Arriving in Ehrmich, their suspicions had been peaked by the seeming lack of Garrison soldiers as they passed through the district. There hadn't even been any present at the Garrison stables when they had dismounted and tied up their horses, a gross lack of security was unsettling. Passing through the wall, their hesitancy and caution had saved their life as they had proceeded slowly towards the headquarters only to be blocked off by a crowd of nervous onlookers, all being held back by armed Garrison soldiers.
"Something's happened." Ymir said, reflexively moving towards the shadows and nudging everyone else in tow.
"What do you mean?" Dina asked, awkwardly following them out of sight. "I don't know what your people are normally like, how bad is this?"
"Bad." Ymir answered, still risking glances around the corner. "Historia, did you see any scouts before we got here?"
"No." Her answer was quick and certain, her time being open with Ymir had rubbed off on her and only made her more suspicious of the world around her, leaving behind her blind martyrdom of Christa. "This street is just next to the new Scout headquarters. Look at the other crowds too." She pointed down towards where more people were seen trying to look down another street. "Other streets are blocked off too, they've cut off the headquarters."
"Wait here." Armin muttered as he quickly stripped off his jacket and untucked his shirt, doing his best to turn his uniform into casual clothing as he risked a stroll closer to the barricade that the Garrison soldiers had set up. The crowd was thick and each one wanted to see what was happening, but he managed a fleeting glimpse past the line of soldiers and through the crowd, just a glimpse that was long enough to confirm his horrible suspicions.
He pulled back to the others, his face pale.
"They're arresting the Scouts, all of them. I saw Jean and Connie, Mike and Ilsa too. First Mrs Jaeger and Hannes…" Armin began, putting together the pieces as he peered closer. "Leverage over Gohan, Mikasa, and Eren. Now this…? This is a move to take control."
The three of them cursed in horror and anger, but neither of them refuted what was happening. Dina may not have known these people very well, but it was clear that Armin was a smart young man who seemed to have an accurate intuition about things.
"What now? We can't stay out here in our uniforms." Historia was already removing her jacket as she said it, though it would help them little. Armin may have been able to get away with an untucked shirt and beige pants, but three of them all in the same clothes and with two of them being women, it would draw the eye more than they would like.
Dina was the only one of them in casual clothes, a set having been provided for her at the hospital she had woken up in.
"We need to move." Ymir took one last glance around as she said it. "We'll split up, less likely to be discovered that way. Armin, you stay with Dina, I'll go with Historia and we'll grab some clothes as we move. Let's make a break back the way we came, regroup with Gohan and the others if we can. Armin, you go directly there and we'll detour then follow you, don't wait for us."
Armin nodded in agreement before ushering Dina to move. With a final 'good luck', Ymir and Historia deviated off from the two of them and moved into the shopping district. It was still early hours, and so the crowd thinned to almost non-existent as they moved away from the headquarters.
As they moved they dumped the jackets out of sight, instantly feeling much colder as they travelled. It may have saved them however, as during their move they spotted two Garrison soldiers on patrol. The muskets in their hand made it clear they were involved in the operation to arrest the Scouts.
Ymir spotted them first, and pulled Historia out of sight quickly but not so fast as to draw attention.
"You're good at this." Historia said as they snuck through the streets, following Ymir carefully as she weaved between shadows.
"I spent a lot of years sneaking and stealing before I joined the cadets. I actually used to be a lot better than this, my muscle memory isn't what it once was."
Ymir deviated into a back alley behind a row of shops after she had seen a store she deemed suitable. A clothing store with it's windows covered to hide them from street view and reveal them as thieves.
"Well consider me still impressed. I'll need to get you to teach me sometime."
"Oh yeah?" She pulled a knife from the back of her pants, she always kept one on her in secret. "We gonna make a date night of it?"
She slid the knife into the door frame to wiggle open the lock before she registered her words. "I mean, if you want to…"
"Ymir." Historia placed a hand gently on hers. "I didn't kiss you that day in some spur of the moment. Yes, I want to date you."
Ymir looked up at her with uncertainty. It was clear that she was not used to relationships of any kind, and despite the confident front she put up and endless flirtations she had thrown her way, Ymir was actually very hesitant when it came to being so open with her feelings.
"But… I'm not spending out first actual date sneaking through the city. You need to take me to dinner first."
