In the year 850, the Colossal Titan again appeared and decimated yet another barrier between us and them. Once more, mankind retreated in panic in the advance of its greatest foe. Brave soul after brave soul perished, eaten alive.
"Elen, no!"
Elen herself fell prey to their hunger.
"Woah, Mikasa's a badass. How is she going so fast?"
'No, she's just taking up too much gas.'
'I'll do whatever it takes to win, whatever it takes to live.'
Just when things seemed their darkest for Mikasa, out of nowhere came the unlikeliest of allies.
...
...
"But, I mean, Titans are everywhere." Armin argued, trying to convince Mikasa of leaving her behind. "You can't jump and carry me on your back at the same time."
"Come on let's move." Connie interrupted, grabbing Armin as they ran towards the edge ready to jump. 'Please, don't do this. It's not going to work, enough people have died on my count. No!" Armin yelled focusing on the Titan's cry. "Hold on, I've got an idea." "What is it then?" Connie asked, his nerves still not settling.
"Only you two are capable of pulling this off, so it's really your choice. This may sound crazy, but I think he might be useful." Referring to Titan that was seemingly staring at the sky in its feels. "Wait you mean the Titan?" "He only attacks his own kind, he seems to have no interest in us. What if, we could somehow steer him to HQ and let him loose on the other Titans? Look, we know he's taking at least one out already, we can use him as a weapon." Laying out her plan to recapture headquarters. "You've got to be kidding, how the hell do you suppose we steer that thing?" Connie added as they turned their attention to the Titan.
"Something tells me he's fighting on instinct, I'm almost sure if take down the pair he's tangling with now he'll go look for others, that'll leave him straight to HQ, we're not steering him so much as luring him. I think it'll work, I really do." " 'Think'? You're asking us to risk our necks on a stupid gut feeling?" Connie raised his voice and his nervousness turned into agitation. Armin turned back towards him before continuing. "If I'm right about this, we can put down the seige on headquarters in one fell swoop." This left the baldy quiet as he started to consider the plan. "It's worth a shot."
Mikasa's statement brought back his nerves as he looked at her slightly shocked. "Huh, seriously?" Connie threw at her. "Better to go on Armin's gut feeling than wait around to be slaughtered. If there's a decent shot, why not take it." She replied, before Connie started yelling again. "So basically we're gonna recruit a Titan?" "Yes, exactly." Mikasa quickly added. "We'll look like morons if we screw this up." Which sparked a little giggle in Armin. "Yeah, but if we don't, look how many lives we stand to save." "Where there's a will there's a way." Mikasa said before taking off in a sprint across the rooftop, followed by Armin. "It's still nuts, but what the hell." Connie mumbled then joined them.
...
Jean stood entranced, gripping tightly onto the handle. 'Why couldn't I stop them? I am the last person that should've been given the charge.' His face said every single emotion he was feeling right now, sorrow, regret, anger, disappointment. 'No. No, this is our chance. We can get the drop on them while they're preoccupied, it's perfect!' "Let's go!" Everyone turned their attention from the Titans to Jean. "Make a break for HQ while they're distracted!"
He jumped onto a lower ledge and took off into a sprint, the others followed soon after. 'We can do this. Hey, if we run out of gas we're dead anyway.' Give it everything you got!" He commanded before jumping over an alleyway to a separate rooftop.
...
Mikasa soared through the sky, she anchored onto a Titan's nape before slicing through it, Connie and Armin followed behind. The green-eyed Titan was at a tug of war with another, before it's superior power towered over it and shoved it into a building, it took a few swings at it while the others flew around it. It took in the sight of the siege at HQ, setting it's course for it.
...
Jean lead everyone to headquarters until a group of Titans came their way, instead of attacking they swiftly maneuvered around them, till one grabbed onto Jean's leg. He struggled for a bit until he inevitably sliced off a few fingers, narrowly escaping.
