"Break into two groups and search each side of the Wall," Armin ordered his subordinate soldiers. "Search all the buildings near the inner gate! If you find them, signal immediately!"
Armin then looked at his subordinates, scared, still very shy and embarrassed.
"I'm counting on you..." he completed, his voice down.
The soldiers replied with a resounding "Understood!" and set out to the search. Armin looked at Lara, seeking her approval and she nodded with a little smile.
"Go with them, Armin," she kindly ordered.
Lara turned to Erwin, smiling.
"Thank you once more."
"Don't thank me. Armin's ready for this role. He's one of our greatest weapons."
"I agree," said Lara. "Besides, it will do a lot of good for his shyness and insecurity. I see that he has a lot of difficulties commanding respect in people, so I believe that putting him in a leadership position will help him a lot in that."
Erwin turned to Lara, with a little smile.
"You never cease to amaze me. I must say that I'm very proud of your work," he then put his hand on her shoulder. "I knew you would be an excellent contribution to humanity."
"You're embarrassing me, uncle Erwin," replied Lara, blushing and smiling. "I'm not all that."
"Uncle Erwin?!" he exclaimed, joyful. "What an honor!"
"That's how I see you," Lara kindly replied. "Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I'll never forget what you did for me..."
Erwin blinked slowly and gave her a side hug with affection.
"I'm glad to hear that, niece."
They both laughed, but right after, acquired a serious expression.
"Erwin," began Lara, "what now? Are we gonna pause the operation until we find the enemy? Or will Eren continue until he seals the inner gate?"
The Commander took a deep breath.
"We continue," he said, serious. "We would lose a prolonged battle here. We can only win with a quick and decisive action. Even though our enemies have calculated our every move, we have no choice... Other than to continue."
Erwin then took a peek at his own ODM gear.
"In any case, they're not the only ones hiding something..." he gave Lara a meaningful look, with a smile, to which she replied.
A few minutes passed and they got a fright when they saw a signal flare been shot. Soon after, Armin and all of his subordinates were back in a circle for an emergency meeting.
"Armin!" exclaimed Lara. "Did you find them? Where are they?"
"Not yet!" he answered, panting. "Everyone, search the Walls!"
"But, we already did it!" a soldier replied, distressed.
"There's nowhere to hide!" added another soldier.
"They're inside the Walls!" exclaimed Armin, anxious.
Everyone held their breath in fright. Erwin and Lara looked at each other.
"Inside the Walls?" she asked, taking a step forward.
"Yes!" answered Armin. "Somewhere, there must be a hole large enough for someone to stay inside!"
"How do you know that?" asked a soldier, visibly nervous.
Armin then looked down at his own feet and acquired an anguished expression.
"It's a hunch..."
The soldiers were astonished and the one who was nervous grabbed Armin's shoulders to shake him.
"Do you have any idea what sort of situation we're in?! We don't have time to waste on hunches!"
"But," retorted Armin, also nervous, "Our enemies always attack us using Titan powers in ways we never imagine!"
Lara and Erwin looked at each other, thoughtful.
"If we do not start thinking straight," continued Armin, "we'll never be able to gain the upper hand!"
A silence fell over them and then, the soldier holding Armin felt a presence at his side.
It was Lara.
Gently, but firmly, she took the soldier's arms and pulled them away from Armin.
"Simon," she said, with authority. "Obey your superior."
He looked at Lara, still wide-eyed, and slowly lowered his head.
"Yes, ma'am..." he finally said.
Lara winked at Armin, signaling him to stand firm, and he thanked her with a little smile. Then, everyone jumped in fright as Erwin suddenly shot a red signal flare.
It was a signal to halt the mission.
"There are times when flexibility is necessary," said Erwin, serious. "You must try your best without compromising discipline." He then looked at the soldiers. "Obey Lara and Armin's orders! We're here to claim victory!"
"Break into two groups again and search the surface of the Wall!" ordered Armin. "Especially above the gate! Commence the search!"
The soldiers stared at him with a scared expression, but soon they left shouting "Understood!" again.
