N.B : If you’d like to get early access to the next 13 chapters of Universal hope (Chapter 18-30) Chapter 18 (Sunrise), Chapter 19 (Binding wounds), Chapter 20 (Demonic prowl) Chapter 21 (The scent of prey-Part 1), Chapter 22 (The scent of prey-Part 2), Chapter 23 (Scourge), Chapter 24 (Hammer and axil), Chapter 25 (Purge-Part 1), Chapter 26 (Purge-Part 2), Chapter 27 (Purge-Part 3), Chapter 28 (Ashes and Embers), Chapter 29 (Where Giants tread- Part 1) and Chapter 30 (Where Giants tread- Part 2) for as low as $3 why not consider supporting me at P a tre on . com (slash) Weeb Fanthom. Your donations will be very much appreciated.

  Night shift around the inner gate of Trost was, by definition…a punishment detail. It was where you were sent to sober up, to think about your failures, or simply because the command structure had run out of worse chores. For Hannes and his four comrades, it was a bit of all three.

  The air was cold, carrying the damp, earthy scent of the district and the distant, ever-present smell of too many people living in too small a space. A single torch, hooked on a post by the massive gate, cast a wobbly pool of jaundiced light, leaving the edges of the world to the moon and the shadows. The gate itself was a massive, iron-barred thing, separating the "proper" residents of Wall Rose from the sprawling refugee camp beyond; a sea of makeshift tents and desperate souls that stretched like a festering wound along the wall's base. He'd been stationed here for months now, ever since the fall of Maria turned everything upside down. "Guarding the gate," they called it. Fancy way of saying keep the lonely gate company.

  Hannes leaned against the cold stone of the gatehouse, a half-empty bottle of Garrison-issue brandy dangling from his fingers. It wasn't the good stuff, but it burned away the sharper edges of the memory; the smell of Titan breath, the feel of cobblestones under his knees, the wide, terrified eyes of those he’d failed to save. Carla…would have been one of them hadn’t Eren done something.

  His comrades; four of them tonight, all Garrisons like him; lounged nearby, passing around another battered flask of what passed for whiskey in these parts. It tasted like piss mixed with regret, but it burned warm going down, chasing away the chill and the memories. The group was a motley bunch, grizzled veterans who'd seen too much and young bucks who pretended they hadn't seen enough. They sat in a loose circle around the only source of light which was the torch the flames crackling low to avoid drawing attention from the higher-ups.

  "Oi Hannes. Pass it here, you hog," grumbled Don (At this point I’m making up shit names), a stocky man with a perpetual scowl and a gut that strained against his uniform. He snatched the flask from Hannes' hand, took a swig, and grimaced. "Bleh, and I thought that shit was bad. Tastes like Titan sweat. Where'd you get this swill, Hannes?"

  Hannes chuckled, rubbing his overgrown beard; a wild, unkempt thing that had long since crossed from "rugged" to "disheveled." "Stole it from the MPs' stash last week. Figured they owed us after all the crap they dump on our laps. Besides, better than nothing."

  Laughter rippled through the group, rough and weary. "Speaking of crap, Hannes, you ever gonna shave that damn beard? You look like you're about to start preaching about the end times or something." Grumbled Hank, a man whose beard was almost as impressive and unkempt as Hannes’s, though you could tell there was mischief in his voice. “Even my grandad would have a run for his money with his beard, and he’s been dead a decade.”

  The others snorted. Don slapped his knee, nearly spilling the flask. "He's right! What, you trying to scare off the Titans with your ugly mug?"

  Hannes grinned, running a hand through the scraggly growth. “What’s it to you, Hank? Jealous? This,” he said, stroking the greying, tangled mess on his chin once more, “is a testament to experience. Earned every hair in Maria. Besides, ladies love it, makes me look distinguished. Yours looks like you glued bird feathers to your chin.”

  "Distinguished?" Hank howled, clutching his sides. "You look like you lost a bet with a badger!"

  The third soldier, a younger man named Jochen, snorted into his own bottle, while the fourth, Stefan, just shook his head with a weary smile. The laughter was thin, brittle. It was the kind of laughter that existed only to hold back the silence. The banter flowed easy, the kind that kept the darkness at bay. They talked about life; the little things that made the endless shifts bearable. Hannes listened, nodding along, the flask making its rounds. For a moment, it felt almost normal, like they were just men sharing stories around a campfire, not soldiers guarding a powder keg of despair.

  But as fate would have it, the silence, as it always did these days, found a way in. Don’s smirk faded, his eyes losing their alcoholic gleam and turning distant as his eyes drifted to the distant glow of the refugee camp fires. “Y’know…Remember Gerhardt? From the old squad?” he asked, his voice suddenly quiet. “He could never grow a beard worth a damn. Just patchy, like a mange-ridden dog.”

  The mood shifted like a cloud over the moon. Hannes felt it in his gut, that familiar ache. Gerthardt. A loud, laughing man who’d been on the supply run to Shiganshina the day the Colossal and armored titan appeared. Titans swarming, people screaming... Gerthardt had held the line, buying time for civilians to evacuate. Last Hannes saw of him was a flash of uniform vanishing under a Titan's foot. He hadn’t made it back.

  "Yeah," Hannes muttered, staring into the flames. "Good man. Too good for this shit world."

  The brief, false warmth of the alcohol evaporated. The night felt colder. Jochen looked down at his boots. "He had that stupid laugh... like a donkey braying. Used to drive me nuts, but... damn, I'd give anything to hear it now."

  Stefan nodded slowly as he took the bottle from Hannes’s limp hand and drank deeply, the scowl on his face deepening into something raw. "Bastard Titans took too many. Gerthardt, John, Lena, half the damn regiment... What's the point of these walls if they just crumble anyway?"

  The fire crackled, the only sound for a long moment. The weight of loss hung heavy, sobering them faster than any cold wind could. Hannes felt the familiar sting behind his eyes, the burn of unshed tears. Gerhardt had been like a brother, always ribbing him about his drinking, but never judging.

  “Yeah, well,” Hannes said, his voice rough. He pushed off the wall, grabbing the bottle back from Stefan. “At least Gerhardt never had to worry about looking like an old man. Forever young, that idiot.”

  He tried to inject a note of levity, a soldier’s tribute to a fallen comrade. It came out hollow, but it was enough. Don gave a wet, choked chuckle, and the suffocating weight of the memory receded, just a little.

  "To Gerhardt." Hannes said softly, raising the flask. The others followed suit, murmuring toasts under their breath.

  The moment lingered, bittersweet, the laughter fading into quiet reflection. Hannes passed the flask again, the warmth returning just a bit. But before they could sink back into their rhythm, a new sound pierced the night. the thunder of footsteps. At first, it was a distant murmur, like the rush of a far-off river. Then it resolved into the unmistakable sound of running. Not the organized tramp of a patrol, but a panicked, stumbling, chaotic stampede. Voices, shrill with a terror that cut through the haze of brandy, rose in a dissonant chorus.

  "What the—?" Jochen shot to his feet. The others followed, peering into the darkness beyond the gate. They came into the edge of the torch light like ghosts themselves, a flood of refugees, their clothes torn, faces smeared with dirt and something darker. Their eyes were wide, white-rimmed marbles rolling in sockets of pure panic. They slammed against the heavy, locked gate that separated the refugee sector from the main civilian district of Trost, their hands scraping against the wood.

  “Let us in! For the love of the Walls, OPEN THE GATE!”

  “They’re coming! They’re right behind us!”

  “Monsters! Ghosts! Please, you have to believe us!”

  Don was the first to react, his professional disdain overriding his drunkenness. “Oh, for Fritz’s sake,” he slurred, stomping forward. “Not this again. You think we’re stupid? ‘Monsters’? You just want a warmer bed and better rations! Get back to your sector before we have you all thrown in the stocks for disturbing the peace!”

  Other Garrison soldiers, roused by the commotion, moved to reinforce the gate, prying desperate fingers from the bars. “Ungrateful wretches!” one of them spat. “We’re already drowning because of you lot! Now you invent fairy tales to cause more trouble!”

  But Hannes stood frozen, the bottle forgotten in his hand. He looked past the anger of his comrades, past the grime and the hysteria, and he saw it. This wasn’t the calculated desperation of people trying to scam their way into better quarters. These weren't the usual beggars or troublemakers trying to sneak into the civilian sector for better rations. Their faces were etched with raw terror, clothes torn, some bloodied. Children wailed in their arms, and the adults babbled incoherently about "monsters" and "ghosts." This was the raw, animal fear of people who had stared into the abyss. He’d seen this look before. On the faces of those fleeing Shiganshina.

  "Please open the gate!" one woman shrieked, her fingers bloody from clawing at the bars. “They're going to kill us-PLEASE!!!”

