The Ackermann siblings pushed passed each other, all rushing towards where their father stood, looking up at some tapestry on the wall. "Bernard, no fair!" Gloria, reached out to try and pull him back, Siegfried used the distraction to push ahead, sticking his tongue out.
"Let me go!" Bernard struggled, but Gloria's mighty grip restrained him. "Hey!"
"You started it when you tried to trip me!" She started racing towards her other brother, who was already halfway to homebase, "Get back here!"
"Bleh!" He turned to face herm jogging backwards, sticking out his tongue.
"Watch out!" Bernard shouted from several meters back, as Siegfried collided with their checkpoint. Gloria stopped in her tracks to bring her hands to her mouth, gasping.
Dad was pissed.
"Stop." Was all he said, helping his son up from the ground. His children stiffened, standing straighter, "You could hurt yourself, or break things. And then someone will have clean clean up your mess. Don't be an idiot." He opened Siegfried's mouth once the teen was on his feet, inspecting for damage. Thankfully Siegfried had only bitten his cheek during the fall. "Go see your mother, shoo." Levi began to herd his young ones through the massive doors behind them. He had been waiting for them, dinner was about to be ready.
Bernard looked over his shoulder, up at what his father had been staring at. The Ackermann family crest was on the wall there, blue and gold. He never really paid much attention to it, but Levi looked at it a lot, as if it reminded him of something. The crest bore the same wings of freedom that the scout regiment did, and wall Maria's peaks along the bottom of the crest signified that they were a military family. Four rose buds bloomed on the vines that were drawn onto the wall, the fourth military family that protected the Southernmost point of Paradis island. The window below the crest held a phenomenal view of an ocean sunset.
The long drawn out dining hall held an impressive wooden table, meant to feed at least thirty people at a time. Their parents would hold a military dinner here once a year, each of the families did, in a tradition to maintain the bonds that had been built during the great war. Paradis had never seen such prosperous times, or so the stories went. The youth never could tell the difference between an exaggerated war story and historical fact.
Navy and gold tablecloth only covered the last section of the massive table, where the family had intentions to eat tonight. Hanji had her nose in a book, steam from her food would briefly fog up her glasses. She put the book down with a smile when she heard footsteps, "Hey! What have you done today?" She and Levi mostly had official business to handle during the day, and so the children had reign of the castle for training and learning. A lot was expected of their future, Levi and Hanji invested in their children, giving them as many opportunities to learn and grow was possible. They didn't have war and desperation to nurture them into the next generation of leaders.
"Bernard won't train with us." Siegfried complained, the one blonde of the family could never stop reading. Of course, Hanji supplied many tempting books.
"You two are too rough." The oldest began munching on his food, "I don't want to. Mom said I don't have to."
"You're just afraid of losing to your little brother and sister." Gloria teased, pulling herself a slice of bread. Levi sat down quietly, listening to the quarrel. Thunder clapped, and she jumped, "Don't even laugh." but of course, she was met with snickers, "Come on!"
"At least I'm afraid of what can actually hurt me." Bernard took a sip of evening tea, he had been born to a family of monsters. Levi and Hanji seemed to zone out as Gloria began threatening Bernard with a soup spoon. Siegfried watched the commotion while enjoying his dinner, his siblings never ceased to entertain him.
"Hanji." Levi said, placing his palms on the table, flat. Their children didn't seem to notice anything, "Do you feel that?" His eyes looked out to the coming storm, surely his senses were deceiving him. His wife lifted her glasses, in an attempt to think. She stood suddenly, earning everyone's eyes around the room.
"Mom?" Siegfried asked, Levi was still watching her, waiting for a confirmation.
"Siegfried. Call Armin, tell him to deploy here immediately. Gloria, Bernard, arm the cannons. Soldiers will meet you soon." Levi was already up, grabbing a gun from the wall. Hanji reached back and tied her hair up, their children stared at them baffled.
They suddenly realised they had children on their hands. Not soldiers.
"Hanji. Go." Levi motioned, and she kissed each of their foreheads goodbye, wishing them safety, before pinning her cape to her shoulders and rushing out. "Listen to me. We are in danger. You need to do as we say-"
"Mom!" Gloria rushed out, following Hanji. Levi didn't stop her, Hanji could speak to Gloria more easily.
