IN WHICH ARAMINTA MAKES HER FIRST
KILL!
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ARMS TONITE  ∕  CHAPTER ELEVEN

OF COURSE IT HAD BEEN JEAN KIRSTEIN WHO HAD LOST HIS HORSE. Okay, Reiner and Armin had lost theirs as well, but Jean was the one she chose to blame it on, as she did with most things. If it hadn't been for the fact that this was a serious expedition where she was supposed to take things seriously, she absolutely would have mocked him for the rest of the trip for this, but she decided to take it easy on him.

"Aw, family reunion." She cooed as her and Christa strolled up with the two stray horses in tow. Yes, this was taking it easy on him. "Is this one your cousin? Or maybe your mom?"

"Shut the hell up, Araminta." He grunted, but he was horrible at hiding the relief on his face.

Araminta's gaze shifted to Reiner, hoping to see him laughing at her joke or just at all happy to see her, but his eyes were glued to Christa, lips parted as if God herself was here in front of him. She began to chew on her cheek out of frustration.

"Oh my god, how did you guys find them?" Armin exclaimed, rushing over to the two of them.

"I don't know, they just showed up. What's with the bandage?" She inquired, reaching up to gesture to her own forehead. Armin paused and glanced up, a frown spreading across his face.

"They seemed totally spooked." Christa spoke up before Armin got the chance to respond. "Did you guys... Encounter Titans or something?" She asked, looking worried.

"You took a chance following that flare over here." Reiner ignored her question.

"Well, horses coming from this direction, flares going off, we wanted to make sure everything was okay. Especially after getting separated from our own leader." Araminta explained to the three of them.

"Christa, you have such a way with horses, and a mysterious magnetism." Reiner complimented out of the blue, his words filling Araminta with rage. Was he stupid? She was right there, talking to him. "You're a lifesaver."

"You should be thanking Araminta, too, it was her idea to come by." Christa smiled softly. "But thank god you're all okay, we were worried that the worst had happened. I'm so glad you're okay." And just like that, her mysterious magnetism took effect, as all three of the boys went silent, redness spreading across their cheeks as they stared at the blonde. Araminta had half a thought to trample them with her horse.

"Hey. You going to tell us what happened?!" She snapped her fingers, dragging them all out of their daze.

"Uh, there was an abnormal." Jean responded, hoisting himself up into his horse. "It was weird, though..."

"Yeah, that's why they're called abnormals." Araminta rolled her eyes at his wording.

"No, it was weird for an abnormal. It wasn't like any Titan we've ever seen." He clarified, glaring at her.

"Is that how you injured yourself?" Christa asked Armin, knitting her light eyebrows tightly together.

The blond nodded. "Yes. It was pretty intense, she almost got Reiner too."

"Please, she didn't even stand a chance against me." Reiner laughed, and Araminta swore he was flexing his biceps under his cloak. God, was this what she looked like when she was around him? A total buffoon trying to impress her hopeless crush?

"Hey, should we be trying to get back to the main formation?" Christa asked, now that they were all mounted up on their horses.

"Yes. They're likely going to be calling for a retreat." Jean replied, and the words made Araminta's heart sink.

"Is it really that bad?" She asked lowly.

"Yeah. It's bad." Armin looked down, disappointment written all over him.

"God, not even an hour outside the wall, and we're already heading back. The Military Police are not going to be happy about this."

The five of them set off, heading towards the direction of the rest of the formation. As it turned out, almost the entirety of the right wing had been wiped out. Araminta and Christa had been lucky they were closer to the middle or else they might have met the wrath of this abnormal Titan as well.

The sound of a flare going off had them all looking up into the air, waiting to see what color had just been launched. Araminta was shocked to see they were green. "So... We're not retreating? Just changing formation?" She rose an eyebrow, wondering what in the absolute hell Commander Smith was thinking.

"It's the soldiers who decide if the mission cannot proceed." Reiner told them grimly. "Maybe the flare messages never made it all the way to the commander."

"It doesn't matter. Our duty is clear, even if we don't understand." Armin said. "For now, we have to follow their judgement." He then loaded his flare gun, and released another green flare to relay the message.

Araminta rode beside Jean, with something still bothering her. "So... Tell me about the abnormal... What was so different about it?"

Jean looked over at her, and let out a small huff. "It didn't fight like normal Titans. It was almost like it had been trained to fight, it looked like martial arts or something. And it almost killed Armin, but before she did, she lifted up his hood to see who he was, almost like she's looking for someone specific."

Her stomach churned. "You don't think... That maybe it could be..."

"What?" He asked, tilting his head quizzically.

She had pondered the possibility before--but she'd only thought it jokingly! But based on what Jean was describing, it seemed more and more likely that she had been right. There were more, more out there trying to get them. She swallowed hard, looking Jean dead in the eyes.

"What if it's like Eren? What if it's being controlled by a human--What if it's an intelligent Titan?"

"WHAT THE HELL IS THE COMMANDER THINKING?" Jean had begun going off once again, reminiscent of the rooftop back in Trost District--although this time Araminta had actually agreed with him. Interception formation, what even is that? Not to mention the giant forest they were supposed to be guarding, what the hell was the center rank doing in there? The only plus of hiding in the giant trees that she could think of was the increased range of their mobility gear.

Araminta sighed, leaning back against the tree she'd been posted on. Their order was to kill any Titan that tried to break through the tree line, but at the moment there were only average sized, normal Titans that were more focused on them than they were on whatever was going on inside the forest. They stood at the tree bases, reaching up towards them dumbly with their fat sausages for fingers.

"Do you think they know how to climb?" Araminta asked aloud. She wished she had a long stick that she could use to reach down and poke the Titans in their eyes.

