I waited for a moment, these few seconds lasting a lifetime. If they were going to gun us down they should just do it already, most of the steam was gone by now since Jean couldn't make any more of it now that he was in this force field with us. They had a clear shot of us just doing it. Get it over with. Or am I already dead and I just haven't realized it yet? I opened my eyes to check and looked up seeing them get to their feet. Nope not dead yet, but here I am staring down the barrel of so many guns. Just as they started pulling the trigger I saw a flash of green.
Before I knew what happened the force field was broken and we were getting yanked off our feet and thrown around in the air. Before I could realize what happened I was back on the floor on top of Jean and Marco. Levi was laying on top of me. I looked around. We are in the middle of a dimly lit field. Where are we? Did I die?
"That was a close one," Hanji said, taking a deep breath. I looked around just as Erwin closed the portal.
I was still trying to piece together what just happened. "You're lucky I was still able to use my vines or you four would have been goners." Though Hanji's words were playful, her tone was filled with relief and her eyes had tears in them. So she pulled us out? She didn't even seem to think it was going to work by the look on her face.
She collapsed to her knees and pulled us into a tight hug. I could tell she felt absolutely exhausted, and she still had a ton of wounded people to heal.
I looked over at Franz who seemed to be giving Hanji a moment to rest. He was walking around healing people, but even he looked like he was reaching his limit.
It looked like we were in the middle of nowhere. The only sources of light were a few torches here and there and some flashlights. Where the light ended was just a dark void, every once in a while my eyes would lock on to something moving in the darkness? With how high up that is it has to be the tops of trees swaying in the night breeze. I looked to the sky and could see the moon, it looked so pretty, so bright, and next to it was a sea of stars that fluttered about.
I let my eyes fall back to the people around us and the commotion going on. I tried to look around and focus on something, anything. My job wasn't done. I needed to keep helping. The more I looked around the more everything became unfocused. I didn't know what was happening until my vision started to darken. I just pulled Levi close to me and held him tightly as I blacked out.
I watched as Eren pulled Levi close before his head slumped over and he fell back against my arm. I quickly looked over him to make sure he wasn't hit with any of the bullets that were coming at us when Marco gently placed his hand on my back. "He's okay, he just overdid it back there. His adrenaline must have worn off."
I nodded but insisted on keeping the two of them near us. There were so many people around and any one of them could be a spy. I wasn't letting these two out of my sight especially since they are in such a vulnerable state. Marco moved over so that he was sitting next to me.
"I'll look over them in a minute," Hanji said, still trying to get up enough energy to get back on her feet.
"They'll be fine, worry about some of the other wounded," I said, after making sure there was no blood coming off of them, well aside from the blood that was due to overuse of their powers.
As Hanji finally pulled herself off the ground I noticed some blood on the ground near us. I looked around to make sure it was none of ours. That's when I saw Marco's hand. It was on his leg and there was blood seeping through his fingertips.
"You were hit?" I asked leaning in to get a closer look. I was about to call Hanji back when he stopped me. "I was grazed, it's fine. I just need to keep some pressure on it, that's all."
I had him move his hand so I could double-check. Okay he was telling the truth it doesn't look that bad, but damn, "you still should have told me."
"So you could worry over nothing?"
"Yes," I said back, staring him down.
He just rolled his eyes and leaned his head on my shoulder. "I love you," his words were whispered. The relief I felt in those words, the safety. We lived, he lived.
"We made it," I breathed out leaning my head against his.
Someone walked over to us and I instantly picked my head back up and felt every muscle in my body tense up. I don't care how overused my powers are or how much backlash I face if they think they can come over and hurt them. I will roast them alive until they are nothing but ashes on the floor.
It was a young woman, maybe in her early twenties at most. Her face was expressionless as she stopped standing just before us. She looked down at Eren and Levi before her eyes looked up at me, "are they okay?" she asked her voice soft but her face still remained unreadable.
"They will be okay, they just overdid it," Marco explained, not going into too much detail.
"Overdid it?" she asked her brows knitting together and her head slightly tilted to the left.
"They overused their powers," Marco said again, hoping that would be enough to clear up her confusion.
"You can overuse powers?" She seemed very confused. Do ordinary people really know this little about powers? Then again I can't really say much. Before all this started we didn't know that we could overuse them either, but that's because no one had to use them this much. I mean there were a few rare cases, but we never knew it could get this bad.
"Yes, and it hurts very badly and sometimes can have permanent effects," I explained looking down at my own hands. One was placed on the back of Eren's head and the other on Levi's back. I still couldn't feel where they touched their bodies, but I knew they could feel it even if they weren't conscious they still might be able to feel the comforting touch of their friend.
She sat down on the floor across from us. My muscles tensed with how close she was sitting to Eren and Levi. Her eyes glanced down at them and then back to me and she scooted back a little seeming to get that I wasn't comfortable with how close she was.
My muscles relaxed a little at the gesture. She wasn't here to harm them. I guess she just was genuinely curious. "Do you mind explaining to me, I want to understand."
I looked over to Marco hoping he would take the lead on this one since I'm not the best when it comes to talking to people. God, why couldn't Eren be awake he was the brains here, or Levi, he was the one good with people's thoughts.
