain. Carla's hand was over her mouth, her own tears falling for the old man and for the boys breaking down before her.
It was Hannes who broke the silence, his voice rough but calm. "Alright. That's enough." He walked over and put a hand on each of their shoulders.
"You're both right, and you're both wrong. He chose his path. Your job now is to make sure it wasn't for nothing. We need a plan, or we're all just waiting to die."
His words, blunt and soldierly, cut through the despair. Sniffling, Armin slowly pushed himself up. Eren released him, also standing. They couldn't look at each other.
"He's right," Armin whispered, wiping his face with a filthy sleeve. His voice was hollow. "A plan. We need a plan."
Their retreat took them to the very edge of the camp, where the shacks gave way to the larger, more permanent structures of Trost refugee's agricultural belt. They found refuge in a large, dilapidated barn that smelled of old hay and dust. The relative silence was unnerving.
It was then that a figure emerged from the shadows of an empty horse stall, making them all jump.
Annie Leonhardt leaned heavily against the wooden frame, her right arm clutched awkwardly against her chest, clearly broken. Her face was pale, smudged with dirt and blood, but her ice-blue eyes were alert, burning with a cold fury. Her gaze immediately locked onto Eren.
"You…!" she hissed, the word dripping with venom.
Before anyone could react, she pushed off the wall and crossed the distance in a limping rush. Her good hand shot out, not with a weapon, but with terrifying speed and precision, grabbing Eren by the throat and slamming him against the barn wall.
"This is all your fault!" she snarled, her face inches from his. The pain and rage of the night—Reiner, Bertholdt, the horror of those abominations that had once been people—boiled over, directed entirely at him.
"That thing! That device! What did you do?!"
Eren gagged, clawing at her iron grip. "I didn't—!"
"Annie, stop!" Armin cried out.
Hannes moved forward, but it was Mikasa who was fastest. In a flash, her knife was at Annie's throat. "Let him go. Now." Her voice was deathly quiet.
Annie's eyes flicked to Mikasa, then back to Eren, her grip tightening. And that's when she saw them. In the dim moonlight filtering through the barn boards, the angry, red lines etched across Eren's face and the side of his neck were unmistakable.
…Titan…marks?
Her fury stuttered, replaced by a shock so profound it momentarily loosened her grip. Her eyes widened a fraction.
'He's a… Shifter? But… how?!'
Questions, so MANY questions screamed in her mind. How, why, when, what…Could he be…the co-ordinate, or the lost titan??? But her training took over. This wasn't the time to spiral; she couldn't blow her cover. She buried the revelation, her face a mask of cold stone once more, but the confusion lingered behind her eyes.
Nothing…Nothing was making any sense at the moment.
"Everyone, just STOP!" Carla's voice, usually so gentle, cut through the tension like a whip. She wheeled herself between them, her face fierce. "Fighting amongst ourselves is what it wants! We are not the enemy!"
Annie slowly, reluctantly, released Eren. He slumped against the wall, gasping for air, rubbing his throat.
"Maam…" Annie said, her voice low and dangerous, turning her accusatory glare to Carla. "Do you have any idea what this boy is? What he's brought here?"
Carla met her gaze without flinching. "I know that this boy; my son; is a child who was given a power he doesn't understand. I know that a monster has chosen to use that as an excuse to torment us. That is all I need to know."
The answer was so simple, so maternal, and so utterly devoid of the fear or suspicion Annie expected that it left her momentarily speechless. This woman…was his mother. How is she so calm about the kind of thing her son is?
Annie just stared, her carefully constructed worldview of Eldian devils and justified warriors cracking at the edges, even as she believed all were the same.
It was Hannes who played peacemaker, stepping forward with his hands up. "Look, blonde kid, we're all on the same side right now. That's 'not getting killed by ghost monsters'." He gestured to Eren's right arm. "See? Even the kid's paying the price."
They all looked. The stump of Eren's arm was… knitting itself back together. Tendons, muscle, and bone were visibly regenerating at an impossible rate, weaving itself back into existence from the elbow down. It was a grotesque, fascinating, and deeply unsettling sight.
Eren flexed the newly formed fingers, his own face a mask of confusion. Another feature of the gadget?
"It's… the device. It must be." he muttered, latching onto the only explanation he had. He couldn't process the alternative, the one that Annie now secretly knew.
The group fell into an uneasy silence, the only sound being the faint, wet sounds of Eren's healing flesh and the ragged breathing of the unconscious Garrison soldier Hannes had carried with him. The man's head lolled, his face pale and smeared with soot, a dark bruise blooming on his temple aside from the wound around his side.
Mikasa's eyes, ever watchful, narrowed. "Who is he?" she asked, her voice low. Her knife was still in her hand, a silent promise of violence if this stranger proved a threat (Girl he's unconscious for the love of God).
Hannes sank onto an overturned crate, the weight of the night pressing down on him. He ran a hand over his face, smearing dirt and sweat. "His name's Jochen. One of mine." He gestured vaguely toward the chaos outside. "We were on gate duty when… all this started."
Armin, who had been staring blankly at the broken Sun Gun in his hands, looked up, his curiosity momentarily overriding his grief.
"How did you find us?" The blonde boy asked curiously, his eyes also trailed on the young garrison. "And… what happened to him?"
A dark, haunted look passed over Hannes's face. He stared at Jochen's prone form, the memory playing out behind his eyes.
"It's…complicated…"
Earlier…
The world was a nightmare of jerking violet eyes and snarling mouths. Hannes, his ODM gear empty and useless, moved like a ghost himself, following the possessed form of Jochen through the chaotic streets. His friend's body moved with a predator's grace that was utterly alien (I mean it is actually Alien, sooo…).
He thought he was being stealthy, using the rubble and shadows for cover. He was wrong.
