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Refugee camp…
The creek nearby was a secret world, untouched by the despair of the camp. Sunlight, dappled and gentle, filtered through the canopy of ancient trees, painting shifting coins of gold on the mossy banks. The air hummed with the lazy drone of insects and the constant, gentle murmur of water flowing over smooth, grey stones. Here, the scent was of wet earth, clean water, and decaying leaves; a world away from dust, sweat, and fear.
For a few precious hours, the trio there were just kids having fun again.
Armin was on his knees in the shallows, his brow furrowed in concentration as he carefully turned over a flat, dark stone. "Look! The underside is full of caddisfly larvae cases. They use tiny bits of sand and twig to build these little protective tubes. It's incredible."
"English Armin." Eren muttered.
Mikasa sat on a sun-warmed boulder, her knees drawn up, simply watching them. A small, peaceful smile graced her lips as she observed Eren, who was industriously piling larger stones in the middle of the current, trying to divert the flow and create a deeper pool.
"See? Strategic advantage," Eren declared, wiping his brow with a wet forearm. "If we deepen the channel here, the bigger fish will have to come through. It's basic tactics."
"It's going to collapse the second the water pressure builds up," Armin predicted without looking up, his focus on a particularly intricate larvae case.
"It will not!" Eren retorted, but his dam was already showing signs of strain, water trickling through the gaps. He huffed, abandoning the project, and began wading further downstream, his eyes scanning the clear water.
It was then that the brunette saw something that caught his eyes. A flash of iridescent color, alien and beautiful amidst the muted tones of the creek bed. It was wedged deep under a shelf of dark rock at the bottom of a particularly deep pool, glinting like a forgotten jewel.
"Whoa," Eren breathed, pointing. "What is that?"
Armin and Mikasa followed his gaze. The object was too far down, nestled in the shadows, to make out clearly.
"It's probably just a piece of colored glass," Armin said, though his own curiosity was piqued.
"Or a rare mineral deposit," Mikasa added softly.
But Eren's eyes, always drawn to the unknown, were alight with a familiar, stubborn fire. "I'm getting it."
Before they could protest, he'd waded in the water up to his chest. He took a deep breath and dove. The water was shockingly cold. He kicked down, his hands scrabbling at the rock shelf, but the object was tucked too far back into a crevice. His lungs began to burn, and he surfaced, gasping.
"Too deep," he admitted, but the determined glint in his eyes hadn't faded. It was replaced by something else; a calculated spark. He looked down at the Omnitrix on his wrist. "But I know someone who isn't."
"Eren, wait—" Armin started, but it was too late.
Eren slammed the dial. A flash of green light enveloped him. His form expanded, his skin hardening into plates of mottled green and grey, like the bed of the creek itself. Gills ripped open along his neck, fluttering with a soft pff-pff-pff sound as they took in their first watery breath. His limbs elongated, his hands and feet becoming webbed, powerful flippers. His face stretched forward into a powerful, piscine jaw lined with rows of serrated, predatory teeth. A tall, jagged fin erupted from his head and ran down his back, and his eyes became large, black, and capable of seeing in the murkiest depths. This was Leviathan, a monarch of the deep.
Mikasa and Armin watched, a bit startled at the unexpected transformation, as the hulking aquatic alien gave them a clumsy thumbs-up with a webbed hand before slipping beneath the surface with barely a ripple.
A minute passed. Then two. The creek flowed on, oblivious.
"Should he have been gone this long?" Mikasa asked, a hint of concern in her voice.
"He has gills, Mikasa. He's probably fine," Armin reassured her, though he too was peering intently at the water.
Suddenly, the surface of the pool erupted.
Leviathan emerged, water streaming from his formidable frame. And clamped gently but firmly in his massive, toothy jaws was the most absurd-looking fish either of them had ever seen. It was about the size of Eren's forearm, with bulging, dopey eyes on the top of its head, fins that looked like tattered lace, and scales that shimmered with a ridiculous rainbow of colors. It flopped pathetically, a prisoner of the aquatic titan.
The aquatic alien waddled onto the bank, his powerful tail dragging on the stones. He stood before them, chest puffed out with pride, the gills on his neck still rhythmically pulsing. With a wet, gurgling sound that was unmistakably meant to be a triumphant fanfare, he spat the fish onto the grass at their feet.
He then raised a webbed hand to the sky, his large black eyes shining with theatrical grandeur.