"That's all you," Marco said back and I was about to mentally curse him out when he looked down at my hands, "between the two of us you have more experience."
I hate it when he's right. "Uh well, what do you want to know? Just how they can have permanent effects or-?" I let my voice trail off. I wasn't sure exactly what she wanted me to explain.
"Everything, I mean everything I thought I knew about you was a lie told to me by the government. I want to know the truth, I want to understand. They were obviously wrong about you all, you just risked your lives to save us. The least I could do is learn, help spread the truth."
Apparently, this caught the attention of a few other people as they sat behind her quietly wanting nothing more than to listen. So many eyes on me the more people who stared at me the more I felt my chest tighten. How was I supposed to talk to this many people? What if I say something wrong? What if I fuck up?
I felt Marco's hand on my back and my eyes glanced over at him. "You got this, I'm right here to help," he whispered.
"Well, um, where should I start?" I asked.
"How did you get your powers?" she asked.
"Well, depending on the person and their DNA, sometimes people have a genetic mutation that only activates in certain situations. These mutations are usually triggered through high-stress situations, or when the body is on the verge of death. Like mine were from near-death experiences," I said and Marco chimed in.
"As were mine."
"But some of ours were from traumatic experiences. Others were from extreme stress for long durations of time. When our powers activated it was usually something that helped us in that moment, whether it be to keep us alive or to help lessen the burden of the stress put on us. Sometimes it was more metaphorical help rather than actual."
"How?" It was a simple question, but a hard one to answer. I mean, mine were stupid power triggers from a reckless kid who did some stupid shit.
Marco quickly chimed in. "Well, when I was 5 I was left alone in my backyard for a few minutes. I had ended up falling into the pool and instantly sank to the bottom. I would have died, I felt myself go unconscious, but a minute later I was waking up and breathing under the water unharmed. At that moment the powers that triggered helped me to stay alive and even helped me get out of the pool. I was able to move the water and move it from my path as I made my way to the ladder and got out of the pool."
Well, that was one example, "My friend here," I said motion to Eren, "he always said he felt like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders so many responsibilities burdening him all at once. His power is gravity manipulation." I said hoping that it would make sense about my other explanation. His power didn't come from life or death experience and it wasn't thought to be necessarily needed to actually lessen his stress load, but it's just how it happened.
"If it was that easy why didn't people try and trigger powers on purpose?" someone else asked, the question wasn't meant to come off that rude, but a part of me still felt annoyed by it.
"They have, another person who was in our group at one point had that happen to them, sadly I can't share much about his experience. I don't know the full story, and he is no longer around to be able to tell it." I felt my words catch in my throat.
"I'm sorry for your loss," the first woman's voice said again. I looked back up and her face actually showed some expressions that I could read. She looked very sympathetic.
I cleared my throat and kept going. "We haven't learned why yet, but these powers are unable to trigger sometime after the person reaches the age of 13. The gene just remains dormant after that. Also, I think the gene can only trigger three times, because that's the most that has ever been seen," I explained. Honestly, Erwin, Hanji, or even Pixis should be doing this, not me. I'm just relaying the same information they taught us years ago, and I don't even know if I'm relaying it correctly.
No one really asked any questions about that aside from, are there any exceptions? Which I mean I don't know of any so I just said I didn't know. I kept looking over at Marco in a panic. Am I doing this right?
He just kept giving me a comforting smile and his arm that was on my back would rub small circles every now and again. If he wasn't here by my side I wouldn't even be attempting this. He's the only thing keeping me sane at the moment.
We had eventually gotten back to overuse in powers and what that looked like. I gestured to Eren and Levi's faces. They still had dried blood on their faces where I wasn't able to get all of it off. I told them how these were signs of severe overuse, but still not to the dangerous point yet of things being permanent. Permanent damage is dangerous because it could come immediately or it could even show up the next day.
I looked over to Marco before taking a deep breath and raising my hands in the air to show everyone them. "I have some permanent nerve damage in my hands from overusing my powers too much. I can't feel my hands at all, pain, touch, pain, heat, cold, nothing. I looked at Marco and closed my eyes. I felt nothing, and when I opened my eyes again just as I expected him to, Marco was touching my hands. I didn't realize until after he pulled his hand away but he was touching my hand with an ice cube.
I guess when I didn't react to it at all people were a little more convinced. "Someone of the others are experiencing some more permanent backlashes, Annie," I said pointing over at her. She turned her head to look at me at the mention of her name. Apparently, she was already partially listening since she got up and walked over to show her permanent backlash to everyone.
"These crystals on my skin are permanent. When I overuse my powers moreover these forms, I can't stop them and I can't remove them. I noticed some new ones just under her eyes. They were like freckles but crystals. "These are from today," she said, her voice going quiet as she turned back around and walked away.
I pointed back down to where Eren laid in my lap, "He has to wear arm braces every time he uses his power because he's damaged his arms too much from using his powers too much, after today I'm sure that will be much worse." My voice dropped at the end. It just hit me how much worse everyone is going to be after today, how many of us will have permanent consequences from today's actions?