Ymir sagged, a small chuckle as she relaxed and resumed her work. "Okay then. Next time we're allowed on leave, dinner. Candle lights, a moonlight walk after, maybe a musician, we'll do the full show."
"Hah… you've really never been on a date before have you?"
"Like you're one to talk." Ymir gently lifted the latch and opened the door. "I saw how everyone fawned over you, but you never said yes to a single one."
As the two moved inside they dropped their voices to a whisper. "I always had someone scaring them off, didn't I? Besides, I've read what dating is meant to be like, that's more than you."
"Oh please." Ymir reached out and began grabbing clothes from hooks, sizing them up quickly as she moved. "I've seen the books you read, they know as much about good dates as Connie."
The two of them remembered vividly the complaints that Mina had made following their 'date'. Connie had of course profusely apologised after, but what had compelled him to think it could have ever been a good idea they did not know.
As Historia grabbed her choice of clothes she quickly went quiet, though much more from embarrassment than a lack of things to say. "Um… Ymir? Is there a… changing room here?"
Ymir looked around and quickly realised the issue, face flushing as she looked back at her. "Uh… no. Sorry. I'll… I'll turn around."
She turned to inspect the wall of the shop, taking great care to look deeply at every groove in the wood of the wall and definitely not listen the sounds of rustling fabric, or the sounds of said fabrics dropping to the floor.
The blush she had on her face was impossible to fight no matter how hard she tried to distract herself. She didn't know why it was so bad this time. Ymir had spent three years training in close proximity with girls, she had seen them getting changed and undressed a great many times, and boy had that been a rather awakening experience for her.
But no matter how many times she had seen other girls undressing, or even had seen Historia in her underclothes, this time felt different. This time it was her… her girlfriend behind her, removing her garments just out of sight.
She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on anything else. Remembering gruelling training in the cadets corps, days freezing in the snow as they trained, that time that Connie accidentally flung his sweaty socks into Mikasa's oatmeal, the complete bloody mess he had been after, how lovesick Jean had looked watching her go to work.
Yeah, remembering those lovey-dovey eyes he flittered towards Mikasa was working, that helped cure her of her blush.
Historia cleared her throat, and Ymir slowly turned her head to see that she had indeed changed her clothes. She was now dressed in a much more typical dress that suited her well, but also looked like any other that one would see around. With some leggings and a coat thrown over the top she looked as far from a soldier as she could get.
Still very beautiful though.
"Uh, very nice… choice of clothes, I mean. Good job."
"Thanks. I guess it's uh… your turn?"
Ymir's blush returned, and she hid it by pulling on the long trench coat she had grabbed. "I'll do it later, save time so we can go."
The fact that she absolutely would not survive undressing near Historia was entirely unsaid, and all the better for it.
Despite her harrowing experience against her emotions and libido, Ymir left the store in somewhat of a good mood as they slipped on their disguises. Leaving the store to see a woman waiting at the end of the alley however, killed any giddiness she might have felt.
"Hello Historia."
The woman's voice was steady, refined, and spoke with a familiarity that Historia just couldn't place. Seeing the woman she had thought it was a passer-by who would go and report them to the military police, but the greeting of her by name, her real name, had both of them far more on edge.
"You know me?" Historia asked, mustering up some courage in spite of her complete anxiousness over this woman's sudden appearance.
"I do… but I suppose you wouldn't remember. I need you to come with me Historia, you too Ymir."
She took a stride forward, completely undisturbed as Ymir brought the knife out defensively. The woman seemed to pay no attention at all to Ymir, entirely focused on Historia as she stepped closer and closer.
Ymir wanted to ask how this woman knew of them, why she was there, why or how did it seem like she was there waiting for them? But that didn't matter, what mattered was the knife in her hand, and the woman approaching them was clearly a threat. So Ymir did what came natural to her and struck first.
She darted forwards and lunged with the knife, only to hit nothing but air as the woman leaned her head out of the way. Ymir slashed again and again, but the woman dodged and weaved with ease, finally dropping down and sweeping out Ymir's legs with a kick.
Ymir hit the ground hard, groaning in pain but still with enough awareness to swipe at the woman as she stepped over her. The knife hit the back of her leg, cutting through the fabric but exposing only unharmed skin beneath. The woman paused only to look at the slightly damaged pants leg and tsk in annoyance, before continuing to walk towards Historia.
"Get away from her you bitch!"
