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The refugee camp had always been a place of muted sounds; but in the Yeager shack, the dominant sound for the past thirty-six hours had been the soft, rhythmic squeak-thump, squeak-thump of wheelchair wheels on hard-packed dirt.
Carla Yeager was pacing. Or rather, she was rolling, a tight, furious circuit from the cold stove to the door and back again. Her hands, white-knuckled on the wheels, were the only part of her that moved with any real strength. The rest of her was a tightly coiled spring of anxiety, her face pale, eyes shadowed and darting to the door with every pass. The blanket Eren usually used was still folded neatly at the foot of his empty pallet. It was a silent accusation.
Two nights. They'd been gone two nights. First the children, vanished from their beds. And Grandpa Arlet, gone after them. All of them, swallowed by the silent, watchful dark beyond the camp's feeble lights.
The rumors had trickled in with the dawn traders; whispers of fire in the south, near the Cadet Corps. Of strange battles and monsters. Every word was a needle in her heart. Her boy, her reckless, furious, wonderful boy, was out there in that madness. And he wasn't alone. Mikasa and Armin, the children she'd promised to keep safe, were with him.
Squeak-thump. Squeak-thump.
Her mind was a torture chamber of images: Eren's face, set in that stubborn scowl. Mikasa's silent, protective stance. Armin's wide, worried eyes. They were a constellation of her heart, and they were all missing.
A knock on the door.
It wasn't loud. But in the tense silence of the shack, it was a gunshot.
Carla's head snapped up. Her heart, already hammering, seemed to stop entirely. For a second, she couldn't move. Then, with a surge of adrenaline that momentarily overrode the weakness in her legs, she shoved herself forward, wincing as her own momentum jolted her body. She fumbled with the simple latch, her fingers clumsy with panic, and yanked the door open.
The grey morning light framed them.
Grandpa Arlet stood foremost, his face a landscape of weary lines and grim resolve. Behind him, pressed close, were Mikasa and Armin. They were filthy; their clothes smudged with soot and dirt, Armin's glasses cracked, Mikasa's red scarf a dull grey. Their eyes were huge in pale, exhausted faces.
And behind them, almost trying to hide behind the old man's slender frame, was Hannes. A fresh, white bandage was wrapped around his head, and he wore a smile so sheepish and guilty it looked painful.
"Carla," Grandpa Arlet began, his voice gravelly.
She didn't hear him. A sound escaped her; a half-sob, half-gasp of pure, undiluted relief. She lunged forward, her arms stretching out, and pulled Mikasa and Armin into a fierce, trembling hug. She buried her face in their hair, inhaling the scents of smoke, sweat, and fear. They were real. They were solid. They were here.
"You're okay," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Thank the Walls, you're okay, you're okay…" She pulled back, her hands cupping their faces, her eyes searching for injuries beyond the grime. "Are you hurt? What happened? Where have you been?!"
Then, her maternal scan complete, her eyes darted past them, to the space behind Hannes. The space where a fourth, smaller, wilder figure should have been.
The relief in her face drained away, replaced by a cold, dawning dread.
Her gaze snapped back to Grandpa Arlet. "Where," she said, her voice suddenly quiet, terrifyingly steady, "is Eren?"
The old man met her eyes. He saw the hope shatter, saw the fortress of a mother's courage start to fracture at the edges. He had delivered hard news across star systems, but nothing had ever felt as heavy as this.
"Carla," he said softly, stepping fully inside and gently guiding the children in after him. Hannes slunk in last, closing the door as if trying to shut out the coming storm. "We need to talk. Eren is… not with us."
"Not with you." Carla repeated the words as if they were in a foreign language. She maneuvered her wheelchair back, creating a space that felt like a courtroom. "He left a note and went with his friends. All of them left together. Now you return without him. Explain. Now."