Marco landed beside him as they both sprinted along a rooftop. "Jean!" He called, the now mentioned looked towards him. "You really came through for us back there man, we owe you big time." Jean, lost in the moment, was confused about what he was talking about. "Don't shrug it off, I'm serious. We're alive because of you, like I said, you make a great leader." Jean let a slight smirk show but then focused on the mission. "Easy with that crap, we're not out of this yet."
Again, Titans went in for the kill but yet again the cadets avoided conflict. One unlucky soul got caught in the scramble while he screamed for help, no one did. Jean looked back with a face full of regret. "Dammit!" He shot his anchor behind him to slow his descent as he crashed into the glass and tumbled to a stop. He looked around for anyone who made it with him until a couple more windows were broken as the rest made it in.
Jean looked around, seeing less people than before. 'How many bodies did I crawl over...' He covered half his face with his hand. 'How many of our comrades died on my orders?' He blinked a few times when he realized that there were people sitting next to him under a table, he could hear them whimpering as one was covered in blood that wasn't hers. "Hold on a sec, you guys were the supply team?" Jean grabbed the guy under the table by the collar and punched him as he fell to the ground. "Jean, stop!" Marco yelled while holding him back.
"You cowards, you left us out there on our own! People are dead cause you didn't have the guts to do your job!" Jean yelled while being held back and one cadet dropped to knees to help her friend that got punched. "Titans were coming at us from every angle, they've overrun the supply room okay?" She said through tears. "It's your job to deal with it and back us up anyway!"
The sound of something heavy coming towards them was increasing until Reiner caught up with it and looked through the window in shock. "Hit the deck!" Everyone now turned their heads towards the open windows trying to locate the sound when a Titan's head suddenly crashed through the wall, unfortunately there was someone in front of it and they got sent flying and tumbling due to the impact. "Son of a bitch." Jean mumbled, covering his eyes from the kicked up dust. "There's too many people, they can smell us." Someone said which resulted in panic as everyone tried to look for a way out.
'This is it. This, is reality. Of course it is, how deluded was I? No, on some level I knew it all along, I mean when you stop and think for a second it's obvious.' Jean thought, while two Titans stared at him. 'There's no winning, not against them.' His thoughts were shattered, it all happened so fast that it seemed to be in slow motion when he saw a fist press against one side of the Titan's face. "What?!"
Both Titans flew a couple metres away and came to a stop. The familiar green eyed Titan came into view as it let out another yell. "Wh-what the? My god." The sound of glass breaking called him from his trance as Mikasa, Connie and Armin came crashing in. "Mikasa you're-"
"Wow, close one." Connie let out a chuckle as he tapped onto his canister hearing that it was hollow. "I was running out of fumes. We made it here though, barely but we did." Jean slowly approached Mikasa stuttering on his words while she kept looking at him. "Am I dreaming this or what?" The taller male blurted out, while Connie gave Armin a rough pat on the back. "Your a certified genius, from now on as far as I'm concerned your word is law. Check it out." He stood up from his crouched position and pointed outside, more specifically where the Titans were. "We found an abnormal that's got a bone to pick with its own kind and the best part, he couldn't care less about us! That's right, you heard me! This big, beautiful thing is our ticket out of here."
"Wait you mean like fighting fire with fire?" A random cadet asked, "Listen to yourself, a Titan's not gonna help us, you're out of your mind if you think this would work." Jean scolded the baldy, though Mikasa stepped in. "It is working, for whatever reason he's rampaging against them. Stand back and let him do it, trust me, you'll see."
Outside the Green eyed Titan landed a dangerous left hook, completely decapitating it in the process. It then cried out, attracting more of its kind.
"Either way, what choice do we have? Right now, that thing is out best chance at survival."
...
It's eyes snapped open as it intercepted a read attack and caught the other in an arm lock before dragging it's head across the ground and dropped it on smaller Titans, crushing them in the process. Yet another cry left it's mouth while smoke rose from its hand.
