Rage Against
I watch silently, from the comfortable standing position of parade rest, as Keith Shadis, the bald, grim-faced drill instructor who will control nearly every facet of my life, as well as the lives of those around me, for the next three years, makes his way up the isle of cadets that I belong to. Special circumstances keep me from studying his bearded, haunted-eyed characteristics in the same manner as those around me, but due to even more special circumstances, my current lack of tradition eyesight is a non issue.
As the brutal, harsh drill instructor slowly works his way towards me, stopping frequently to humiliate and/or beat on cadets with seeming little rhyme or reason, I can feel my nerves begin to build; making my stomach ache with tension. While not exactly excited at the prospect of getting a fist in my gut, I am not terribly afraid of a beating; having been conditioned, purposefully or not, to handle such things and worse with grace since before I'd even joined the 'can walk under my own power' club.
No, it's the inevitable, inescapable conversation that I am about to be forced to have that has me feeling antsy. While my unique upbringing has left me exceptionally prepared for a laundry list of difficult tasks, the secluded nature of said upbringing has also had the effect of leaving me a tad... socially inept. Ergo, I have a horrible tendency to say things that end up being far too blunt and honest. I've though it over pretty hard before, and I'm sure that this would be fine, if only I possessed the confidence to purposely talk in such a manner. I don't. And so, instead of being seen as some cool guy who has the nerve to tell it like it is, I instead come across, accurately, as a naïve kid who's just too bad with people to realize that he's just insulted/flirted with/threatened/offended/embarrassed or otherwise made a complete ass of himself in some way or another. No, a boot to my shins still doesn't sound all that appealing, but at this point, if it'd mean I didn't end up embarrassing myself in front of the entire cadet body, I'd consider it a fair trade.
I push my inner thoughts away as Shadis steps in front of me, already scowling deeply. I don't waste a second, and slam my fisted right hand over my heart and my fisted left against the small of my back.
"Hey. Bastard," he starts calmly, and I can feel his murky eyes glaring holes into my face even from within Collar. "Just who the fuck are you?"
"Adam Lanze, Sir!" I reply, "From Shiganshina!"
It is literally impossible for me not to notice the handful of heads that turn towards me at my introduction. Its no surprise though; every cadet knows that being from that doomed city means that you were there during the titan's invasion, and subsequent slaughter spree, that occurred two years ago.
Although, of course, the looks being directed at me quickly become different than those Armin Arlert, another cadet from Shiganshina, received not a minute earlier. Its to be expected, though.
"And prey tell, Cadet Titan Gruel, just what the fuck it is that you think you're wearing on your head!?" the drill instructor roars, glowering down over my laughably smaller frame all the while.
Ah, here it is. The start to the aforementioned inescapable line of questioning that I'd been dreading so.
"A helmet, sir!" I respond.
All is silent for a heartbeat, and then, seemingly in unison with a freak temperature drop, Drill Instructor Keith Shadis growls out, "And you're wearing it here, now, because...?"
"I can't take it off, sir," I tell him honestly.
I must have said something wrong, once again, because Shadis very noticeably curls one of his huge hands, compared to mine own small ones, anyway, into a quivering fist that's all but screaming how unpleased he is with my responses so far, before lowly inquiring, "Is your reluctance to remove that thing sentimental, or have you seriously shown up today with your head stuck inside of something?"
Suddenly I realize my blunder and rush to clarify, in an earnest voice that's a little too telling of my young age, "Oh! No, sir! I mean, physically, I cannot take this off." I tilt my head back to show him the proof; and explain, "It's a half inch thick, seamless, and comes back in under my chin, encircling my neck so tightly that its waterproof, sir."
More silence, this time thick with shock and horror, descends, and suddenly I realize that almost every single cadet is craning his or her head to look at me.
All of this attention, focused on me and my metal encased skull, reminds me of how I myself had felt the first time I'd- well, not laid eyes on, of course, but all the same, seen, Collar.