"Boys." Levi amended, "You need to be armed and ready to go. Just like your training. But you are not to leave this castle unless I come and get you, got it?" Bernard nodded, but Siegfried still seemed confused. They had been eating dinner only ten seconds ago. "Siegfried. We are under attack." He seemed to wake up a little, but not by much. He had so many questions on his mind, none of them immediately answerable.
Levi took each other their hands, leading them towards the armory, where they could get ready. Their pace started off slowly as Levi tried to wake them up, and escalated to a run once adrenaline kicked in. Hanji and Gloria had already disappeared.
"Dad?" Siegfried's voice cracked as the made the turn to the armory. He was looking out the window. Levi flew in, having his updated 3DMG on in almost an instant. Bernard was struggling to suit up, but he would get it.
"Siegfried, get ready!" Levi threw a set of leather straps at him.
"Dad." His son pointed, "There's really a giant person over there. It's real."
Levi stopped, even though he didn't have the time to. He could hear the soldiers that the castle also housed readying for battle as well in the floor below. "Free." Siegfried turned towards him, "You are going to be safe. Everyone is here to protect the three of you." The boys nodded, now standing beside each other, depending on each other for emotional support. "I need to go-"
"You can't be serious." Bernard said, pointing to the growing numbers of titans in the distance, "You really can't fight that!" Titans were such a thing of the past to them, like dinosaurs.
"I can." Levi responded, "So can Hanji, and everyone else who fought in the war. Gloria probably could too. It's what you have trained for too." He was all ready to go, he just needed to say goodbye. "Stay safe, I love you." He hugged them both, "This will be over in no time, don't worry." They hadn't raised them for this. They were raised for peace.
As he parted with them, he could hear Bernard help Siegfried fuss with his straps, and holster their guns. They were mustering up their courage.
Levi found Hanji on her horse, she had prepared Levi's as well. Hanji had tears in her eyes, ready to ride out to meet the small house of soldiers that were permanently stationed here. "Did Gloria see you?" Levi asked, swinging up onto his horse, and the pair began to rush off.
"Yes." She nodded, "She wants to help, I told her no." Hanji looked over to him, "I'm scared for them, Levi. They're scared." It had been a decade since they rode out with intent to kill like this. "People are going to die." Especially those who had joined their ranks in the last ten years, those who were more proficient with guns than with swords.
"Fake it." Levi said, their platoon coming into view. It had been less than five minutes since Levi heard the first footsteps on the edge of the island, "We have to be brave now." His words did not comfort her. Perhaps they would have many years ago. But now she was only thinking of three scared children, seeing titans for the first time in their life, watching their parents go off to a seemingly impossible battle. "We've killed them all before, Hanji. Backup will be here soon."
She nodded, eyes returning to the horizon. The titans looked bigger than she remembered. "Our parents weren't alive to worry about us. Levi. We have to make sure they don't lose us." All they had wanted was to raise normal children, children who had the opportunity to be kids and learn the right way. Maybe they had been too successful in keeping them safe. Of course they had been combat trained, but were they prepared?
"They won't." Protecting Hanji was his priority, defeating titans came in as a close second. He wouldn't admit it, but he was terrified too. He had so much to lose.
Mikasa lead the eastern platoon that was closing in on the Ackermann castle, a place she had seen so many times, but never under the ravages of battle. "You got married here." She said over a handheld radio, which was in communication with only one other device.
A voice from the other end replied, "I know. It's going to be weird fighting here."
The titans didn't seem to notice them yet, but Mikasa could see nine of them. She signalled out for some of the soldiers following her command to split off to the west, to help prevent titans from escaping towards farms further inland. "Armin, I'm going in." She said over the radio, firing a green flare. Shortly after, she slid off of her horse, hooks flying towards many artificial poles that dotted the landscape, giving purchase to their 3DMG. The Ackermann castle, like each of the military family homes, had some sort of landscape modification to facilitate combat. In this case, where trees were more sparse and short due to the location on the coastline, wooden beams had been installed every twenty meters to give soldiers additional places to grapple.
"Mikasa." The voice spoke into her earpiece, "Godspeed."
