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"EREN! GET TO COVER!" Arlet shouted, trying to calm the neighing horse that is rearing its hooves in panic. "Easy boy, Easy!"
Enoch fired again.
Leviathan dove, rolling behind a cluster of rocks as the blast struck the ground where he'd just been standing again.
"You can't hide from me, boy!" Enoch's voice echoed across the ravine. "It's only a matter of time till you run out of rocks to hide behind!"
Enoch then jumped to the air, shooting out his fingers to dig into the soil of the ravine wall. As he began to slide down in his descent, he was firing at his target.
Leviathan ran, weaving between boulders, dodging laser blasts that turned stone to glass upon contact. Ember was moving too, trying to flank the descending alchemist.
"Out of my way, overgrown mutt." Enoch redirected his focus at the immediate threat. He hit the ground in a crouch rolling to his feet, and came up firing. The blast nearly caught Ember in the flank, who yelped in surprise.
Unfortunately for the alchemist knight, he wasn't able to react on time as Eren came charging straight to him. Before Enoch could properly raise his barrel at Eren, the latter's hand closed around the barrel.
The gun was hot beneath Leviathan's palm, but he didn't let go. Using the heat to his advantage, Eren squeezed the barrel forcefully, making the metal begin to bend.
Enoch's eyes widened behind his mask as Leviathan's grip snapped the gun in two. The barrel tore away from the body with circuits sparking. Enoch stared at the ruined weapon in his hands, then at Leviathan.
"Impressive," he murmured.
"I don't care." Leviathan's hand shot out, closing around Enoch's wrist. He squeezed harshly, and bone cracked.
Enoch scream echoed in the ravine walls. Loosening his grip on the ruined gun that fell to the ground. Then Leviathan's other hand closed around Enoch's throat. He lifted the alchemist off his feet, holding him suspended in the air with pale violet eyes burning with cold fury.
"I have enough of your group's bullshit. You're going to join your friends," Leviathan snarled. "Right. now."
Enoch's hands clawed at the grip around his throat, his legs subconsciously kicking. But he didn't beg or plead. He just stared at Leviathan with his eyes, and something that might have been a smile tugged at his lips.
"You think," he gasped, "this changes anything?"
Eren's grip tightened. "No. But it definitely would compensate for the lives of those kids your knights took."
"EREN, STOP!"
Grandpa Arlet's voice interrupted before Eren could go for the killing blow.
Leviathan froze. His grip on Enoch's throat didn't loosen, but he didn't squeeze tighter again. He turned his head, his eyes found the old man that had long since gotten down from his horse and dragging himself towards the two.
"Don't," Arlet said. "Please. Don't."
"Why not?" Leviathan's voice was cold. "He tried to kill us. He tried to steal the Omnitrix. He—"
"I know." Arlet leaned against the ravine wall, his eyes fixed on the golden mask. "I know what he's done."
He stopped in front of Enoch, close enough to contact.
"But…he was my friend once."
Enoch's struggles had stopped. He hung in Leviathan's grip, his feet dangling above the ground, his mask tilted toward Arlet. The old wrecker signaled for Eren to let him go, which Eren begrudgingly did as he released his grip, making the forever knight fall to his knees.
"Arlet," Enoch said, his voice hoarse as he rubbed his throat. "Don't you-"
"Don't I what?" Arlet pressed. "Don't try to remind you of what you used to be?" He shook his head slowly. "Too late for that, Enoch. Too late for a lot of things."
He sat himself down at the front of Enoch, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I'm not forgiving you for the things you have done over the past decades, there's still a lot of ground to cover before we reach that bridge…But that doesn't mean I am giving up on you," he said quietly. "Not yet."
Enoch was silent for a long moment, looking straight at Arlet's grey eyes. "You always were a fool." he whispered.
"Maybe." Arlet's lips twitched. "But I'm a fool who's still alive. And so are you." His grip tightened on Enoch's shoulder. "That has to count for something."
Enoch's expression flickered. For just a moment, Arlet felt like he was reaching through Enoch, making him keep pressing.
"Let me help you," Arlet said. "Let me—"
THOOM.
The ground shook.
THOOM. THOOM.
Everyone froze. Ember's ear flaps closed flat against his head, a low growl rumbling from his chest. The remaining horses; that having fled are neighing in panic.
Leviathan looked up.
Titans.
They had been following this whole time. Dozens of them. A horde, and all their empty eyes were fixed on the ravine. And one of them; a fifteen-meter class with a distended belly and arms that hung to its knees; was stumbling in. Its foot caught onto the edge of the ravine. For a terrible moment, it teetered until it fell.
The Titan crashed into the ravine with an impact that shook the ground and sent dust and debris flying. It landed on its back with its legs still thrashing while the arms were reaching for anything; or better yet anyone; to grab.
THOOM. THOOM. THOOM.
More Titans were coming. Some sliding down while most were still at the edge of the ravine peering down, empty eyes tracking every movement below of their prey.
"We need to leave," Arlet said. "Come on Enoch, what do you say."