At first glance it doesn't seem to be all that aptly named. After all, the largely lusterless, grey metal does far more than wrap around my throat; encasing my entire head, from just above my Adam's apple up, in half-inch thick, seamless metal. Its not so plain as to just look like a metal egg or something, however. Matching where my teeth are at in my mouth, and ending in sharp angles on the helmet where, below, my jaw connects to my skull, Collar becomes much thinner, down to a fifth of an inch in some places, in a large, menacing looking facsimile of a smile, complete with a monstrous grin filled with about half a dozen interlocking metal teeth that are made to appear so big that the points of them are hidden behind the half-inch thick edges of the grin. This is the most obvious stylization put into my muzzle, although the helmet does also have six indents on the front, grouped together in two sets of three, forming two equilateral triangles that rest about an inch apart, just above Collar's grin. The indent's manage to give off the impression of eyes; at least in the human mind, which always automatically looks for a face when presented with a head. Other than these features, as well as the slightly angled ridge that bisects the helmet vertically, Collar's design is focused more on structural integrity than it is on style.
Overall, an intimidating object; made all the more unsettling once the observer learns that it is irremovable.
"Who put that on you, boy?" the drill instructor asks me, this time sounding twice as grim but not even half as pissed.
"Ah, that'd be my mom and pop, sir," I answer back in a subdued tone.
My feelings regarding my parents are complicated, and not something I'm eager to talk about.
Keith Shadis is obviously a hard man, so I'm not surprised when, instead of saying something like, 'That's horrible!', or, 'You poor thing!', he just asks, with a challenging look in his eyes, "Is this going to be a problem, Cadet?"
I shift my head in such a way that, were Collar not on, I'd be looking Drill Instructor Keith Shadis dead in his eyes, and assure him, "Sir! No, Sir!"
And then, with nary an indication that he'd heard me at all, Shadis moves on, and immediately begins tearing into the cadet next to me, a 'Connie Springer', who I'd noticed was especially obvious in his staring a moment ago.
I'm still tense from being the subject of interest for such a large group of people, but with every head that turns away from me, I feel my body relax a little more.
Overall, I feel its fair to consider my first interaction as a Cadet in the military a success, seeing as how both: A: I'm still alive and B: I didn't get kicked out.
S' not much, but a win's a win.
My inner back patting is interrupted when I notice that everybody has, once again, shifted their attention to a single point. After quickly realizing that I'm not the target of their incredulous stares, I notice what they're looking at.
A girl.
With purplish brown hair.
Eating a potato.
Right in Drill Instructor Keith Shadis' face.
This shit is just too crazy to look at directly; and that's coming from a weirdo like me.
Despite myself, I feel my lips twitch into an amused grin, and suddenly I realize that, to willing fight against titans, almost everybody here must be at least a little crazy, in one way or another.
The hilarious scene continues to play out behind me, and I can only think one thing.
Hell yes, this is going to be awesome!
-Rage Against-
'This fucking sucks', I can't help but think, as I pretend to calmly search the mess hall for a free spot to sit.
'Pretend to calmly search', not because I'm not searching, but because I'm not feeling particularly calm as I do so.
The hall, more of a huge room, really, is already pretty packed, with everyone having gotten here before me due to a quick restroom break by yours truly.
Despite my mental skills, which I'm proud to say are top notch, thank you very much, I am, physically, quite young. Not that I'll be admitting that to anyone around here anytime soon, of course. The army's cadet training program is a twelve and up club, so I've had to sneak in, in a manner of speaking.
The point is, I'm just a kid, and sometimes, kids need to pee. Especially when they've been standing still for the better part of an hour after downing an entire liter of water.
The end result? A room full of benches already mostly occupied by total strangers that I'm going to have to sit next to.
Maaaaaan...
A few more seconds pass by as I stand at the head of the room looking about, until I finally decide that it'd be more embarrassing to stand here all day than it would be to just sit somewhere and hope for the best.
Feeling pretty fed up with feeling embarrassed, I let out an irritated sigh and head towards the first open spot I see, which just so happens to be right next to the blond haired boy from earlier, Armin Arlert, and plop down.
Conversation at the bench, which had admittedly only consisted of Armin and the brown haired boy across from me talking, halts once I sit down, and I can't stop a blush from creeping up my, thankfully hidden, cheeks.
"Y-yo," I manage, and instantly flush even redder upon stuttering.
A long second passes.
And then another...
"Hey," the boy across from me finally replies, and the knot, which had started forming in my gut at the thought that they'd all just keep staring at me in silence, loosens, and I relax a little.
"I'm Adam, by the way," I reintroduce myself with a friendly smile that's lost within Collar. "Adam Lanze."
"Eren Yeager," the greenish blue, or, bluish green, I suppose, eyed boy replies, before asking, "You said that you were from Shiganshina earlier, right? That's where we're from, too," he says, nodding his head towards Armin and the pretty black haired girl next to him, whose name I don't know.