…Terribly wrong.
Jochen's head snapped around, his neck craning at an impossible angle. The violet light in his eyes fixed on Hannes's hiding spot with unnerving accuracy. A guttural snarl ripped from Jochen's throat; a sound that belonged in a slaughterhouse, not a man.
Hannes's cover was blown.
Jochen lunged. Hannes brought his rifle up, the bayonet pointed at his friend's chest, but…he couldn't do it. He couldn't drive steel into the heart of the man he'd shared a drink with just hours before!
"Jochen! Snap out of it, damn you!" Hannes yelled as he backpedaled.
The thrall didn't even flinch. It lunged again, and Hannes was forced to swing the rifle like a club, the stock connected with its shoulder with a sickening crack. Jochen's body staggered but didn't fall, its expression one of vacant fury. It grabbed the barrel of the rifle, its strength inhuman, and wrenched it from Hannes's grasp before flinging it into the darkness.
Hannes scrambled away, desperation turning his blood to ice. He tripped over a stack of crates, sending them clattering. A nearby torch, knocked from its bracket, tumbled to the ground, its flame licking hungrily at the dry fabric of a discarded tent.
The thrall-Jochen advanced, unconcerned by the growing fire. Hannes's back hit a wall. Nowhere to run.
The fire…
A crazy idea, born of pure survival instinct, seized him. As the thrall lunged again, Hannes didn't try to dodge. Instead, he dove toward the fallen torch, rolling through the dirt and coming up with a burning length of tent pole in his hand, the canvas aflame at its tip.
He thrusted it like a spear.
The possessed thrall recoiled violently, a piercing screech tearing from its throat. The violet light in its eyes flickered. It wasn't a killing blow, but the fire… the fire hurt it. It was afraid.
Emboldened, Hannes pressed the attack, swinging the makeshift torch. He wasn't trying to kill it; he was trying to herd it. He drove the creature back, toward the spreading flames of the tent. It stumbled, its foot catching on a guy line, and fell backward into the heart of the fire.
What happened next would be seared into Hannes's memory forever.
Jochen's body convulsed. The thrall's control shattered under the wave of searing pain. Its form seemed to… blur. A wisp of solid shadow, a thing of nightmares, vomited itself out of Jochen's mouth in a wave of black smoke, repelled by the flames consuming its host. The Mp thrall hit the ground, screeching as its form wavered, its intangibility failing as the fire weakened it. It was smaller now, vulnerable.
Jochen himself collapsed, silent and still amidst the flames.
Hannes didn't hesitate. This thing, this parasite, was the real enemy. Letting out a raw cry of rage and grief, he lunged forward and brought his boot down on the shrieking MP thrall with all his strength. Once. Twice. There was a wet, horrific crunching pop, like stepping on a giant insect. The violet light in its eyes snuffed out. What emitted from the dead mp thrall was a foul-smelling, greasy black sludge that seeped into the dirt.
The fight was over. The only sound was the crackle of the burning tent.
Panting, his hands shaking, Hannes rushed into the flames. He grabbed Jochen by the arms, ignoring the heat that blistered his own skin, and dragged the younger man clear of the fire. He was alive, unconscious, his uniform smoldering, but he was breathing. He was Jochen again.
With trembling fingers, Hannes used a torn strip of his own jacket to strap the unconscious soldier to his back. He had to find the others. He had to warn them. And he had to get this kid to safety.
"…And that's about it. I guess." Hannes said as he finished his story, his voice a hollow shell. He looked at his feet as if still seeing the black sludge clinging to his boot. The silence in the barn was absolute. Nobody actually daring to say a word.
"Fire," Hannes whispered, the word heavy with new meaning. "It didn't just hurt the ghost officer. It… it forced that thing right out of him. It made it solid. It made it so I could…" He trailed off, unable to finish.
Armin was no longer looking at the broken Sun Gun. He was staring at Hannes, his blue eyes wide, the gears in his mind turning at a terrifying speed. The grief was still there, a cold stone in his gut, but it was now surrounded by the sharp, crystalline edges of a brutal, terrifying calculation.
'Fire huh…'
His eyes drifted from Hannes's traumatized face to the rusty scythe leaning against the wall. To the old, dry hay bales. To the cracked oil lamp. Finally, his gaze landed on Eren, and the device on his wrist.
The plan that had been a vague notion in his head suddenly crystallized into something far more specific, far more dangerous, and far more cruel. He didn't say it yet. He let the horrific implication hang in the air, a specter of what he was about to propose. The silence stretched, thick with dread and anticipation.
Finally, his voice quiet but clear, the strategist pushing through the horror, Armin spoke.
"We need to use his glaring weakness. The light."
_______________
The shimmering energy dome hummed, a prison of light and sound, its golden glow casting jagged shadows across the ruined refugee camp. Inside, the air crackled with pent-up violence, ozone thick with the scent of impending doom.
Grandpa Arlet moved with a speed that defied his age, his gauntlets; etched with glowing alien runes; hummed with power. They weren't for punching; they were emitters, relics of his Wrecker past. With sharp, precise gestures, he unleashed lashing whips of concussive force, not light, that tore through the air like sonic blades. Each whip struck Zs'Skayr's ectoplasmic form, sending painful ripples through his intangible body, like stones disturbing still water. The Ectonurite screeched as his single eye blazed with fury.
"Your tricks have grown stale, human!" Zs'Skayr snarled, phasing and weaving through the onslaught. He retaliated with volleys of telekinetically hurled debris; shattered wood, stone, and twisted metal; lashing tendrils of shadow coiling behind them like vipers.
