A/N: Don't read beyond this chapter.
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Before Simon's mind could even make sense of what had happened—his entire world had already tilted.
His breath reeled—eyelids clamping shut—as he dropped face-first onto the ground.
The soldiers encircling—and even Bavrik, the battalion commander—staggered back, gasps tearing from their throats. None of them had foreseen this. Not even Bavrik himself.
Eren being powerful—fast, even edging slightly stronger than him—was acceptable, even expected. But this? This defied every measure he had taken of the boy.
Now, before his eyes, the unimaginable played out: Simon—a mere common soldier, a man Bavrik had idly chosen to spar Eren out of curiosity, just to gauge the newcomer's style—now lay sprawled in the sandy clearing, face pressed to the dirt, his fist mangled, a toe missing… perhaps more fingers lost as well.
And above him stood the boy.
