Disclaimer: I do not own anything you recognize from the manga and/or anime called Shingeki no Kyojin or Attack on Titan. Anything you don't recognize is mine.
…
Wednesday, June 13
Books were piled on top of each other, some opened and others sprawled across the wooden desk, teetering on the edge, mere centimeters away from falling off. A head of long blond hair was laying on the closest open book, like the small guy who was snoring lightly had fallen asleep right in the middle of reading one of the large words in his college textbook
The only part of his desk that wasn't occupied by ridiculously massive text books was a small rectangular patch where a phone (a pretty inexpensive, sliding one, by the looks of it) rested.
The small, cheap phone buzzed loudly, vibrating through the whole desk. With a yelp, the blond sat upright, the book he had been using as his pillow toppling off the desk to land on the floor with a thud. Snatching up his phone, he gasped when he opened it and saw the time.
"Oh!" he said as his phone buzzed again. He scrambled to his feet, nearly tripping and following his book to the ground. With another almost accusing right, the blond righted himself and dashed to his door, muttering "hang on, hang on, hang on."
He skidded on unsteady feet to the "living room" of a very small apartment. The ragged and extremely ugly couch was half monopolized by another guy who was snoring lightly. Unceremoniously, the blond sat on the side the wasn't taken up and grabbed the remote to a simple looking TV.
With the remote in his right hand and the phone in his left, he hit the power button for the TV and the answered the phone at the same time.
"-World Cup," the TV blared, startlingly the other college kid awake.
"Armin?" came the voice from the phone. "Are you there?"
"What the hell, Armin?" was the irritated question of his roommate. He was even shorter than the already petite Armin with a shaved head and hazel eyes misty with sleep. Armin silently shushed him.
"Armin?" the phone asked again.
"I'm here, Eren," Armin said, ignoring his roommates scowl. "I just turned on the TV. It's the Germany v Ghana game, today, isn't it?"
The roommate groaned. "Oh god. It's your soccer thing again, right? I can't believe you woke me up for soccer."
Pulling the phone away from his mouth, Armin shot his roommate a glare of his own. "Quiet, Connie. It's the World Cup."
Connie muttered something along the lines of whatever and sprawled across the couch again, half his chest dropping off. On the TV, the pundits and commentators gave their opinions on the matchup of the first group game of the World Cup currently being held in Germany.
"-better not lose," Eren was saying over the phone. "Ghana's gotten really good over the years, you know."
"Yeah, but good enough to take on Germany?" Armin asked, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees. "It's not like Germany hasn't been improving either, you know. I have them down winning 3-1. You?"
"2-0," Eren said quietly. Armin let out a little amused huff and he knew Eren was smiling on the other side of the phone as well. There was a beat of silence from the two friends in which Armin heard a bit of noise from Eren's side drift through the phone.
"Where are you?"
Eren hesitated for a second. "I-I'm in a bar." There was another, longer pause this time. "I just had to get out of there for a bit. Mikasa's staying with her."
Armin's eyes darted to Connie (who had fallen back asleep) and then to the TV where the pundits were talking about an injury one of the German defensive players had suffered in the qualifying rounds. "Eren," he said slowly, "you know I would never judge you."
With that, the cameras spun to the stadium, the Ghana and Germany teams lining up on the pitch. "Hey, it's probably about to get really loud in here," Eren said. "I should go."
"Yeah," Armin said slowly. "Talk to you later."
Closing his phone with a look, Armin raised the remote and turned the TV up, ignoring Connie's whine of 'shut up!"
…
Thursday, June 14
Though the roar of the crowd had quieted over the halftime break, it returned in full force as the players began to make their way back onto the pitch. Refreshed but still weary, in his blue, white collared French team uniform, Erd Jinn took his place on the center line. As the center striker waited for the referees whistle to blow, he looked over the other players on the field, starting with the attacking midfielder standing across from him. Levi Ackerman looked no different than he had at the beginning of the match, when they had faced Uruguay zero to zero. The other player's cold eyes were assessing the Uruguayans new half of the pitch, flicking from each player who was lining up, all the way back to the keeper shuffling on his new goal line, and to the back of the goal where a strong shot from Levi had hit the back on the net in the fortieth minute.
Erd knew that everyone watching back in France was hoping Levi could do the same thing again.
The referees shrill whistle sounded and Erd passed the ball to Levi with a firm touch from the sole of his foot. Levi controlled such a pass easily, tapping it with the outside of his right and dribbling quickly down. As fast as he moved, though, a Uruguayan player was on him faster, forcing him to give the ball away to the left winger, Oluo Bozado. Oluo received the pass well, beating his defender with a quick flick of his left foot but slowing when a challenge from one in front of him and one to his immediate right threatened France's possession of the ball.
Seeing the defensive midfielder on his side, Moblit Berner, open down the left touchline, Oluo chipped it over to him. He trapped the ball with his chest, letting it bounce onto the soft grass. No one was near him, so Moblit took the time to take the ball towards the center of the field, making sure to keep one eye out for any advancing players in white uniforms. One broke away to challenge Moblit who then made a decisive pass to his partner on the right, Gunter Schultz.