"Still enough for you, ghost!" Arlet grunted, deflecting a chunk of rock with a shimmering kinetic shield that erupted from his gauntlet. He closed the distance, amethyst glow burning in his eyes, a soldier reborn from a war beyond the stars. For a glorious, terrifying moment, he was the Wrecker of old. He lunged, landing a solid blow; a concussive blast that slammed squarely into Zs'Skayr's chest, sending the Ectonurite skidding back with a piercing screech of pain, smoke rising from his scorched form.
The dome trembled while Arlet's gauntlets pulsed with violet energy. He pressed the attack, whips cracking, each hit disrupting Zs'Skayr's cohesion. "I beat you once," he growled, memories of distant battles flashing in his mind…
A younger Wrecker facing an incoming army of Ectonurites along with his team.
"I'll do it again."
But the glow in his eyes flickered. A sheen of sweat coated his brow, his breathing a ragged, painful rasp. His power; a hybrid spark…was crushing him. His arms trembled, the gauntlets' runes dimming as his body faltered under the strain.
Zs'Skayr rose, his ectoplasmic form knitting itself back together while his sneer widened with cruel triumph. He saw it; the flicker, the weakness.
"You're tired, old man," he hissed as he glided forward, claws glowing with telekinetic malice. "That spark… a pathetic echo. A borrowed trinket. You were never one of them, were you? Just a mortal thief playing with power he could never master."
Arlet's jaw clenched, defiance burning despite the pain. He raised his gauntlets for one last attack, but they sputtered, the violet light dying, reverting to cold, dead metal. He collapsed to one knee, gasping, blood pooling beneath him.
"You'll… never… have him." The old man choked out, clutching the cylindrical device that powered the dome.
"The humans have made you soft. WEAK," Zs'Skayr sneered, looming over him. "A fitting end… for a relic." With a contemptuous flick of his tail, he unleashed a telekinetic surge, slamming Arlet into the ground. The old man's body crumpled, broken and still, the dome flickering out in a final, dying pulse of golden light.
Zs'Skayr didn't bother finishing him; the old fool was no threat. His burning violet eye turned toward the area, where Eren had fled. "The boy is mine," he rasped, dissolving into a cloud of smoke.
His psychic command echoed through his thralls. "To the city! Feast on their fear! The rest, bring me the Omnitrix!"Half the horde; violet-eyed horrors with snapping jaws; surged toward Trost's citizen sector, drawn to the dense population. The other half, led by Reiner's towering, armored thrall, charged after Eren's group, their heavy footsteps shaking the earth.
Arlet's final breath escaped, a whisper in the fading light: "Eren… keep fighting." His amethyst eyes dulled to gray, the Wrecker's spark extinguished as darkness consumed him.
________________
Air surrounding the refugee camp sector had grown still and cold, a false calm that clung to the rubbles. The distant, panicked screams from the far vicinity were a constant, grim reminder of the threat that had slipped its leash. But here, where shacks lay splintered and the earth was scarred from recent violence, the hunt was personal.
Zs'Skayr floated amidst his chosen retinue, a court of nightmares. Reiner's corrupted, armored form stood like a grotesque statue as its violet eyes scanned the ruins with a dull, programmed hatred. Around it, a dozen other thralls; former MPs and refugees; shambled with jerky unnatural movements, their heads cocked as they sniffed for a psychic scent only they could detect.
"Find the boy," Zs'Skayr's voice rasped, a sound that seemed to leech the warmth from the very stones. "Tear this wretched camp apart until you do. His defiance has cost us enough time!"
At the back of the ecto-lord's mind he couldn't help but be worried of the upending rise of his greatest problem...The sun. He had to acquire the boy's body, and fast.
The thralls let out a chorus of wet, guttural clicks and snarls, beginning to claw at piles of debris. Reiner's form took a step forward, a massive, bladed arm rising to sweep aside a collapsed wall.
Then a blur flashed by.
That was all it was. A streak of black and blue so fast it was less a shape and more a slash of paint across the world. It ended as abruptly as it began.
Standing atop a lone, precarious fence post, perfectly balanced on one foot, was a figure. It was sleek, a paradox of organic and mechanical design. The skin was a dark shade of onyx, like polished armor, segmented across the chest and limbs. Racing down Its sides and along his powerful, digitigrade legs were vibrant, electric-teal stripes that pulsed with a soft inner light. Its feet were large, stable ball shaped pads with two large toes, and its hands were three-fingered claws, sharp and precise. The head was helmet-like, streamlined for speed, with a sharp, almost beaked mouthplate and a single, continuous visor of deep blue that hid his eyes, reflecting the horrified world back at itself. From the back of the figure's head swept short, fin-like spikes, each vibrating like bees. This was no simple speedster; this was a predator built for velocity.
Every single violet eye snapped toward him. A chorus of guttural snarls erupted.
Zs'Skayr's upside-down skull tilted, his own luminous eye narrowing. A slow, grating chuckle escaped his jagged maw.
"So… the little fly has grown tired of running. Has your courage finally eclipsed your cowardice, or have you simply come to accept the inevitable?"
The figure's posture was coiled and tense. The green slits behind his visor burned into the Ectonurite.
"Courage? Cowardice?" Eren's voice was distorted, higher-pitched, layered with an electric buzz, but the cold fury was unmistakably his. "Don't flatter yourself. I just realized I was wasting my time running from a specter who preys on the helpless. A true ruler conquers armies, not orphans. You're a scavenger. A vulture."
The air grew several degrees colder. The smug amusement vanished from Zs'Skayr's face, replaced by pure, undiluted rage. The insult; the reduction of his majesty (Who cares) to that of a common carrion-eater; struck a nerve deeper than any physical blow.
"You common welt—" Zs'Skayr began, his form swelling with dark energy.
"Where is he?" Eren interrupted, his voice sharp as a whip crack. "Armin's grandfather. What did you do to him?"
