Still near the sealed breach, Eren caught sight of the pair before they got close.

Rico was no surprise by now, but Hannes?

Eren's three heads turned to scrutinize the older man, catching the attention of his friends.

"Hannes?" Armin said in surprise.

"Who's that?" Jean asked curiously.

"Someone we knew in Shiganshina. He helped Eren and I," Mikasa remarked, her voice was warmer at seeing a reminder of those younger and simpler times.

Hannes, however, kept his eyes and easy smile on the three golden heads studying him.

[He knows it's me.]

Historia tilted her head at that but decided not to translate.

"Mikasa, Armin, glad to see you're both in one piece," Hannes greeted as he stopped before the group, looking up at Eren. "Looks like you got in over your head as usual, eh, kid?"

Drei let out a reptilian laugh at that while Eins rolled his eyes and Zwei just studied Hannes curiously.

"And look at that, I can't even decide what to do anymore. You all must have your hands full more than ever with this lug head," Hannes teased the others.

All three of Eren's heads looked annoyed by that to varying degrees, getting a laugh from Hannes.

Rico cleared her throat to grab their attention. "Commander Erwin has decided it's time to appoint a more senior officer as something of an official spokesperson for the Riesenwache."

"Spokesperson? Not leader?" Marco asked curiously.

"While he is to be the official soldier in charge, Captain Hannes' duty is primarily to smooth over and mitigate any issues between you all with the public or military."

"I guess that makes sense," Jean said with a sigh. "We're all a bunch of rookies just out of training. The only reason we're a part of this group was to control how many people knew everything. It'd be hard for most people to take any of us seriously if you made one of us the leader."

"Exactly," Rico agreed. "Private Arlert? Do you think you can get him up to speed on anything he might not know?"

Armin nodded. "I can do that, Ma'am."

"Then I'll leave you all to get situated," Rico said as she turned to leave.

Eren began to growl loudly.

"Eren says it is good to see you, Mr.- Sorry, Captain Hannes," Historia said with a smile. "I'm Historia."

"Ahh. So, you're the one who speaks for the hothead?" Hannes said with a chuckle. "How does that work, anyway?"

"Honestly? I don't notice any difference. He just sounds...normal to me," Historia explained with an uncertain shrug.

"I meant more, why you? If anyone, I would have expected Mikasa for that," Hannes said, the Ackerman girl not reacting to the joke.

"She fell and the crazy bastard caught her in his mouth," Jean explained flatly.

Historia sighed with a small blush of embarrassment while Hannes looked up at Eren with a scolding look. "Eren, don't you know better? You need to at least take a girl on a date before anything like that," Hannes teased.

Eren rolled all six eyes, Eins glancing at his tails in consideration.

"Eren, you can't tail flick him," Mikasa pointed out calmly. "He'll die."

"...Ahh, so she can understand him," Hannes said, nodding as if that made everything right in the world somehow.

"We can guess what he's saying, sometimes," Armin corrected with a half-hearted chuckle.

"Armin, you can do it because you're a smart guy. Mikasa can do it because she's Mikasa," Hannes said matter-of-factly.

Mikasa made no effort to refute that claim.

Eren croaked out something as he turned to leave.

"Eren's heading off to see how the others are doing. He said he'll send Connie and Sasha this way if he sees them," Historia explained dutifully.

"I see Eren has interesting friends in these interesting times," Hannes said with a headshake, frowning as he looked at Armin. "I heard about the Titan-Shifter too. Eren can't change back?"

Armin frowned. "It's complicated. It involves Eren's father."

"Grisha? What's he got to do with all of this?" Hannes asked curiously.

"Everything, in a way," Mikasa answered bluntly.

Elsewhere, Eren walked towards his fellow giants.

"Well, this is one hell of a sample size!"

Hange's voice was followed by awkward whining noises from Ellie while Grice groaned. "Woman, do you have to make this weirder than it already is?!"

Eren walked up to the scene and was morbidly fascinated by not only how unsurprising the scene was, but how he needed no explanation.

The Crawler and Wartdog were sitting around a crater filled with a distinctly...yellow liquid, Hange holding a test tube filled with a sample of it.

Thankfully, Hange was wearing gloves which somehow made it...less weird, at least to Drei.

"And there's our handsome golden friend!" Hange greeted with a grin as she sealed the tube. "Don't mind me, just collecting some research samples from our new friend."

[Congrats, that's almost an initiation at this point.]

Ellie tried to look amused but it was clear she was still adjusting to the situation, watching as Hange left while whistling a tune.

"Eren, can we make it a rule that none of us should be alone with that woman?" Grice asked.

