"Um," I said looking up at him blinking away any shock. My arm could still just be numb, don't panic. I took a breath and just looked up at him calmly, "You ask them if they need any help I still don't want to leave their side."

He nodded and got up to talk to Pixis. When I saw he was out of sight I took a deep breath. It was best not to worry him until I knew for sure. I stared down at my hands and poked my finger into my hand. Nope, nothing as expected. I moved a little higher to my wrist, the feeling here was very minimal before. I pressed my finger down and... nothing. I moved it a little higher to the middle of my forearm and poked my skin again. Still nothing. I moved it up to where my elbow was and poked again. Now that I felt, but just barely. I moved a little higher to my biceps and yup I could feel that.

Shit. If it's like last time then this is permanent. I need to ask Hanji to make sure, but my hopes that it's not are very low. Now that I think of it when the pins and needles shot through my arm I only felt them in my upper arm.

Marco came back and gave me a concerned look. "Something's wrong. Spill," he said, staring me down.

"I think I did have some backlash, I didn't know until just now though."

He let out a sigh and took a seat and gave me a nod to continue. "When you touched my arm I realized I didn't feel it. I thought it was because my arm was still a little numb, but-."

"That's not the case," Marco said finishing my sentence. I just nodded. "How far up?"

"To my elbows," I said, showing him where I could feel and where I couldn't. I expected him to take this a lot worse than he was, but he just nodded and said okay we will figure this out.

"I'm pretty sure this is permanent," I told him in case the reason he was taking it so well was that he was assuming it might be temporary.

"I know, I'm pretty sure it is too, I mean it was last time. Fingers crossed it isn't, but if it is we will figure this out together. We did it before and we will do it again," he said, placing a hand on my shoulder and giving me a smile. He leaned in and placed a kiss on my cheek and I found myself silent. I didn't know what to say. I mean I know I should be devastated, but in all honesty, I was okay. He was right, we've been through this before. Not to mention I thought we were going to die last night. Last night I was prepared to lose everything so I'm almost kinda relieved that this was all that came from it.

Then again that's just my backlash, I don't know who else has been affected, or if they even know they are affected yet. If this is my only backlash I'll consider myself lucky, but others might not be so lucky.

I shook my head, "this isn't important right now," I said trying to get focused back on the mission at hand. We can figure everything else out after we get everyone back safely.

I tried to stand up but my knees gave out from under me Marco's concern only grew. "That's not a backlash," I quickly said trying to clear up his worries, "my legs are just way sorer than I thought they would be," I said before reaching a hand out for him to help me up.

He nodded and helped me from to my feet. God, my legs hurt so bad I almost wish that I couldn't feel them like my arms, but then again feeling pain is better than feeling nothing at all.

"What's the plan?" I asked walking up to Pixis and Hassam.

"We're going to start clearing people out, but to do so we need to use Erwin's power."

"Okay, so what's the hold-up?"

"We don't know if Erwin has enough strength to use his powers just yet, or if-." His voice drifted off.

"He's suffering any backlash," I finished.

"Exactly."

"I can be a guinea pig," I offered. If I can help in any way it would feel better than this. Right now I feel like I was useless and I want them to just give me something I can do.

"Not a good idea," Pixis shut me down, "We need someone who won't be recognized and all of us had our faces plastered all over the internet last night, especially you," he said, reminding me of the speech I gave everyone. I forgot people were recording me.

"I'm going through," Hassam said.

"Um no," I said, cutting him off. "Your face was also all over the internet last night."

"All of ours were," Hasssam shook his head, "they are bound to recognize one of us."

"Unless," Marco's voice was quiet as he spoke up. We all turned towards him and he turned towards Petra.

"That's too dangerous, she won't fight back," Pixis shook his head.

"I mean she was in the background, no one really recorded her from what I could remember, and she wasn't a part of the mission so hypothetically no one would recognize her," he said, his voice getting quieter.

"No, we will use someone else." Pixis tried to shut the idea down.

"Well, aren't you going to even ask me first," Petra asked, coming over to us? She must have heard us talking.

"Absolutely not."

"Why? Because I won't fight back? So what, if it goes to plan I won't have to. We need someone that looks average and won't be recognized or stand out. Marco's right, I fit the job."

"But-."

"But nothing, send me through," she said, taking off her mask and coat that were a part of her costume. The rest of her costume was just a normal t-shirt and jeans so she fits perfectly in with civilians. "Besides I'll only be out for a few minutes, if you are really worried send me with a burner phone," she said, staring him down. She didn't seem to be budging.

After a moment of them staring, each other down Pixis caved. "If anything happens to you Auruo will kill me," He mumbled.

"Well I'll just make sure nothing happens to me," she smiled.

We took a deep breath and prayed that Erwin's power even worked. He's never used his power this much and we aren't quite sure what effects that might have on him. That is if he has any at all. I mean he used it a lot but we don't know if he overused it, especially not to the point of permanent backlash. His could have just been vertigo and migraine he had last night.