"BEHOLD!" he boomed, his voice a deep, watery echo. "LORD POSEIDON HAS DELIVERED UNTO US A BOUNTY FROM THE DEEP! A CREATURE OF MYTH AND SPLENDOR!"
Armin stared. First at the gasping, flapping fish. Then at Eren's utterly serious, piscine face. He let out a long-suffering sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I never should have shown you that book of old folklore," he muttered to the sky. "You get one form that can swim and suddenly you're the ocean's chosen prophet."
"Lord Poseidon," Mikasa repeated, her voice flat, though a tiny, amused sparkle had returned to her eyes.
"…Has delivered," Armin finished for her, his tone equally deadpan.
The fish on the floor gave a particularly vigorous flop, its dumb eyes rolling like it agrees with them.
Eren's proud posture deflated slightly. "What? It's a majestic river beast! A gift from the sea god!"
"It's a grotesque darter, Eren," Armin said, kneeling down to examine the unfortunate creature with academic curiosity. "They're bottom-feeders. Known for their… comical proportions, not their majesty."
Just then, the Omnitrix symbol on Leviathan's chest plate began to flash red. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. (I swear the omnitrix can time out on bad occasions)
"Uh oh, too soon!" Eren's deep voice gurgled. He looked down at his chest, then at the gasping fish. "The fish! It's suffocating! We have to put it back!"
"Eren, you're about to time out too!" Armin cried, carefully scooping up the floppy darter.
With a final, comical waddle, Leviathan lunged the last few feet and plunged back into the pool, his form dissolving into a flash of red light just as he submerged. A moment later, a sputtering, drenched Eren Yeager broke the surface, coughing and pushing his sopping hair out of his eyes. Armin gently released the grotesque darter back into its home. It gave a dismissive flick of its tattered tail and vanished under a rock, no worse for wear.
The three of them sat on the bank for a while, Eren wringing water out of his shirt. The silence was comfortable, filled only with the creek's song. The peace was a tangible thing, a blanket wrapping around them. For a glorious stretch of time, there were no troubles, no ghosts, no responsibilities. There was just the sun, the water, and the three of them.
It was Eren who finally broke the quiet, his voice softer now, the bravado gone. "Hey, Armin… how's your grandpa been? Really?"
The air shifted, just a little. The blanket of peace developed a small tear.
Armin's shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly. He stared at the water, his expression clouding. "He's… fine. Recovered long since." The answer was a shield, vague and practiced.
Another silence, heavier this time.
Armin let out a long, weary sigh, the sound carrying the weight of the last five weeks. "It's just… all of it, you know? He hid everything from me. My whole life. He's not from this world. He was some kind of… space cop. A 'Wrecker'. He came here to investigate this… this Xerxathi parasite he says is in all of us, and then he just… stayed. He had a family, raised me, told me stories about the ocean, and never once mentioned he'd seen a thousand of them on other planets."
His voice grew thick with a confusion that bordered on anger. "He always told me to be careful, that the walls have ears. What did he know? What did he hear? Did… did his secrets get my mom and dad killed? Were they looking for something he hinted at?" The accusation hung in the air, terrifying and plausible. "And the Omnitrix… he helped build it, Eren. If he'd never been a part of that, Zs'Skayr would never have been in there. None of this would have happened."
"Hey," Eren said firmly, placing a hand on his best friend's shoulder. "You can't think like that. We don't know any of that for sure. Maybe… maybe some secrets are kept for a reason. To protect people. He protected you, didn't he? He's still protecting us."
Armin looked at Eren, the anger in his eyes slowly giving way to a profound, weary sadness. He nodded, accepting the logic but not the comfort. The tension subsided, but a new, different unease had taken root.
It was Mikasa who carefully navigated the conversation into even more dangerous waters. "Eren," she began, her voice deceptively calm. "There's something we've been meaning to ask you."
Eren looked at her, a flicker of wariness in his eyes. "Yeah?"
"How did you meet that girl…Annie?"
Eren froze. The color drained from his face. "W-What? Annie? I don't— we don't really… know each other."
Armin gave him a flat, unimpressed look. "Eren, you're a terrible liar. She hasn't been around since that day. And you've been… twitchy whenever her name comes up."
"And I still don't trust her," Mikasa stated, her voice hardening. "Especially after she tried to kill you."