[She's harmless, but has no concept of personal space.]

[Where's Boris?]

["He said something about finding a place to nap. So he's probably lying around somewhere,"] Ellie answered, looking around at the city of Trost. ["So, we just stay in here until they have need of us?]

"I'll let you explain that one," Grice said, mindful of the fact that everyone could understand him.

[They couldn't stop us if we tried to do something.]

Ellie blinked skeptically at that, trying not to be too noticeable as she glanced up at the cannons.

[Those cannons only daze me. But they're not that accurate or easy to reload. If I wanted out, they couldn't really stop me. But we've made it a point to prove we're on their side. We're all working together and following the military's lead.]

"With some initiative on our part," Grice chuckled. "Don't worry, they're not like Marley. Some of them are scared shit of us, but they're not going to treat you like an actual dog or anything."

Dog.

Eins winced as something flashed in his mind.

The corpse of a child, ripped apart by dogs, left on a riverside.

A feeling of rage, hate, sorrow, powerlessness.

...It felt just like when he lost his mother.

[{[{[{When I Vowed To Kill Them All]}]}]}

"Hey, you okay, Yeager?" Grice's voice called, punctuated by a rather too-hard slap to the back.

{{{{!}}}}

[HM!?]

Eren turned sharply to look at Grice. The crawler was making every effort to look calm as he regarded Eren with concern while Ellie was...

The Wartdog was shivering in place, eyes trembling and downcast in fear.

[...Sorry about that.]

[Lost in thought.]

Grice nodded slowly.

["Is...is yours trying to take over?"] Ellie asked in concern.

[...I don't know.]

Eren frowned at his own admittance. Was the Voice of the Storm trying to take over? It didn't feel like he was being taken over so much as...losing control. Was that the same thing in this situation? If so, what was the trigger, the cause?

Eren hated just how little he knew about this thing he was sharing a body with. He couldn't even pin down a motive.

The other Beasts were scared of his, of The Storm. That much was obvious. Eren wasn't surprised. From what little he gleaned from the ancient memories, the Storm hadn't had many rivals or threats.

But The Storm hated the Titans. Why? Those hadn't been around in those ancient memories, surely? If not, what possible connection could the Storm and the Titans have?

{{{{...}}}}

Merely thinking about that was enough to get the Storm's attention and ire, it seemed.

Still, there was its reaction to the Beast Titan.

Eren could swear he almost saw something else standing in place of that shifter, something similarly hairy but different in build…something that clearly had the ire of the originator of this form.

Always more questions, it seems.

Meanwhile

"Two more of them. I'm not sure we'll have enough room in this city if we get too many more," Gunther remarked as the Levi squad stood on top of the wall, observing their giant allies below.

"Even if they don't get any bigger, that'd still be true," Eld agreed grimly.

"Bigger? What, you think those big bastards are going to start growing?" Olou asked coolly.

"You don't pay attention to what Section Commander Hange says, do you?" Petra asked knowingly.

"I tend to tune Four Eyes out from time to time, yeah," Olou answered. "If it's not on a mission, it's usually just one of her rambling theories."

"This isn't a theory. She says Eren has gotten bigger over time, somehow," Petra said with a frown.

"That is still so weird to think about. It's one thing that the others are all people from the outside world, but that golden bastard was a new cadet?" Gunther said with a head shake.

"I'm still stuck on humanity beyond the walls, and they hate us because apparently the Titans are our people?" Eld said with a sigh, rubbing the back of his head. "It was a lot simpler before all this."

"The world often looks simpler with a blindfold."

The group of four turned sharply and saluted. "Commander Erwin! Captain Levi!" Petra greeted.

"At ease," Erwin waved off. "There is a situation."

"Please tell me there wasn't another breach," Petra said warily.

"Nothing that bad yet," Levi said, glancing at Erwin who gave him a nod to continue. "We're heading to Krolva District."

"Krolva? What's up there, sir?" Petra asked in confusion.

"There's been sightings of something up there. Some big that flies," Levi informed pointedly, glancing down to Boris the Warbat, sleeping between buildings. "We think it's another snake like him. Trouble is, we don't know if this one is still sane or not."

"How do we figure that out? Are we taking the Riess girl with us?" Eld asked uncertainty.

Erwin shook his head. "Grice is going with you."

"...Huh?" Olou asked in shock, summarizing the entire Levi squad's thoughts.

"That boney asshole is the only one of them that can talk, and he can climb over the walls without damaging it," Levi reminded. "He's going to see if this one is on our side. If not, we're going to help him bring it down."