I notice those around us quiet down to eavesdrop, but pay it little mind and reply, "Yeah, but you wouldn't've seen me around, most likely. I lived kinda outta the way."
I smile as he makes an awkward nodding motion with his head, most likely thinking, 'Like I'd forget meeting someone as odd as you' or something along those lines.
I appreciate his restraint.
"Does that mean you guys were there when the titans attacked?" Connie Springer asks from my right, and I'm instantly less impressed by his utter lack of restraint.
Still, I can't really fault him; everyone here is joining a military whose main enemy is the titans, and most of them barely know anything about them.
The opportunity to learn from our firsthand experience proves too good to pass up, and before I know it, half the room has gotten up to crowd around us. The three I'd been sitting with look about as eager to talk about the titans as I feel, but that doesn't stop Eren from confirming, "Yeah, we were there..."
"So?" Connie asks, shuffling in place a bit awkwardly now that so many others are crowded around, "What happened?"
Eren looks between his friends for a moment, obviously reluctant to talk about the experience and hoping for one of them to take over, but neither seems all that eager to oblige him. So, with a frown, he recalls, "We were just sitting around talking when the Colossal Titan appeared. I've heard that there was a freak lightning strike right before, but I don't remember there being any thunderclouds in the sky, so that was probably just a rumor."
It wasn't. I vividly remember seeing that discolored bolt flash right before that fucker kicked the gate in, but I stay silent.
"I heard that it pushed the whole wall down with one hand!" a boy, perhaps sixteen with long, brown hair, shouts questioningly.
"It's worse than that," I say, and the room quiets. While I don't want that to become everyone's default reaction to when I speak up, I don't mind it in this situation.
"So it's even bigger than that!?" the same boy asks in shock.
I notice Eren and his friends frown at me, probably thinking that I'm fear mongering, and I quickly explain.
"No, it wasn't nearly large enough to critically damage the wall itself. That wasn't what I meant."
The whole room is looking at me now, and I start to remember that day as I continue.
"The Colossal Titan stood at approximately sixty meters tall, which is just enough that it was able to peek its head over the wall back then," I say, in a somewhat monotone voice.
"Well if its smaller than I'd heard, how is that worse, then?" the same boy asks, and now he too is frowning, probably thinking that I'm messing with him purposely with my accidentally round about way of talking.
"It's worse, because if it had just been a regular, run of the mill titan, we'd be able to kill it no problem, even if it was big enough to push one of the walls over," I say confidently, earning a large number of looks from those around me, most of which are incredulous.
I look at the boy, who's name I still don't know, and explain, "Its too large to be able to handle a few good soldiers equipped with 3DMG's and extra large blades up close. It'd be like you trying to catch five bees with your bare hands before even one lands on the back of your neck and stings you."
Now the looks being directed at me are more ponderous than anything, and I can already imagine what the teen's next question will be.
"What are you saying?"
I was right.
"I'm saying that the Colossal Titan is worse than just a really really big titan because, somehow, nobody who used to stand on top of Wall Maria for a living noticed it, a fucking sixty meter tall monster with no skin, until it was already close enough to kick open our gate. What I'm saying is, even worse than being large enough to kick one of our wall's gates open, is the fact that that is exactly what it did!," I yell, suddenly pissed that nobody else in the room has managed to puzzle out the true horrors of that incident, even after two years.
"W-what do you mean," the teen, who has apparently become the room's spokesperson, asks fearfully. I realize that I'm getting too emotional and try and tone it back with a steadying breath.
I'm much more calm when I reply a moment later with, "Look, here are the facts. Fact one: A sixty meter tall titan managed to sneak up on the Garrison soldiers standing watch on top of Wall Maria. Fact two: Instead of mindlessly clawing at Wall Maria, or perhaps trying to pulling itself up and over, the Colossal Titan instead found and destroyed the only weak spot in the entire structure. Fact three: The Colossal Titan has now disappeared. It isn't back at the edge of the wall trying to walk towards us like it should be; I know; when I was forced back out with the other Wall Maria refugees a year ago I checked. Now tell me, Mister Whatever Your Name Is, exactly what part of that sounds like normal, brainless titan behavior? Because to me, it sounds like, in addition to being nigh immortal, nigh unkillable, bigger and stronger and faster and very possibly more numerous than us, the titans are also intelligent. Sneaking up on us, attacking our weak points, withdrawing their stronger pieces back to safety after use like its chess; even going so far as to let the weaker but more numerous 'pawns' take the front? Now do you see why just a really, really big, but stupid, titan would be preferable?"
