The Shifters' War

General Archie Johnson, an average sized, black haired man, walked swiftly down the hallway, taking great strides towards the door at the end of the hall. He had so many things on his mind, and he wasn't even paying attention to his surroundings. He ran straight past a soldier walking out of a room to his left, ramming into her shoulder, but wouldn't stop.

"Excuse you, sir!" She called out to him rudely. Archie simply grunted in reply, not really paying attention.

He arrived at the end of the hall and opened to door, where others were waiting for him. One of them stood up from their seat as soon as he opened the door. It was General Erik Smith, who was a friend of Archie's.

"General Johnson, thank goodness you have come. Riots have started up again an-" Erik began.

"Again? I thought that they stopped after last time," Archie interrupted.

"Don't interrupt me, Archie. Now, unfortunately, they have rallied up some forces with them this time. I'm afraid that you'll have to take your, apparently named, 'Survey Corps' to call them down," Erik continued.

"No," Archie said forcefully. "You and I have seen what happened last time riots started up. They have MORE than just the usual guns now. They have some of the greatest scientists on their side. We've been through this for sixteen years now! You haven't seen what I have seen! Although they can't become titans, like us, they have these things that may grow to become stronger than us in the future."

Erik looked at Archie skeptically. He asked, "And what, pray tell, are these 'things' that might over power us and end the war?"

"Robots," Archie stated simply.

This caused a few people to stand up out of their seats and start yelling at Archie. Archie, however, saw this coming. His people, known as shifters, are often stubborn and won't accept new information, but Archie was telling them the truth. He had seen the machines with his own eyes, well, eye.

Archie had just recently became a general, and he was leading his corps, the Survey Corps, out to stop the normal humans from attacking their area. He thought that he knew what to expect, guns, cannons, and anything else, but he was ever so wrong.

He and his corps set foot on the battle field and there it was. A giant robot stood in front of the humans, prepared for action. This, of course, was a sign for the shifters to transform into their titan forms. However, the man made machine was quick, quicker than expected. It began to attack the shifters in a blink of an eye. Insanity ensued after that moment, and blind fighting began between them.

Archie didn't hold back. He led his soldiers straight into the fight, and he wouldn't back away like a coward. He wasn't a little sixteen year old watching his anime shows anymore. This was war, and he was a part of it.

He was able to get the soldiers into titan form, but it was at a cost. As the twenty-five meter robot rampaged through the herd of shifters, there were a few that didn't make it out. A few were stepped on, but most were being picked up and torn apart by the gigantic robot. Archie's eyes widened in horror, as some of his closest comrades were literally ripped limb from limb. Their blood and body part littered the battle field.

Archie didn't- couldn't look back. As a soldier, he was trained to keep moving forward without looking back. That is exactly what he did. He continued to kill off the human soldiers, easily. At one point, he narrowly missed the robot's clutches.

His soldiers began to retreat. Archie roared at them to stay, but it only caused them to shift into human form and run faster. Archie yelled at them one last time before the robot smacked him in the back of his neck.

Archie was stunned for a moment, but quickly regained himself. He didn't want to be off guard during the middle of a battle. He jumped back onto his feet and swung his fist at the robot, but it was faster than him. He was so much slower in titan form. The robot pinned him down onto the ground.

The robot took out something that must have been saved especially for him, the commanding general. It's metal hand, from wrist to fingertips, began to twist, turn, and shorten. The hand retreated into the arm and nothing but a hole was there.

A clicking sound came from the shoulder. Archie, meanwhile, was struggling to get out of the robot's grip, with no such luck. Within a moment, a fire came out of the arm and sprayed Archie in the face. Archie, badly hurt, was forced to shift back into human form. The robot still gripping him.

He turned back, but that only seemed to increase the pain upon his face. Not expecting this, he screamed out into the open air and fell upon the ground. He laid there, eyes open for a moment.

A round of victory shouts came from the humans, but the robot looked like it was short circuiting. Sparks flew off of it's head and the lights in it's eyes began to flicker on and off. The machinery inside of it began to slow down until it finally ceased. The robot then fell over with a thud that launched Archie into the air. He blinked once before jolting upright and running off just as the others had done, holding the left side of his face the whole way.

What made no sense to him was, why did the burns remain on him? After he was attacked with that fire and shifted back, it remained on his face. Normally, when he was injured, it would simply go away as soon as he shifted into another form. He thought about this throughout his travel to base.

Archie dared not to speak of the incident, no matter how many times anybody asked him what had happened. He simply had the left side of his face patched up, then went to check out the casualties. He didn't say a word to anybody the moment he walked into the base.

Of course, wild, strange, and none the less fantastic, fake stories sprung up about him. He never showed his face to anybody again. The burns stayed there, and he used his hood to cover it at all times.

After all of those weeks, the humans have began to riot again. There he stood in front of all of the commanders, finally revealing the truth about what happened that fateful day when seven of his fellow shifters died.