"Sir, not that we're not used to the odds being against us, but can we even hurt something like them?" Gunther asked uncertainly.

"You can. Eren himself seems to be the most durable of any creature, and the only one we know to be unique among Grice and his comrades. While more dangerous in many ways, the Giants by and large can be wounded by our weaponry," Erwin assured. "All you need to remember is to not treat it like a Titan. They can regenerate to some extent, but they will die to sustained and grievous injuries."

That was somewhat reassuring for them all.

"Get your horses and supplies ready. We leave as soon as we get Grice up to speed and over the wall," Levi informed pointedly.

"Sir!" they all saluted before heading off.

"What do you think the odds of this one being friendly too?" Levi asked as he watched his team leave.

"Regardless of its state of mind, I'm more concerned with why it is near Krolva at all," Erwin remarked.

Levi hummed and glanced to the northwest. "If this one has gone wild, it's looking for something. Food, a place to nest? Not a lot of options bode well for the people around. But if they are still aware and sane?"

"Just what drove them out of hiding?" Erwin summarized. "Be careful, Levi."

"Not like you to say that," Levi noted. "Something bothering you?"

"If we round up all of Grice's allies that are still of their own minds, and deal with the rest? The Titans would pose little threat to us. The same could be true for Marley and the outside world," Erwin, looking to the south with a narrowed gaze. "It is too idealistic to think that such good fortune comes without a cost or threat."

Levi hummed and nodded as he left. He agreed. These Giants made for great allies.

But there was bound to be a catch. Especially with how good everything else had been going. The real monarch coming out of the shadows and on their side, a Titan-Shifter ally, and these giants?

The other shoe was bound to drop sooner or later.

Later

Grice had taken to the plan well enough and soon climbed over the top of the wall. "This is still one hell of a view, I have to admit," he said to himself, pausing to gaze upon the distant horizon from atop these great walls. Moments like this, he almost forgot there were giant Titans inside the walls.

"Just remember the plan," Gunther said. "Follow along the outside of the wall until you see the smoke signal from us. Scale over then or if you're attacked by something."

"I heard the first time," Grice said with a head shake as he scaled down the exterior of Wall Rose.

With that done, Gunther used his gear to descend down near the wall, landing on his horse with the rest of the team waiting for him.

"He's on the move," Gunther said.

"Then so are we," Levi said as their horses took off with a snap of the reins.

"Captain Levi, was there anything else about the sightings we should know about?" Petra called over the horses.

"Not especially. The Commanders thought it might just be a hoax, people paranoid with all the talks about other giant monsters," Levi said evenly. "Then Eren brought back that stray serpent. When we heard he could fly, well, suddenly this became a bigger concern."

"Well, if it's just sightings, that means it's not attacking people, right?" Eld pointed out.

"Unless it wiped a place out," Gunther said grimly. "There are a lot of small villages around here. It'd be easy for something like that to feast on a place and leave no survivors."

"Especially if it was something like Grice," Olou said, glancing at the wall. "Captain, I kind of don't like the idea of letting Grice out of our sight."

"What, you worried he'll go feral any moment?" Petra asked with a frown.

"Not that, no," Olou answered.

"You're worried we'll run into a Crawler that's wild, and mistake it for Grice, if only for an instance," Levi predicted.

The Levi squad shared a look at that unsettling prospect.

"Maybe we should paint a sign on Grice or something like that," Eld suggested, and he wasn't entirely joking.

Grice, meanwhile, was racing around the wall. He would prefer to be running along the inside so he and the others didn't lose track of each other. After all, he had no idea how fast these horses went. He hadn't had a lot of experiences with the animals even before all of this, let alone trying to guess how fast he could run himself.

But he got the reasons why. Not only did it make it easier for him to grab a Titan to snack on, but it also allowed them to keep an eye out for anything outside the wall. And, being utterly practical, Grice was fully aware that something like himself running around the inside was just asking for a lot of panicking people and all the problems that could cause.

Still, one of the fliers, so many miles north? Most of them were in the south, within and outside of Wall Maria.

Just who had wandered that far up north? Even if they had been taken over by their inner beast, that just made it more confusing. What would draw any of the beasts up to here?

He shook his head. No use dwelling on it, he'd find out when they got there in a few days.

He just hoped nothing happened back in Trost while he was gone.

End of Chapter

Well, while things are settlnig in with Hannes, Grice has left with Levi and his squad to investigate sightings of what might be more Warbats like Boris. Eren obviousl couldn't come along, due to, well, there's no way for him to get into the other city and Eren doesn't have wings yet.

Early viewing of chapters 34-35:

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