Zs'Skayr's rage subsided into a cruel, gloating calm. He relished the question. And Eren didn't like it one bit.
"The senile fool?" he purred, drifting slightly closer. "He made a… valiant… attempt to play the hero. He discovered that mortality is a currency with very little value in the face of true power. Let's just say his spark has been… permanently extinguished. A fitting end for a failed Wrecker."
A cold knot of dread and fury tightened in Eren's chest. The vague confirmation was worse than a detailed account. It left his mind to imagine the worst. The green light of his visor seemed to intensify, flickering like a storm.
"You're going to burn for that," Eren buzzed, the promise absolute and cold.
Then he moved.
It wasn't a run; it was a vanishing act. One second he was there, the next, a Black-and-blue streak was already zipping down a narrow alleyway, kicking up a plume of dust.
"BRING ME HIS CARCASS!" Zs'Skayr's psychic shriek of fury echoed through the minds of every thrall. The horde surged forward as one, a wave of twisted flesh and violet light, with Reiner's armored form crashing through shacks to follow.
The chase was a mockery. Eren was a phantom, a will-o'-the-wisp (I think I said that correctly…). He would appear for a split second on top of a crumbling roof shack, drawing a volley of thrown debris from Reiner. Then he'd be gone, his laughter; a taunting, high-speed buzz; echoed from a completely different direction. He led them on a maddening spiral, further and further from the center of the camp, toward its eastern edge where the land was scarred by deep, wide irrigation ditches dug for Trost's farms.
He led them straight toward his intended goal.
As he ran, a part of his mind, cold and detached despite the anger fueling him, replayed the desperate planning session in the barn.
"He'll follow you, Eren. His ego won't let him do otherwise." Armin's voice was tight with fear, but his mind was already several steps ahead.
Then, Annie's cold interjection cut through the barn's silence, sharp and pragmatic. "Your plan has one glaring flaw. You might cage the wolf, but you'll be surrounded by a pack of rabid dogs. We'll be overrun."
Whatever hope they had sputtered, threatening to die. But Armin's mind had already been racing, turning the problem inside out.
"You're right," Armin had said, a strange, calculating light in his eyes. "We can't fight them all. So…we won't. We're going to let them come. We're going to let them all gather right where we want them."
Eren shot a glance over his shoulder. The horde was still there, Reiner's massive form bulldozed a path through everything in his way.
Good. They were all following. The plan was in motion.
The boy turned Kineceleran put on a final burst of speed, zipping across a wide, open field pockmarked with these deep, man-made canyons. He stopped on the far side, turning to face his pursuers.
As the thralls poured into the field, shrieking and howling, the ground itself betrayed them. The edges of the largest ditches, weakened by pre-placed lever equipment immediately gave way. Thralls tumbled over the edges by the dozen, plummeting into the deep trenches with startled screeches.
"Good thing I'm fast enough to have made that ditch…" Eren muttered to himself as he watch more of Zs'Skayr's thralls pour in, unable to stop their descent, pushed by the mindless momentum of the horde, creating a domino effect of falling bodies. In moments, the majority of the thralls were trapped, clawing impotently at the steep, hard-packed earth walls.
But one thrall did not fall.
Reiner's 2 meter armored form reached the edge of a ditch. His claws dug into the opposite side, and with a terrifying show of strength, he simply vaulted across the gap, landing with a ground-shaking thud, his violet eyes locking onto Eren's alien form with renewed fury. He was isolated from the main horde, which was now trapped and scrambling uselessly in the pits.
"Of course you just had to be the exception." Eren sneered as he backpedaled slowly, the armored thrall closing in on him.
"The big armored one… he's the problem. He won't fall like the others." Armin contemplated. If not handled right, this could lead to a disaster.
The sheer insanity of it had hung in the air. Eren and Mikasa's eyes widened, while Hannes had a furrowed eyebrow.
"What are trying to say kid?"
"Someone has to… to keep him separated. To hold him off." Armin replied, his voice faltering for the first time as he voiced the plan's biggest risk.
A beat of grim silence ensued at that statement.
"I'll do it."
The offer came from Annie, her voice flat, but with an undercurrent of steel. She didn't look at them, her gaze fixed on the wall, as if seeing the monstrous form of her former comrade. "If no one is up for the task, then I believe no objections is needed. And before you ask, yes; I can handle myself."
"I'll go too."
Mikasa's voice was immediate, leaving no room for debate. Her eyes weren't on Annie with gratitude, but with cold assessment. This wasn't about trust; it was about ensuring the job was done.
"No, No! Absolutely not!" Eren's protest was explosive. He stepped forward, his face a mask of anguish. "That's suicide! You both should be getting to safety, not… not facing that thing!"
Mikasa turned to him, her gaze softening just a fraction, but her resolve was unbreakable. "Eren, if that thing follows you to the irrigation site, the plan fails. You die. We all die. This is the only way."
"She's right," Annie added, her tone brutally matter-of-fact. She finally glanced at Eren, a cryptic, challenging look in her ice-blue eyes. "You have enough to worry about. Or did you forget how easily you were always defenseless without that device? Focus on the ghost. Let us handle the… muscle."
The reminder of their fight, of his own vulnerability, hit its mark. Eren flinched, his arguments dying in his throat. He looked from Annie's cold certainty to Mikasa's unwavering determination.
Mikasa placed a hand on his good arm, her touch firm. "We can handle this, Eren. Trust us."
The words were simple, but they carried the weight of their entire shared history. He saw the promise in her eyes: I will protect your dream. And to do that, I will do this.
A war raged in Eren's eyes; protectiveness versus necessity, fear versus trust. Finally, his shoulders slumped in reluctant, fearful agreement. "Just… just be careful."
Armin, who had been holding his breath, let it out. The final, terrible piece of the plan was in place.