Eren squirmed under their combined gaze. He looked like a cornered animal. "She didn't… it wasn't like that…"
"Eren," Armin pressed, his tone leaving no room for evasion. "How?"
Trapped, Eren slumped in defeat. "Okay, fine! Remember, Armin, that night you stayed over at our place? A few days before… everything?"
Armin and Mikasa exchanged a cautious glance and nodded.
"I… sort of… snuck out," Eren admitted with a wince. "I wanted to test out that new alien. The one with all the eyes. I was in the woods, and I heard this noise. I went to check it out, and it was her. She was… training. Really intense hand-to-hand stuff. And she saw me."
Mikasa's eyes widened in shock and worry. "Did she hurt you?"
"No! No, maybe-I mean she did try to stab me-"
"STAB YOU?!" Armin and Mikasa exclaimed simultaneously.
"Yea-No! no that's not the point, she just… stared. It was creepy. Then she left." Eren hoped they didn't hear the uncertainty in his voice, because yeah he just lied in that part. From their reactions, it seemed like they bought it.
Armin facepalmed, a groan of pure exasperation escaping him. "Eren! How do you know she hasn't told anyone? Is that why she had your father's key? How did she even get that in the first place?!"
"That… was later," Eren mumbled, looking thoroughly chastised.
Mikasa squinted her eyes at Eren who was darting her gaze while something clicked in Armin as he remembered something.
That-that made a lot of sense now…
The barn, five weeks ago. The plan was set. Eren slammed the Omnitrix dial, and in a flash of green, the tired boy was replaced by the sleek, black-and-blue form of Blitz.
Hannes had a flabbergasted look on his face while he muttered something about him never getting used to that. But Annie… her poker face had slipped for a microsecond. Her eyes had widened a fraction.
"Huh," she had quipped, her voice a mask of cool indifference. "I thought you only had the two."
Eren had shot back, "You'd be surprised how many I have." Armin, ever observant, had filed away her reaction. She hadn't been shocked by the transformation itself, but by the fact it was a new one. She had already known.
"Of course," Armin murmured, the pieces clicking into place. "That's why she wasn't surprised back then. She already knew you could transform."
"And you're just telling us this now?" Mikasa's voice was low, a storm brewing in her grey eyes. "Eren, how can you be sure she hasn't told her friends? Or anyone else?"
"She hasn't!" Eren insisted, though a seed of doubt was now visibly planted in his own mind. His voice rose in a childish, desperate plea.
"She would have by now! She promised she wouldn't!"
"Promised?" Armin's voice was sharp. "Eren, how can you trust the promise of someone who tried to choke you out? This is serious!"
"We have to tell Aunt Carla," Mikasa stated, beginning to stand up. "She needs to know there's someone else who knows your secret."
"NO!" Eren yelped, scrambling to his feet and grabbing her sleeve, his eyes wide with pure, unadulterated, ten-year-old panic.
"You can't! You can't tell Mom! She'll… she'll make me stay inside forever! She'll take the Omnitrix away and lock it in a box and I'll never be able to use it again! She'll make me do extra chores until I'm old and grey! And-and she'll get that Look! The one she gets when I track mud in the house, but times a million! She'll be so worried she'll get sick! Please, you guys, please don't tell her!"
He was practically vibrating with fear, the consequences in his mind clearly apocalyptic. It wasn't about strategic danger or the mission; it was about the terrifying, all-encompassing power of a disappointed and worried mother.
Armin and Mikasa looked at his desperate, pleading face. The logical part of them knew this was too big to keep from Carla. But the part of them that was also just a kid understood that primal fear. They exchanged a long, silent look; a conversation held entirely in a raised eyebrow and a slight frown.
Mikasa slowly sat back down. "…We won't tell her", she said quietly. "For now."
Eren deflated with a gust of relief, slumping onto the grass. "Thank you."
"But," Armin interjected, his voice firm. "This doesn't mean we trust her. It means we're watching her. And you have to be more careful, Eren. No more secret meetings."
"There won't be! I promise!" Eren said, his voice fervent.
The peaceful atmosphere by the creek was gone, completely shattered. They sat in a new, heavy silence, the gentle babble of the water now sounding like a chorus of whispered secrets. The sun dipped lower, casting long shadows through the trees. Their respite was over. The real world, with all its hidden dangers, complicated loyalties, and the terrifying power of vagueness, had found them once again.
Chapter 22-30 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.