  Hank snorted, though his voice wavered. "What, another riot? These refugees and their damn excuses. Always trying to barge in here, disturb the peace."

  "Ghosts? Monsters?" One garrison that had come to control the situation muttered, shaking his head. "Probably just a fight gone bad. Or they're high on something."

  But Hannes stepped closer, peering through the bars. There’s no faking that wide-eyed, soul-deep panic. "This ain't right," he said quietly. "Look at 'em. They're terrified."

  Don snorted. “Damn Hannes, didn’t realize you could fall for such terrible acting. I’ll go inform the MPs, seriously what the hell are the ones back there doing? Sleeping on duty?”

  “Don, wait—” Hannes started, but his voice was drowned out.

  A guttural roar echoed from the darkness beyond silencing everyone; low, inhuman, like nothing from this world. It wasn’t a Titan’s roar. That was a sound of immense, bestial hunger, a promise of a quick, crushing death. This was different. This was a guttural, chittering snarl, layered with wet, tearing sounds and a high, rasping keen that felt like it was scraping the inside of their skulls. It was surreal. It was unnatural. It echoed from the darkened alleyways of the refugee sector, and it was getting closer. The refugees at the gate fell into a petrified silence for a heartbeat before their pleas turned into pure, unadulterated begging. They were sobbing now, their bodies shaking uncontrollably as they banged harder (I have a dirty mind…) on the gate. "Please! They're here—the ghosts—they're killing everyone!"

  Jochen hesitated on what to do. "Hannes, what do we do? If we open up, the higher-ups'll have our heads."

  Hannes' gut twisted. He thought of Carla, Eren, Mikasa, out there in that camp. If something was wrong... "To hell with the higher-ups," he growled, shoving past his comrades to the gate's lever. With a grunt, he yanked it down. The mechanism groaned, and the gate swung open.

  Refugees poured in like a flood, sobbing thanks as they rushed past. A tide of terrified humanity scrambling over each other to get to safety. Hank grabbed Hannes by the collar, his face red with fury. "What the hell's your problem, Hannes?! You believe this crap? They're just using it as an excuse to sneak in—!"

  Hannes met his gaze steadily, even as Hank's grip tightened. "Look at their faces, Fritz. That's real fear. Something's out there."

  Before Hank could retort, a group of refugees staggered through carrying an injured man between them; his leg gashed deep, blood seeping through makeshift bandages. One of them spotted the flask at Hank's feet and snatched it up, pouring the alcohol over the wound without a word. The injured man screamed in pain, a raw, agonized sound, but they held him down, their actions desperate and purposeful. The sharp smell of alcohol mixed with the coppery tang of blood as the liquid bubbled, cleaning the gash slowly.

  Hank stared, first at the empty space beside his foot, then at his precious brandy soaking into the cobblestones. "That's my whiskey, you thieving bitch—!"

  The refugee who had taken his whiskey; a gaunt woman with wild eyes; glared up at him. "It'll save his life, you bastard! While you're here drinking, those things are tearing the camp apart!"

  Hank's face twisted in offense, his fist clenching. Something in him snapped. The embarrassment, the frustration, the years of simmering resentment towards the refugees who were a constant reminder of their own failure. It all boiled over. "You ungrateful—"

  Hannes stepped between them, shoving Hank back gently but firmly. "Let it go, Hank. Man's hurt. Ain't worth it."

  Hank sputtered, his anger now doubling in height. "Let it go? They barge in, steal my drink, and you—" He grabbed Hannes by the front of his uniform jacket again, “What is your problem?!” he screamed, spittle flying into Hannes’s face. “You let this filth in here! You let them steal from me! Have you lost your damn mind?!”

  Hannes’s own temper flared at the jab. “Can’t you see?! Look at them! Something is out there!”

  “All I see are a bunch of lying, thieving rats using a sob story to—!”

  Before the fight could escalate into a brawl, Stefan intervened, pulling them apart. “Enough! Both of you!” He turned to the huddled, trembling refugees. “What… what did you see out there? What was it?”

  But they could only sob and shake their heads, words failing them. One man just kept muttering, “His eyes… the eyes…”

  Another garrison soldier, younger and jumpier than the rest, piped up. “S-sergeant said there was fighting in the camp earlier. Maybe it’s just a big brawl? Drunks seeing things?”

  Jochen, looking pale, nodded nervously. “Y-yeah! Probably just a riot. "Maybe... maybe we should check it out. Y'know, just to be sure. If it's nothing, we can drag 'em back out."

  Don nodded reluctantly, though his face paled. "Yeah. Ghosts? Sounds like bullshit, but... those roars weren't human."

  Hank grumbled but deflated, wiping his mouth. "Fine. But if it's just a bunch of drunks fighting, I'm blaming you, Hannes."

  Hannes barely heard Hank, instead he stared at the refugees, at their desperate attempts to rationalize the irrational. He looked at the genuine, soul-deep terror on the refugees' faces. He listened to the silence that had fallen over the refugee sector; a silence that was far more terrifying than the earlier screams. It was the silence of a graveyard, or of a predator waiting just beyond the light. The Garrison felt a chill settle in his bones, deeper than the night air. Something was terribly wrong; he could feel it. His gut, the same gut that had told him to run from the Smiling Titan, was screaming at him now. Like the prickling before a storm.

  “Stay here,” he said, his voice low and gravelly, all trace of drunkenness gone. He walked to the weapon rack and took down his standard-issue vertical maneuvering gear. It felt pathetically light, utterly inadequate.

  “Where are you going?” Stefan asked, his voice edged with fear.

  Hannes didn’t look back as he began strapping the gear on. “To see what the hell is really going on.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Hank spat. “You actually believe this ghost shit?!”

  Hannes finally turned, and the look on his face; a grim, weary acceptance; silenced them all. “I believe that something has those people scared enough to run towards a Garrison squad. And that’s something I need to see for myself.”

  He checked the blades on his gear. “The rest of you, secure this gate. No one else comes in or out until I get back. Understood?”

  Jochen hesitated, uncertainty etched in his face before he spoke up. "Wait—I'm coming with you. Two's better than one."

  Hannes’ expression was unreadable for a second. “You’re sure?” He asked with unnatural seriousness. As Jochen nodded his head, Hannes clapped his shoulder, grateful but grim. "Alright. Let's see what fresh hell's brewing out there."

  Without waiting for a spare second, Hannes activated his gear. The hooks shot out, anchoring into the roof of a nearby building. With a burst of gas, he launched himself into the darkness, leaving the pool of light and the sound of frightened weeping behind.

  After a terrified moment, Jochen swallowed hard, muttered a quiet prayer to a God he wasn't sure was listening, and fired his own hooks, following his friend into the unknown night, his mind already made. No turning back.

  As they soared through the darkness, the refugees' pleas echoed behind them. Hannes' hand tightened on his ODM gear sword, the weight of uncertainty pressing down. What the hell was going on? And why did it feel like the Walls themselves were about to come crashing down…again?

  Unbestknown to the two garrisons, the nightmare was waiting in the shadows.

  ________________

  The wooden walls of the shack seemed to hold their breath, the only sound the distant, chaotic symphony of terror from the camp; a stark contrast to the suffocating silence within. Eren stood in the center of the room, his chest heaving not from exertion, but from the storm of guilt and resolve warring inside him.

  He had run. He had hurt the people he loved most. But now, the running was over. The fear was still there, a cold knot in his stomach, but it was being steadily eclipsed by a burning, desperate need to fix what he had broken. He had to be the weapon. He had to be the shield.

  His mother’s terrified face, Mikasa’s bruised wrist…they weren’t chains of guilt anymore; they were the fuel for his resolve.

  He looked at the Omnitrix on his wrist. It was their only hope. His only tool. Inferno, he thought, the image of the fiery being crystal clear in his mind. I need the fire. I need the power to burn him out of this world.

  He took a steadying breath, focused his intent as scrolled through the creatures within the faceplate seeing what he desired at the moment, and slammed the dial down.

  Nothing.

  The device flickered, a sickly, dying green light that spat and hissed. The faceplate spun erratically for a half-second, a ghost of its usual function, before sputtering out again, plunging the symbol back into darkness.

  “No, no, no,” he muttered, the first flicker of panic threatening his hard-won resolve. He hit it again, harder. “Come on! Work with me!”

  Another feeble flicker. The watch was dead, unresponsive, a hunk of dead technology on his wrist. The frustration was maddening. He had finally needed it, finally willed it, and it had chosen this moment to fail him completely. Frustration and fear boiled over into a raw, impotent rage.

