The flight back from Caremia was quiet, the weight of the political machinations hanging heavy in the cabin. When the jet finally touched down at HPF Headquarters, the sky was pitch black, the base illuminated only by the stark white floodlights of the runway.
They ate a silent dinner in the officer's mess hall—synthetic steak and rehydrated vegetables. Zog ate with mechanical efficiency, while Max picked at his food, his mind still reeling from the image of the world leaders and the realization of his own status as a "prototype."
"Go to sleep, Agent," Zog ordered, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "The game of politics is draining. You need to recharge."
Max nodded, dismissed himself, and headed straight for the Squad 5 dorms. He needed to see familiar faces. He needed to hear Eren's stupid jokes, see Malina cleaning her armor, or watch Edy scribbling equations on the wall. He needed to be grounded back in reality.
He pushed open the door to their shared quarters.
"Hey, guys, you won't believe where—"
Max stopped. The room was dark. The beds were made with military precision. The personal effects—Eren's comic books, Malina's whetstone, Edy's datapad—were gone.
The room was empty.
A spike of panic, cold and sharp, drove into Max's chest. Did the lighthouse watcher get them?
He spun around and sprinted down the hallway, ignoring the "No Running" signs. He burst into the training hangar, scanning the floor.
He found Jod. The instructor was by the weapon racks, stripping down a heavy assault rifle for maintenance.
"Where are they?" Max demanded, breathless. "Where is Squad 5?"
Jod didn't look up from the gun barrel he was oiling. "At ease, Max. Breathe."
"Don't tell me to breathe, Jod! The room is empty! Did something happen? Are they hurt?"
Jod set the rifle down and turned, wiping grease from his hands with a rag. "They are on assignment. While you were shaking hands with Presidents, the war continued. Guut activity doesn't stop for conferences."
"What kind of assignment?" Max stepped closer, his voice tight. "Is it a Mimic? An M-Class?"
"Relax," Jod said, his voice calm and steadying. "It's standard patrol. Class 5 and 6 cleanup in the outer sectors. No mutations. No shapeshifters. Just routine pest control. They need the field experience, Max. They can't hide in the base forever."
Max exhaled, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders, leaving him feeling heavy. "Just... normal missions?"
"Just normal missions," Jod confirmed. "Go get some sleep, kid. They'll be back in the morning."
Sector 4: The Blackwood Forest
Three hundred miles away, the moon struggled to pierce the thick canopy of the Blackwood. This was a dense, ancient forest where the trees grew three hundred feet tall, their roots twisting like massive serpents across the mossy floor. The air was thick with mist and the smell of pine needles and damp earth.
Edy walked through the undergrowth.
He looked completely out of place. While most HPF agents moved with the prowling hunch of a predator, Edy walked upright, checking a holographic display projected from his wrist. He adjusted his glasses, squinting at the floating numbers.
"Humidity: 88%," Edy muttered to himself. "Wind velocity: negligible. Ambient Fluid density... slightly elevated."
He stopped.
He stood in a small clearing surrounded by towering redwoods. He tapped his earpiece. "Command, this is Agent Edy. I have reached the coordinates. Sensors indicate a disruption in the local gravity field."
A twig snapped.
It wasn't a small snap. It was the sound of a tree trunk being crushed.
Edy didn't flinch. He didn't spin around in a panic. He simply tapped a command into his wrist computer and sighed.
"Target acquired," he whispered.
From the shadows of the trees, the creature emerged.
It was a Class 6 Guut: Arachnid-Type. It was a nightmare of chitin and shadow. It stood eight feet tall on four spindly, razor-sharp legs that stabbed deep into the soil with every step. Its body was bulbous, covered in armored plates that shifted like tectonic plates. It had no face, just a cluster of glowing red eyes and a dripping, vertical maw.
It hissed, a sound like steam escaping a pipe, and skittered sideways, circling Edy.
"Class 6," Edy noted, looking at the monster as if it were a math problem on a chalkboard. "Estimated mass: 450 kilograms. Carapace density: Level 3. Speed... approximately 12 meters per second."
The Guut shrieked and lunged.
It moved with terrifying speed, crossing the thirty feet between them in a heartbeat. Its front two legs, sharpened into spears, thrust forward to skewer the small, bespectacled boy.
