He lets out an empty scream as he hits the ground, his lungs too shocked to make any real sound. After the impact, he can't move, can only lay there on the ground, trembling and letting out small whimpers of pain and sensation.

It was an indescribable feeling, being ripped out of his own neck. Aside from the pain of his only weak spot being mutilated, his human body was quite different from his Titan one. It moved differently, it handled differently, it felt sensations differently, and the sensory overload was enough to immobilize him every time.

He looks up to see the Female Titan walking away from his much larger corpse towards the gaping hole scoured into the once-pristine wall. There were two others with her, the Colossal and the Armored, that had torn an entrance in the barrier that the humans had surrounded themselves with. He had tried to stop them, but he was no match for three others like him.

"Hyperion-Class",

the memory darts trough his head like noxious smoke,

"very rare indeed."

He shakes his head to clear it. He was in no condition to fight in this state, and he won't be able to return to his Titan form for hours, which means he's stuck as a human during a Titan battle. He groans loudly.

He has to get behind the wall. It's his only chance.

Hauling himself from the wad of scalding Titan flesh proves difficult, and he curses at this fragile body's sensitivity to temperature. When he is finished, and his burns have begun to heal, he looks down to take stock of his condition. He's covered in steadily-evaporating Titan blood, and is dressed only in the plain tunic and trousers that he had been forced to wear at

that place

.

He hopes he doesn't stand out too much.

The whirring sound of human flight-machines draws his attention, and he looks up just in time to brace for impact as a quickly-accelerating human slams into him. They tumble for a few feet before coming to rest, and once he orientates himself, he quickly scrambles over to the large human to see if it's okay.

He breathes a sigh of relief as he sees the chest rapidly expanding and contracting and wild brown eyes looking him over. The human immediately begins to stutter out a stream of words and he vaguely recognizes the ones for apology. He stands up shakily, still not used to the way his human body moves, but another whirring sound makes him drop to the ground, expecting another impact.

He needn't have bothered, of course, as the second human lands lightly atop his slowly-disintegrating Titan body. The two humans exchange sharp words before the new one looks over to him, eyes widening, and mouth opening to let out words he doesn't understand.

"Jesus kid, how the fuck did you even get out here?"

It was hard to tell at first because of the drastic change in perspective, but he gasps as he realizes that this is indeed the small one. He lets out a trill of happiness that he is able to see its features more closely, the sound ringing differently in his much smaller throat.

"Fuck, Gunter, how hard did you fucking hit this kid?"

The little one shakes his head and says more sharp words to the other, gesturing at the wall before taking off after an advancing 15-meter.

He barely has enough time for a disappointed whine before he's hauled up into the other's arms. He yelps and flails a little in the strong grasp, but the human makes a series of reassuring sounds that were probably words, and he slows his frantic movements.

A sharp whistling sound came from the human, and a nearby horse trots over to them, shaking its reins. Before the creature can even stop, the man heaves him atop it, climbs up after him, and urges the horse onward.

Having never ridden a horse before, it is of course perfectly understandable that he screams and latches onto the large human as tight as he can with his arms and legs as the beast jolts and heaves below him, galloping as fast as it can towards the ruined wall.

"This is as far as I can take you, kid. I've got a battle to get to. Head towards the gondolas, and you should still be able to make it."

When he only frowns, not comprehending, the human points in the direction a few other humans seem to be running in, saying some more unintelligible words before hauling the reins around and coaxing the horse back towards the fighting

Without any other real option available to him, he sets off in a jog in the direction the human pointed. As he runs, he looks around at the structures that the humans live in. They were different from the ones in

that place

, but not by much. The materials seemed to be mostly natural stone and wood versus the bright red bricks of that horrible place. He wonders if there's a reason for that.

After a few minutes, he realizes that while he was observing the architecture, he'd lost sight of the last few remaining humans. Frowning, he scents the air, his sense of smell isn't as good in his human form, but with the humans out of sight, he'll have to rely on it for navigation through the winding streets.

As he takes another turn, growing impatient with the twisting structure of the human city, he hears a despairing shriek, the source of the sound can be seen only a few yards in front of him. A small dark-haired human is clawing at a fallen beam, trying to lift it off of an even smaller, light-haired one. Both of their faces are leaking profusely, which he remembers is a human way of expressing sadness or desperation. They yell at each other, and the one with its legs pinned keeps trying to push the other away.

Without a second thought, he runs over to them and pushes the dark-haired one to the side. In one swift motion, he grabs hold of the beam and

heaves

, the wood and stone around him creaking and groaning in protest. He knows his strength is greater than a human's, and the effort he has to exert just to lift the wooden construct is enough to convince him that the human never would have been able to lift it alone.

He wonders if they realized that.

When the trapped human is hauled free, the other shouts words at him and slings one of the blond's arms over its shoulder and helps it hobble slowly along. He watches them shuffle along for a few moments before letting out a sigh and dropping the beam to the ground with a deafening crash and a plume of dust and debris. Approaching the others, he grabs the blond one around the waist and heaves it over his shoulder.

When the humans protest, he simply nods his head in the direction the greatest concentration of human scent is coming from and takes off in a sprint, the other human falling in step behind him. He can smell the blood coming off of the human in his arms, the scent clogging up his airways with a heady perfume. It had been a long time since he'd scented a human so closely, and this one smells of fear and pain and blood, and he has to fight back the instincts that tell him to devour it.

When he reaches the crowd of humans, he has to stop and marvel at the large, moving building that they're all clambering desperately on top of. A larger human sees them and shouts to the others, grabbing ahold of them to pull them through the crowd. When they reach the front of the mass of humans, the large one behind them pushes them up a board onto another of the wooden constructs, this one not yet moving, and he looks down to see a river below them. He wonders why they were treated differently, but as he looks around the vessel, he sees many more smaller humans.

It seems as though humans have a hierarchy that is directly opposite of the Titan one, with the smaller humans being more valuable and respected than the larger ones. He wonders why, and wishes he had the words to ask them. Maybe it has something to do with why

his

small one is so important to the roaming pack.

Either way, the two humans with him look relieved to be on the wooden construct, so he follows their lead and sits. When the vessel eventually starts to move after gorging itself of humans, he can't help but watch as they get further from his home and steadily deeper into a land he knows nothing about while unable to escape from his fragile human form.

For the first time since Olympus, he is well and truly afraid.