Lara, Armin, and the soldiers hung from their ODM gears, as if rappelling down the Wall, tapping the surface with their swords to check if they could find any cavities in it.
In the meantime, Hange and Levi arrived, running towards the Commander.
"Erwin!" exclaimed Hange, worried. "Where's Lara?!"
He indicated a certain point of the Wall, where she was hanging next to Armin. Erwin then explained to them everything that had happened.
"Oh!" exclaimed Levi, annoyed. "So she did decide to promote Armin now, of all times!"
"Your daughter made a wise decision, my friend," said Erwin. "By the way, I wanna take this opportunity and congratulate you both."
Levi and Hange looked at each other, confused, and together exclaimed, "Why?!"
"Because you did an excellent work on raising this girl," he replied, with a kind smile. "And I must say that I'm also very proud of you two, especially in what you've become."
Hange and Levi glanced at each other, blushing. But in the end, they thanked the Commander for his care and support. Hange then said she was going to stay close to Lara and left, leaving Erwin and Levi talking.
"I wanna congratulate you too, Levi," said Erwin, turning to his friend.
"Why?" he asked, confused.
"Because you're very different from that rebel young man I met in the Underground. Today, you're one of the rare Survey Corps soldiers who practically has a family. If we're to consider that the girls are also soldiers, that's quite a feat."
Levi looked down at his own feet and clasped his hands. He took a deep breath and a long pause.
"Yeah... But that only makes me worried in triple. For me and for them..."
Erwin gave him a little smile and patted Levi on the back with his single arm.
"You know... I confess that, sometimes, I feel a little jealous of you..."
Levi looked at him from head to toe with a grimace of indignation.
"You didn't get married because you didn't want to, Erwin. You cannot say you didn't have any suitors." Levi held his chin, thoughtful. "What about that Marie?"
"She married Nile Dok," answered Erwin, gazing at the horizon, with a dreamy look. "They're expecting their third child, already..."
"See?" asked Levi. "Opportunity lost."
But this time, Erwin was the one who looked at Levi from head to toe, with an expression of indignation.
"Look who's talking! Hange's not your wife yet for you to brag like that!"
"But," replied Levi, raising his index finger, "this is just a matter of time. You know very well that I don't do anything in a hurry."
"Careful, Levi," warned Erwin, chuckling, "women don't like men who just string them along. You better start hurrying up, 'cause time flies and you'll end up dying as a poor, widowed, and virgin fella!"
Levi's eyes widened and he turned extremely red.
"I'm not poor, Erwin!" he exclaimed, annoyed. "And I'm not stringing Hange along. You do know about my plans very well. Stop saying this nonsense, otherwise, I'll throw you off the Wall, and I won't help you because now you only have one arm."
"How mean!" replied Erwin, pretending to be sad. "This way, you won't have a best man anymore." He chuckled.
Levi left stomping his feet in indignation, huffing a "What a joke!" while Erwin kept laughing behind. Levi approached Hange, who was looking down, watching her daughter tap the Wall with her swords. Spotting her parents, Lara waved.
"Wow!" exclaimed Hange, looking at Levi. "You're completely red, what happened?"
"It's that dumbhead named Erwin," answered Levi, annoyed. "He's officially becoming the master of uncle bad jokes."
Hange had to hold her belly to laugh, but she thought it was better to remain quiet, to not irritate the shorty any longer. They both continued to watch their daughter below.
Lara, Armin, and the other soldiers had been tapping the Walls for a good few minutes by now.
"If there's a position where it's possible to react as soon as Eren appears," Armin said to Lara, at a certain moment, "and where it's possible to see what we're doing, there's no better place than watching from inside the Walls. If the enemy thinks we still don't know there are Titans inside the Walls, then they would never expect us to be prepared for that."
"You're completely right, Armin," replied Lara, while tapping. "Good job!"
Then, she tapped a certain spot on the Wall that made a different noise.
"That's odd..." she thought. "It seems... Hollowed?!"