  Just as he was about to slam his fist down on the dial again; a gnarled, iron-strong hand shot out and caught his wrist. Grandpa Arlet’s grip was like a vice, his face no longer that of a weary old man but of the soldier, the ‘Wrecker’, he’d once been.

  “Panicking isn’t what it answers to,” the old man said, his voice a low, gravelly command. “The Omnitrix is a tool of infinite possibility, boy, not a hammer for you to smash. It responds to a clear intent. A focused need. Not your frantic slapping.” He forced Eren’s hand down, his eyes burning into the boy’s. “Stop wanting a form and will it to happen. You are the user. Command it. The symbols are a language; learn to read it, don’t just pound on the page!”

  After Eren calmed down for a second, he looked back at the omnitrix, took a deep breath muttering it should answer him this time, his fingers forcing the stubborn faceplate to cycle manually till his eyes locked onto a familiar fiery alien. He forced the dial to stop and slammed the Omnitrix dial. A blinding green flash then proceeded to fill the shack.

  Meanwhile…

  Zs’Skayr has wondered through the houses of the refugee camp for some time. Each find proving more futile than the last, frustration clearly etched on the ecto-lord’s face.

  “Blasted child,” Zs’Skayr cursed to himself. “He couldn’t have really gone that fa-” His thoughts came to an abrupt end as a flash of green shined the vicinity a few miles away, making a grin split his skull. There was only one device capable of that.

  Mine, Zs’Skayr purred internally. He dissolved into mist, streaking toward the flash.

  _______________

  Within seconds, Eren’s body dissolved and reconstituted, shooting upward until his head brushed the low ceiling. Four slender, gunmetal-grey insectoid legs ended each with small, hooked claws now tapped nervously on the floorboards. Large, bulbous crimson compound eyes replaced his human green eyes. A pair of diaphanous wings buzzed on his back.

  As the transformation died down, Eren looked down at his new chitinous limbs, at the stinger-tipped tail that lashed in agitation. Disgust and disappointment washed over him. “Why this one?!” he groaned, his voice a higher-pitched buzz. “Of all the forms… I needed power to counter!”

  The being that now stood awkwardly in the cramped space was a grimier, more visceral sight compared to a standard…fly? Its exoskeleton was a mottled palette of gunmetal grey and a sickly, mossy green that looked less like a shell and more like rough, segmented armor. The edges of its chitinous plates were sharper and more jagged, giving it a distinctly aggressive and dangerous silhouette.

  “You could improvise”, Armin quipped out.

  Before Eren could reply to Armin, a deep, soul-chilling cold seeped through the walls of the shack, an unnatural frost that had nothing to do with the night air. The torch’s flame guttered and shrank, sucking the light and warmth from the room.

  A voice, smooth as ground glass and laced with ancient malice, slithered into their minds, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

  “There you are…”

  Outside, the distant sounds of the thralls ceased. An eerie, absolute silence fell, broken only by the frantic beating of their own hearts. They were alone. And they were not alone.

  Zs’Skayr drifted into view outside the grimy window, his skeletal form a tear in the fabric of the night. His single, luminous purple eye fixed on them through the glass, a predator that had finally cornered its prey. He didn’t need to raise his voice.

  “The game of hide and seek is over, Eren Yeager,” Zs’Skayr’s voice was a whisper that carried the weight of a shout, dripping with condescending amusement. “You have nowhere left to run. Come out. Your body has been promised to a higher purpose.”

  Inside, the group froze. Carla clutched Armin’s arm. Mikasa tightened her grip on her knife, a futile gesture against such a foe.

  It was Grandpa Arlet who moved. He hefted the strange, metallic Sun Gun, its design unlike any weapon they had ever seen. “Stay behind me,” he ordered, his voice low. With a grimace, he shoved the shutters open, giving him a clear line of sight.

  “You talk too much, ghost,” the old man growled.

  Zs’Skayr’s eye shifted, a flicker of surprise registering at the sight of the human and his weapon. “And what is this? A geriatric fool with a—?”

  Grandpa Arlet didn’t let him finish. “I’ve got something shiny for ya!” he yelled, and pulled the trigger. A searing beam of concentrated sunlight lanced through the night. It wasn’t a blast of heat, but of pure, focused light.

  It caught Zs’Skayr square in the chest.

  The effect was instantaneous. The Ectonurite lord let out a piercing shriek of pure agony. Where the light touched, his ectoplasmic flesh sizzled and vaporized, burning away to reveal the writhing tentacles beneath. Smoke, thick and black, poured from the wound. He recoiled violently, his form flickering uncontrollably.

  “THE SUN!?” he screeched, his voice distorted with pain and rage. “A PRIMITIVE LIGHT-BOX! YOU DARE?!”

  Enraged and wounded, Zs’Skayr’s eye blazed with violet energy. Telekinetic force of dark blue light began forming around his needle like claws, invisible and crushing, wrapped around the base of a nearby dead tree. With a sound of tearing roots, he ripped it from the earth and hurled it like a giant spear directly at the old man in the window.

  Time seemed to slow. Grandpa Arlet tried to bring the Sun Gun around for another shot, but he was too slow. The massive trunk filled his vision.

  “GRANDPA!” Armin screamed.

  Eren moved on instinct. He shot forward, his slender Buzzrot form surprisingly fast. He couldn’t catch the tree; he wasn’t Titanfist. Instead, he wrapped his insectoid limbs around the old man and yanked him backward along with Armin, Mikasa and his mother on time, just as the tree smashed into the shack with the force of a cannonball.

  The wall exploded inward in a shower of splintered wood, broken slime, and dust. The entire structure groaned in protest.

  Zs’Skayr, clutched his smoldering chest and rose back into the air, his form still wavered a bit from the light’s damage, the edges of his substance blurring like smoke. His amusement was gone, replaced by cold, utter fury.

  “It seems I have underestimated you greatly, senile creature,” Zs’Skayr rasped out, the words grating off like ice cracking. His single, burning eye then shifted to Eren, taking in the insectoid form with a fresh wave of contempt. “And you’ve chosen a most… interesting form with which to greet me.”

  “Don’t count on it, freak,” Buzzrot buzzed back, his voice a defiant hum.

  “There’s plenty more from where that came from,” Grandpa Arlet proclaimed, and he proved it by firing another searing beam of sunlight.

  The attack forced Zs’Skayr to contort his body violently, the light grazing his shoulder and sending fresh plumes of acrid smoke into the air. He hissed in pain, his intangibility useless against this weaponized dawn. He was forced into a frantic, weaving dance; dodging and phasing erratically to avoid the lethal rays.

  “Eren, I need you to attack from the right!” the old man yelled, his voice steady and focused, never taking his eye off the dodging specter.

  “On it!” Eren obeyed without hesitation. He buzzed to the side, his wings a blur, and fired a thick glob of viscous slime from his four identical crimson eyes. It wasn’t meant to injure, but to entrap. The goo sailed through the space where Zs’Skayr was phasing to next. The Ectonurite lord had to rematerialize abruptly to avoid it, the sudden shift making his form flicker unstable.

  It was a perfect, punishing rhythm. Grandpa Arlet’s sun gun forced Zs’Skayr to move, and Eren’s slime attacks cut off his escape routes, hemming him in. The air sizzled with solar energy and the smell of ozone and hardening goo.

  Frustrated and cornered, Zs’Skayr’s eye blazed with renewed malice. He decided to end this farce. As he dodged another beam, he thrust a clawed hand toward Grandpa Arlet, his fingers elongating into tendrils of pure shadow, aiming to bypass the physical and seize the old man’s mind directly.

  It was a fatal mistake.

  Grandpa Arlet saw the attack coming; the shift in intention and the gathering of psychic energy. He was already moving. He dropped into a crouch, the shadowy tendrils passing over his head, and fired the Sun Gun upward from his lowered position.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  The point-blank blast hit Zs’Skayr’s outstretched arm. The Ectonurite screamed, a raw, unhinged sound of agony as the limb nearly vaporized, dissolving into nothingness before slowly, painfully beginning to reform from swirling ectoplasm.

  “Give it up, ghost!” Grandpa Arlet barked, advancing slowly, the Sun Gun held steady. Its hum was the only sound now besides Zs’Skayr’s ragged, furious breaths. “You’re outnumbered and outgunned. We can keep this up until dawn. And we both know what happens to you when the sun rises.”

  Zs’Skayr clutched his reforming arm, his form shuddering with rage. He looked from the determined old man to the buzzing, ready Eren. A low, grating laugh escaped his jagged maw. “Perhaps… you have that backwards, human,” he hissed, the threat dripping from every syllable.

  “Oh yeah?” Buzzrot shot back, the bravado of his form overriding his sense for a moment. “You and what army?” (T_T Rule number one, never say those words. It ALWAYS ends up in a jinx!). The moment the words left his mouth, Eren regretted them. The memory of the refugee camp; the sea of violet eyes, the twisted bodies; flashed in his mind.

