Marta was glad to have joined the 104thTrainee Squad, she could safely say they all held a place in her heart.
Marco, Jean and Marta had remained somewhat of a close-knit group during their time, after all she entered her training with them and decided she would stay with them for as long as she could before leaving to join the Survey Corps along with Eren Jaeger. This fact made Jean jealous of the boy for 'stealing his friend' and was probably one of the main reasons for their long standing rivalry.
Eren Jaeger had, after all, became one of her closest friends, she even came to think of him as a brother. Even other people had mistaken them for siblings because of their matching emerald green eyes and it was because of this fact that when Marta was around the boy she would sometimes be reminded of her father's last words to her.
'You'll find him one day, you'll know when you see him, your eyes match his, he'll know what to do!'
She never had the gall to actually ask the boy what it was all about and he had never mentioned it to her so she continued life as normal.
Marta also became close to the yellow-haired boy, Armin Arlert, who had told her of life beyond the walls where there were stretches of fiery waters, lands filled with ice, and sandy snowfields. He was another reason she wanted to join the scouts, to her Armin was like an angel and she wanted to protect him as a soldier beside him because even if he was irreplaceable as a strategist and over all genius, he was still the weakest of the squad.
Another of those precious angels was Krista Lenz who shared Armin's blue eyes, blonde hair and good heart. They had been friends since the night Marta had arrived when they both went out to feed Sasha after she'd finished running until she couldn't run any more. Marta even managed to get used to Ymir, even with her bitchy attitude, which sometimes gave her a few laughs along the way.
Sasha and Connie were the two other cadets to make her laugh the most with their antics, Marta hoped they would keep their humour wherever life took them, Survey Corps or not. She bonded mostly with Sasha out of the two due to their shared love of food which Marta knew was greater than hers after the cook off between Sasha and Jean a few years back.
Reiner, Bertholdt and Annie were more serious in their training and she had learnt a lot from them. If it weren't for them, she would've wasted a lot of her time in hand-to-hand combat but instead she put it to good use in the form of fighting lessons from Annie. Annie had also taught Marta that the military system was stupid and she should be smarter about where she places herself in life.
Another more serious recruit was Mikasa Ackerman, who Marta guessed was slightly jealous of her newfound friendship with Eren. Nonetheless the two came to gain a mutual respect for each other, even if it was sometimes clouded by jealousy.
All of the 104thTrainee Squad were important in some way to her, so as she stood there, graduating at 2ndin her class, she felt selfish because she wished all of her friends could've been in the top 10 and could live in the interior so she would never have to worry about them dying on her one day.
"Do you have heart?"
"Sir!" All the cadets confirmed, the right hand clenched against their heart.
"As of this moment, you have three options open to you. Choose wisely. The Garrison Regiment, whose job is to reinforce the Walls. The Scout Regiment, who ride out into the Titan country to take back what was once ours. And the MP Regiment, maintaining law and order under orders from His Royal Majesty. Those cadets eligible for the MP have already been named. The rest of you, take a look, these are the top of your class."
There they were, the top 10. It consisted of Mikasa, Marta, Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie, Eren, Jean, Marco, Connie and Sasha.
Everyone was in high spirits about graduating, the mood being carried on when Marta, Mikasa, Armin and Eren used their day off to watch the Survey Corps leaving for their next expedition. Marta laughed at Eren and Armin's faces of pure adoration as the Squad Leader's passed by, it made her remember Eren's ramblings about each and every one of them who he seemed to have absurdly extensive knowledge about.
"Did you give those ugly bastards a thrashing?"
"Look! It's captain Levi," one of her fellow soldiers, Samuel, called out. "They say he's like an entire brigade to himself!" Marta looked up at the handsome man on his black stallion. It was the first time she had seen the scouts, much less Humanity's Strongest and she couldn't help but get excited, the atmosphere around her heightening her mood.
Eren addressed it, "feel how excited everybody is?" She nudged him and they smiled at each other when their matching eyes met. "It's like the crowd just has a different energy now."
"Well, we are going on five years without incident," Hanna replied. Marta smiled, the idea giving her some hope.
She was wrong to have that speck of hope.
She knew that when the she faced the Colossal Titan for the first time and it breached the outer gate of the Trost District, she knew it when she watched all nearly all of her teammates die, save Eren and Armin, and she knew it now as she ran towards Armin who was being held over the open mouth of a Titan.