Edy didn't draw a weapon. He didn't even raise his fists.
He simply did the math.
"Calculation complete," Edy said.
He raised his right hand, palm open.
"Vector Shift: 30 Degrees."
Just as the Guut's spear-legs were about to pierce his chest, the air around Edy shimmered green. A localized gravity field manifested. It didn't stop the Guut; it redirected the kinetic energy.
The Guut's attack slid unnaturally to the left, missing Edy by inches. The momentum carried the beast forward, and it crashed face-first into the dirt behind him.
Edy turned around slowly, brushing a pine needle off his shoulder.
"You failed to account for the curvature of the spatial field," Edy lectured the monster. "Amateur mistake."
The Guut scrambled to its feet, clicking its mandibles in fury. It didn't understand physics. It only understood hunger. It roared, spitting a glob of corrosive acid at Edy.
Edy watched the projectile arcing toward him.
"Parabolic trajectory," Edy muttered. He stepped one foot to the right.
HISSS.
The acid splashed onto the ground exactly where he had been standing a second ago, dissolving the grass and smoking.
"Now," Edy said, adjusting his glasses. "Let's test the compression limits of your exoskeleton."
The Guut charged again, this time leaping into the air to crush Edy from above. It was a chaotic, feral attack.
Edy looked up. His eyes glowed with a soft, emerald light. The Green Fluid—the power of nature and gravity—flowed through his meridians. He wasn't a brawler like Max or a tank like Malina. He was a conductor.
"Gravity Anchor: 5x," Edy commanded.
He pointed a finger at the mid-air monster.
BOOM.
It was as if an invisible giant had swatted the Guut out of the sky. The gravity around the creature suddenly increased fivefold. The Guut slammed into the earth with bone-shattering force, creating a crater three feet deep.
The monster squealed, struggling to stand. Its legs trembled. Under 5x gravity, its 450-kilogram body now weighed over two tons. Its own muscles weren't strong enough to lift its bulk.
Edy walked to the edge of the crater, looking down.
"Fascinating," Edy observed. "Your structural integrity is failing at the joints. You really should have invested more evolutionary points into bone density."
The Guut thrashed, managing to lift one claw. It slashed at Edy's ankle.
Edy sighed. "You're being persistent. It's ruining my data."
He held out both hands. The green aura around him intensified, swirling like a mathematical vortex. Leaves and small stones began to float around him, suspended in his personal gravity well.
"Let's try a divergent equation," Edy said.
He twisted his left hand counter-clockwise, and his right hand clockwise.
"Gravitational Shear."
He targeted the Guut's body.
On the front half of the monster, he applied an upward gravitational force of 10 Gs. On the back half, he applied a downward force of 10 Gs.
The effect was gruesome and instantaneous.
The air in the crater whined as the opposing forces ripped at reality. The Guut shrieked—a sound that was cut short by a wet, sickening SNAP.
The monster was torn in half at the waist.
Green blood and shadow ichor sprayed across the crater. The front half flew upward, crashing into a tree trunk ten feet in the air. The back half was crushed flat into the mud.
Edy dropped his hands. The green glow faded. The floating leaves drifted gently to the ground.
Silence returned to the Blackwood Forest.
Edy walked over to the bisected remains of the front half. He poked the chitin with the toe of his boot.
"Zero survival probability," Edy confirmed.
He tapped his earpiece. "Command, this is Edy. Target eliminated. Duration of engagement: forty-five seconds. No collateral damage. No injuries sustained."
"Copy that, Agent Edy," the radio crackled back, the voice sounding impressed. "Extraction team is inbound to your location."
"Understood. I'll be waiting."
Edy sat down on a fallen log, pulling a nutrition bar from his pocket. He took a bite, looking at the carnage he had caused with nothing but his mind.
He thought about the Rose District. He thought about how helpless he had felt when the Mimic attacked. He thought about Eren screaming.
Edy clenched his free hand into a fist.
"I won't be the weak link," he whispered to the empty forest. "I'll solve the equation. I'll solve them all."
He adjusted his glasses, opened his datapad, and began to calculate the fluid dynamics of the Guut's blood splatter, waiting for the ride home.