"That's the trade, they deal with the strongest thrall, we get the rest. You just get Zs'Skayr to the center. Alone."
It was a brutal, calculated split. A gamble that trusted Annie's strength and Mikasa's skill to contain their most powerful corrupted comrade, while the terrain itself handled the rank-and-file thralls.
And that was precisely the plan.
Just as the armored thrall was about to take another step, two figures emerged from the shadow of a tool shed. Mikasa, a pair of ODM gear swords in hand, her expression a mask of cold determination. And beside her, Annie, her broken arm cradled to a sling but her stance firm, her eyes burning with a promise of violence for what had been done to her comrades.
They didn't look at Eren. Their focus was entirely on the corrupted Titan before them.
"He's ours," Mikasa said, her voice barely a whisper but carrying absolute finality. Annie just nodded, a grim acceptance passing between them. This was a debt that needed to be paid.
Eren gave one last look at the scene: his friend (s?) facing the monstrous thrall, the other thralls trapped in their pits. The first part of the plan was a success.
Now for the second.
His glowing green slits fixed on Zs'Skayr, who hovered just above the chaos as he had caught up with Eren, his ghostly form trembling with incandescent rage at the trickery.
"Just you and me now, 'Lord'," Blitz buzzed, the title dripping with contempt. "No more puppets to hide behind."
Then he turned and ran, not at super-speed, but fast enough to be followed, leading the furious Ectonurite away from the din of battle and toward the silent, waiting expanse of the main irrigation site. The final stage was set.
________________
Trost district…
The heavy iron gate of Trost's inner district groaned shut behind Hannes with a final, thunderous clang that felt like a tomb sealing. The relative silence on this side was deafening, broken only by the panicked sobs of the refugees who had made it through and the shouted, confused orders of the Garrison troops trying to form some semblance of a defensive line.
Hannes stumbled, the weight of the unconscious Jochen on his back a dead, agonizing burden. Every muscle screamed in protest due to the immense effort. The world swam in and out of focus, a blur of torchlight and terrified faces. Until-
"Hannes! By the Walls, man! Where the hell have you been?!"
A hand clamped onto his arm, steadying him. It was Stefan, his face pale and etched with a mixture of relief and sheer panic. Behind him, Hank and a few other soldiers from their unit gathered, their eyes wide as they took in the scene.
"We thought you were dead! We thought the riot got you both!" Hank's voice was shrill then his eyes fixed onto Jochen's lolling head, making them widen in shock.
"What happened to him? Is he…?"
"He's alive," Hannes rasped, his throat raw. He gently slid Jochen off his back into Stefan's waiting arms. "But we've got bigger problems than a riot."
"Bigger problems…?" Hank repeated.
"…Yeah." Hannes said wearily, his mind replaying what had happened a few minutes prior.
Few minutes ago…
Hannes was being carried, the world a dizzying blur of environment. The wind tore at his clothes. One moment they were by the barn, the next they were at the far entrance to the refugee camp, the lights of Trost's inner gate visible in the distance. The speedster; Eren; set him and a stunned Carla down with impossible gentleness.
"This is as far as I can take you," Eren's clicking (I guess) voice was urgent. "You have to get to Trost. Now."
"Eren, no! You can't go back there alone!" Carla cried, her hand shooting out to grab his arm.
"I have to! It's the only way! Armin thinks… he thinks that thing will send his… his troops… to Trost. To cause panic. There could be dozens, hundreds more in the camp. I have to lead him away from here."
Carla's face was a mask of terror, but her grip on his arm was firm. "You listen to me, Eren Yeager. You are my son. You come back. You come back to me. Do you understand? No stupid heroics! You be careful!"
For a moment, the alien creature seemed to soften. "I will, Mom. I promise."
Then, he was gone. A blur vanishing back into the heart of the nightmare.
The memory faded, leaving Hannes staring at Stefan and Hank's bewildered faces.
"It's not a riot," Hannes said, his voice a low haunted whisper, forcing himself to leave Eren's name out of it. "The refugees… they weren't lying."
"What are you talking about?" Hank demanded.
"There are things out there," Hannes said, the word 'Titans' feeling utterly inadequate. "Worse than Titans. They look like people, but their eyes… they glow. Violet. They're fast. Strong. And they… they get inside you." He met Stefan's horrified gaze. "They possess you. Turn you into one of them."
A stunned silence fell. Hank shook his head, having enough of this madness. "Hannes, you've lost it. The brandy's finally cooked your brain."
That's it-
"LOOK AT HIM!" Hannes roared, pointing at Jochen. "You think he did this to himself?! I saw it! I fought it! I killed one. It was wearing an MP's face. It was eating a man. And then it tried to wear Jochen." He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, deadly serious tone. "And the… the source of it all is still out there, drawing the big one away. But the rest… they've broken off. They're heading straight for this gate."
The color drained from Stefan's face. The distant screams from the other side of the gate now sounded like a marching army.
"We have to warn the captain! Mobilize the entire garrison!" Stefan said urgently as he turned to go.
"NO!" Hannes grabbed his arm. "There's no time. And they'll lock us up as crazies." His eyes, wild and desperate, scanned the chaotic scene. "We do it ourselves. Right now."
"Do what, man?!" Hank cried. "Fight… whatever they are?!"
"Fire," Hannes said, the word a lifeline. "Fire hurts them. It forces the things to stay back. It makes them solid." He pointed to the barrels of pitch, to the torches. "We set up a perimeter. Here, at the gate. We create a wall of flame. We get every soldier we can trust, and we tell them to aim for the eyes."
He looked at each of them, his gaze pleading and fierce. "This isn't a drill. Those things get past this gate, and everyone in Trost is dead. Or worse. They won't be people anymore."
