Exactly five hours after the incident with the Jaw Titan, we set off on our path towards the walls or more specifically, Shiganshina.
"Still thinking about Marcel?" Annie tried to break the silence as we were using the Cart Titan to travel. "I just feel like, we all could've done something to prevent that." I '𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥'𝘷𝘦' done something. "You didn't know that was going to happen, none of us did." She said still trying to comfort me, when I looked up at her face I remembered when she repeatedly kicked Reiner in the face until it was bloody which made me think of Marcel's blood spraying everywhere. "𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥." That stayed in my head until I felt tears run down to my chin, after wiping them away I nudged Pieck's head a bit. "Hey Pieck, can you see the walls yet?" "𝙔𝙚𝙖𝙝, 𝙬𝙚'𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙛𝙚𝙬 𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙪𝙩𝙚𝙨. 𝙏𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙣 𝙮𝙚𝙩?" She replied in her Titan form which wasn't necessarily good on the ears.
"Mmm, you're gonna have to stand a far enough distance from the explosion that Bertholdt here is going to create, then Annie's gonna have to scale the wall and transform exactly when Bertholdt does and then alert all the Titans and immediately after that you revert back, we'll get you when we're past the walls. While everyone's running and screaming, Pieck's going run in after the horde of Titans enter and get us near the inner wall so we can enter with the rest of the people. After that, Reiner." I stated as looked sternly at Reiner who flinched when we made eye contact. "I'm trusting you to break down the inner wall, can you do that?" I tried to at least open up to the guy since this is where his brain splits into two. "Don't worry [Y\N], I'll have done before you know it." "Good...sorry,it's the best I could come up with a the moment." Now that everything going according to the anime we can continue. Sure a lot of people are going to die today but it's Attack on Titan so... yeah.
"𝙒𝙚'𝙧𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙪𝙥 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙨, 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙮 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚." Pieck's Titan growled out, after getting a safe distance away from Bertholdt who stood in front of the wall slightly shaking, and dodging the random Titans that tried to grab us. We waited near a tree in perfect view of what's about to happen.
Lightning strike followed by a bright yellow mushroom appeared in front of me and I could faintly hear another strike with a screech at end. "Okay everything's going according to plan, Pieck go get Bertholdt out of there before one of the Titans eat him." When I finished talking Pieck sped off to get to him before a Titan comes running up to him, when we finally reached him his Titan was hunched over and he dropped down in front of us and Reiner helped him up. "Good work Bertholdt, you didn't chicken out this time." I gave him a thumbs up after the comment as he just started fiddling since he didn't know what to say.
"Hey Pieck, let's head in, I think almost all of those Titans there are inside." Patting her head a bit before she went in, dodging large debris and other Titans that tried to grab us. After we got a safe enough distance she stopped near a building out of view and exited her Titan. "Still not used to this, my legs feel like jelly." "I got Pieck, you guys go on and Bertholdt, stay with Reiner after he transforms." I ordered them and I went up to Pieck to get the muscle off of her and put her on my back. "Hold on tight, ok? I'm gonna have run pretty fast so that we don't get caught." I said as I folded my hands under her legs, she replied with a 'Mhm!' and stuffed her head in the crook of my neck. Looking around I noticed that Bertholdt and Reiner were already gone then booked it towards the gate.
Just before reaching the gate someone called out to us. "Hey you two kids! Where's your parents?!" I remember that voice, it's Hannes! Looking behind me for conformation I saw that in fact it was him, he also had two girls hands' in both his hands, that must be Mikasa and I- believe to be Elen. "Their dead! But that's not important, we need to get out of here! Do you remember which way the gate was?" I shouted out to him as he took a step back. "Yeah, you're heading straight towards it. Take these two with you, I need to go help out as best I can. " He said then let go of them and ran off before using his ODM gear to scale a building. "Cmon follow me, we're nearly there." I lightly jogged since both of them didn't necessarily seem like they could run right now.
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"Hey! That's my toothbrush you Asshole!"
We walked over the little bridge onto the ferry and sat down near some other kids, I wonder where those two idiots are. I noticed a familiar bun of blonde hair in the crowd and called out. "Annie! We're over here!" I shouted while cupping my hands around my mouth like a microphone. She spotted me and got a running start before she jumped the gap and landed in front of me. "Holy moly, don't do that again, these people here are jumpy. " She kept quiet and sat down to my right. "So did everything go according to plan?" She asked and then I remembered something, but then immediately was relieved to hear the sound of concrete shattering, damn that's a psychopathic thing to say. "Yeah... " I whispered in a low voice as I looked over towards the other two. "You two alright? Any injuries?" I asked before introducing myself. "Not that I know of, I'm Mikasa by the way." Mikasa said in her usual quiet tone. Then I looked over to Elen. "I'm... " "Elen?" I interrupted her as the both of them looked at me confused and a little creeped out. "How'd you know?" "Sorry, it's just that you look like an Elen." I quickly replied in a joking manner to play it off.