  Zs’Skayr’s grin widened, a horrific sight on his skeletal face. “An excellent question, child.”

  He didn't need to shout commands. He threw his head back and opened his jagged maw, letting out a high-frequency screech that was less a sound and more a physical pressure wave, a siren call of pure malice that echoed through the entire district, vibrating in their bones.

  For a heartbeat, there was silence…

  …Then, it was broken.

  From the darkness beyond the ruined shack, from the alleys and the depths of the camp, a chorus of guttural snarls answered. One by one, then in pairs, then in groups, violet eyes ignited in the darkness, turning in unison toward the source of their master's call. The shadows themselves began to move, to shift, and to advance. The army was coming.

  _______________

  The world from the rooftops was a distorted map of shadow and silence. Hannes and Jochen moved with the practiced, if slightly drunken, grace of men who’d trained for years on ODM gear…they rarely used in earnest. The hiss of their gas was a rhythmic counterpoint to the frantic beating of their hearts. Below them, the refugee sector was a scar of darkness, a stark contrast to the few flickering lights of the main district behind them long since passed.

  They’d zipped across several blocks, following the main thoroughfare toward the epicenter of the earlier screams. But they found nothing. No panicked crowds, no fighting mobs. Just an eerie, deserted emptiness that was somehow worse than the chaos they’d expected.

  “This is wrong,” Jochen muttered, landing softly beside Hannes on the tiled roof of a tannery. The smell of wood and dried hides was overpowering. “It’s too quiet. Where is everyone?”

  Hannes didn’t answer, wasn’t even sure if he had an answer in the first place. His eyes scanned the street below. It wasn’t just quiet; it was wrecked. A cart was overturned, its contents; pathetic bundles of salvaged belongings; spilled across the cobblestones. A shack had its door torn clean off its hinges. And there, dark and wet against the pale stone, was a long, smeared trail of something that looked horribly like blood.

  “There,” Hannes pointed to what he was looking at, his voice a low grunt. In the middle of the street, crouched in a pool of shadow near the overturned cart, was a figure. He wore the distinct brown jacket of the Military Police, the green unicorn symbol prominent in the moon’s lighting. His shoulders were hunched as his body rocked rhythmically. A low, wet, squelching noise echoed faintly in the stillness.

  “An MP?” Jochen whispered, a flicker of relief in his voice. “Thank the Walls. Maybe he knows what’s going on.”

  On the contrary, Hannes felt no such relief. The MP’s posture was all wrong. It was the posture of an animal over a kill. “Hey!” Hannes called down, his voice echoing unnaturally loud in the silence. “You! Military police! What the hell happened here?”

  The figure didn’t stop its rocking nor answered. The wet, slopping sounds continued.

  The nerves of the unresponsive MP made Jochen annoyed. “Hey, asshole! We’re talking to you!” Jochen yelled aggressively.

  Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the rocking stopped. The figure’s head lifted. And turned. Moonlight fell on its face. What was present made Jochen let out a small, choked gasp and Hannes’s blood run cold.

  The man’s MP mop top hair was askew, revealing a poker face frozen in a rictus of mindless hunger. His jaw was stained black and crimson, something stringy and raw dangling from his lips. His eyes didn’t hold the arrogance of an MP; they glowed with a sick, unwavering violet light. In his hands was a ragged piece of meat; a human forearm, the bones visible where flesh had been torn away.

  He-no-it; definitely it; wasn't eating rations. It was eating a corpse half-hidden by the cart.

  Time seemed to freeze. The thing that was once an MP stared up at them, its head cocked to the side with a bird-like curiosity that was utterly inhuman. Then, with a guttural snarl that ripped from a throat not meant for such sounds, it moved.

  It didn’t run; it uncoiled, launching itself upward with impossible strength, its feet actually leaving the ground as it scrambled up the wall of the tannery with terrifying speed, its eyes locked on Hannes.

  “FUCK!!” Hannes yelled, bringing up his ODM swords on pure instinct.

  The thing slammed into him, its momentum driving them both onto the clay cobblestones below. Rotten teeth snapped inches from Hannes’s face, the smell of death and copper thick on its breath. Hannes held it back, one hand on its throat, the other keeping his horizontal blade between its gnashing jaws and his eyes.

  “Jochen! A little help!” he roared, the earthen cobblestone cracking beneath them.

  Jochen, momentarily paralyzed by horror, snapped into action. He lunged forward and brought his sword down hard on the creature’s back. The blade bit deep with a sickening thud.

  The thing didn’t scream. It screeched; a high-frequency, nails-on-glass sound of pure fury. It forgot Hannes instantly, whirling on Jochen with blinding speed. Black ichor, not blood, wept from the gash on its back.

  What followed was a desperate, horrifying dance on the rooftops. The thing was fast and unnaturally strong, its movements jerky and unpredictable. Hannes and Jochen fought back-to-back, their ODM gear allowing them to keep just out of its reach, slashing and retreating. Their blades could hurt it, but it didn’t seem to feel pain. It just kept coming.

  “What the hell is this thing?!” Jochen panted, ducking under a wild swipe that would have taken his head off.

  “I don’t know!” Hannes grunted, parrying a clawed hand. “But it’s a fucking cannibal! A bloody cannibal!”

  Just as they seemed to gain an advantage, the creature bent its legs and, with a burst of hideous strength, ripped a large, heavy roof tile free and hurled it like a discus. Then another. Then it grabbed a whole section of a rotten wooden wagon that had been discarded (Don’t ask me how it got there) on the roof and flung the entire mass at them.

  “Split up!” Hannes yelled, firing his anchors in opposite directions. He zipped to the left, Jochen to the right. The wagon shattered against the roof where they’d been standing, sending splinters and debris flying. Hannes landed hard, rolling to his feet.

  Just as he was recovering from his fall, a cry of pain made the veteran garrison’s heart stop. Jochen was on one knee, clutching his side. A large, jagged splinter of wood from the wagon had punched straight through his ODM gear’s gas canister and into the muscle of his hip. Precious gas hissed out into the night air, the mechanism sputtering and dying.

  “Jochen! No!” Hannes screamed out. The thing on the roof heard it too. Its violet eyes locked onto the injured, grounded soldier. It dropped into a crouch and then leapt, crossing the distance between rooftops in a single, horrifying bound, landing before Jochen with a soft thud.

  “Stay back!” Jochen screamed, raising his sword with a trembling hand. The thing didn’t even slow. It dashed forward. Jochen swung with all his might, a clean, desperate strike aimed at its neck.

  The blade passed straight through. The creature’s form flickered, becoming intangible for a split second, the sword meeting no resistance. It solidified the moment it was past the blade. It didn’t attack Jochen directly. Instead, it snapped its jaws down on the steel sword itself.

  The sound was awful; a metallic SCREECH of teeth on metal. The creature’s jaw unhinged, its teeth; sharpened into needle points; grinded against the blade. It shook its head like a dog, and with a horrific CRACK, the tempered steel sword shattered in Jochen’s hand.

  Jochen could only stare, dumbstruck, at the hilt he was holding. That was all the opening it needed. It didn’t pounce to bite. It simply… leaned forward. Its form dissolved into a wave of living, sentient shadow that poured into Jochen’s mouth, his nose, his eyes. Jochen’s body went rigid. He dropped the sword hilt. His back arched violently, his heels drumming against the rooftop he was on. A silent scream was trapped in his throat as his veins turned black beneath his skin, spiderwebbing across his face. His eyes rolled back before snapping forward, now glowing with the same vacant, violent violet light.

  The possession was complete. Jochen stood up, his movements now belonging to someone else. He picked up his broken sword hilt, his head tilting toward Hannes with a predator’s interest.

  Hannes could only watch, breathless, his mind refusing to process the violation he had just witnessed. His friend. His comrade. Gone. Erased.

  The thing that was Jochen took a step toward him.

  T-This was finally it, wasn’t it? Hannes thought to himself, his life subconsciously flashing before his eyes. It’s not like he could do a thing to stop it, not less a now turned comrade, it could easily break their steel and even become ghost, so what the hell could he do?!

  But then the approaching ‘Jochen’ stopped.

  Its head cocked, as if listening to a distant sound. Without a second glance at Hannes, it turned and walked to the edge of the roof, dropping down into the alley below and heading off in a specific direction with purposeful, jerky strides.

  Hannes was alone. The hiss of his own ODM gear sputtered and died. He slapped the canister. Empty. They’d been zipping around for too long, and unlike the Scouts, the Garrison never bothered to keep their gear fully fueled for extended operations. It was meant for ceremony and short patrols, not for… this.