The truth of his conviction finally broke through. Stefan nodded slowly, a grim determination settling on his features. "Alright, Hannes. You heard him! Pitch barrels! Hank, round up our squad! Move!"
As the men scrambled, Hannes stood by the gate, staring at the massive iron bars. He could still feel the ghost of the wind from his impossible ride, and the echo of a mother's desperate plea.
'Be careful, kid.' he thought, a desperate prayer. 'Just buy us time.'
_________________
The world dissolved into a screaming vortex of speed and wind. Zs'Skayr, a comet of pure malice, streaked through the air, but on the ground, Eren as Blitz (Why is now I am introducing his alien's name?! LOL) was a razor's edge, always just ahead. He wove a cage of motion, leading the Ectonurite deeper into the desolate irrigation fields. The shacks and chaos of the camp fell away, replaced by the geometric scars of ditches and the silent, skeletal outlines of dormant farmland (Or is it wasteland?).
Eren's mind was crystal-clear inside the storm of his speed, able to accelerate information at blinding speed. He saw every pebble, every furrow. He saw the trapped thralls far behind. He saw, for a heart-stopping second, the distant flash of Mikasa's blades. He really should help them out but he had to shut it out.
Trust them. Focus.
He burst into a wide, flat clearing at the heart of the fields. This was it. The ground was hard-packed earth, ringed by a thick border of dry, brittle timber.
He stopped. The sudden cessation of motion was a physical shock while the silence was absolute.
A fraction of a second later, Zs'Skayr materialized in the center of the clearing, his ectoplasmic form rippling with fury. The air temperature plummeting in sync.
"ENOUGH!" The psychic word cracked the air. "This ends now!"
Eren didn't move. The sleek form of Blitz stood poised. Then he slammed the faceplate of the omnitrx, resulting in a flash of green. The powerful, alien body dissolved, shrinking back into the form of a small, dirt stained ten-year-old boy. Eren buckled on his knees slightly from slight vertigo, but his eyes held a cold fire.
Zs'Skayr stared at the reverted boy with contempt. "You revert to this fragile flesh? Arrogant fool!"
Eren pushed himself to his feet, a defiant smirk on his lips. "Just thought you weren't worth the effort that's all." He said as he pulled out a torch beside him that was alit.
Zs'Skayr's eye followed the movement. A flicker of unease passed through him, replaced by a sneer. "Is that supposed to be your saving grace? A fickle of fire? Your precious light-weapon is shattered, child!"
Eren held the torch firm, its flame dancing bravely admist the sheer horror before him. "You think so small," Eren said, his voice steady. "For a being who claims to have seen stars die, you have no vision."
With that the brunette dashed toward the dry brush at the clearing's edge. But he was human now, and slow...He never made it.
With a snarl of pure hatred, Zs'Skayr lunged. A clawed hand, wreathed in dark energy, swiped through the air where Eren's head had been a moment before. Eren threw himself to the ground, the torch flying from his hand. He rolled, the cold death of the Ectonurite's touch grazing his back, soaking through his shirt with a soul-numbing chill.
Scrambling on all fours, he grabbed the torch again. Zs'Skayr was already recoiling for another strike as his form elongated, claws stretching out like spears.
"You cannot even light your own pyre, child!" Zs'Skayr hissed, thrusting his claws forward.
Eren didn't try to run. He dove forward, under the lancing claws, feeling the frigid energy part the air above him. He hit the dirt at the base of the dry timber, shoved the torch into the brush, and rolled away as a claw slammed into the ground where he'd been.
WHUMP.
It was enough. The fire caught, exploding along the pre-arranged border with terrifying speed. A wall of flame roared to life, encircling the clearing.
Zs'Skayr shrieked, a raw sound of panic and rage as the circle of fire closed. The heat was immense and the light was agonizing. He recoiled from the flames, his form wavering as his intangibility flickered under the blanket of light at his attempt to escape.
"YOU TRAPPED ME!" he roared, his voice distorting.
Eren stood panting, his heart hammering against his ribcage (Or is it chest?). As planned, right where they want him.
"The plan was never to outrun you," Eren gasped, the Titan marks on his face reflecting in the hellish light. "It was to get you right here."
He pressed his hand down on the Omnitrix dial. He rotated the faceplate to the being of living flame, the inferno that would turn this cage into an incinerator. The one alien that could withstand the heat and use it as a weapon.
'Alright then, Zs'Skayr you are finished!'
With the slam of his wrist, a green flash engulfed him. His body swelled, muscles and sinew expanding, erupting in a coat of thick, shaggy orange fur. His face elongated into a canine muzzle, his eyes sealed shut, his ears becoming huge sonic dishes on the sides of his head. Long powerful set of fore and hind legs morphed his limbs.
The transformation died down.
Eren stood on all fours, his powerful new body built for primal strength and seismic senses. But he had no eyes. He saw the world in a shimmering, sonic landscape of heat and vibration.
And he had no flame.
A guttural, frustrated roar erupted from his bestial throat. It was a sound of pure, animalistic rage.
FUCK.
He was Savage…Not Inferno.
Across the clearing, Zs'Skayr, who had been backing from the flames, slowly straightened up. The initial panic subsided, replaced by a dawning, cruel understanding. From the boy's body language, his weapon had failed him. He was trapped in here with a beast, a kindled vulpamancer no less, barely in its sprouting age.
A slow, grating chuckle built in the Ectonurite's chest, growing into a full-blown, manic laugh that competed with the roar of the fire.
"Oh… oh, this is too perfect!" Zs'Skayr crowed, his form solidifying as his confidence returned. "You built your own oven, and you've locked yourself inside with me! The great hunter… reduced to a snarling animal!"
Savage snarled, baring his fangs, his body tensed to pounce. The plan was in ruins. The fire was a barrier, a weakening field for Zs'Skayr, but it wasn't the weapon he needed.
