Until he reached it — a forgotten, crumbling bell tower, half-hidden behind a row of warehouses.It leaned slightly to one side, abandoned after some long-ago accident, the upper levels open to the cold wind.
Perfect.
Meeyn scaled the broken frame easily, slipping inside through a collapsed section near the top. The inside smelled of dust and old wood, but it was empty. Forgotten.
He moved to the edge of the open window frame, crouching down.
From here... he could see everything.
The neat rows of white stone buildings.
The gleaming streets crisscrossed with hurried carts and nervous foot traffic.
The polished squares where Military Police officers strutted around in stiff uniforms, pretending everything was fine.
Meeyn let out a slow breath, resting one arm lazily across his raised knee.
"So tidy on the surface..." he murmured.
"Let's see how long your little kingdom holds out," he whispered, the Living Abyss pulsing faintly under his skin.
...
The sun was beginning its slow, lazy descent behind the walls, smearing the sky with bands of faded gold and purple.
Meeyn shifted lazily atop the crumbling bell tower where he'd holed up, letting one leg dangle over the ledge.
The city of Stohess stretched beneath him in tidy little rows — neat streets, polished squares, people scurrying about like ants under a glass dome.
But something was different now.
His sharp red eyes caught it immediately — a subtle wrongness in the city's rhythm.
Groups of soldiers — not the fat, lazy Military Police — but sharp-eyed, lean Scout Regiment members — were gathering on rooftops across the district.
Grim faces.
Whispers into hand signals.
Blades gleaming faintly in the dying light.
Meeyn smirked faintly, leaning forward a little to watch.
"Someone's setting the board," he murmured under his breath.
And in the center of it all, moving through the streets below... was her.
Annie with three other hoodied figures.
Her hood drawn up, her posture deceptively casual.
A slow, taut tension wrapping around the streets, the rooftops, the very air itself — until it was almost vibrating.
And then—
CRACK
A flash of yellow lightning tore through the city, searing the evening sky in a brutal, jagged spear.
The shockwave hit half a second later, rattling loose stones from the bell tower's ledge.
Meeyn didn't flinch.
He just watched, eyes gleaming faintly.
Far below, where Annie had been — now there was a monster.
A massive, towering figure of muscle— the Female Titan, her form gleaming under the orange haze of sunset.
Screams erupted from the civilians as panic flooded the streets like a broken dam.Soldiers shouted orders.
ODM gear hissed as grappling lines shot toward the sky.
Meeyn rested his chin lazily on his fist, observing the chaos unfold beneath him like it was a stage play.
"Showtime," he muttered, smirking.
He watched as Annie rampaged through the streets, the Scouts springing into action like a nest of angry wasps.
Traps were set, nets were thrown, buildings collapsed under the sheer violence of her movements.
Further away, another flash of yellow lightning cracked the ground — Eren this time, finally finding his resolve.
The earth shook faintly under Meeyn's boots as two Titans collided with a deafening crash, stone splintering, dust rising in great choking clouds.
Soon
Meeyn stood slowly atop the crumbling bell tower, his sharp red eyes narrowing as he saw Annie's fingers severed mid-climb, her body plummeting back toward the ground.
"Huh," Meeyn mused lazily, dusting off his battered cloak. "Looks like someone's out of moves."
Without urgency, without any rush, he stepped forward off the bell tower's edge —and instead of falling.
Tendrils of black slithered from his boots and cloak, catching the air, weaving beneath him.
He floated effortlessly, gliding low across the broken rooftops.
Silent.
Invisible.
He drifted toward a particular rooftop where two familiar figures stood —Armin Arlert and Jean Kirstein, their attention locked on the brutal clash between Eren and Annie.
Neither noticed the creeping dark mist coiling along the edges of the rooftop.
Neither noticed the faint distortion of air behind them.
Until—
A voice, smooth and almost bored, spoke right behind their ears:
"Ohh... looks like someone's in trouble. Should I help?"
Both Armin and Jean jerked violently, spinning around — blades half-drawn, eyes wide —only to find Meeyn standing there, relaxed, hands tucked loosely into the pockets of his tattered cloak.
Before either could even speak, Meeyn answered his own question, smirking:
"Obviously."
For a heartbeat, pure stunned silence.
Then recognition dawned across both their faces.
Armin blinked rapidly, his mouth opening and closing like a fish struggling for words.Jean's hand tightened on his hilt, his posture dropping into a defensive half-crouch.
"You—!" Jean snapped, the word rough with disbelief. "You're that guy—! From Trost—!"
"The one who—" Armin stammered, "—who appeared out of nowhere when Eren—!"
Both of them stared — not at his face, not really — but at the absence of everything else.No ODM gear. No uniform. No visible weapons.
Armin and Jean stumbled backward instinctively, their eyes locked on the figure rising silently before them.
The battered cloak around him fluttered in the scorched wind, and from beneath it, dark tendrils of abyssal mist coiled lazily at his boots — keeping him afloat as he drifted off the rooftop, gliding toward the battlefield like some creature that had crawled out of a nightmare.
Down below, soldiers, civilians — even the wounded scrambling for cover — froze, staring upward in shock.
Shouts rose.
"Is he—floating?"
"How—?!"
"The hell is that!?"
More Scouts turned to look — gasps and curses breaking out among the ranks as the impossible sight unfolded.
Meeyn, the nameless stranger with no uniform and no gear, moving smoothly through the smoke-choked air, floating straight toward where Eren's battered Titan form slumped against the cracked street.
Levi's sharp gaze zeroed in immediately, his expression darkening.
Meeyn floated slowly toward the battlefield, the Living Abyss writhing lazily at his boots.
Below, Eren's battered Titan form slumped against the broken stone — half-melted, missing an arm, one leg twisted awkwardly from Annie's brutal counterattack.