Archie took a breath and yelled above them, "I am not lying! I have seen them before! That one day that seven of our soldiers died on the field, that wasn't just some freak incident where the humans overpowered us once."

Everybody stopped yelling at him. Archie looked at Erik, who nodded at him to continue.

"I had seen the one robot that they had formed of that one day. They attacked and they won, but it was all because of that damn robot! I could have driven them away, but I couldn't!" Archie yelled at them.

Erik, with a straight face, walked over and put a hand on Archie's shoulder. "Why didn't you tell us this before?" He asked, calmly.

Archie sighed. He said, "It didn't matter."

Erik frowned at him and stepped back. Everyone in the room was staring at Archie, disapproving of him and his response.

"But that's not all," Archie continued. "It... Burned me, on the left side of my face. When I turned back into my human form, the burns didn't go away, and they still haven't."

Archie took hold of his hood and pulled it back. Some of the people jumped back, others gasped in awe. Archie's face was terribly marred and shredded. The skin was red and still swollen, especially near his eye. Some areas looked like they had been torn, stitched up, and torn again. In all, it wasn't very pleasant, for Archie or the witnesses.

Archie deeply swallowed and looked up at them. "Let's go and destroy these riots, but first," he paused. "I need some reinforcements."

The others granted his wishes and sent two other teams under his command named the Garrisons, and the Military Police. Of course, this was formed under the little time that they had. After all, General Johnson was a well known and trusted general. They marched into battle under his command, and things were worse than expected.

They had five of those robots.

Archie, standing next to Erik, looked over at his old friend. Erik, in return, nodded at Archie. Archie shouted out to his soldiers, "Attack!"

The people from both sides began to yell and charge each other. The humans, on their side, started up their machines, and the shifters, on their side, started to turn into their titan forms. They started to attack each other.

Most of the shifters aimed for the robots first. The robots, however, seemed to be more powerful for just one of them. It took five of the shifters to take down just one of them. It was difficult to do so, since the robots had more weapons than their bare fists, like the shifters.

Meanwhile, when the shifters, humans, and robots were fighting, a few humans were controlling the robots miles away from the actual battle. It took about ten men to control one of the robots, each one at a computer around the room.

At the front of the room was a large screen split into five parts. Each of them showed the world outside of the robots' eyes. One of them was dead. The shifters had taken that one down already. The supervisor was watching over the screens, deeply frowning.

He turned to the programmers and said with force, "Give them more power."

One of the programmers looked up at the supervisor and stood from his seat. He replied, "But sir, we have given them so much power already. If we give them anymore, we don't know what will happen to the soldiers or the robots. They might malfunction."

The supervisor growled at looked at the programmer. He told him, "I'll tell you what will happen. We give the robots more force, they begin to fight even harder, and we'll finally be rid of those monsters."

"But-" the programmer began.

The supervisor interrupted, "No buts! You are supposed to follow my orders, not the other way around. This is why I am supervisor and not you. Get to it!"

The programmer, defeated, sat down and began to work. The robots, in return, got a sudden burst of power that caused them to work faster. This took down at least twice as many shifters than before. The shifters needed to change tactics, and fast.

Archie and Erik noticed the increased speed and silently began plotting a new plan. Archie, impatient, ran up to a robot and tried to hit it in the face. The robot, at the same time, tried to do the same thing. Their fist collided and both of them were sent flying back into two different directions. The force was so strong that is caused Archie to turn back into his human form, and the robot had its metal skull bashed in.

A thunderous crack sounded along with the sound of what seemed like fabric being slowly torn in half. Archie looked up at the sky, where the sounds originated. There, directly in the center of the sky, was a narrow strip of black that didn't have any back to it.

"What is that?" Archie whispered to himself.

Something small fell out of the black crack. Whatever it was, it fell onto a roof. Archie's eyes never left it. A robot's foot came down directly beside of Archie. He forgot about the object and remembered where he was. Quickly, he turned into his titan form and began to fight again.

To his surprise, Archie found that there was only one of the robots left to fight. His soldiers came over to help him take down the robot. One of them jumped onto it's back and bit into its head. Erik's titan was trying to pin it down. Archie was the only one who could successfully get a direct hit. He plunged his fist into the robot, and it came out the other side. The robot's eyes flickered off and it crashed onto the ground.

The shifters waited a moment. Then, they let out a victory yell. They had won, but only due to using each other's help.

Archie was the first to shift back into his human form. Now that the robots were taken care of, he wanted to find out what the object was. Looking up, he saw that the black crack was sealed up. He climbed up onto the roof that the object fell onto. He could see where it left a dent, and not too far from it was the thing that fell. Only, it was not a thing.

It was a who.

Archie knew who it was, but it wasn't possible.

He walked over slowly and bent down on one knee in front of the person, who was knocked out.

He whispered, "Mikasa?"