Ymir charged in again, this time the woman reacted more forcefully, reaching out and grabbing Ymir as she struck. Ymir was flung off to the side, slamming into the wall and dropping the knife to the ground as she fell down.
"YMIR!"
She shook her head. A sudden wave of nostalgia came over her as she was suddenly reminded of her training in the cadets. The physical fighting training had come fairly naturally to her, but she had been surpassed by many others. This however, felt a lot more like the ass kicking that Gohan used to give her.
The woman was between her and Historia, and now she had her full attention. Historia was scared, but mostly for Ymir's sake, it seemed clear that for whatever reason the woman wanted her, Historia wasn't likely to be in any immediate danger unlike Ymir.
'I'm not letting you take her.'
Ymir growled mentally as she returned to her feet and picked up the knife again. The woman watched her curiously, raising an eyebrow as she watched her brace herself. Ymir wasn't about to charge in again, she had seen well enough that would get her nowhere. So instead, she was going to try something more desperate. Something that admittedly, may end up in her death.
"Historia, RUN!"
She raised the knife and plunged it down straight into her open palm. Sparks of lightning buzzed from her skin and wind billowed around her. The familiar feeling of her Titan body forming rushed into her.
Before rushing away just as quickly.
As steam settled and the wind calmed, Ymir saw the woman watching her with unwavering focus, sparks of electricity crackling around her body before fading away. As the static in the air calmed, Ymir was quickly overcome by the terrible pain in her hand, gripping it in agony as blood poured freely.
"YMIR! What-… what happened!?" Historia was still bracing herself against the far wall, willing herself as small as possible as she pressed back and away from both the woman and Ymir's attempted transformation.
"None of that now, I can't have you turning into a Titan in the middle of my city." The woman finally spoke. She snapped her fingers and two figures appeared at the end of the alleyway where she had come from. Two men in Military Police uniforms that had been waiting out of sight. "Wrap her hand and let's go."
The two men moved towards Ymir, who backed away reflexively, one hand raised to fight if need be. Historia was transfixed by the bloody knife in Ymir's hand, to the point she almost didn't notice when the woman had finally reached her. She reached out quickly, her hand resting on Historia's forehead before she could react, lightning sparking over her hand.
Historia's eyes went wide, and she slumped as her knees gave way, caught before she could drop by the woman who watched her carefully. As Historia's eyes refocused, she looked up at the woman in stunned surprise.
"Frieda…?"
The memories had returned, those that Frieda had stripped in their last visit together all those years ago. Her mind was still hazy, a flood of memories from what seemed almost like another life, but it was enough to calm her.
"Ymir, it's okay." Historia saw her continuing to back away from the MPs, hand bleeding across the ground as she did so. "We'll go with them. It'll be okay."
She wanted to protest, to disagree. But Ymir's hand hurt like hell, and she trusted Historia enough to relent. The men didn't grab her or put her in chains, instead they simply motioned for her to follow as one of them pulled some fabric from a pouch in his jacket.
"It'll be okay Ymir, don't worry."
Ymir looked at her again, silently questioning her, but Historia couldn't tell her right now. It would all be so much now that she remembered, but she would tell her, she would tell Ymir everything she knew. Until then however, she turned back to Frieda.
"What now?"
"Now we go home." Frieda gently pulled Historia in for a hug, softly stroking her sister's hair. "We go back to our family."
Making their way back into Ehrmich had been relatively easy, the entrance into the district still being lightly guarded. The issue had come when they had reached closer back to the Garrison headquarters. What had once been a fairly empty building was now beginning to return to life as soldiers from the operation pulled back and handed more and more over to the MPs.
"Our horses are in there but can't get close enough to take them and be gone."
There was only a few that were beginning to mill around, but it was enough to cause them trouble and it would only get worse as time went on. Both Armin and Dina watched the stables fretfully, minds whirring as they tried to come up with a plan. Dina was perhaps the least ready to offer up a plan, she was entirely still too new to this land to be confident, but she did at least have some experience in dealing with guards thanks to her sneaking around in Marley.
"Think we can convince the guards to let us go, or distract them?" She asked, willing to let Armin take the lead.
"Distract, definitely. Do you think you could um…" He paused, hesitating as the words wouldn't come out.
Dina didn't need to hear them as she frowned at him. "I know you aren't about to ask if I could seduce them."
"Not seduce, just distract." He insisted as if there was a meaningful difference between the two of them.