It was no longer a battle of element against element. It was a brutal, desperate fight for survival in a ring of fire. And Eren had just lost his only advantage.
'…Correction, I'm the one that is finished."
________________
Back in the dim, dusty silence of the barn, the world had shrunk to the broken pieces in Armin's hands. The distant roar of the fire and the occasional, faint screech that carried on the wind were the only reminders of the nightmare outside. Each sound was a hammer blow to his concentration, a reminder that every second was precious.
"There has to be something that I can salvage from this scrap…" Armin murmured, his voice a hollow echo in the stillness. He wasn't talking to anyone; there was nobody to begin with in the first place. Armin was alone with his problem and the shattered pieces of their only hope.
He pried away a piece of the shattered housing, his fingers trembling. Beneath it was a web of circuitry that defied understanding, and at its heart, the crystalline power cell. It still pulsed with a soft, captured golden light, a tiny, trapped sun.
Fire will weaken him, Armin had deduced before, his mind a whirlwind of logic and fear. But this… this is pure. Concentrated. This could be the final blow.
His eyes, red-rimmed and desperate, scanned the barn. Straw, splintered wood, a rusted pitchfork… nothing. Then he saw it. A cracked oil lamp, discarded in a corner, its glass bowl thick and slightly curved.
An idea, fragile and insane, sparked.
He moved with a frantic, focused energy, the image of his grandfather's face fueling his determination. He grabbed the metal base of the Sun Gun, its core mounting still intact. He found a heavy, fist-sized stone and, with careful, deliberate strikes, began to hammer the metal. The clang of stone on metal was a jarring counterpoint to the distant chaos. He wasn't a blacksmith; he was a scholar shaping desperation into a weapon. He bent the metal into a rough, concave dish, a pathetic imitation of the original's perfect reflector, but it was all he had.
Sweat dripped from his nose as he worked. He cleaned the grimy lamp glass with a strip of his shirt. For a reflector, Hannes had left his canteen back when he was tending to his wounded comrade, so that would surface. He used a sharp rock to tear a piece of the thin metal away. He wired the glowing power cell into the center of his makeshift dish, securing it with frayed strips of rope. The core hummed, its light flickering erratically. It was dying.
With a final, prayer-like effort, he used a sticky glob of tree sap he'd scraped from a beam to seal the curved glass over the front of the dish, creating a crude, lopsided barrel.
He held it up. The "Light Lance" was a pathetic sight. A mess of glass, twisted metal, and alien tech, held together by spit, hope, and sheer will. It trembled in his grasp.
He looked toward the direction of the raging firelight, his heart a frantic drum in his chest.
"Please, Eren," he whispered into the tense silence of the barn, his prayer a stark contrast to the violence he was sending his friend toward. "Just a little more time. Just hold on."
On the other hand…
'I'M GONNA BE FUCKING KILLED!'
The thought wasn't words; it was a primal scream that echoed through every fiber of Savage's being. The world was a terrifying, eyeless panorama of heat and vibration. The ring of fire was a roaring, shimmering wall of agony to his senses. And at the center of the sonic landscape was the cold, solid wrongness (I need to learn new volcabulary) that was Zs'Skayr.
The Ectonurite Lord, though visibly pained by the encompassing light, had regained his composure. His form was although negated to solid and corporeal, but his power was far from gone.
"A beast!" Zs'Skayr taunted, his voice a grating scrape against Eren's hyper-sensitive ears. "You are truly what you deserve to be! All instinct and no thought!"
Savage snarled and launched himself forward, a blur of orange fur and muscle. He moved with incredible speed, aiming to sink his fangs into the solidified ectoplasm.
But Zs'Skayr was ready. A clawed hand, reinforced with telekinetic energy, shot out and clamped around Savage's muzzle with brutal force, stopping the lunge dead. The grip was like iron.
"Futile!" Zs'Skayr snarled. With a contemptuous heave, he lifted the massive hound and threw him. Eren's world spun as he sailed over the wall of fire, the searing heat licking at his fur for a terrifying second before he crashed down hard on the other side of the circle, tumbling through the dirt.
Before Eren could even regain his footing, Zs'Skayr acted. His claws glowed with dark blue energy. He wasn't trying to phase; he was commanding the environment. The dry, sandy earth at the base of the fire rippled. A wave of dirt and sand rose up like a tidal wave and slammed into a section of the fiery perimeter. The flames hissed and sputtered, desperately fighting the onslaught before being smothered, creating a narrow, charred gap in the fiery cage.
Zs'Skayr strode through the breach, his solid form casting a long, cold shadow over the dazed Savage.
"Your trap is broken, animal," he hissed. "Now… to break you."
Eren scrambled back, but Zs'Skayr's telekinesis was faster. The Ectonurite gestured, and a massive, half-buried boulder; a piece of fieldstone the size of a cart; ripped itself from the earth. It hovered for a moment, then shot toward Eren like a cannonball.
There was no time to dodge. Savage could only brace.
The impact was colossal. The boulder slammed into him, crushing the air from his lungs and sending him flying backward. He smashed into the hard ground with a sickening thud, his body screaming in pain. But the Omnitrix, strapped to the fur of his arm, took the brunt of the impact against the unyielding earth.
CRACK-CHUNK!
The sound was horribly familiar. The force of the blow had jarred the Omnitrix's faceplate, slamming it against the ground hard enough to trigger…a mechanism.
A flash of familiar green light, and the bestial form of Savage dissolved.
And in its place, a new form rose; sleek, silvery, and metallic.
The transformation was instantaneous. The pain from the boulder impact vanished, replaced by a cool, digital awareness. Eren looked down at his hands; they were made of a flowing, liquid metal. The symbol of the Omnitrix was displayed proudly on his chest along with a digitalized imprint of his father's key etched to the green flowing circuits of his body.