  He was stranded on a roof, unarmed save for his blades, in a sector crawling with monsters that could possess his friends. His eyes fell on the street below. Near the MP’s half-eaten corpse was a fallen Garrison’s rifle, likely dropped by its original owner in their flight.

  With a shaking breath, Hannes made his way to the edge of the roof and began the slow, treacherous climb down. He had to know. He had to follow. He dropped onto the cobblestones, picked up the cold, heavy weight of the rifle, and checked the bayonet. Then, with his heart hammering against his ribs, he began to move slowly, silently, in the direction the possessed Jochen had gone, a lone, terrified man following a trail of monsters into the heart of the darkness.

  _______________

  Annie’s lungs burned, each breath a ragged, painful gasp that tore at her throat. The gash on her leg, courtesy of a thrall’s foot, had knitted itself together thanks to her Titan’s accelerated healing, but the muscle beneath still screamed in protest with every step. She was exhausted, running on fumes and sheer, stubborn will to survive.

  The thudding footsteps of her pursuers echoed behind her, a relentless, earth-shaking rhythm. She didn’t need to look back to know what was there: Reiner and Bertholdt, their forms twisted into monstrous parodies of the Titans she knew, their eyes burning with that same sickening violet light. And behind them, a shambling horde of lesser thralls, drawn by the commotion and that thing’s orders.

  Spotting a narrow alley choked with stacked firewood and discarded crates, she saw her chance. With a final burst of speed, she dove into the gap, squeezing herself deep into the shadows between the rough-hewn logs. She pulled a tattered, foul-smelling tarpaulin over herself, becoming just another piece of the alley’s detritus.

  The blonde female held her breath, forcing her racing heart to slow. The footsteps grew louder, then stopped at the mouth of the alley. She could see their distorted shadows cast by the moonlight against the opposite wall. Reiner’s hulking, armored form shifted, his head swinging slowly from side to side like a bloodhound seeking a scent. Bertholdt’s larger, steaming silhouette loomed behind him, tendrils of shadowy heat wafting from his body. The lesser thralls milled about, as if sniffing the air with wet, snuffling sounds.

  For a long, agonizing moment, there was only the sound of their distorted breathing. They couldn’t see her. The hiding spot was good.

  Then…fate intervened with cruel irony. A fat, scavenging rat, startled by the giants, scrambled over the crates. In its panic, it knocked a rusted metal bucket off a precarious pile, which clattered into a tower of empty jars.

  The noise was deafening in the tense silence, a symphony of shattering glass and clanging metal.

  Annie’s blood went cold.

  ‘No.’

  Reiner’s head snapped toward the sound with unnatural speed. A low, guttural rumble built in his chest before erupting into that same piercing, psychic screech that communicated to the horde. The violet eyes of every thrall in the street instantly locked onto her hiding place.

  “Damn it,” Annie cursed, her voice a raw whisper. There was no more hiding.

  She exploded from her cover, grabbing the only weapon at hand; a heavy, four-foot length of rusted iron pipe that had been leaning against the woodpile. She couldn’t transform again; the energy wasn’t there, and the resulting lightning would only pin her in place for them to swarm.

  They charged. The alley instantly became a funnel of death.

  Annie didn’t try to fight them all. She focused on the biggest immediate threat: Bertholdt. His massive, clumsy form was having difficulty navigating the narrow space. As he reached for her, she ducked under his swiping, steaming hand, planted her feet, and with a guttural cry of effort, swung the iron pipe like a battering ram.

  The blow connected with the side of his head with a sickening, wet CRUNCH. Chunks of hardened, ectoplasm-infused flesh and bone flew away. The giant thrall staggered, his one good eye flickering. A shudder ran through his massive frame before his knees buckled and he collapsed face-first into the alley, shaking the ground. The steam rising from his body began to thin.

  A pang of guilt, sharp and bitter, lanced through Annie. “I’m sorry, Bert.” She breathed, already turning to face the next horror.

  Reiner was on her trail. He was faster and more agile in this form. He moved with the brutal, efficient skill of the Warrior he used to be, but amplified by a mindless ferocity. Annie was a blur of motion, using her superior technique to dodge and weave. She landed sharp, precise kicks on his joints, strikes that would have shattered a normal man’s bones, but they only seemed to annoy the armored beast.

  The problem was the others. The lesser thralls flooded the alley, grabbing at her ankles, trying to slow her down. She broke arms and shattered jaws with the pipe and her heels, but for every one she disabled, two more took its place. They were a living, biting net.

  It was a flicker of distraction; ducking under the claw of a former MP; that cost her. Reiner’s arm, now more a bladed limb of bone and armor, shot out and wrapped around her torso in a vice-like grip.

  She was trapped.

  He squeezed, pulling her against his cold, hard chest. The air rushed from her lungs in a pained gasp. She struggled, kicking, trying to pry the arm away, but it was like trying to bend steel. The pressure intensified, the armored plates of his limb digging into her ribs. Stars burst at the edge of her vision. She heard, more than felt, a sickening SNAP in her left arm as it was crushed between them. A white-hot agony blinded her but she bit down on her tongue.

  She was going to die. Crushed to death by a corrupted version of her comrade.

  Through the roaring in her ears, she heard it. A voice, distorted and layered, gargling from Reiner’s misshapen maw. It wasn’t the screech of the thrall. It was something else, something buried deep beneath the possession.

  “...Annie...run...!”

  It was his voice. Reiner’s voice. A final, fragmented piece of the boy she knew, fighting from the prison of his own mind.

  Then, another sound cut through the night, overpowering even her struggle. It was a psychic shriek, a command of pure authority that vibrated through the very air.

  Zs’Skayr’s call.

  The effect was instantaneous. The violet light in Reiner’s eyes flared brightly. The last vestige of his own will was snuffed out. The pressure on Annie’s ribs vanished as he simply… let go. She dropped to the muddy ground like a sack of stones, clutching her broken arm and sucking in ragged, painful breaths.

  Reiner didn’t even look at her. Neither did the rest of the thralls. As one, their heads turned in the exact same direction. As one, they began to move, shambling and loping out of the alley with a single-minded purpose, leaving their prey and their fallen comrade behind without a second glance.

  Annie lay in the mud and filth, trembling from pain, adrenaline, and shock. She was alive. By some miracle, she was alive. She looked over at Bertholdt’s still, massive form as the head was slowly regenerating, a wave of nausea and sorrow washing over her.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered again, her voice cracking.

  Refusing to let the tears welling in her eyes fall, she used her good arm to push herself up. Every movement was fire. She couldn’t follow them. She…couldn’t fight. Clutching her shattered arm to her chest, she began to drag herself away, moving in the opposite direction of the thrall horde, away from the madness, a lone, broken warrior swallowed by the shadows.

  _______________

  The psychic screech from Zs’Skayr’s jagged maw lingered in the air, a malevolent summons that stirred the shadows of the refugee camp into a living nightmare. From every shattered alley, every broken shack, every pile of rubble, they came; thralls with violet eyes glowing like cursed stars, their bodies twisted into grotesque parodies of humanity. The air was instantly filled with wet gurgles, scraping feet, and low snarls, a tide of clawing horrors converging on the splintered remains of Grandpa Arlet’s shack.

  Eren in his Lepidopterran form stood as a living shield before his mother Carla, Mikasa, and Armin. His wings buzzed with a high-pitched whine, a warning to the approaching horde. Grandpa Arlet gripped the Sun Gun, its barrel trained on Zs’Skayr, who hovered just beyond easy range, his skeletal form a tear in the night’s fabric. The air was thick with the stench of decay and the electric tang of fear.

  The Ecto-Lord's upside-down skull tilted slightly, his single purple eye gleaming with sadistic delight. “You see, child?” Zs’Skayr rasped, his voice a blade of condescension slicing through the chaos. He gestured with a clawed hand at the encroaching thralls. “You asked for an army. I have provided a… demonstration.”

  Mikasa, Armin, and Carla shot simultaneous, pointed glares up at Eren’s alien form. Even in this moment of existential dread, his reckless taunt—“You and what army?”—hung like a bitter jest.

  Buzzrot's mandibles clicked together in what could only be described as an awkward, nervous chuckle; a high-pitched buzz that cut through the tension like a misplaced joke at a funeral. "Uh… yeah," he admitted, his compound eyes shifting away sheepishly. "My bad. Really didn't think that one through."

  The levity was a fleeting spark, snuffed out by the suffocating weight of their reality.

  “Your bravado is as pathetic as this form you wear,” Zs’Skayr sneered, his luminous purple eye narrowing. “You cling to these fleshlings, these temporary, fragile things. It is a sickness.”