"Look at him go, this guy makes the others look like total meat lugs." Connie stated, "They're not gonna take this building, not with him on a rampage out there." The cable cart finally arrived as everyone sat there patiently. "That's all well and done, but what's to keep him from turning on us once he's done?" Reiner argued, noticing the hole in the plan. "Guess we'll worry about that one when we safe." "Yeah, you're right. At least he's buying us a little time."
Behind them sat Annie and Pieck, the former patting the slightly saddened blonde. "Shit, why'd I agree to do that, not only did I likely comprise my identity, I willing did it." Annie told herself while the brunette rubbed her back as she recalled the moment roughly 10 minutes before. She had seen a cadet running through houses and narrowly dodging Titans while on a limp, he had seemed to heading the same direction as them. She couldn't recall who it was, she just jotted them as another poor soul.
"Good news! Courtesy of the military police." Jean, along with Marco and two other cadets walked in with crates. "And covered with a layer of dust."
Almost everyone had a musket in hand as Jean cocked his. "Are you absolutely sure buck shot is the way to go? Seems like we might as well throw stick wards. I mean come on guys, are guns even effective?" Some of them sat near Armin while she laid out the plan on a map she found. "I don't know, but they're bound to be better than nothing. We're looking at 8 Titans in the supply room of the four metre tall variety. If we time this perfectly, this much ammo outta be enough to do trick, so step one, lower a group into the area by a lift to get their attention. Then two, when the Titans come within range the group fires in all four directions simultaneously, blinding them." Armin looked at everyone before continuing. "Then the hard part, the moment of truth. Before the Titans have time to recover, eight of us swoop down from the ceiling and strike their vital regions, that's it. That's the plan, it puts all our lives on the line, if we screw up we're dead. That's a hell of a risk for one attack, but it's our only chance. Eight people have to slay eight Titans in one blow, at the same time. We're gonna need the best of you, the eight soldiers most physically gifted in adapt with their pairing blades, you'll be the difference between life and death for the rest of us. I'm sorry, that's how it is." Sounding somber near the end of it.
"Seems like a sound plan." "When you get right down to it, the risk is the same for everyone. Doesn't really matter who goes." Reiner and Annie added, "I'm willing to be tucked out of this. One half baked strategy can't be our only option, right?" Armin started doubting herself, but was shutdown by Marco. "Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. Cmon with what we're looking at, our only option is pretty well thought out. If we give it our all we might just pull this off." Mikasa stepped with her words of encouragement. "It'll be fine, you just have to be confident. You're a better strategist than you give yourself credit for." Armin seemed shocked by this, as she's never realised it before. "I'm serious, that mind saved Elen, [Y\N] and me more than once." "When did I ever save you? That's not-"
Armin was interrupted by the sound of the lift arriving. "Alright, the lift's ready to go. Guns are loaded to the stocks, let's go kill some Titans." A Cadet acknowledged.
"You didn't realize it at the time, we can talk about it later." Mikasa went off with the other seven while Armin readied her rifle.
"Okay, I'm gonna ask the obvious question here." Connie spoke up. "Can we do this without ODM gear?" He looked towards Reiner. "No problem, these guys are only four metres tall. Their weak spots are not too far above eye level." "He's right, size won't be an issue. The spot's still one meter high and ten centimeters across." Jean added before Sasha voice sounded out the corridor. "Back of the head to the nape of the neck." Sasha recalled from training. "Worst comes to worse, you can always shove one of these up their ass. That's the other weak spot." Reiner held up his blade as Connie and Sasha both looked in shock. "Are you serious? That's news to me." "Did I miss a day of training or something?"
"You know Reiner, that's some pretty hardcore final words right there." Pieck added enthusiastically. "A damn ass joke."
...
The lift dropped slowly to the area of the Titans.
"Shit, there's a ninth." Marco whispered as panic slowly arose. "What are we gonna do? We didn't plan for this, everything gonna be in shambles." Armin panicked, slowly shaking, not helping the situation. "Armin, this just calls for a little improvising. I'm sure the others have already thought of a plan." Marco reassured though he didn't sound too sure himself, but sold it as the panicked died down. Everyone readied their rifles. "Okay now, nice and easy. " A Titan marched in front of them before turning it's gaze towards them which startled a few cadets. "Don't lose your cool, fire only when they're all within range." The Titan slowly made it's way towards them. "Steady."