"Well, if they end up figuring it out, we'll just have to kill them." Jean replied, squatting down with his elbows propped up on his thighs.

"Some of them might figure it out, but I think most of them are too..." Armin trailed off, searching for the right word.

"Stupid." Araminta replied, folding her arms across her chest. She watched the Titans curiously, the way they stared up at the Scouts without a single thought visible behind their huge eyes. Oh, what she would give to do what Squad Leader Hange does, to just be able to spend all day studying them. For now, standing up in the trees out of their reach would be the closest she could get to that.

"They look like giant toddlers." She mused, smiling to herself as she watched them. Jean stepped next to her, peering down at the human eating creatures below them, and shivered.

"Yeah, giant toddlers that can kill us with one crunch of their jaw." He remarked.

Araminta looked back up at him, inspecting him closely. "Hey, you know what? You kind of look like a giant toddler too. Are those your other relatives?" She teased, a smirk beginning to form.

He glared at her. "Shut up before I push you down there so you can play with your giant babies." He practically hissed, eliciting a giggle from Araminta.

Armin moved closer to the two of them, copying their actions and also gazing down at the titans. "So... You have the same theory as me, right Ara?" He asked, blue eyes trained on a particular Titan staring up at them.

"That the Female Titan is sentient like Eren?" She looked over, tightening her eyebrows. "Yeah. I was already thinking he wasn't the only one, but I hadn't considered that we'd see another so soon." She shrugged.

"It made me think... We've seen two other completely abnormal Titans, right?" He pressed, and suddenly it all clicked. Eren wasn't the first intelligent Titan they'd seen.

"The Colossal and Armored. Huh, I hadn't even thought about that..." That was at least four intelligent Titans they knew of, were there more? And who were the people controlling the other three Titans? Maybe it was Jean. Oh, she hoped it was, it would give her such a good reason to finally punch him.

"You two really think two humans turned into Titans to deliberately destroy our walls and screw us over?" Jean asked, raising his eyebrow suspiciously.

"Yeah, what's so hard to believe about that?" She asked, blinking at him.

"How would they even get on the other side of the wall to begin with?"

Wow, for once Araminta did not feel like the stupidest person amongst the group. "Obviously there must be more people living beyond the walls, idiot." She snapped, rolling her eyes at him. "You know, my mom used to tell me her great grandfather came from beyond the walls."

"And my mom used to tell me a fairy gave a woman glass slippers so she could get a prince to fall in love with her. Moms say a lot of weird stuff." Jean shook his head.

Araminta shrugged. "Maybe a fairy did give a woman glass slippers--even though those sound fucking uncomfortable. We just saw the unthinkable, a boy who can turn into a Titan, I just think there's so much we have no idea about."

"Exactly. I think after everything that's happened in the last few months, it would be silly to count anything out." Armin agreed.

Jean rolled his eyes once again. "Maybe you're right. But I'd rather remain a realist than sit here and believe fairytales. I mean, I'm still not sure I fully trust Eren yet."

Araminta fought the urge to pick a fight and remind him that Eren saved his life, but she'd already fought that fight enough times and each time Jean never budged on her stance. So instead she glared at him, cursing him out in her head.

The three stood in silence for a long while, keeping an eye on the titans like they'd been instructed to do. But really, what was Commander Erwin's plan? She felt like a sitting duck up in the trees, just waiting for something to happen. She thought maybe she should provoke Jean to the point he does push her down to get eaten alive, at least then something exciting could happen.

But, before she had the chance, some exciting did happen. Well, nothing they could see. A loud bang erupted from within the forest, the suddenness of the sound sending birds flying away for their lives. Araminta jumped at the sound, instinctively reaching up to cover her ears.

"What was that?" She lowered her hands, turning away from the forest edge to instead peer within the trees.

"Must have been Commander Erwin's plan." Armin tilted his head, it seemed he was also trying to see if he could get a view of what happened.

"Finally." Jean grumbled, squinting his hazel eyes. The three tilted side to side, blocking the sun from their eyes, trying to get a good glimpse of whatever had just gone down.

"Maybe Eren just transformed. It made a loud sound when he did it last time?" Armin guessed, giving up on trying to see and instead turning to face the two of them.

Araminta shrugged. "Could be." If Eren did transform, that meant something had gone very wrong. But at least it also meant he was still alive.

But the loud noises didn't stop there. A screeching sound pierced her ear drums, the pain following the noise causing her to nearly fall over. It was definitely the worst sound she had ever heard, the magnitude of it causing the trees they stood on to rumble. Everyone froze in shock, caught off guard by the cry for help.

That was definitely not Eren.

The air began to settle, and slowly Araminta peeled her palms away from her ears. "Wh--"

To make things worse, the Titans had finally given up on the Scouts up in the trees, but instead had focused their attention on whatever was going on in the forest. "Shit, they're all flooding the forest! Why are they ignoring us now?!" Jean called out.

"Doesn't matter! Stop them!" An older Scout shouted as he released his ODM gear and launched himself down towards the Titans. Araminta looked to Jean and Armin, exchanging a look with the two of them.

"Don't die." She instructed, then leapt off the tree branch they'd spent the last half hour on.

The wind against her cheeks was a breath of fresh air, and the literal fresh air she breathed in through her nose was a much needed sensation after the day she'd had. Araminta loved the feeling of flying. So, even though she was hurtling towards a group of Titans she would have to kill, she relished in the feeling while it lasted.

"Sorry!" She apologized before swinging her blades through the nape of one of the smaller Titans, watching as it toppled over onto the side and even caused some of the other titans to trip over its quickly decaying corpse.

It didn't occur to her later that she had just made her first Titan kill.

literally shortest chapter ever but it's
kinda just a filler, next chapter is
gonna be short too i think 👍 we r
getting close to season 2 ahhh crazy!!