  “It doesn’t matter!” Eren roared, his buzzing voice cracking with defiance. “I’ll take you down! You hear me? I'll end this—I'll end you!”

  Driven by that surge of fury, Buzzrot launched himself into the air without a second thought. His wings beat furiously, propelling him toward Zs'Skayr like an orange-and-grey missile as he fired a stream of viscous, green slime at Zs’Skayr. The Ectonurite Lord eye narrowed in mock surprise and phased through the incoming attack effortlessly, the goo splattering uselessly against a broken wall.

  "Such predictable aggression," he taunted, his claws lashing out in a casual swipe that Eren barely evaded. “But rage alone is not enough, boy. Watch—and learn. Attack them!” Zs’Skayr commanded to the thralls below, his voice a psychic whip-crack that set the thralls in motion.

  The horde surged forward, a wave of clawing limbs and snapping jaws.

  “Cover the children!” Grandpa Arlet barked, his voice cutting through the chaos. He fired the Sun Gun, a searing beam of concentrated sunlight lancing toward a group of thralls lunging for Mikasa. The light vaporized two, their bodies dissolving into acrid smoke, while a third stumbled back, screeching as its ectoplasmic flesh sizzled. But his aim wavered, torn between the thralls and Zs’Skayr, who dodged each shot with infuriating ease.

  Then, horror struck. A thrall; a woman with a hollowed-out stomach and violet eyes; threw herself into the beam’s path, shielding Zs’Skayr. Her body burned away in seconds, a sacrificial shield. Another thrall, a man with a twisted arm, did the same, then another. Grandpa Arlet’s face contorted in anguish, his hands trembling on the weapon.

  “No…!” he gasped, rage and guilt warring within him. These were victims, their humanity stolen, now weaponized against him. And the bastard was using them as meat shields so he wouldn’t get hurt.

  Armin, watching from the sidelines, noted the way the thralls reacted to the Sun Gun's beam. The light burned them deeply, far more than conventional weapons, but they endured it to protect Zs'Skayr. And the Ecto-Lord himself... he avoided it like poison, his phasing less effective against its concentrated glow. Armin's mind raced, filing away the observation for later.

  If we could find a way to isolate him, cut off his shields...

  But there was no time for planning. The thralls, emboldened by their master's command, surged forward. A group of five broke off toward Mikasa, Armin, and Carla, their unhinged jaws snapping hungrily.

  Mikasa moved like a shadow given form. Her knife was already in hand, a silver extension of her will. The first thrall; a former woman with a distended jaw; lunged at Carla's wheelchair. Mikasa intercepted on instinct, subconsciously tapping to her Ackerman prowess. Her blade flashed in a precise arc that severed the thrall's outstretched arm at the elbow. Black ichor sprayed, and the creature screeched, but Mikasa didn't stop. She pivoted, driving her knife into its knee, dropping it to the ground. As it clawed at her, she stomped down on its neck, pinning it while she twisted the blade free.

  "Stay away from her!" Mikasa snarled, her voice a low, feral growl. The second thrall came from the side, its claws raking toward Armin. Mikasa was there in a heartbeat, her free hand grabbing its wrist and yanking it off-balance. She used its momentum against it, slamming her elbow into its throat with crushing force. The thrall gurgled, staggering, and she finished it with a swift slash across the eyes, blinding it in a spray of violet-tinged fluid.

  Carla, confined to her wheelchair, was no victim. She gripped a splintered plank from the shattered wall, wielding it like a club. A thrall with a broken jaw scrambled towards her, its violet eyes locked on her throat. She gripped her wooden club tightly, waiting for the right moment. As it leaped, she swung with all her strength, catching it mid-air across the side of the head. The impact was solid, the crack of wood on bone echoing. The thrall spun away, dazed, and Carla followed up with another blow to its leg, dropping it. “Stay away from my family!” she screamed, her voice raw with maternal defiance, her eyes burning with a fire that belied her frailty.

  Armin, clutching a smaller piece of debris, swung it in frantic arcs at a thrall that got too close, his breaths hitching with terror. His blows were frantic, lacking Mikasa's precision, but fueled by desperation. He cracked it across the knee, sending it stumbling, then followed up with an overhead smash to its shoulder. "Get back! Get back!" he yelled, his voice high and cracking, tears stinging his eyes. He wasn't a fighter like Mikasa or Eren, but he wouldn't let them down. Not now.

  But the thralls kept coming, their numbers seemingly endless. Mikasa danced between them, her knife a whirlwind of death. She ducked under a swipe, drove her blade into a thrall's gut, twisted, and ripped it free in a spray of ichor. Another came from behind; she spun, kicking its knee out and stabbing downward into its neck. Blood; black and foul; splattered her face, but she didn't flinch. Her movements were poetry in violence, each strike precise, each dodge calculated. But even she was tiring, her breaths coming in sharp gasps, her wrist throbbing slightly from the earlier…injury.

  Armin, seeing a thrall closing on Mikasa's blind side, swung his plank desperately. It connected with the creature's arm, knocking it off-balance just long enough for Mikasa to whirl and finish it with a throat slash. "Thanks," she panted, sparing him a quick nod.

  Above, Eren battled Zs’Skayr, dodging a swipe of razor-sharp claws and retaliating with a glob of slime that briefly pinned the Ectonurite’s tail to a wall. “Call them off, you bastard!” he screamed, his voice a buzzing roar.

  Zs’Skayr tore free, and laughed; a dry, grating sound. “And ruin the fun? I think not.”

  Sensing an opening, Zs’Skayr dissolved into a cloud of smoke and surged toward Buzzrot, attempting to possess him. His ectoplasmic essence poured over the alien form, seeking a mind to dominate. Instead, his essence stuck like glue, sliding uselessly over the chitin.

  “What?!” Zs’Skayr snarled, his eye widening in confusion.

  “Get off me!” Eren roared. He jabbed with his stinger, clawed with two hands, and fired a point-blank glob of slime from his eyes. With a wet, tearing sound, he ripped Zs’Skayr free and hurled him away, the Ectonurite tumbling through the air.

  “It seems I can’t merge with you in your alien forms. No matter, a minor inconvenience,” Zs’Skayr spat, reforming with a furious glare. “Your time is limited. Mine is not.” He looked down at the battlefield below, and what caught his eyes made him smile. “Ah…Right on time.”

  Just as it seemed it couldn’t get any worse, a new horror emerged. A hulking 2 meter figure shoved through the lesser thralls, its footsteps shaking the earth. Reiner’s thrall form, its armored body gleaming with violet-tinted plates, let out resonating snarls in the air making everyone freeze.

  Grandpa Arlet’s face paled. “By the stars…”

  “You there! Take care of that nuisance meddling with the affairs of your master.” Zs’Skayr commanded to the armored monstrosity as he pointed at Grandpa Arlet.

  Reiner’s face locked its glowing eyes on Grandpa Arlet, flashing brighter with purpose. The Sun Gun was its target. Then it began walking towards the old man.

  Grandpa Arlet instantly recovered from his shock and fired, the beam striking Reiner’s chest. The searing light scorched the armor, drawing a roar of anger, but didn’t penetrate. The thrall crossed its bladed arms in an X, shielding its face, and pushed through the light like a man against a storm.

  “What the-!” Grandpa Arlet shouted, pouring more power into the beam.

  This time it had actually began searing through the armor and melting it slowly, but it was still futile. Reiner’s thrall closed the distance in three strides. With a backhanded swipe, it smashed the Sun Gun from his hands. The weapon flew, crashing against a far wall with a sickening crunch of metal and glass. Its light died, leaving only sparks.

  Before Grandpa Arlet could react, the thrall’s foot shot out, striking his stomach. He flew backward, landing in a heap beside Mikasa, Armin, and Carla, gasping, his ribs screaming.

  “GRANDPA!” Armin cried, dropping to his knees, his debris weapon clattering to the ground. The small blonde boy looked at the looming armored thrall, whose part smelted armor was slowly healing itself.

  ‘Tha-That’s impossible. The light hurts them all, but the armored one… it’s resisting more. It’s not just flesh—it’s structure.’ Armin thought frantically as his eyes darted to the broken device on the ground. ‘But with enough concentrated heat, the armor was slowly crumbling, and the only source of that is destroyed. Unless…’ An idea popped into Armin’s mind.

  High above, Eren saw the armored thrall's arrival and the way it shrugged off the Sun Gun like it was nothing. Rage boiled over, a white-hot fury that drowned out his pain and fear. A roar erupted from Buzzrot’s thorax, raw and unhinged. "You bastard!" he screamed at Zs'Skayr. "I'll kill you for this!"

  He charged again, wings buzzing furiously, aiming to tackle the Ecto-Lord out of the sky. Zs'Skayr merely floated higher, his claws lashing out in casual swipes that Eren barely dodged. "Such fire," the ghost purred. "It will serve me well."