"I'm gonna put a stop to this, I'll kill them all. The Titans will grow to fear me before I kill them." Elen said in a low voice with tears streaming down after a while. GENOCIDE!
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▒Narrative pov░
◎3rd person pov◎
Three kids were seen in a small warehouse-like building with one of them being the Almighty [Y\N] himself. He sat on his knees with Elen's head resting on them as Mikasa sat next to him. He would occasionally poke her in the face until Mikasa said 'stop it', then continue to do it.
Suddenly the Town's Bells rang and she shot up in shock. "Hey, it's okay, you were just dreaming. " Mikasa said as she kept looking around. "That was... It felt so real." Elen replied while holding her hand in one hand. "Nightmare. Shake it off." "How's your head?" Elen looked over to her left to see [Y\N] with a small smile on his face. "I found you in the woods last night, you must've bumped your head and got knocked out, right?" "Yeah... " She answered, not too sure herself. "Well since you seem to be doing fine let's go get something to eat." He said and lifted Elen up to her feet and set her down.
For those of you who can't imagine how she'd look just imagine a younger version of Carla with shorter hair that covers some of her ears and some strands sticking out here and there, with the green eyes of course.
"This used to be where they stored all the dry goods,now it's where they keep all the refugees." [Y\N] said as he sat atop the tiny brick wall. "How long have I been out?" Elen asked and sat down next to him with Mikasa following behind. "Well, it's been 4 hours since I found you, but I don't know how long you've been out prior to that." "Uh, um, thank you. Thank you for getting me outta there." She didn't really know how to word it better since it's Eren after all, well female version of him.
"I don't think so, 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥. " Some middle aged man said as he wrestled another guy over a loaf of bread. "Gimme a break! All I had for two days was a moldy crust of bread." The other guy objected as they both continued to fight over the bread. "This is not exactly a glorified existence." Mikasa said when we all looked at the scene. "Guys!" A blonde girl called out as she rushed over to them while cradling bread loaves. Oh did I forget to mention Armin's a girl too? Yes? Doesn't matter anymore. "Glad I caught you. Here, grandma scrounded a little extra by telling the suppliers he had kids." She said as she passed out the bread loaves to each of them. "That was nice of her. " [Y\N] said then took a large bite and chewed wildly before slowing down as he kept moving the bread around in his mouth. "Mmm, yummy. " He then caught a Garrison soldier looking at them in slight disgust before walking off towards his friend.
"What's his deal?" Elen said softly while glaring at him. "There's a shortage, poor man's probably hungry, by the way I'd make that last. " Armin said as she was referring to the bread. "They were already dealing with a shortage even before we got here so it's an ugly situation. That and there's the prior disparity between the haves and have nots." She finished as they looked at men who were fighting but now there were two more men joining in. "Ain't nothing more gratifying than seeing our rations go to animals." Which made Elen the evermore pissed. "Guess we've got to feed up the herd. Eat up! The Titans like a little meat on their bones!" The soldier shouted to everyone, which finally ticked her off, but luckily [Y\N] stepped in front of her and pointed at himself then walked towards him. "[Y\N] wait!"
"Outta keep you in cages, shoving you out to the front lines is a buffer–" Before he could continue he felt a sharp pain in his lower region and hunched over. [Y\N] had launched his shin right between his legs. He then spat the moist bread he had on his mouth onto him. "There's that gratitude that you so desperately deserve. " Just before he could leave he got kicked in the side and punched in the face. "You picked the wrong man asshole." The man then grabbed him by the collar and struck him again in the face, after doing it a second time he got up to walk away. "You spineless cowards! You're not even in the top of class, yet you act all high and mighty! I bet you've never even seen one, you don't know what they're like!" [Y\N] shouted while covering his mouth with back of his hand. "That's it you little shit." Though before he could reach him, Armin stepped in front of him while Elen and Mikasa checked on [Y\N]. "H-he's sorry,he didn't mean it,he's just hungry. We all get that way, speak our minds out of turn sometimes. Forgive him." Then bowed slightly. "I beg you."
The soldier didn't know how to react after he noticed how everyone was looking at them. "Y-yeah well–keep in mind who's giving up their share so you can eat, in case you haven't noticed, we're all hungry." Before he could walk half a loaf of bread was thrown into his chest which made him stumble a bit.
"Take that sorry excuse of bread, maybe pick up some muscles from it. " [Y\N] grunted out then stood up and spat a little blood. Everyone expected the man to say something or do something, but he just walked off with the bread in hand.
