Unwavering | Annie Leonhart x Male Reader

12. For Every Victory...

"But if he was a Titan this whole time-If humans are the Titans..." You looked back down from the clouds and over to Annie, confusion pulling your thoughts in every direction "How do we even know who we can trust?"

Within minutes of Eren appearing from the Attack Titan, as the Garrison had since taken to calling it, he was quickly collected along with Mikasa and Armin and taken away from the rest of the group to an undisclosed location. The rest of the 104th, the ones that had seen the incident happen had since been sworn to secrecy at the behest of the Royal Government and sent just outside the city to await further instruction. It had been about an hour since then and there had still been no word on his fate, the plan... Or anything really.

"I don't really think we have a way to know anymore, if anybody can just transform like that." She looked away from the crowd of soldiers and over at you with a kind of certainty in her eyes "All I know is I trust you, and that's all that matters right now."

"Well at least there's that." You could feel a smile make its way to your face as you took her hand in yours and kissed it lightly "And I trust you, implicitly. Always will."

"You better or else..." She flashed you an impish look before settling back into a more stoic expression "What do you figure they're gonna do with them? You know some of the Garrison members, is there some kind plan for something like this?"

"Shit, I have no idea. I definitely never heard any talk of a plan for captured Titans or spies. If I had to guess, normally I'd say imprisonment... But I doubt they'd want to risk that if they think he's dangerous." A sense of dread filled you as you continued your thought, the likely possibility hitting you like a ton of brick "Worst case... Execution..."

Silence fell over the two of you as your words marinated, only interrupted when you noticed Reiner and Bertolt making their way over to you. After a quick catch-up, the topic turned back to Eren as Reiner's frustration seemed to get the best of him.

"Wait, there's no way they'd just kill him! A Titan as an ally? That's gotta be worth at least looking into, right?" His face began to turn a deep shade of red as he continued to reject the possibility "He had to have killed twenty Titans back there, they'd be stupid to do that!"

"I mean... I guess so, yeah. I get the fear, for sure, but you're probably right. We've never seen anything like this before, it'd be a huge missed oppor-" The sound of cannon fire suddenly sliced through the air, startling each of you as you turned towards the sound "What the fuck?! That came from... Inside of the wall?"

"You don't think..." Bertolt's eyes widened, each of your thoughts falling in synch as you all reached for your controllers "Come on!"

* * * * *

After a short flight towards the plume of smoke billowing up into the air the four of you found yourself looking down on a large courtyard filled with armed soldiers, cannons, and what looked to be a sparsely skinned, partially formed Titan skeleton. As you inched closer to the edge of the roof you could just make out a red scarf flapping in the wind from inside the skeleton.

"There is no way... Mikasa? Wait, that's gotta mean..." A sudden gust of wind pushed through the courtyard, breaking up the smoke enough for you to make out your three friends huddled together inside the skeleton "Did-Did Eren do that? What the hell is going on?"

"Wait a minute, is that...?" Reiner mumbled in disbelief, slowly moving up to your right.

"Yeah... It's them, but why?" Your voice filled with skepticism as you turned to him. "Why did he transform again and why are they firing on them?"

"Guys, down there. It's that officer from earlier." You both turned and followed Annie's finger to the see bearded officer from hours before staring down at the group "I-I can't hear anything he's saying though."