'That's right, wait for it.' Reiner internally said.
'Our lives are riding on this.' Jean said to himself.
'Gotta make this attack- wait there's another one? If my math is correct, one, one, two, two and- Guys! There's another one, a ninth!" Connie whisper yelled.
"We'll just have to improvise, what's one more Titan?" Reiner whispered back.
The Titans started closing in on them as they came face to face with them. "Almost." Marco put his finger on the trigger and when the Titan in front of him took one more step. "Fire!" He ordered as everyone began the onslaught, blinding them. The eight took off in pursue of their targets.
Mikasa swiftly cut through the nape and dropped down. "Got it, how are you guys doing?" She yelled at the others. Jean and Reiner dropped down, finished with theirs. Annie and pieck switched targets last second and cut a massive chunk out of their napes. Both Connie and Sasha fell to the ground, not cutting deep enough (what she said). The Titan slowly turned to Sasha as it successfully healed it's eyes.
She backed up as spoke in a high pitched voice. "H-hi, sorry, I didn't mean it-"
"Oh crap."
"-I didn't mean to sneak up on you."
"Sasha and Connie missed!" Bertholdt informed the others. "Get the hell back!" Jean ordered the two. Tears streamed from her eyes as she watched the Titan inch closer. It leaped for her but she just out of the way. "I said I'm sorry!" She missteped and fell. Just before she was eaten, she saw a stream of gas fly passed the Titan stopping it in it's tracks before a figure flew towards the one Connie missed and it cut the Titan's head clean off with both blades. The figure slid to a stop before crashing into a pole.
"Son of a bitch." He whispered to himself while holding his head. He heard a scream behind and saw the ninth Titan grab Sasha. "Connie! Throw me your blades!" Connie, seemingly in a trance disconnected the blade and threw the blades in front of him. He dropped his damaged swords and took off in a sprint then jumped and caught the blades before stabbing it in both eyes. "Annie!" The blonde snapped out of it and cut through the back of it, from the nape all the way down it's spine and dropped in front of the figure.
"[Y\N]..." She couldn't find the words to say to him right now, but she was glad he was alive. He checked up on Sasha who jumped out of the Titan's grasp and enveloped in a bone crushing hug as she rambled on about how she missed him. "Thank you thank you thank you! We should get married and have hot steaming potato babies together!" But most of it was overlapped by her excessive rambling. "I wasn't even gone for that long. What's the problem?" Sasha hit her head against his chest which made him grunt. "We thought you were dead."
"[Y\N]!" Pieck and Mikasa yelled as the both jumped at him with tears in their eyes as they rambled on about how they missed him and such. "I missed you too girls." Rubbing their backs, he stood up about to dust himself off but noticed the large cuts in his hands. "Ah shit. Anyone got a-"
"[Y\N]!!" Marco, Connie, Jean, Reiner and Bertholdt ran at him at full speed and tackled him to the ground in yet another hug. "Boys!" This time he sounded genuine about reaction. "Don't ever ditch us again!" "Yeah, next we won't left you off the hook so easily." Connie and Jean yelled at him with smiles on their faces. "But that's still a guarantee that you'll let me off the hook?" [Y\N] cracked a smile before being hit in the chest getting another grunt out of him. "Shut up smartass."
He got up dusting himself off with the back of his hands before making eye contact with Reiner and Bertholdt. His face was neutral or moreso stern, though his eyes had this glow of authority as a father would if he caught his kids in an act. He looked around noticing that one person was missing, he saw standing next to mikasa who was still wiping her tears. "Armin." He spoke softly.
Armin felt a lump in her throat as she looked terrified to see him, like some weird fuzzy dream. He slowly closed in a hug and whispered something in her ear, she slowly reciprocated the act.