Grandpa Arlet took a deep breath. He didn't sugarcoat it. There was no way to. He spoke in low, measured tones, painting a picture of chaos: the Forever Knights, their fanaticism, and their mission as explained by the kids. He spoke of the 'demon dog'—not a rumor anymore, but a tortured alien creature. And how most likely Eren has gone off to chase after it.
Carla listened, her face a mask of horror. Her hands gripped the arms of her wheelchair so tightly the wood groaned. Her son. Her little boy. Throwing himself into battles between knights and monsters. Each revelation was a blow. She had told him, told him to stay put, not to try anything else.
And now, he wasn't here…
"He was heroic, Carla," Hannes ventured, his voice uncharacteristically small. "You should've seen him. He saved dozens of those cadets. He was… incredible."
Carla's head turned toward him slowly. The love and fear for her son had curdled into something else; a white-hot, focused rage. "You," she breathed.
Hannes's guilty smile flickered and died. "Heeey Carla… let's not do things we'll regret doin', okay?"
The shoe came off her foot faster than anyone could blink. It was a worn, soft-soled thing, but it sailed through the air with the velocity of a cannonball and the precision of a mother's fury.
THWACK!
Hannes yelped, ducking just in time. The shoe smacked against the door behind him with a solid sound and fell to the floor.
"Do things I'll regret?!" Carla's voice rose, trembling with fury. "My son is missing out there because he was fighting crazy medieval knights! Mikasa and Armin are covered in ash and look like they've seen the end of the world! And you, Hannes, you drunken, irresponsible fool, you let them go! No, you took them!"
"Carla, I swear, I tried to stop them!" Hannes pleaded, holding his hands up. "But they were determined! And Eren, he had that… that device! He could turn into a—"
"I DON'T CARE WHAT HE TURNS INTO!" she roared, tears of fury now mingling with the fear in her eyes. "He is ten years old! He is my child! Your job was to keep him safe, not give him a front-row seat to a massacre!"
She turned her scorching gaze to Mikasa and Armin, who flinched. "And you two! What were you thinking? You were gone for nearly two days! No word! Just a note and then nothing! Do you have any idea what that does to a person? Any idea what I've been imagining?" Her voice broke. "You are children. You do not get to decide to run off to war!"
"We had to help Eren," Mikasa said, her own voice quiet but firm, a steel thread in the tempest. "He needed us."
"He needed to be home!" Carla shot back. "He needed his mother! Not to be playing soldier with… with magic and monsters!" She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, trying to push back the tidal wave of panic. Knights. Alien beasts. Her son, in the middle of it all. And now… "This dog," she whispered, the anger giving way to the dread that had been clawing at her all along. "This demon… it has him? It took him?"
"We don't know for certain," Grandpa Arlet said, stepping forward, trying to be an anchor in the storm. "The creature was seen fleeing with a child. Eren was last seen engaging it. The circumstances…"
"Circumstances?" Carla's laugh was a hollow, broken thing. She looked at the old man, her eyes blazing with a new target. "And you. You knew. All this time. You knew all this for years…and that curse on his wrist that came crashing from the stars. You knew what it could do. You knew the dangers from these 'knights.' And you said nothing."
Grandpa Arlet didn't flinch. He absorbed her anger, her grief, her accusation. They were all justified. "I was trying to protect him, Carla. Knowledge of the Omnitrix in the wrong hands… it would make him a target for powers far worse than the Knights. I was trying to give him time."
"For nearly 2 years till that ghost monster showed up! Time for what?" she cried. "Time to get himself killed? Time to be dragged off by some beast again? You should have told me of all this! You should have told my husband all those time. I am his mother!"
"You're right," he said, the simple admission taking some of the wind from her sails. "I made a judgment call, and it was flawed. For that, you have every right to never forgive me. But right now, my failure is secondary. Eren is out there. And I will get him back."
The absolute certainty in his voice cut through the chaos. Carla stared at him, her chest heaving. "How?" The word was a plea.