We held our breath and watched closely as a portal appeared. It looked normal and he didn't seem to be struggling with it. "I seem okay," he mumbled looking around. He leaned in closer to get a look through the portal to make sure it was safe to send Petra though. "Cost is clear."

Petra had started walking forward towards the portal. He put his arm out to block her for a moment and motioned for her to wait. He took a deep breath and put his arm through it, closing his eyes with a wince as he expected something to happen. After a moment he opened his eyes and pulled his hand back through examining it. "Okay," he nodded, "I had to make sure it wouldn't close the second someone walked through.

"So you tested it with your arm?" I asked realizing how stupid that was. "Throw a mask through it or something, don't wager your arm," I rolled my eyes.

He just blinked at me for a moment, "that would have been smarter."

"Ya think?"

He moved his other arm and let Petra pass him. She walked through without any hesitation and Erwin closed the portal behind her. Not fully, but enough so that it wouldn't be visible unless you really looked for it.

After a few minutes, we got a text from the burner phone that Petra had. Pixis nodded and told Erwin to open the portal back up. "She says it's safe and she's back to the portal."

He opened the portal back up and she came back through with a nod. "People are going about like normal and it seems the scene from last night is all blocked off you can't even get within a block of any of it. I guess they couldn't clean it all up in time so they are just restricting access to it."

"We need to send people far from that place but close enough to hospitals and their houses," Hassam nodded.

We looked at how many people there were here. "How many portals do you think you can make?" I asked. I mean we had to make several different ones but it depends on how much Erwin can take or how many people we send through each.

"However many we need," he said determinedly.

"I can help," Franz offered, standing up. He must have woken up while we were talking to Petra.

"Are you having any backlash?" Pixis asked.

"None that I can tell at the moment, but mine usually wears off quicker since it's the backlash of whoever's power I borrowed. Usually, I can sleep it off."

"Well, this isn't usually," I said, staring him down. We didn't have enough room for assuming things.

"Well, we won't know until I try it right?" He asked.

Pixis agreed to let him give it a shot. "Let's try and send 30 people through at a time. If we send them to alleyways we have them walk out in different directions. It might not draw a lot of attention by being too many people, but it's not a small enough amount that you guys will be warned out before being able to teleport everyone out of here.

"To make that work we have to make sure not everyone leaves the alley at once," I chimed in. 30 was risky but any lower than that and we would never be able to get everyone out of here.

"You think we can do it?" Pixis asked, looking at me. God, why is he asking me? Is this how Eren usually feels? Like all the pressure is on him? How does he do it?

"Well we should run the plan by everyone and make sure they know what to do," Marco said, jumping in noticing I was freezing up.

"I'll do it," Hassam said, heading over to the group of people and getting their attention.

"This will work," I finally said, finding my voice. "It has too," I whispered. It has to because if it doesn't then all of this was for nothing.

We started portaling people out and to my surprise, it actually went fairly well. The first few groups we had no issues. We let Franz and Erwin have a few minute breaks after every few portals to make sure they weren't going to use their powers too much, especially after last night. We did this until we only had a few groups left. Franz's power ran out and he wasn't able to use Erwin's power again at the moment he needed time to let his power recharge. I could tell he was a little out of it.

Erwin was able to get the last few people out and seeing that last portal close I let out a breath of relief. We did it... we actually did it. I let my body relax as all the tense and nervous energy had worn me out. I collapsed to my knees and just let it all out. I didn't care if people saw me cry not now. Marco just rubbed my back and told me I did well.

"Let's go home boys," Pixis said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"Let's go home," I mumbled looking over at Eren and Levi.

How did they do it? Taking charge? Being responsible for making the calls, having everyone look to you for answers when you don't have them. It's exhausting.

"We will let everyone get some much-needed rest then I'll call a family meeting and we can see how bad everyone's backlash is," Pixis explained.

Hopefully, rest will fix the few we have noticed in people. I doubt mine will be fixed with some rest, but hey there's some hope. I could already tell a few were permanent. The two obvious ones were Annie's and Rico's. Annie's crystallized skin never usually goes away even after rest, same with the hard scaly patches on Rico's, but mostly everyone else's we needed time to tell whether it was permanent or temporary.

Petra broke the temporary shelter making it look like we were never even here. "I'll grab Levi, You grab Eren," Marco said, patting my back.

I nodded and picked Eren up. "We're going home guys," I whispered. "You did it. You saved them." I just wished they could have heard me say it. I guess they will just have to hear it when they wake up.

When we got back to the base We carried them to their room and laid them in their bed. A part of me knew they needed the rest and that we should head back to our own room and get some rest too, but I also knew they used their powers way more than I did. They are going to have some gnarly backlash and they are going to need someone by their side to help them through it.

"We're staying in here," Marco said, practically reading my thoughts.

"Yes," I said back, laying on the bed next to them.