Freedom Fighters League of the Exiled

Permanent or Temporary?

"Um," I said looking up at him blinking away any shock. My arm could still just be numb, don't panic. I took a breath and just looked up at him calmly, "You ask them if they need any help I still don't want to leave their side."

He nodded and got up to talk to Pixis. When I saw he was out of sight I took a deep breath. It was best not to worry him until I knew for sure. I stared down at my hands and poked my finger into my hand. Nope, nothing as expected. I moved a little higher to my wrist, the feeling here was very minimal before. I pressed my finger down and... nothing. I moved it a little higher to the middle of my forearm and poked my skin again. Still nothing. I moved it up to where my elbow was and poked again. Now that I felt, but just barely. I moved a little higher to my biceps and yup I could feel that.

Shit. If it's like last time then this is permanent. I need to ask Hanji to make sure, but my hopes that it's not are very low. Now that I think of it when the pins and needles shot through my arm I only felt them in my upper arm.

Marco came back and gave me a concerned look. "Something's wrong. Spill," he said, staring me down.

"I think I did have some backlash, I didn't know until just now though."

He let out a sigh and took a seat and gave me a nod to continue. "When you touched my arm I realized I didn't feel it. I thought it was because my arm was still a little numb, but-."

"That's not the case," Marco said finishing my sentence. I just nodded. "How far up?"

"To my elbows," I said, showing him where I could feel and where I couldn't. I expected him to take this a lot worse than he was, but he just nodded and said okay we will figure this out.

"I'm pretty sure this is permanent," I told him in case the reason he was taking it so well was that he was assuming it might be temporary.

"I know, I'm pretty sure it is too, I mean it was last time. Fingers crossed it isn't, but if it is we will figure this out together. We did it before and we will do it again," he said, placing a hand on my shoulder and giving me a smile. He leaned in and placed a kiss on my cheek and I found myself silent. I didn't know what to say. I mean I know I should be devastated, but in all honesty, I was okay. He was right, we've been through this before. Not to mention I thought we were going to die last night. Last night I was prepared to lose everything so I'm almost kinda relieved that this was all that came from it.

Then again that's just my backlash, I don't know who else has been affected, or if they even know they are affected yet. If this is my only backlash I'll consider myself lucky, but others might not be so lucky.

I shook my head, "this isn't important right now," I said trying to get focused back on the mission at hand. We can figure everything else out after we get everyone back safely.

I tried to stand up but my knees gave out from under me Marco's concern only grew. "That's not a backlash," I quickly said trying to clear up his worries, "my legs are just way sorer than I thought they would be," I said before reaching a hand out for him to help me up.

He nodded and helped me from to my feet. God, my legs hurt so bad I almost wish that I couldn't feel them like my arms, but then again feeling pain is better than feeling nothing at all.

"What's the plan?" I asked walking up to Pixis and Hassam.

"We're going to start clearing people out, but to do so we need to use Erwin's power."

"Okay, so what's the hold-up?"

"We don't know if Erwin has enough strength to use his powers just yet, or if-." His voice drifted off.