She watched as he was dropped into it's mouth in shock. Eren watched as well as he slid down the wet cavern of its throat. He held open the wretched creature's mouth, only one of his legs still there and Marta realised she needed to do something.
Fast.
She also went into the mouth of the Titan, helping Eren hold it open and grabbing Armin, grimacing as she tossed him back into the open air.
"Eren, I can do this. You need to get out of here, NOW!" She practically screamed at the boy as she struggled to keep the mouth open.
"Please!" Eren sighed. "We both have a better chance of surviving if you leave first, Eren!"
And just as Eren was about to escape, he put one of his hands out in front of him. "Listen, Armin, we're still going to the outside world. The things you told me about. I have to see them.
I have to!"
And suddenly, that arm was not there anymore.
Chomp.
Marta stayed in the stomach of the Titan for what felt like hours, wondering how long it would take her to die in the humid environment that was the Titan's stomach. She didn't want to cry even if Eren's body was floating in front of her.
She watched in horror as another floating body turning over, it's lifeless face staring right through her.
"Help me." Came a voice and Marta became hopeful it was Eren's but then she saw it was a young girl. "It's so hot... Help me, Mum." It was then Marta couldn't help but let the tears she was holding back fall down her pale face.
"This can't be real... Marta?" Said girl turned to face the voice, it was Eren.
She practically jumped on him in a hug. "How are you alive, your arm.... your leg!"
He was crying when their eyes met. When their eyes did meet, something felt like it clicked between the two of them and they looked up into the blackness of the opening of the Titan's wide stomach.
When they both open their eyes again, they would be high up in the open air.
Marta knew what she had to do and done it with a fiery passion. It was like instinct, pummelling every Titan into the ground by the nape of their necks that crossed her path. The 104thCadet Corps watched in amazement as 2 giants they would've called enemies once upon a time became the only thing keeping them alive.
The titans with the twin eyes had given them a chance to get themselves together and by god, they weren't going to not take advantage of that fact. It seemed the two were on the winning side before they were being eaten by their own kind.
"Cannibalism?" Armin asked himself as he watched from one of the rooftops. "Can they not regenerate like the others?"
"This may sound stupid, but I was hoping they'd be the key for us. That they'd help mankind break the cycle, turn the tide just long enough to give us a ray of hope." Mikasa was wrong about that, Armin felt exactly the same. The two had taken down at least 80 titans altogether.
Reiner agreed before Armin could. "She's right. They're too valuable to just let die. There's too much we can learn from him. I think it's perfectly clear our priority should be to ward the scavengers off him. They're no good to us picked apart."
"Are you out of your mind? We've got a path out of this nightmare and you want to stay?" Jean asked in disbelief.
"Think about it." Annie began, "having two abnormals as allies would be an incredible advantage, right? A cannon's got nothing on a Titan who likes to rip apart his own kind."
"Do you hear yourself? They're not like a new friends!"
"Oh no... it's the one that ate Thomas!" The twin Titans seemed to pipe up at the sound of that, becoming more ravenous by the second as they charged towards the blonde abnormal that ate Thomas like a piece of candy. Eren latched onto his neck and Marta to his waist, together they ripped the Titan apart angrily before collapsing to the ground.
"What is that you were saying, because it seems like a moot point now." Jean looked back to see the rest of them gawking, "all right, enough of this! Let's leave while we can!"
The rest of the group didn't budge.
"We're lucky the bastards didn't get bored. We'd have been next on the menu. Look a Titan's a Titan!" Jean looked back again and they were still gawking at the two steaming monsters. "What are you looking at!?"
Realisation hit Jean like a bullet in the back as he looked down on the scene. There she was, his best friend, emerging from a steaming Titan that had the same ginger hair and green eyes as her. The girl he had grieved for only a few hours ago when Armin revealed both her and Eren, the one emerging from the twin body, had both died in service to humanity.
Jean couldn't help but let out a sob of horror or happiness, at that moment, he didn't know which emotion was overtaking his mind. Mikasa did the same as she hugged Eren's body and cried for what seemed like forever into his chest. Usually the horse faced boy would be jealous by now, but he was too worried over the girl he was almost straddling at his tears fell into her long locks which had come undone from their bun during her short stay in the Titan's body.
Marta woke up long before Eren did, when they still on the rooftop. "Jean...?" Her voice came out groggily.
"Marta! Are you okay?" Armin asked.
"Angel..." Marta nicknamed him as she reached her hand out to him, he took it in between his as he blushed at her words. "It's me, Armin."
It was safe to say her mind was a little out of it.
"I always thought of you as an Angel, Armin, but I didn't think I'd actually see you here in Heaven..." Reiner laughed at Marta's response.
"Sorry to burst your bubble but you're still alive and well, Marta."
"Oh fuck..." Marta grasped her head as her brain banged against her skull.
Somewhere in the middle of Marta's already confusing day she had ended up in front of the Garrison regiment, cannons and guns alike being pointed at the group that now consisted of just Armin, Mikasa, Marta and Eren.
Eren woke up with a start, "You're all gonna die." Armin and Marta stared down at him in shock as he woke up, "Eren."
Suddenly the situation became clear to said boy as he realised the artillery ready to be fired in his direction.
"You alright?" Mikasa asked as Marta jumped up to join the Oriental girl at her side.
"Eren, hey, can you move?" Armin wanted confirmation on his state as well. "Do you hear me, say something!"
"He's probably confused, give him a minute." Marta empathized with his state.
"We don't have a minute!" Mikasa spat at her.
"Eren, Marta, you've gotta tell them everything! They're terrified but they'll understand!"
"I don't understand what happened myself!" Marta felt her annoyance progressing towards boiling point.
"Did you catch that? He said he'll kill us all," one of the Garrison soldiers repeated Eren's words while looking at him in fear.
"There's not much else you can make of that. Son of a bitch wants to eat us, you watch!"
"Cadets Eren Jaeger and Marta Moller. As well as Mikasa Ackerman and Armin Arlert. The four of you have jointly comitted an act of high treason! Whether or not a swift execution is the result depends on you! Any attempt to move from where you stand, anything I deem the least bit suspicious, will be met with cannon fire."
Marta knew what was going on, Armin, or Angel, as she now called him, had filled her in on how she turned into a Titan, alike Eren.
She wondered if this was what her father had meant that day, the day with the syringe. Eren had been the boy whose eyes matched hers all along. After surviving this, she was going to be looking for a long ass explanation.
"Answer carefully, Eren Jaeger, Marta Moller, what exactly are you two? Human? Or Titan?" The look on the Captain's face was one of complete fear. Eren's was one of complete confusion, "I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand!"
Marta decided to sit still, not really sure how to answer the question because she assumed the leader wouldn't take 'both' as a proper answer and would kill the group on the spot.
"Don't try to stall with ignorance, you'll be blown to hell before you can assume your true form!"
"What true form?" Eren asked in genuine confusion.
"Please, all of us saw it happen, you and Moller emerged from the carcass of a fallen Titan in full view of your comrades! We've let creatures like yous slip through and infiltrate Wall Rose. Under the circumstances, you're a sanctioned soldier by His Majesty, you are a risk I am well within my rights to eliminate! I will not let the situation stand. Every moment I squander mulling over your supposed innocence puts us all in further jeopardy from attack by the Armoured Titan!"
'Why don't you just let us go then?' Was all Marta could think as she watched the idiot overcome by fear shout for what felt like years.
"Sir, please! This may be our best chance! We'll expend far less artillery if he's in human form!"
Mikasa picked the right time to be a badass, blades raised and ready to attack, "excuse me! I wouldn't, not while I'm standing here. Unless anyone's feeling up to the task, in which case, well, I'm happy to demonstrate my own technique.
On you."
The Captain looked taken aback by her statement and his right hand whispered something into his ear only making his eyes grow wider.
"Somebody talk to me now. What the hell is all this?" Eren's intonation raised.
"Mikasa!" Armin warned.
"Whoever comes at Eren deals with me, I'll take on the entire regiment if I have to." She retorted.
"This isn't the only way! They don't understand what's happening! We need to calm down and just talk it out." Armin tried to calm the situation but his skills were not nearly as good as Marco's and Marta found herself only getting more restless.
"One more time! Are you two human beings or Titans?"
Marta stayed silent and Eren seemed to be thinking hard about the situation at hand before finally answering, "I'm human!"
The next minutes of Marta's life were a flash of lightening, the inside of a giant ribcage and finally the moment where she'd knew she'd died.
The Captain had raised his hand to let the cannons fire.