  Once again Buzzrot dove in, an orange missile aimed at Zs’Skayr.

  He never made it.

  A piercing BEEP-BEEP-BEEP echoed from the Omnitrix. A flash of red light engulfed him, and Buzzrot dissolved, leaving ten-year-old Eren Yeager plummeting. He hit the ground hard, rolling to a stop at Zs’Skayr’s feet, gasping and breathless.

  The timing was a cruel jest.

  Zs’Skayr looked down, his maw splitting into a sinister chuckle. “Ah, Music to my ears,” he sing-sang, his voice dripping with malice. He didn’t bother with flair. A casual backhand sent Eren sprawling, his lip splitting, blood trickling down his chin.

  “EREN!” Mikasa, Carla, and Armin screamed in unison, their voices raw with panic.

  The armored thrall; Reiner; lurched forward, its bladed arm raised for a killing strike, ready to end the boy who had dared to defy its master.

  “Stop.” Zs’Skayr commanded, his voice calm but absolute but carrying the weight of absolute authority.

  The armored thrall froze instantly, its arm hovering in the air like a statue as its violet eyes dimmed slightly. Every other thrall in the vicinity halted their advance as well, standing as still as the dead they resembled. The sudden silence was deafening, broken only by the distant screams from other parts of the camp and Eren’s ragged breaths.

  Zs'Skayr descended slowly, his form casting a long, cold shadow over Eren. "Look at you," he said, his voice a silken trap laced with false pity. "All this effort, all this struggle... and for what? You have dragged your beloved family into your own personal hell. This..." he gestured to the surrounding carnage, the frozen thralls, the ruined shack, "...all of this, could have been prevented. It can still be prevented."

  Eren pushed himself up on his elbows, blood trickling from his mouth, his body a symphony of pain. He looked past Zs'Skayr to where his mother, his friends, and the old man were surrounded, at the mercy of the horde. Mikasa's knife was bloodied, her face smeared with ichor, but her eyes burned with defiance. Armin clutched his recovering grandfather, his small body trembling but unbowed. Carla’s weapon had long since been broken in half due to the relentless impact on the thralls. Grandpa Arlet was on one knee, clutching his side but still glaring at Zs’Skayr with venom.

  The sight broke something in Eren. Tears stung his eyes, hot and angry.

  Dammit! He doesn’t want to believe that. A part of him wanted to ferociously scream all he was saying was a lie…But another part of him, remembering all that had happened since the past 2 days, was making his resolve waver.

  What if…Phantom was right?

  "What do you want?" Eren spat, though he already knew the answer. His voice was hoarse, defeated.

  "A simple trade," Zs'Skayr said, his claws flexing as he hovered closer to Eren’s face. "You come with me, willingly. No more fighting. No more transformations. And I will call off my children. Your precious loved ones will be allowed to live. Their suffering ends the moment you submit."

  The words hung in the air like a noose. It wasn’t a choice; it was a damn ultimatum. Eren's mind raced, a whirlwind of despair and rage. This was his fault. All of it. If he didn't end it now, they would pay the price. Mikasa, Armin, his grandfather…his mom.

  He would never let that happen, not under his watch.

  "You..." Eren's voice was low, venomous, shaking with a hate so pure it was almost tangible. "You won't get away with this. I don't know what you are, or where you come from, but I promise you this. When it's all over... when it's finally time for you to die... my face will be the last thing you see. I'll make sure of it. Even if it kills me."

  For the first time, a flicker of something other than amusement or anger passed through Zs'Skayr's luminous eye. It wasn't fear, not quite. It was a moment of ponderous, cold recognition. The boy's will was not just strong; it was feral, eternal. It was a promise that echoed across time itself. It was, Zs'Skayr had to admit, slightly unnerving. This child, this vessel, possessed a spirit that could not be easily extinguished.

  He chuckled, the sound like grinding stones, masking the brief unease. "Such magnificent fire. That is all the more reason I must have it for myself." The moment of uncertainty passed, replaced by greed. "The power of the Omnitrix, the drive of the Xerxathi parasite... all contained in one, perfect vessel. It will all be MINE."

  In a blur, Zs’Skayr grabbed Eren by his shirt, hauling him into the air. The boy’s feet dangled helplessly. He turned to the thralls below. The group below surged forward, screams of "Eren!" tearing from their throats. But Zs'Skayr turned to face the thralls, his voice booming with command.

  "Now," he ordered. "Finish them."

  Eren’s eyes widened, betrayal igniting his blood. “WE HAD A DEAL!” he screamed, thrashing against the iron grip.

  Zs’Skayr’s eye narrowed, his voice a cold whisper. “I made a deal with you. Not with them.”

  The thralls obeyed instantly, surging forward toward the group on the ground. Mikasa, Armin, Carla, and Grandpa Arlet braced themselves, weapons raised, faces set in grim determination. But they were outnumbered, outmatched. It was suicide.

  Zs'Skayr turned his attention back to Eren, his claws beginning to glow with a vile, purple energy as they became intangible. "Now, let us become acquainted, you and I. I am going to savor this."

  The claws sank into Eren's chest.

  It was not a physical pain, though it was agonizing enough to make Eren's vision white out for a moment. It was a cold so profound it felt like his soul was freezing solid. Tendrils of shadow, the substance of Zs'Skayr's very being, poured from the claws, wrapping around Eren, holding him immobile, and beginning to seep into him.

  Eren screamed, a raw, ragged sound of absolute torment. He wasn't just being held; he was being unmade. Visions flooded his mind, not his own—

  Visions of a world shrouded in eternal night,

  People with glowing violet eyes bowing to a god-king wearing his face,

  Stars being snuffed out one by one.

  Life conquered and extinguished, all in his name, by his hand. Planets reduced to husks, their populations possessed and overwritten, marching as an endless army under his banner. Cities burning under violet flames, children screaming as ectonurite essence poured into their mouths.

  Then the most intriguing one…

  A moonlit battlefield. Himself, or Zs’Skayr, towering over an armored figure with pulsing red eyes.

  And through it all… a cold, endless hunger that could never be sated.

  The pain and the violation were beyond anything Eren had ever experienced. It felt like his very essence was being dissolved, replaced piece by piece with something alien and ancient.

  The Omnitrix's failsafe kicked in. Recognizing the existential threat to its user, the device's core surged with energy. The red warning light vanished as the omnitrix’s core sparked with green energy, replaced by a bright, ready green. It had instantly recycled, recharging itself in defiance of its own limits.

  Eren saw it through the haze of pain. With his last shred of will, he reached for the dial with his right hand.

  Zs'Skayr noticed. "I think not." he sneered.

  His ectoplasmic tendrils wrapped around Eren's right arm tightened like steel cables. A sickening SNAP echoed as the bone shattered, the pain blinding. Eren's scream reached a new, unimaginable pitch. His forearm bent at a horrifying, impossible angle, the bone shattered. The pain was blinding, a white-hot supernova that threatened to consume him as his vison swarm.

  "Watch," Zs'Skayr whispered into his mind, the coldness finally reaching Eren's very soul’s core. "This is your destiny Yeager. Just watch."

  The ectonurite's essence flooded deeper, the merging almost complete. Eren's vision began to go dark at the edges, Zs'Skayr's consciousness pressing down on his own, ready to smother it forever.

  But something else stirred.

  Not of the Omnitrix. Of Eren Yeager.

  The part of him that was the Attack Titan, the power that was bound not to blood but to will, the spirit that refused to ever, ever be enslaved, roared its defiance. Admist that moment too, Eren had subconsciously willed to activate his titan powers with a clear intent in mind. He refuses for things to end like this.

  He refuses to lose to this monstrosity!

  Lightning cracked the sky.

  A bolt, brilliant and blinding, slammed down from the heavens, engulfing both Eren and Zs'Skayr in a maelstrom of electric fury.

  Zs'Skayr's triumphant sneer vanished into a screech of shock and agony. This was not part of the plan! This energy was pure, chaotic life force; the antithesis of his deathly cold. The lightning surged through his ectoplasmic form, disrupting his cohesion, burning him from the inside out. His grip on Eren faltered.

  He was forced to let go, recoiling violently as tendrils of lightning arced over his body, scorching his substance. Eren, freed from the grip, began to fall. No Titan formed; just a boy with glowing red Titan markings etched across his face and back, plummeting to the earth.

  The brunette hit the ground on his knees, gasping, his body a symphony of pain. His right arm hung uselessly, blood dripping from the mangled flesh where the bone had shattered through the skin. The titan markings on his flesh pulsed faintly, angry scars of his will.

  He had one second to breathe.

  Then the thralls, freed from Zs'Skayr's momentary command, swarmed him. They were on the boy in an instant, a pile of clawing, biting monsters. He fought, kicking and screaming, but he was one boy against a dozen. He felt teeth sink into the flesh of his already broken right arm, and a fresh wave of agony blinded him as something; a former farmer, maybe; worried at the limb like a dog with a bone, tearing it away from his body with a brutal twist.

  “AAAHHHH!!!”

  The pain was beyond description, a red-hot poker driven through his nerves. Eren's scream was animalistic, raw, as the thrall bit down harder, the sound of tearing flesh and crunching bone filling his ears.

  A few distance away, Mikasa's world narrowed to a single point: Eren. She saw the thralls swarm him, saw the blood spray as they tore into his arm. Her heart shattered. Anger, despair and fear all clashing into one deep pit within her stomach.

  "EREN!" she screamed, her voice breaking as she charged forward, knife raised. But the thralls around her surged, cutting her off. She fought like a demon, her blade a blur, but there were too many.

  Armin and Carla could only watch in horror whilst Grandpa Arlet, still on the ground, fumbled to get up before noticing something wrong, the place where the armored thrall had kicked him brutally had made a cut through his clothing…and his body leaving a small gaping hole at the side…

  …Shit.

  Zs'Skayr, recovering from the lightning, floated above, his form frayed but reforming. He watched the thralls devour Eren with cold satisfaction. “Foolish mongrels, I never said you should eat him, choosing instinct over command I see.” He spat. “…Not like it matters, let the boy suffer for his insolence.”

  Eren's vision blurred, the pain threatening to drag him into darkness. But through it all, a single, defiant thought burned: Not like this.

  With a final, guttural roar that was all his own, he slammed his left fist; the one with the Omnitrix; down onto the ground.

  The flash of green light was a supernova in the darkness.

  When it cleared, an Opticoid was at the center of the thrall pile. But it was a horrifying sight. His right arm was missing from the elbow down, a stump of smooth, blemish yellow flesh. And across his face and neck, the angry red Titan markings remained, etched into his alien skin like war paint, a permanent testament to his pain and his will. His numerous eyes glowed with fury.

  The thralls hurdled atop him recoiled for a split second, confused by the new form. They shouldn’t have hesitated.

  All seventeen (I don’t even know the numbers LOL) of Eren’s eyes glowed with a furious green light. Then, he unleashed hell.

  Concentrated beams of thermal energy lanced out in every direction simultaneously, white hot and precise. He was a spinning, whirling dervish of destruction. Thralls were blasted off their feet, chests vaporized and limbs severed. He cleared the hurdle and circle around himself in seconds, the air filling with the smell of ozone and burnt flesh.

  He didn’t stop. He turned his attention to the thralls menacing his family. Precise beams shot from his eyes, picking off thralls with sniper-like accuracy, blasting them away from Mikasa, from Armin, from Grandpa Arlet, from his mother. “Stay away from them!” The alien roared, his voice distorted but unmistakably Eren’s.

  One thrall, smarter than the rest, tried to sneak up behind him.

  It never stood a chance. An eye on the back of Eren’s upper back swiveled, locked on, and fired. The beam caught the thrall directly in the face. It fell backward, clawing at its scorched, melting eyes, shrieking in a way that was almost human.

  Unfortunately the thralls kept coming, their numbers swelling from the shadows of the ruined camp. Reiner’s armored thrall loomed closer, shrugging off a beam that would’ve felled lesser monsters. Eren’s heart pounded, the Omnitrix’s green glow flickering on his belt buckle. He glanced back at his family, still cornered against the shack’s ruins. They were running out of time, they aren’t safe here.

  “I’ll buy you guys time!” Eren roared, his alien voice sharp and desperate. “Get out of here—now!”

  Armin froze, how could he be saying that kind of thing. That was just plain suicide! “Eren, no! We’re not leaving you!” His voice cracked, eyes wide with fear and defiance. “You can’t take them alone! We need a plan, not a sacrifice!”

  Eren’s teeth gritted. Armin’s right, this was stupid. But right now he couldn’t stop now? The monsters just keep coming!

  Carla’s face twisted, her knuckles white on her wheelchair, already wheeling herself towards her only son hadn’t Grandpa Arlet held her wheelchair back. “Eren Yeager, don’t you dare!” she shouted, her maternal fury cutting through the chaos. “You’re not sacrificing yourself!”

  Grandpa Arlet, clutching his side, growled, “Kid don’t be stupid. Listen to your ma! The omnitrix could time out at any moment, and what are you gonna do by then?!” The old man’s normally recollected voice held a tinge of…desperation. “We’ll regroup and plan how to beat Zs’Skayr. You can’t beat him on your own!”

  Eren’s many eyes swiveled to them, his heart aching. “I’m right behind you, I swear!” he lied, forcing confidence into his garbled voice. “You guys go ahead. Get it ready—I’ll hold them off!”

  Mikasa, reinvigorated, fought with renewed ferocity. A thrall charged her, and she slid under its swipe, driving her knife into its knee. As it fell, she leaped onto its back, slashing its tendrils before they could reach Armin. “Keep moving!” she shouted, kicking another thrall’s chest, caving it in. Her movements were a dance of death, each strike protecting her family, though her eyes never left Eren. She caught his gaze, her silver eyes burning with unspoken fear. “Eren, you promised,” she whispered, barely audible, before slashing another thrall’s throat, blood splattering her face.

  Eren turned back to the horde, beams lancing out as his vision blurred from sensory overload. Shit, too many movements, he’s barely gotten the hang of this new form, the constant rotation of several of his eyes making him dizzy.

  “Can’t hold this much longer, looks like I’ve done enough here.” Eren muttered as he began backstepping, aiming his one good arm at any incoming thrall slowly approaching.

  High above, Zs'Skayr finally shook off the effects of the lightning. His form was frayed at the edges, his single eye blazing with incandescent fury. This insolent welp! This miserable, persistent speck! Every time! Every time he was within grasp, something intervened!

  Rage clouded his judgment. If he could not have the boy, then no one would.

  His hands glowed with telekinetic power. A massive chunk of rubble; a piece of wall the size of a cart; ripped itself from the ground and hovered in the air. He would crush them all into paste.

  He never got the chance.

  BANG!

  The shot rang out, loud and shocking in the chaos. A rifle bullet passed harmlessly through Zs’Ska yr’s intangible head.

  But it got his attention.

  His head swiveled, his one purple eye narrowing in annoyance at the interruption. Standing at the edge of the clearing, rifle smoking in his hands, was a single Garrison soldier. His uniform was disheveled, his face pale and streaked with dirt and sweat, and he was trembling like a leaf.

  But he stood his ground.

  “Hey!” Hannes yelled, his voice shaking but filled with a defiant anger that outweighed his terror. “You ugly son of a bitch! Don’t you even think about it!”

  The battle halted. All eyes; human, alien, and monstrous; turned to the lone, brave, foolish man who had just challenged a god.

  Zs’Skayr’s eye narrowed. “A flea…” he hissed, his claws flexing by his side.

  “HANNES?!” Eren called out in surprise.

  Alien countdown: Heatblast (Inferno), Wildmutt (Savage), Fourarms (Titanfist), Ghostfreak (Phantom), Diamondhead (Obsidian), Greymatter (Cerebrus), Eyeguy (???), Stinkfly (Buzzrot), ??? (Blitz)

  Chapter 18-30: Chapter 18 (Sunrise), Chapter 19 (Binding wounds), Chapter 20 (Demonic prowl), Chapter 21 (The scent of prey- Part 1), Chapter 22 (The scent of prey- Part 2), Chapter 23 (Scourge), Chapter 24 (Hammer and axil), Chapter 25 (Purge-Part 1), Chapter 26 (Purge-Part 2), Chapter 27 (Purge- Part 3), Chapter 28 (Ashes and Embers), Chapter 29 (Where Giants tread-Part 1) and Chapter 30 (Where Giants tread-Part 2) are already available for as low as $3 on P a tre on . com (slash) Weeb Fanthom.

  I just wanted to show the threat level Zs’Skayr really is, afterall he’s a conqueror of planets like Vilgax too. Armin’s big brain would come in play next chapter, just showed subtle observance from Armin here. I also find it unrealistic if Eren won’t have issues with working around Eyeguy at first-maybe forth use if he’s using all the eyes simultaneously. It’s like trying to acquaint a human from having 2 eyes to the 360 degrees vision of a fly given their many eyes.

  Anyways if you enjoy the chapter be sure to follow and favorite and tell me what you think in the comments. Also, if you’d like to read the next 13 chapters right now, it’s available on my P a tre on for Patrons as stated above for as low as $3. Till next time.