"[Y\N] why'd you do that! Now you don't anything to keep you from staving." Armin whisper-shouted at him while he put his finger on his lip to see blood on it. "I wasn't hun-" Before he could finish Armin grabbed his face and started inspecting his mouth. "Wha are u oing?" He tried to say while she continued until she finally realized what she's actually doing and quickly let go off him with a small tint of pink on her cheeks then apologized. "It's fine, but as I was saying, I'm not hungry." Though as he finished his stomach growled and he hunched over while grabbing it while blushing in embarrassment which made the girls giggle a bit. "Forget I said that."
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"I can't do this." Elen said when they reached the little pathway. "I'm going back to Wall Maria. Those Titans have to pay for what they've done to us. " Armin then interrupted her. "Hey now, you're not serious. That's your stomach talking." "No it's not! Wake up! The guys standing between us and them are just a bunch of talk. To hell with all of them, here!" Elen stated then threw the loaf of bread at Armin as she kept juggling it to catch it. "Yeah, what are you trying to do? Starve?" Armin questioned after finally catching the bread. "When are you going to get sick of their charity?" Elen asked a rhetorical question. "We need to stand on our own two feet!" "We can do that yes, but we're not old enough nor capable enough to achieve what we want.𝘈𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦." [Y\N] said after finally getting the blood out of his mouth. "So that's it? It's just the way life is! Run away and take what we're given?" "Look at us! What choice do we have here?" "We can damn well leave! If you want to scrape by in the charity of cowards that's your thing! But I'm not a Parasite!" Though before Elen could continue her rant, Mikasa struck her right in the face which sent her tumbling down. "𝘖𝘏 𝘚𝘏𝘐𝘛! M-mikasa?" Both Armin and [Y\N] slowly looked at her before looking back at Elen.
"Have you looked in the mirror lately? All of us are parasites. We couldn't run away from death without help, tell me differently. Don't take your short comings out on him." Mikasa stated with a slight irritated tone. "For godsake, we can't even find food on our own. We're parasites, cowards, Titans are at the top of the food chain. Period." When she finished Elen looked down upset that that's the truth. "Pride be damned we do what we must to live. Your mom didn't ask us to be brave." She then walked over her while taking the bread from Armin and shoving it into Elen's mouth. "𝘈𝘺𝘰....Mikasa!"[Y\N] shouted when looked upon the scene. "Eat it! She asked us to stay alive, not about to let her down." She commanded Elen as she finally accepted it and ate in it with tears going down her cheeks.
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◖First person pov◗
Reader pov
A few days later numerous amounts of starved refugees we're left to plow in the wasteland in attempt to raise food. But the cold, hard ground yield at nothing and the following year, 846. The remaining refugees left old enough to serve in the military were tasked with reclaiming Wall Maria.
Of the 250,000 sent, nearly 20% of the surviving population, not even 200 made it back. While it did nothing to drive back the Titans, their sacrifices did lessen the affects of famine within the interior.
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Armin silently sobbed as she held onto the hat that her grandmother gave her. We all were under a street light against a concrete wall, Mikasa and Elen stood beside me and I kneeled down on one knee to comfort Armin. "We have to find a way to stop this, our lives will never be our own until we do. This world will never feel like home. " Elen quietly said, then sat down next to Armin. "That's it, next year I'll be applying to join the cadets." Armin looked a little shocked and Mikasa sighed. "To become strong enough to fight back." Armin then decided. "I'm with you." "Armin you don't have to-" "I do!" It was now Mikasa's turn to speak. "So do I." "Dammit, I'm not trying to drag you in. Look, there's no point in following me to my death." "Yeah, and if I can help it then it won't be your death."
"Me too." I finally said. "No! I'm not letting get yourself killed! You need to be safe." Elen shouted at me. "I can clearly take care of myself, besides, where's the fun in being safe. Don't worry, if things go South, I can always rely on you guys, right?" I tried to comfort her. Then after a little while she spoke. "You better ask for help when you need it, or else I'll be the one you'll need help from." Damn, now I don't want to piss her off anymore. "Alright, together then." I said before putting my hand in front of Elen and then we both shook on it.
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"Straighten those spines piss ants! The 104th cadet corp boot-camp starts now! Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Commander Keith Shadis and you will grow to hate me! Training is going to be a white-knuckle ride through hell! If I've done my job you'll be waking up in a cold sweat from memories of this place every night for the rest of your miserable lives. Right now you're nothing, livestock, but over the next three soul-crushing years, you'll learn to take down your own Goliath. Remember this moment when you come face-to-face with them, 'cause here's where you ask yourself 'Am I fighter, or am I feed? Am-" I'm way too tired for this, but at least this will be easier than training we were forced to go through back at Marley. "Or am I going to be the one to bite?'!" Oh I'm much more than just a fighter, I'm what they call a warrior.
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And there ya go. I feel like I had some grammar mistakes here and there but I won't check now. Anyway, what do you think of the chapter and story so far?
Elen:
Armin: