Unwanted Power: An Armin Arlert Love Story

15. 57th Expedition

The expedition seemed to be doing well so far, the formation and smoke signals were working fine, they were all moving in sync and encountered few titans, they didn't have to fight many and were able to kill whichever they had to. There was a peaceful silence after a while... Too peaceful... Like the calm before the storm. Lexie's instincts kept telling her something was wrong, her suspicions were proven correct when a black smoke signal came from the right flank, too close to them, close to where Armin was.

"An abnormal." A male soldier commented, but Lexie knew, it must not have been a normal abnormal. She decided to change her course there.

"Your grace!" A female soldier called.

"I'll just see if they need back up! Don't follow me!" She said. The soldiers were told to also follow Lexie's orders if they didn't go against the course of the plan, so they let her go without objections.

As she rode, Lexie saw a yellow signal directly in front of her, so she hurried even more. On the distance, she noticed a titan with blonde hair running and three figures running after her. Squinting her eyes, she recognized them as Jean, Reiner and Armin. Lexie's heart stopped for a bit as she saw the titan smacked Armin off his horse. She hurried more.

"Jean! Avenge the suicidal bastard!" Armin yelled. The titan stopped moving. "That's the one... That's the one that killed him! He rushed to his death on the right flank! Avenge him! It crushed my best friend! I saw his body under its foot!" Armin had figured out that this female titan was after Eren, so he was trying to distract her. Lexie had picked on what Armin was doing, it didn't surprise her that he figured it out.

While everyone was distracted. Lexie hopped over her horse and drew out her blades. She knew what she was dealing with, so she didn't even aim at it's nape. She hooked herself to her side and swung right in front of her eyes, glaring at her. She cut her face and shoulders, also her side, but held back, way back. She went down and cut her knee and ankles before landing on the floor. The titan fell on her side. Lexie had cut off most of his ligaments and joints, making her unable to move, at least for a bit, enough for them to escape.

"Lexie." Reiner called surprised. She turned to look at them, her back facing the fallen titan.

"C'mon, we have to go before she can stand again." Lexie said.

"Watch out!" Reiner pushed Lexie out of the way of the titan's hand, so the titan grabbed Reiner instead.

"Reiner!" Lexie called. Blood came out of the titan's hands, but Reiner came out of it with a quick move, cutting all her finger. Lexie frowned, how come the hand hadn't crushed him? Reiner grabbed Armin and urged them all to run.

"Lexie bought enough time, right?! Let's get the hell away from it! If it isn't a man-eater, it won't follow us!" Reiner said. So, they did, they all ran together to a safe zone and the titan ran off.

As soon as they were safe, Lexie started tending to Armin's head. She got some bandages from her medical kit as well as a cloth to clean off his face.

"Come sit." Lexie said and cleaned over his forehead first with the cloth. Armin winced. "Sorry."

"How's your ODM gear looking, Armin?" Reiner asked, while Lexie bandaged him. Armin's gear had come off when he was thrown off his horse.

"It's okay... The clasp released as intended, so it seems it's not broken." Armin replied. Lexie finished bandaging up his head and brushed some of his hair off his eyes.

"We'll have to have your head checked again when we're back, this is only a temporary bandage." Lexie said to Armin and he nodded.

"Lexie, why are you here? Black and yellow smoke means 'run away' not 'come'." Armin said, half reprimanding her.

"I had a suspicion since the smoke came from too close in the formation. So, I needed to check and be back up if needed. I was expecting a crazy tall abnormal, not an intelligent one."

"Well, I'm glad you came. We needed the back up." Reiner said.

"Thank you for pushing me away from the titan's hand, Reiner." Lexie said back.

"Don't mention it. But what do we do now? We only have one horse. If Jean's horse comes back, the four of us can move, but..."

"Let's fire a smoke round. If the formation continued straight ahead, then the 4 and 3 team should be nearby." Armin suggested.

Lexie then stood next to Jean, she put her fingers in her mouth and let out a whistle louder than Jean's and with a pattern.

"That's my horse's signal." she explained at Jean's confused face.

"Lexie, your horse is the fastest of ours. You should tell Commander Erwin what happened here, and also..."

"You can tell him yourself, Armin. Looks like someone's here... And with two horses!" Jean said. Making them all look. "That's Krista!"

"Oh, my horse is coming too!" Lexie said. Krista had two horses and one was Jean's, Lexie's white horse came from another direction, but reached her before Krista.

"Are you guys ok?" Krista asked.

"Krista, you are a life savior sent by angels." Lexie said and they all mounted their horses. Kriste smiled at her, Lexie's praise was better than anyone else's for Krista.

"Lexie, you have to tell Commander Erwin, the female titan, she's looking for-" Armin started saying.

"I know." Lexie interrupted, shocking Armin. "I know exactly what to tell the commander." She whispered so only he could hear.

"You knew this would happen." Armin whispered back. "That's why you came to help, you knew I was here."

"I wanted to make sure you were fine." Lexie answered honestly. "I also needed to confirm my suspicions. We knew this was a probability."

"So, you have a plan."

"Commander Erwin does." She said. "I have to updated him." Armin nodded.

"Stay safe." He told her.

"You too." Lexie said back to him and then addressed the others. "Rejoin the formation! I'll update commander Erwin!" She told everyone and ran off.

"Whoa, she's really fast." Krista said.

"A woman hard to keep up with, I like the challenge." Reiner joked.

"Please, do you honestly think she'd be interested in anyone like us? She's a noble." Jean scoffed at Reiner's crush.

"Whatever. I'll take my chances." Reiner said.

"She already seems to have a preference, though." Krista said glancing at Armin, Jean and Reiner rolled their eyes, but Armin didn't really notice, he was still staring after Lexie as she rode off. He felt the looks on him and turned to everyone.

"What?" he asked. Jean only scoffed and Krista giggled, but no one answered his question. He didn't mind, though, he was thinking.

Armin guessed this was one of the secrets Lexie couldn'tshare. She knew about the dangers, she knew about the potential loses. Shetried to warn him, but she also stopped herself before giving out too muchinformation. These are the hard choices leaders have to make, leaders like her,leaders like Erwin. Armin had always thought he and Lexie were equals, but itwas a lie, she had always been above everyone, not just because of her title, butbecause of the choices she had to make for the better good. Part of him pitiedher, not being able to live a normal life and focus on just living her life.But he also admired her, even with everything, she was still smiling and jokingand being kind and caring, she never did anything for selfish reasons. Thisonly made him even more devoted to her.