The first two kills came naturally, but slow. Now that she was up here, she could see that the infestation was much worse, about fifty titans. She swung low to the ground for a third smaller kill, and launched herself far into the air, taking a fourth titan as she went. Now that she was high in the sky she scanned the horizon for any abnormals. "Armin, two abnormals just to the south of you." Armin's reply was too fuzzy to make out, they were barely within range of each other, but he sounded alright and it seemed like he got the message. His green flare launched about a mile away, on the other side of the castle.
She used a similar technique to launch herself back up again, this time to locate Hanji and Levi's platoon. They were directly engaged with titans about one hundred meters from the castle, a close margin. She would focus on eliminating the titans directly between them, and get to them to help.
She got into the swing of things shortly after, she and her squad had a dozen titans down within ten minutes, with a few stragglers to clean up. "Hanji is alive." Armin confirmed, "Made contact. She's on her way to protect the device. She will radio when she arrives there."
"Heard." Mikasa replied as she landed on her horse, covered in steaming titan blood. There were no titans in the immediate area, so she took a sip of water and began leading her mount to move westward toward the castle. Soldiers who had rode to the coastline signalled that no titans had remained there with two gold flares. Armin had orchestrated a well organized defence, he was doing well as the new commander of the scout regiment.
She rode for a while without encountering titans, her squad had coalesced back into formation after defeating the stragglers. When they were able to make contact with a few more, troops from the castle were already engaging them. Mikasa swooped up, looking for anyone who may need help. "Gloria?" She squinted. Surely her eyes were deceiving her. No, it wasn't just Gloria, it was all three! A titan, seemingly feeled on the ground, reached its hand up to grab one of them!
.Armin's words echoes through his head. That they would be safe, that everyone had fought titans before. But as Siegfried watched soldiers zip through the skies, slashing at flesh, he knew that Armin was only partially right. He watched a man have the life squeezed out of him by a man eating beast, yours is the first generation of our people to grow up without the fear of titans, Armin had told him over the landline. That was around twenty minutes ago, the first of the soldiers should be arriving shortly.
Bernard slumped in a chair, listening to the sounds of battle outside their home. He was still having trouble understanding everything. "Who is attacking us?" He looked up at his siblings, "Do you two have any clue?"
"The titans?" Gloria shrugged, Siegfried put more thought into the question.
"The titans couldn't just appear here. Someone brought them here." He leaned into the wall, staying away from the window. He looked back out to the fight, the soldiers hadn't allowed the titans to advance at all. Siegfried pulled at the straps around his abdomen, his 3DMG chafing him uncomfortably, occasionally his father would zip in and out of view.
Gloria nodded, feeling antsy. Why had Hanji sent her back in here? She was hardly a child anymore, and the screams that would leak through the walls every couple of minutes as another titan claimed victory made her viscerally uncomfortable. She had to do something. "What can we do to help? Siegfried, there has to be something."
The middle child found his siblings staring at him for guidance, "Um…" He scowled, looking towards the window to avoid eye contact. "It's hard to say, I don't know what's going on out there." The window view only provided a thin slice of the confrontation, "We could get a better view from the south watchtower." There were grunts of agreement.
"Let's go, be quiet." Bernard opened the study door, motioning for his siblings to file through. He studied the trouble on Gloria's face, "Don't worry, we can do something." She nodded in response and forced a brief smile, tucking black frizzy hair behind her ear, which she normally wore in a chic bob. Siegfried's mind was spinning, his fingers resting just below his lip. Good.
The building shook, and a loud crash came from the direction of the west tower. The trio stopped in their tracks, their home was being destroyed! Gloria took off, "Stop! It's too dangerous!" Siegfried called out, but Bernard grabbed his hand, telling him to be quiet and dragged him off after their sister. "We have to stop her. This is for real Bernard. We could get hurt."
"We also could die." Bernard looked down at the redhead, her looked so much like Hanji. "We could lose our parents. Some of our teachers are probably already dead. Our house could be completely destroyed." Another scream from in the distance, someone calling for help from the battlefield. "There's a lot we could lose here Siegfried, are we going to do something about it?"
Siegfried shook his hand free, keeping pace on his own. "Fine. But we save our own skins first." Mom and Dad told them to stay safe, they could still do that and help. He gazed at his older brother, turning the corner to see Gloria trying to help a housekeeper out of the rubble. She had caught a titans eye in the room she had been hiding in, one had wandered a bit too close to the castle. Both brothers rushed in to help, but Gloria and Bernard didn't realise the woman was already dead. "Guys."