The room is deathly silent and full of pale faces, and suddenly I realize that perhaps my words were not the best for fresh, future-titan-fighting cadets to hear on their first day here.
"Seems like I've got the right idea, then," a voice suddenly declares from the table across from mine.
I look and find the owner of the voice, a masculine faced boy who looks to be in the younger half of his teenage years, maybe fifteen, with light brown hair that's longer on the top than the sides, looking my way.
"You're the guy who wanted to join with the Military Police, right?" I ask with a frown. "Because you don't want to get killed by the titans?"
He smirks cockily at me and says, "Well yeah, that's me. Name's Jean. It's like you said, they're bigger, they're stronger, and there may even be more of them than us! The only option I see is to get as far away from those things as I can. It doesn't sound very heroic, but I'm not the kind of guy who lies to himself or thinks that dying for no reason is a good idea."
I notice Eren Yeager, who I'd almost forgotten about, start to scowl and open his mouth, but before he can say whatever he's planning to I flatly declare, "You're an idiot."
"Huh?" he asks, surprised, obviously having expected me to agree with him.
Apparently so did the rest of the room, because quite a few of them are also sporting surprised expressions.
Really?
"Well, its just kinda dumb, innit?" I ask, cocking my head sideways in confusion. "How your plan to survive against the titans, who have already proven that they can easily breach our walls whenever they want to, is to hide behind more walls?"
Jean's not an idiot, I realize, because even though a few others in the room are surprised by my observation, idiots, its obvious to me that Jean, at least, has already considered this fact.
Its just accepting it that he's having trouble with, probably.
"Really," I continue, "ironically enough, even though it has the worst survival rate, if you truly don't want to die, the only thing to do is join the Recon Corp."
That declaration draws more than a few cries of disagreement from those around me, but I just shrug my shoulders and say, calmly, "It may just be my opinion, but the way I see it, now that we've seen that we can't keep the titans out, the only thing left to do is try with absolutely everything we have, as a species, to slaughter all of them until they're extinct."
The teens and preteens around me explode into murmurs and I turn back in my seat, tired of talking about such stuff, and say, to no one in particular, "Realistically, at this point, either we'll kill all of them, or they'll kill all of us. Its a spear being thrust at us that we can't hide from, can't block, can't dodge. We'll either lash out and try to stab them first or we'll die without having even tried; cowering in fear. Both can end with us dead, yeah, but only by attacking, by killing them first, can we possibly hope to not be killed ourselves."
"We'll be stabbed either way," the pretty girl next to Eren, who's been silent as the grave so far and who's name I still don't know, says solemnly, staring dead at me with such intensity I can almost physically feel it, even from within Collar.
"Yeah," I acknowledge her with a shrug, "but I've been stabbed a couple of times before myself, and I'm still here. Three guesses as to why. You understand?"
She keeps her eyes locked onto mine, and stays silent for a long couple of seconds.
The room is still, waiting for her answer, just like me.
Instead of speaking, she simply extends her hand right hand, five fingers and a palm of alabaster perfection, across the table towards me in silence.
I blink, and slowly reach up and grasp her hand, which I absently notice is still larger than mine, despite its delicate appearance, and shake it gently.
"My name is Mikasa Ackerman," she says, "and yes, I think I understand what you mean, perfectly."
I smile within my muzzle.
-Rage Against-
Author's Note
Short first chap, but I felt that this was the scene to stop on. For those of you who may be wondering, while I am all caught up on the anime, SNK's manga is unfortunately not something I've been able to get my hands on just yet. As such, expect for a few canonical divergences, and perhaps even a few tweaks to what we've been shown in the AoT anime as well. I'm extremely excited to get this fic going, and am already working on the next chapter, which will hopefully be approximately twice as long as this pilot. More notes; To see the helmet that I took inspiration from, look up 'Elfen Lied Helmet'. Collar is basically designed the same, save for the fact that it extends lower and wraps around Adam's neck and the fact that it is without seams, so instead of having the back section attached via two metal joints like that helmet, Collar just smoothly continues back as one piece until it wraps around Adam's neck.
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to either Shingeki no Kyojin or Attack on Titan, and do not stand to make any monetary gain from this work of fan fiction.