Prologue
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He wanted to think that he had been a good man once, when his family was still alive, when he was just a father and a husband and a bit of a scientist in his free time. His family had been one of inventors after all. He had been a fool to think that his work was for the good of the human kind and it would be good to make it known.
That fire was not an accident. It took his home, the life of his wife and his son. He survived. The dogs of the military police didn't do a good job. They had not destroyed his library or the laboratory, they were underground outside the city. No, they just burnt his family house. He saw the fire from the outside and he tried. He really tried to get in and save them. His scars were proof enough. He supposed that it was fortunate that many saw him go in and nobody saw him leave. He was listed as dead. He was a ghost now.
Oh! They would pay! They would pay deeply. It was not a good idea to let alive a man that knew how to make a bomb strong enough to obliterate the palace and any building next to it. He had been a man of peace but now he had nothing, nothing to loose and nothing to hold him back.
It had been dark times for him. He toyed with that idea, he actually began to work on it. He was very unstable and the fact that he had enclosed himself without any human contact did not help matters.
Then the wall fell. He had to leave his laboratory and his project. It was a relief.
Up to this day he didn't know how he survived to reach Wall Rose when so many didn't. What a waste, he didn't care if he died or lived. Maybe that was the reason. He had no fear and reacted in accordance. It was strange. Those days were like a dream in his memories. A dream of blood and madness. He was the madman because he felt nothing.
It was a boy. It was a boy what awoke him. He was young maybe 9 or 10, the same age of his son. He remembered his eyes. They were so similar...
He fled from them, from the refugees. The only option to men like him, mere beggars now, was the army. He had many reasons. He wanted to know who ordered his execution, he wanted to know why and, to himself, he admitted that he wanted to kill something. His blood-lust was a fact. To kill Titans was more socially accepted than to kill people. So, why not? He had nothing to loose, nobody would mourn him because he was already dead. He did not feel human, a monster to kill monsters. He may do some good that way.
Just like that Alexander Howl entered as new recruit. A false name and age did wonders. He looked young enough to take off a decade. It turned out that he was good. Good enough to choose. He almost chose the Military Police to search for answers but he could not stomach it. It was the Survey Corps then. An early grave they said. Well, that suited him too.
It turned to be a disappointment. He survived his first expedition. It was his stupid perfectionism. He would welcome death but he could not let himself killed just because. The blood soaking him each time he killed one of those monsters was satisfying though.
Nobody would believe it but it was the aftermath of that expedition the first step to regain his sanity. The deaths had left him indifferent but those words... The funny thing was that the man, the commander Erwin, did not know what he had done. It was stupid in its simplicity. "You are needed."
The Survey Corps were a close knit, those who survived at least. It gave the feeling to be part of something. It was a nice sentiment. Not enough to chase away the darkness within but it was an anchor. He did not know when he started to see the fellows at his side as comrades, as people, but it happened. He knew to whom he owed that and his loyalty was given.
Erwin was a good leader but if everything kept going like that he would end making a move against the government. Guess who would be more than willing to help.