When Lara realized what she found, her heart began running fast and her eyes widened. Quickly, she drew her flare gun and fired a smoke signal. Everyone was startled and looked toward the smoke. Hange and Levi leaned in to get a better view.
"Here!" shouted Lara. "There's a cavity right here!"
The moment she looked back at the Wall in front of her, she couldn't believe what she saw. A small hole opened, as if someone had covered it with a piece of wood, painted the same color as the Wall, revealing Reiner's menacing eyes.
They both stared at each other for just a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Reiner had a sword aimed to plunge right into Lara's chest, but the time he saw that an old friend was in front of him, he froze for a brief moment. Lara noticed a flicker of hesitation in Reiner's eyes, and instead of continuing to aim at her chest, in a quick movement, he stabbed his sword into the upper part of her left arm, and pulled it out hard.
The pain Lara felt when that blade rip through her left arm muscles and was pulled out, matched the pain she felt when she broke her rib and foot, a long time ago. She let out such a loud scream, that it made everyone's hair stand on end.
Reiner then pushed her aside so he could get out of the hole.
"Reiner!!!" shouted Armin, so everyone could hear.
With tears in her eyes, Lara tried to staunch the bleeding that ran down from the cut on her arm. She felt a certain movement from above and when she raised her head, she saw her father flying down at such an absurd speed, that it looked like a bolt of lightning.
With a single blow, Levi plunged his own sword into Reiner's neck. He continued to push him down the Wall and then plunged the other sword right into Reiner's chest.
"Do not lay a single finger on my daughter!" he exclaimed, with a glare of fury.
Reiner then looked back at Levi, who was startled to see that the enemy was still alive. Levi threw Reiner down the Wall, who fell to the ground, with the sword still through his neck.
Levi landed beside his daughter, much worried.
"Lara!" he exclaimed, looking at the girl's injured arm. "Are you alright?!"
She could not answer. Her arm throbbed in pain and she felt the pulse of her blood, which was running down.
"I-I will be fine," she replied, panting. "I just need to staunch the bleeding! We cannot stop the mission!"
Levi didn't want to show it, but he was very frightened of what had happened to his daughter. Instinctively, he looked up, looking for Hange, who by now was already flying down towards them. The girls quickly went back to the top of the Wall, while Levi stood beside Armin, who looked very concerned about his Squad Leader's condition. They watched Reiner writhing on the ground.
"Damn it!" exclaimed Levi, very irritated. "How did he not die?! Is that another Titan power?! I was so close to finishing him!"
Reiner was writhing more and more, and then, everything they now saw was the intense flash of his Titan transformation. All soldiers were very scared, seeing the Armored Titan now lying on the ground just below.
"Keep on the lookout!" shouted Erwin, waving his arm. "There are more enemies to locate!"
He barely finished his sentence and something happened that made everyone feel a huge chill down their spines.
BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!!
Behind everyone, just beyond Shiganshina's inner gate, towards the open field of Wall Maria, countless explosions of Titan transformations could be heard. They all turned to see it with the purest terror in their eyes.
When the smoke cleared, among so many Titans that had appeared, right in the middle, was the Beast Titan, staring at them with intense red eyes.
He then picked up a big rock and, like a baseball move, threw it towards the Wall where everyone was watching in horror at that scene.
"Boulder incoming!" shouted Erwin. "Get down!"
However, instead of the rock hitting the top of the Wall, where the soldiers were, it hit the hole of the gate that Eren should block using hardening. The whole ground shook.
Hange and Lara staggered over to Erwin.
"Did he miss?!" asked Hange, distressed.
"No," replied the Commander, very serious. "He hit the target. He's just blocked the entrance... Now the horses can't pass anymore. They want to prevent us from escaping on the horses. They want to surround us and defeat us right here."
Hange was pressing Lara's wound and they both looked at each other, very worried.
"We're both hoping for the same thing," said Erwin, facing the Beast Titan. "To settle it here once and for all." He then drew his sword with his single arm and raised it to the skies. "HUMANITY OR TITANS, WHICH SIDE WILL LIVE?! WHICH SIDE WILL PERISH?!"