"I've only ever seduced one man in my life and he was my husband, I am not the type of lady to seduce some random men." She scowled and looked around, spotting something that caught her eye in the distance. "I'll get them distracted, you get the horses."
She walked off before he could ask for more detail, quickly but calmly disappearing out of sight. Armin grumbled before walking closer to the stables, taking a waiting position out of sight but close enough that he could peak out and view things if need be.
There was shouting in the distance, rising quickly before he saw Dina suddenly come racing into view and screaming at the soldiers.
"HELP! There's a fire, please help!"
She was pointing behind her and gesturing wildly, and sure enough Armin could just make out the rising clouds of tell-tale smoke. The plan worked quickly, and the soldiers raced out and towards the fire as she led them away. Armin took his chance to sprint inside of the stables, finding their horses quickly and releasing them from where they had been tied up.
They followed him with little resistance, and despite seeing more soldiers appear they were entirely focused on the fire as they rushed out towards it. Armin led the horses some distance away before he mounted his own, surprised when Dina appeared a short while later and quickly climbed on.
"You started a fire!? What if it burns out of control!"
"Don't worry, I put it in a safe spot surrounded by lots of stone and made it very smoky, it's not actually a big fire. It looks a lot worse than it is, they'll have it under control quickly."
Armin raised his eyebrows at her. Admittedly, he didn't know her well and knew very little of her past in Marley before she was turned into a Titan, but he hadn't expected that from her.
"Have you done this before?"
"Things like it," she answered as they began riding towards the gate to leave and head back to meet with Gohan and the others. "Not fire's specifically but I know people who did them. When we needed to sneak around we would use some people for distractions, sometimes that was me but we all knew what the plan was regardless."
Dina went quiet as she reflected on the memories of those days. She only knew the fate of her husband, a man taken from her only a few years before they could be reunited. She wondered about the fates of those she had known. She had seen so many of them be transformed but had no idea where they were now. Did they still roam in constant suffering, feasting on the Eldians of Paradis? Or had they been killed, their napes cut and bodies left to dissolve into nothingness by people who had never known them.
She was quiet in mourning as they passed through the gate, riding back down the main road towards Trost.
Remembering those that she had lost, she felt once again truly alone. Only one person from her previous life still existed, she knew that to be true. The flashes of memories that she held sometimes, the life that Annie Leonhart had lived, the people she had known, all her experiences made itself known to her at random times when she slept or when she was awake.
One memory above all was burned into her mind, the memory of her son. Grown to a man by the time Annie had known him, now the leader of the Marley Warriors. Her boy, her precious child, the stalwart defender of their enemies, their oppressors, pushed there by her own actions and that of her husband. Their desire to see vengeance and freedom pushed onto their child, no matter what it had cost him.
He was here, in Paradis she knew. She had heard tale of the Beast Titan during an attack not too long ago. He had nearly been felled but had managed to escape before they could capture or kill him. She felt guilty about the happiness that made her feel, that her boy was still alive.
He would hate her still he was sure, in fact they would be close enough in age that he likely wouldn't see her as his mother at all. But she was still his mother, and he was still her son. If she could, she would see him and apologise. She would try to save her boy.
When they reached close enough to make out the silhouettes of Gohan, Mikasa, and Eren, she pushed her thoughts of all else away as she focused on the present danger. Her instincts told her that Gohan was the danger, that he was a killer, but that was the memories of Annie in her final moments, not what she had known the boy to be during their brief time together.
There was a rising tension in her body as they grew closer, but she forced it down and calmed herself as they came together.
"What's going on? Did you tell Mike?" Eren was as always the first to shout out in shock.
"We couldn't, the Scouts have all been put under arrest." Armin watched the horror and rage on their faces grow as he continued to explain. "We managed to escape, but we had to split up from Ymir and Historia to do it."
"Where are they? Are they on their way!?"
"They should be. We managed to get our horses and leave, they know to head back and regroup with us."
"If they come this way, we'll sense them." Gohan held out a hand onto Eren's shoulder, calming the boy as he was beginning to wind himself up into a fury. "If not, we'll find them on our own."
Eren scowled, he clearly didn't like the idea of waiting and wanted to race in immediately to rescue his mother, but he held off for the moment.