Enoch's mask turned toward the Titans, then back to Arlet. Before his conflicted mind finally steeled to a decision.
"I choose life." he said.
His hand shot out.
In a span of seconds before anybody could react, Enoch's palm slammed against the Omnitrix symbol on Leviathan's chest.
Energy surged as Enoch's eyes blazed yellow, the circuits beneath his skin activated, reaching toward the device again. His fingers dug into the symbol, his nails scraping against the surface, and Leviathan felt something probing at the watch's insides.
"NO!" Leviathan roared, reaching to pull away Enoch's as his circuits latched onto the Omnitrix like parasites.
"Finally," Enoch breathed, his voice filled with manic triumph. "After all these years—"
Inside the Omnitrix...
Enoch's consciousness materialized in a space that wasn't really what you would called an actual space, it was rather a realm of green light and shifting geometries. He looked down at his hands; his real hands, not the flesh he wore, but the silver, circuit-lined limbs of his true form.
"I'm in," he whispered. "I'm actually in."
He looked around, his glowing yellow eyes taking in the vast architecture of the Omnitrix's core. Data streams were flowing like rivers of light, while Alien dna silhouettes stood frozen in crystalline capsules, waiting to be called. And somewhere, deep in the heart of it all, the central processor pulsed like a second sun.
"The boy's form is one thing," he murmured, walking through the light. "But the human host is the key itself. If I can access the core while he's transformed, while his consciousness is infused with alien biology..."
He reached out, his fingers brushing against a stream of data. The information flowed into him; the current Omnitrix's history, its functions as of current, and most especially its fail-safes.
"Remarkable," he breathed. "The failsafe protocols are tied to the host's biometric signature. If I can rewrite the coding to reject the boy, slide a strand of my DNA to accept me instead..."
He walked deeper into the core. The central processor was before him now, pulsing with a steady, rhythmic glow.
"At long last," he said, reaching out to touch it. "I can finally be free."
His fingers brushed the surface.
And the system screamed.
Light erupted from the Omnitrix, throwing Enoch backward. He crashed against the data streams with his body crackling with residual energy while his circuits sparked.
"What—what is this?!"
He tried to reach for the core again, but his silvery colored hand was shaking, the power withing the circuits were draining and dimming as he kept resisting denial from the omnitrix.
"NO!" He pushed forward with gritted teeth, his will forcing his body to obey. "I won't—I can't—not when I'm so close—"
The Omnitrix pulsed as a growl emitted from further beyond.
And that something moved in the darkness behind him.
Enoch froze.
Slowly, very slowly, he turned.
The Attack Titan stood in the depths of the Omnitrix's core, its fifteen-meter frame glowing with ethereal green light. Those terrible burning eyes were fixed on him, like how one would look at a pest that invaded their home.
Enoch was thinking it was some sort of projection made by the…omnitrix? But it wasn't a recording…
…It was real.
"What..." Enoch's voice was barely a whisper. "What are you?"
The Attack Titan took a step forward.
Enoch stumbled back, his body screaming at him to run. But there was nowhere to run. This was the Omnitrix's core, and the Titan was everywhere: in the light, in the data, in the very fabric of the space.
"Impossible," he breathed. "The Founding Titan is in the Walls. The Queen holds its power. You can't be—you shouldn't be—"
The Titan's hand shot out.
Enoch screamed as those massive fingers closed around him, lifting him off his feet, crushing him against its palm. The Titan raised him to its face and roared.
The sound was a force, a wave of pure psychic energy that slammed into Enoch's consciousness and sent him reeling.
"GET. OOOOOUUUT!!!"
The titan roared as it carried Enoch towards an edge, and threw he down with enough force, sending the knight falling to the abyss below.
Back in the real world, Enoch recoiled from the Omnitrix as if he'd been burned.
The device was still intact and fine, like nothing had ever happened, said can't be said for Enoch's hand responsible for touching the watch. It was smoking, the ID mask short circuiting revealing his true alien hands that were spasming.
"Why? WHY?!" he snarled, reaching for it again. "I was so close—I almost—"
Leviathan's hand closed around his wrist.
"Get your hand off me, boy!" Enoch struggled, but Leviathan's grip was iron. "I need—I have to—"
"You can't take it."
Leviathan remarked with a cold voice. He wrenched Enoch's hand away from the Omnitrix, then shoved him backward. Enoch stumbled, his boots slipping on the wet stones, and crashed against the ravine wall.
"It's mine."
Enoch stared at him, his chest heaving in anger, his mask glitching, revealing flashes of the silver skin beneath. "You don't understand—I need to leave this place—"
"Then find another way. Not my problem."
Leviathan turned away from him, turning his attention to the two people that needed his attention the most.
"We are out of here."
Enoch could only watch as he tried to quickly get to his feet, the look on Arlet's face. Like as if he was something to be…pitied.
Insulting. Of all people
Enoch's ID mask was glitching, revealing bits of his true form, the circuits beneath his flesh sparking with residual energy. The Omnitrix had rejected him. Again, how?! What was a titan doing within the device?!
…Was the boy one of the nine?
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