As soon as Gunter received the ball, the Uruguayan player that had moved to challenge Moblit changed direction to pursue Gunter, followed by another. With a skilled and hard touch, Gunter bounced the ball off a Uruguayan to get a throw in. He took it quickly, vaulting it over the two players' heads to get to Farlan Church, the quick footed and clever right winger.
Unfortunately, the clever right winger did not see a Uruguayan player lurking behind him. In a moment that had Uruguayan fans sucking in hopeful breaths, the player poked the ball away from Farlan.
On fast feet, Gunter snatched the chance away from Uruguay, managing to pull away from the players pursuing him long enough to let Farlan break further down the field before sending a long pass after him. This time, Farlan was in what seemed like miles of open space, and he controlled the ball easily as he dribbled it down the touchline.
Farlan let a player in a white uniform pick him up, let the player follow him down the line, making sure to keep the ball away. Eventually, a defensive back finally surged forward when it became clear the French midfielder wouldn't be stopped by the Uruguayan trailing him. Still, Farlan managed to stay one step before them and flicking it over their heads where it came bouncing to a stop at Levi's feet.
Levi beat the first defender who challenged him but, at the top of the box, three players swarmed him together, leaving Erd, the only player still ahead of Levi, caught in an offsides position. On the side-line, the referee's flag was already twitching.
Nearly boxed in by the three Uruguayan footballers, Levi had no choice other to pass it back, trying to get the ball to Oluo who was cutting in towards the middle. But it was just a moment of right place, right time for the Uruguayan player who the ball ended up at the feet of.
The footballer handled the welcome surprise well, keeping possession easily and long enough to pass it to the Uruguayan full back, Flagon. He sent the ball up the pitch with a hard, long kick and he managed to get it up to the lingering striker from Uruguay who trapped it perfectly and beat the left back with a quick first step. The talent player was redirected from a straight run into the box by a cluster of French players scrambling to get back into a good defensive position.
Chased toward the corner, the left striker fired off a cross to the middle where the center forward failed to control the ball because of the quick interference of the full back, Mike Zacharius. The ball bounced off Mike's shinguard, flying to the left of the net and out of bounds. The referee on the touchline and the one on the field both signaled for a corner kick.
The players of both teams gathered in the penalty box, the keeper for France, Erwin Smith, yelling and directing the French footballer around the net.
The Uruguayan player that took the kick sent the ball high and toward the far post, a near perfect corner kick. The thing that stopped it from being perfect though, was the six foot one French goalkeeper jumping up, snatching the ball out of the air and searching for an open player up field.
The game continued in much of the same fashion, with lots of possession and a few lucky players making quick runs down down the pitch only for the ball to either be blocked by defensive players or punched away or caught by the keeper. The clock slowly began to tick further and further down, past the seventieth minute and heading well into the eightieth. The players of Uruguay steadily became more and more frustrated and desperate for a goal. Unfortunately for them, the French team were also very interested in adding to their goal total.
Farlan received the ball from Erwin and saw a quick gathering of Uruguayan players. He chipped the ball to the middle where Gunter headed it over to the left winger, Oluo, who swiftly passed it to Erd who was open in the middle of the field. Erd was able to retain possession of the ball from an oncoming Uruguayan full back but passed it back to Levi.
Levi beat the first challenge against him and then flicked the ball with the outside of his foot to Moblit who slipped around a Uruguayan player, and gave the ball back to Levi with a crisp and short pass. Levi's speed showed itself again as he passed two Uruguayan players and found his way into the box. As he readied himself to fire off a shot, a cleat dug into the back of his ankle, bringing him crashing down and plunging Levi's world into darkness.
…
Okay, well. Here's the first chapter of that SnK World Cup AU that I've been swearing to do. I'm so glad that I'm finally done with it, and that I could get it out before the World Cup ended.
I know I used a lot of soccer talk and I also know that a lot of people might be a little confused by it so. If you have any questions, just ask me and I'll do my best to explain. Also, I am from the US, so I do say soccer, but I decided to switch between soccer and football, so just be aware of that. I did play soccer for eight years of my life until I was injured, so I know a little about it. Which is actually awesome, because I know about how to do the action scenes instead of just completely making everything up like I do for sword or gun fights and the like. I also know what it's like to collapse on the field in pain and to be carried off it (my knee was dislocated when I was playing), so all of the stuff that I'm going to show about Levi's injury is going to be fairly accurate, although I know from experience that an ankle injury is no where near as painful as a dislocated knee, at least the kind of ankle injury I'm going to give Levi.
And, yes, this is going to be Riren. Just give it sometime. Anyway, thanks for reading the first chapter and please make sure to review. I need some motivation or else the next chapter is going to take a long time. I posted this one just after I finished editing it because I wanted to get it out there before the Word Cup finished, so I don't have anything written for the next chapter. Reviews make the process faster though!
Lots of Love~
Jade