"I'm going," Hannes said, straightening up, trying to muster some dignity. "I got him into this, I'll—"
"No," Grandpa Arlet interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument. "You've done enough, Hannes. You will stay here. Protect Carla, Mikasa, and Armin. The Knights may still be looking. Your duty is here now."
Hannes looked bewildered, defeated. "And how exactly are you going to find him, old man? That forest is massive. It's Titan territory! You'll be wandering around until you're eaten or you die of old age!"
A ghost of a smile touched Grandpa Arlet's lips. It held no humor. "I have my ways." He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a device. It was unlike anything they had ever seen; a flat, palm-sized disc of grey metal, etched with faint, pulsating green lines that resembled circuitry. One side was badly scarred and blackened, as if it had been in a fire or explosion. This was the remains of a Wrecker's Badge, a communicator and tracker from another life, now repurposed with desperate, jury-rigged ingenuity.
"What is that?" Armin asked, his curiosity cutting through his fear and guilt.
"Insurance," Grandpa Arlet said. He tapped the surface. A holographic interface, glitchy and faint, sputtered to life above it, displaying a shimmering green map of the Wall Rose territory. "When I first examined the Omnitrix on Eren's wrist, I uploaded a passive tracer frequency. A failsafe. In case he was ever lost. Or taken." He zoomed the map in with a practiced gesture. A single, steady green dot pulsed in a vast expanse of wilderness south of Trost, deep beyond where any sane human would venture. It was stationary.
Carla leaned forward, her heart in her throat. "Is that… him? Is he…?" She couldn't say 'alive.'
"The Omnitrix was designed by the smartest mind I ever knew to protect its host above all else," Grandpa Arlet said, his voice firm with conviction. "If the host life signs were to fail, it would… shut down in a very specific way. This signal is active and stable. He's alive, Carla. He's not dead. Don't you dare think it."
The reassurance was like a lifeline. The faint hope was agonizing, but it was hope. She looked from the blinking dot in the terrifying wilderness to the old man's determined face. "You bring my son home," she said, her voice raw but clear. "You bring him back to me. You did better."
It was not a request. It was a mandate from a mother's soul.
"I will," he vowed.
Just as he turned to leave, Armin jolted forward. "Grandpa, wait!" He dug into his own pocket, past the lint and crumbs, and pulled out a small, heavy object. It was a crystalline core, about the size of a walnut, its surface fractured but still glowing with a faint, sickly violet light deep within. It was warm to the touch and hummed with a low, malevolent energy. One of the power cores from the Knights' 'Snare' device, pried loose in his frantic attempt to disable it.
"I took this," Armin said, holding it out. "From one of their machines. It… it's still warm."
Grandpa Arlet took it carefully, his eyebrows rising. He held it up to the light, his eyes narrowing as he observed the internal structure, the corrupted energy signature. "Atasian resonance… but hybridized with crude forced plasma tech. Fascinating and vile." He pocketed it beside the tracker.
"This could be valuable. Thank you, Armin. It may help us understand what we're dealing with."
With a final, firm nod to Carla; a promise etched in the lines of his face; Grandpa Arlet turned and left the shack, closing the door softly behind him.
Inside, the silence returned, thicker now, charged with spent emotion and gnawing fear. The squeak-thump of the wheels was gone. Carla sat utterly still, staring at the door, seeing only the blinking green dot in a sea of green on a map of terror.
Hannes finally bent down, picked up her discarded shoe, and placed it gently by her foot. "Carla, I'm—"
"Don't," she whispered, not looking at him. "Just… don't. Not yet."
Outside, Grandpa Arlet untied his patient horse. He placed a hand on its neck, then mounted. He pulled the tracker from his pocket once more. The green dot pulsed steadily, a lone ember in a vast, dark forest.
He clicked his tongue, and the horse began to move, exiting the refugee camp. The device in his pocket blinked in time with his resolve; a silent, electronic heartbeat leading him toward a lost boy and the beast that held him, deep in the belly of the world where monsters slept.
Chapter 29-31 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.