"Overhaul…I didn't pick-When did I?"
Ho-How?! Had that fall done something to cause this? Though that thought would have to be put on hold, because Zs'Skayr was advancing towards him, the fire was dying in sections, and he was now a completely different alien than the one he needed.
"Don't think I am through with you, Yeag-" Zs'Skayr halted his advance, his solid form trembling not with fear, but with pure, undiluted exasperation. The bestial hound was gone. In its place stood a silvery, flowing construct of liquid metal.
"…"
"…"
"…"
For a moment, both were speechless. Purple eye making contact with green circuitry. Then, a low, grating sound of disbelief escaped his jagged maw.
"I am starting to question what I see in you boy…" he rasped, his voice dripping with a contempt so deep it could freeze lava. "First a mindless animal, now a... a walking tool? You are not a warrior; you are a child fumbling through a toy box of stolen powers. This chaotic shapeshifting is an insult to the very concept of battle! Choose a form and perish in it!"
"I can't, it just came up on its own!" Overhaul retorted, his voice a digitized echo of Eren's frustration.
A profound silence fell, broken only by the crackle of the dying fire.
Then, something horrifying happened.
Zs'Skayr's head, the upside-down skull that defied all anatomy, began to move. It wasn't a tilt. It was a slow, grinding rotation. Bone scraped against ethereal bone with a sound that was utterly wrong as it pivoted a full one hundred and eighty degrees, settling into a normal, upright position. The single purple eye now sat where it should, above the jagged maw. It was somehow infinitely more terrifying than his usual monstrous visage. This was the face of a predator who had finally, truly lost all patience.
The voice that emerged was no longer a rasp of fury, but a dark, chillingly calm and focused whisper.
"You can't…" Zs'Skayr mused, the words hanging in the air like a death sentence. "…Or you won't?"
The implication was clear, a taunt that this was just another excuse, another delay.
"I can't!" Eren insisted, the metallic form gesturing at the watch's template on his chest. "The device does what it wants!"
The upright skull regarded him, the purple light in its socket seeming to sharpen, to pin him in place.
"Then I shall simply have to ensure you stay that way…" Zs'Skayr replied, his tone dripping with a final, ominous certainty. His claws, wreathed in a fresh surge of telekinetic energy, began to glow with a violent, dark blue light.
"…Permanently."
________________
Consciousness returned to Grandpa Arlet not as a gentle dawn, but as a shard of ice stabbing into his side with every ragged breath. Agony was the first thing he registered. The second was the cold, gritty feel of dirt against his cheek. The third was the memory: the shimmering dome, Zs'Skayr's furious face, the telekinetic blow that had shattered his ribs and stolen the world away.
Eren.
The name cut through the pain like a lightning strike. He had failed. The ghost was free. And he was heading for the boy.
A groan, wet and painful, escaped his lips as he pushed himself onto his elbows. The world swam, a nauseating tilt of darkness and the distant, hellish flow of smoke from far ahead. He could feel the deep, worrying warmth of blood escaped his lips. He was a wreck (See what I did there? Just me…okay) and he had overdone it…again.
But he wasn't dead yet.
Can't let him… get Eren…
It was the only thought that mattered. It was the fuel that forced his trembling limbs to obey. Using a splintered piece of wood from the floor as a crutch, he hauled himself to his feet. Every step was a fresh exercise in torture, a white-hot fire igniting in his chest. He was a ghost himself, a spent, broken old man wobbling through a landscape of nightmares, following the psychic chill that Zs'Skayr left in his wake like a trail of frost.
He didn't get that far.
Passing refugee housings, his journey led him past the crystalline monument of Eren's earlier struggle: the massive, jagged crystal dome. And there, encased within a flawless diamond like a fly in amber, was the thrall that had once been Bran. The boy's face was frozen in a silent snarl, one violet eye still glowing with mindless malice, a terrifying fossil of Zs'Skayr's corruption.
Arlet stopped, leaning heavily on his crutch, his breath coming in shallow, painful hitches. He stared at the trapped horror, a conflict raging in his weary soul. This was a victim, a child twisted into a monster. But he was also a weapon, a piece of Zs'Skayr's army. To leave him was a risk. To shatter the crystal… did he have the right? Did he have the strength to put down a child, even a possessed one?
The moral calculus was a luxury he didn't have time for.
A sound cut through his thoughts; a low, wet, grinding noise, like massive stones being ground together. It was followed by a tremor in the earth.
Arlet's blood ran colder than the night air. Slowly, painfully, he turned his head.
Lumbering out of the shadows between the ruined shacks was a nightmare given form. Bertholdt's thrall. The colossal Titan-host was regenerated, its head partially reformed into a twisted, skeletal mask. One eye glowed violet, the other was a milky, blind white. Steam, tainted with shadows, rose from its grotesque body where Ectonurite tendrils pulsed through its flesh. It was five meters of corrupted, shambling death, and its blank, malevolent gaze was fixed directly on him.
It stood between him and the direction Zs'Skayr had gone. Between him and Eren.
Grandpa Arlet's grip tightened on his makeshift crutch. The twisted piece of wood felt pathetically inadequate. He had no gauntlets. No energy. Just a broken body and a will that was rapidly exhausting by the minute.
He looked from the encased Bran to the advancing Bertholdt-thrall, a grim, hopeless realization settling in his gut.
Double shit.
The colossal thrall took a ground-shaking step forward, its massive, distorted hand reaching down toward the frail old man. The fight looked like it was over before it could even begin.
"Fine then," Grandpa Arlet said, forcefully reigniting the little power he had left, his eyes returning to the amethyst color it once held.
"Come at me."
Chapter 19-30 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom for as low as $3.