"We need to come up with a plan." Mikasa said, distracting Eren before he could continue to dwell. "They have Mrs Jaeger and Hannes, the Scouts have been arrested, Commander Erwin and the others are cut off in the capital if they're still-… they're cut off. Worst case, Historia and Ymir have been caught as well."
"If they're caught, Historia will be taken to the one's in charge." Gohan remembered the details from Kuno's mind. "We have two locations, and four objectives. The church, to strike at the one's in charge. The underground, to rescue Mrs Jaeger and Hannes. Then we have to free the Scouts from wherever they're being taken and find Commander Erwin and the others."
He refused to say it, the possibility that they were all dead. People he knew as deep trusted comrades, and most of all Petra. Would the last thing he ever knew of her be a kiss and a promise to see each other again? With no idea that the future relationship they had agreed to would never come?
He pushed it away, knowing that if he dwelled on it he would only spiral. Instead, he filled Armin and Dina in on what he had learned from Kuno and their overall plan, skimming over his mind reading ability to avoid being bogged down by questions.
"The underground and the church will require the fighters from us," Armin interjected, he grabbed a stick from the ground and began to outline the walls and districts in the dirt, using the light of the moon and a Ki ball from Gohan for light. He marked out two main locations, the church and the underground beneath the capital. "Mrs Jaeger and Hannes will be guarded, and the church will be the centre of the interior MPs. We don't know how many will still be there, but everyone who can fight will probably know some level of Ki control."
"As will those at the underground, I'm sure." Mikasa agreed, putting a circle around the two locations to separate them out. She then put in another cross for the Scout headquarters where the arrest had been made. "What about the Scouts, where will they be sent after the arrests are completed?"
"To the capital right, they'll need sentencing, Mitras is the place where they would do it."
"No." Armin was as surprised as the others that he disagreed with Gohan, but he stuck with his explanation why. "They arrested the Scouts in part as leverage over the three of you. But if they're taking Mrs Jaeger and Hannes to the underground, they won't keep the Scouts in the same area, it would be too much of a risk that you'd try and free them all. They'll keep them separate, if one point of leverage fails then they can threaten the other."
He drew a line from Ehrmich to follow along the wall eastward. "The Garrison is the one with the manpower to hold so many so suddenly, so they'll probably be taken to the reserve headquarters between Ehrmich and Stohess. The issue won't be freeing the Scouts, it's getting Commander Pixis to give the order. If we do it ourselves, it won't change anything in the larger picture of things, we need the Garrison to provide the support we need."
"This isn't just fighting back Armin, this would be a full government take over."
"We need to Gohan. I know you might not be comfortable with this, but we can't allow a government like this to exist, we need change. From everything we've discovered, the nobility and the royals have kept the truth about the nation, the Titans, everything secret to control the population and ensure the needless deaths of countless people."
Gohan looked unsure, he had never been in a situation like this. Mikasa came to his rescue though.
"It won't be up to us anyway, the highest-ranking commanders will need to be the one's to decide, and that includes Commander Pixis."
"It won't matter if we fail." Eren cut in, jabbing a finger at the makeshift map. "What we need to decide is who is going where. We have three locations we can go to since we have no idea what has happened to Commander Erwin. The church, the underground, and the Garrison, we'll need to split up and hit all of them at once to take them off guard. I'm going to the underground, I have to save my mom."
Mikasa put her hand on his shoulder, calming him down as she gave him her support.
"I'm going too." Mikasa added. "You'll need help to save them, you can't use your Titan powers underground."
"Eren and Mikasa will go to the underground, that means I will go to the church." Gohan knew that as the strongest, he was the one who needed to handle the main combat. Without knowing the number of MPs who were remaining, it was possible that by himself he was at risk of being overwhelmed. He had a much higher chance than the rest of them, and more than anything else, he would not have to hold back at all.
"That means that Dina and I will go to the Garrison." Armin looked to the woman for agreement, who nodded with no issues. She was mostly at a loss for any other way that she could help, and so agreed without a fuss.
If she tried to fight, she would need to transform, and there was a more than reasonable chance that she could lose control and kill innocent people. That left her with helping to persuade this Pixis person.
Gohan stood up straight and reflected on the plan. It was rough, and open to a lot of variables, but it was a plan.
"Eren and Mikasa will save Mrs Jaeger and Hannes, while Armin and Dina will bring the Garrison onto our side. And I… I'll go straight to the source of all of this."
It was time to show the MPs just how much of a mistake they had made, and how powerful he truly was.