Bernard strained to lift a large chunk of stone, barely lifting it, "Why aren't you helping?"
He put his hand on top of Gloria's, "She's dead."
"No she's not, she was just-" Gloria looked down at the woman who had only seconds ago been pleading for help. "Oh my god." Her brown eyes fogged up, in shock that someone had just died right in front of her. She had been the only one who heard her last words.
Bernard dropped the rock, "We have to go. We can't-"
"I know." She pushed herself off the ground, her palm resting in a small pool of blood as she did. She stared at it for a moment, "Someone did this." Her twin brother reached in to hug her, "Siegfried, why…?" Why was this happening? What had they done? What were they being punished for?
Bernard watched over the two, making sure that everything was safe. The rubble blocked their path, they would have to cut through the courtyard instead of moving through the building. His eyes caught movement, "We have to go, now." He swooped in to grab them, but whatever he had seen had also seen them. All four pairs of eyes were now aware of each other.
Siegfried felt Gloria's frame shaking next to him as they stared up at the titan. It was coming towards them. He quickly looked to Bernard, who was now frozen in shock. His mind went blank as fight or flight reeled to make a decision, when he heard Gloria's gas canisters fire off behind him, as she whizzed off through a hole in the ceiling to engage the titan. Bernard snapped back into reality, seeing her fly off so suddenly. He looked to his brother before flying off after her, leaving Siegfried on the floor. He wasn't going to be left behind, so he took a deep breath and flew off. When he cleared the room, he saw that the titan already lay crumpled on the ground, Gloria examining it, her blades covered in steaming blood. It was a small one, only four meters.
Bernard shortly landed beside her, He reached out to touch the titan, finding it surprisingly hot. "Wow, I can't believe it." he lifted one of the titans limbs. Siegfried began investigating as well when he had joined them. "You killed it?" Bernard asked, looking at Gloria.
She nodded, but then starting shaking no rapidly, as the titan prung back to life, grabbing Bernard, who had been closest to its arm. "Bernard!" She reached out, the titan sat up, bringing Bernard to his mouth. "Mikasa!" The woman brought the titan down, catching Bernard in her arms, and setting him gently on the ground. There were no other titans, so she stood there flabbergasted, waiting for one of them to offer an explanation. There was no way Levi and Hanji told them that they could fight, not that Mikasa supported their verdict.
Siegfried was looking Bernard over for injuries, he had only been in the titan's grip very briefly. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault." Gloria said, "It was dumb, we shouldn't have come out here." It was disheartening to see Gloria this way, but Mikasa knew the shock her mind was learning to handle so rapidly. Gloria wasn't a pushover, like almost all Ackermans before her. "We're not ready for combat." She looked up to Mikasa, who would offer lessons to the three of them on occasion. She and Armin had been there their whole lives.
"No, you are." Mikasa had seen the chunk Gloria took out of the nape of that titan, it was as good as any other soldier, clean and narrow. "You just need support." Anyone would fail going into battle with titans alone. She had fought a war when she was their age, she just had the proper guidance. Some of them were still standing after all these years. "Gloria, you can come with me. You'll join my unit. Siegfried, could you take Bernard further inland to meet up with Hanji?"
The boys nodded, the stables were on the other side of the castle, opposite the battle. Gloria furrowed her brow, knowing that Mikasa wanted to teach her, but truly not believing herself to be ready. Mikasa spoke over the radio, "I found Bernard, Siegfried, and Gloria. They're alive and well. Gloria is with me, and I'm sending the other two to join the commander."
"Good, glad they're okay. But I'm the commander." Armin said, he had been for two and a half years, which didn't feel like very long during times of peace.
Mikasa smiled, enjoying the joke. She looked to the children with a sense of nostalgia, they wouldn't have to struggle like those in the past did. "Are you armed?" All of them nodded, hands falling to pairs of guns and swords, all standard military issue of the day. "Hanji isn't far." She helped them up, "Do you know the waterfall, where we all would go fishing?" More nods, "She's heading there."
They exchanged hugs. Everyone felt much more at ease, having seen each other. Mikasa helped Gloria battle-check her equipment, and saw the boys off. This was their first of many battles.
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