"Alright, everyone listen up!" [Y\N] he stood in front of everyone with a fresh pair of [F\C] shorts that had ducklings on them. "As you all may be thinking, why is this idiot in thigh high shorts giving me orders? But I think more importantly is the fact that our greatest asset is being devoured as we speak, so this meeting is basically a waste of time. Any questions?"
"Do you know where's my toothbrush?"
"Why are you wearing that?"
"Do not question my authority! Load up the damn supplies while I go change into something more appropriate."
Everyone went off and proceeded to refill that gas tanks and replenish their swords. Connie yelled at Sasha who was having an early life crisis. "Listen man, what you said about me being a leader and all. Don't talk to me like that again, alright?" Jean somewhat scolded Marco who sat beside him as they both filled their gas tanks. "Promise me you're not gonna take this the wrong way, but I don't think you're a good leader cause you're strong, I think you're a good leader cause you know what it is to be weak. You're one of us, you're scared out of you're mind, we all are, even [Y\N]. We all saw that look on his face when he saw Sasha in danger, he was scared out of his mind though he pushed through. Guess you two have a lot more in common than you think." Jean turned towards him, signaling him to continue. "You both have the willpower to endure the hard decisions we're all too scared to make ourselves. It makes you alert, sympathetic." Marco then turned his head to face him. "You made a damn good call out there, got me running for my life. You're the reason why I can say this." Jean stared at him for a moment.
Armin ran out along with the others but stopped when she saw Mikasa and [Y\N] standing on of a rooftop. She latched her hook onto the edge of the roof before propelling herself towards them. "What are you guys doing? We have to leave, now." "They're still eating her." They both looked at him at the mention of 'her', wondering what he meant by that. "Wonder why it's not regenerating." Just before [Y\N] went off he was stopped by a disturbed Armin. "Wait, you said 'her' as if this Titan were female, but we all learned that they don't have genitalia and they resembled a male figure, is there something you're not telling us?"
The air was tense as both women looked at the man awaiting an answer. "You're smart Armin, so damn smart, wish I could be like you some day. Whatever it is you think I'm hiding, I can't tell you, only time will tell. Though that does not mean I don't trust you, it's just if I tell you, you'll lose trust in me." "Don't you trust us!" Mikasa abruptly yelled while grabbing his hand. "After everything, was it not enough to gain your trust." Her words slowly dying down. "Don't pull the 'after everything' card, that's not fair. I could say the same thing. I'm doing this for your own good, to make sure there's hope for humanity, to keep you guys safe!" [Y\N] yelled, starting to get emotional. "You guys switch so damn fast, what happened to you crying all over me saying how much you missed me? Now you're yelling, ordering me to do something I can't do. If you want to find out so bad then go!" He pointed towards the Titan that was being munched on. They all turned attention to it, then realized that Annie, Pieck, Bertholdt, Reiner and Jean were there. "Bad time?"
[Y\N] gave Jean a stare that made him feel small and weak as he shivered. Armin noticed a Titan in the distance walking towards their general area. "Oh no, it's the one that ate Thomas." That statement caught the ears of the green eyed Titan who was seemingly injected with adrenaline as it overpowered the number of Titans around it. Having no arms, it bit down onto it's nape and used pure strength to lift it overhead, it's exposed ribcage cracked as used the Titan to flatten the smaller ones. One larger Titan walked behind it before being sent flying into a building by the Titan's body. The Titan dropped the ripped off head and let out a cry. Then, it suddenly fell. "Alright, enough of this, let's leave while we still can. We're lucky the ugly bastard didn't get bored, we would've been next on the menu." Everyone stay silent watching the body.
"Cmon!" [Y\N] yelled before taking off towards the fallen body. "Wait, you suicidal psychopath!" Jean yelled though was silent when he saw what he saw. They all saw Elen slowly arise from the steaming flesh as [Y\N] came in and caught her before she fell. Mikasa followed right after and ran towards them and hugged her sister. She checked her heart rate and started crying when heard the beating. She slowly started wailing before bursting out in tears.