Just a little idea I got! It's a sorta steam punk world, I guess? Maybe this story, will turn out nice who knows. I hope you enjoy!
Note: Rated M for later chapters, Eren x Levi, Levi x Eren, maybe some other pairings as well soon enough?
Greasy Gloves and Sky High Confidence
"Hey, Eren! We got a customer." Mikasa called from the garage. I threw a soot-stained towel over my right shoulder and jogged towards the garage. At the entrance, I could see a red-faced hog with a bulging stomach patting a sizeable lump of scrap metal by his side. Mikasa was in front of him, listening to his sob story with no interest shown in her charcoal eyes. I stepped up right next to her and in front of the man babbling on and on about his beloved buggy fell off a cliff into a river. It apparently took a whole week to gather all the remains of this dear old vehicle.
"We'll see what we can do to fix it right up, sir." I said after he finished talking. I viewed the scraps and then turned to glance at Mikasa. She nodded silently right back at me and fished out her greasy gloves, dirty from use, out of her brown overalls pocket. She slid them right on her calloused fingers and as did I with my pair.
"Let's get to work, Eren." She clapped her hands together and whipped the silky, black hair away from her face. I let out a confident grunt and grabbed my toolbox from the table. Twirling a wrench on my pointer finger, I went to work on making this ruined shit good as new.
Hours of sweat, blood, and burns, we finally got the buggy back in piece by piece. A new gas engine did just the trick to get this old lad running again. Clean welds of copper and copper held the whole thing together, and I'm sure it would last longer than it did as long as this boy doesn't crush it just by sitting in it. I ran my hand over the slick and shiny top just after getting out from under it.
"Good as new, sir." I pounded it and it made an echo in the small, concrete garage. "Positive that the engine will add a few more years to this bug." I reached in from the door and pulled a lever that made the engine roar to life. The thick man chortled and patted by back with his sausage hands.
"Thanks there, lad and the lady," He turned to acknowledge Mikasa, "Arlert Company sure has the youngest engineers I've seen in my damned life, but it's good to know they're better than some of those big companies out there." He slapped a large bill in the palm of my hand and climbed in the new car, it tilting side to side as he did, and sped off down the road into the fog of pollution.
I waved the bill in front of Mikasa's face and went inside the house. Slipping off my one size too big, combat boots, I stepped on the polished wooden floor, blotches of white from age.
"Armin, we just got finished with that disaster. Mind taking the money to the register?" I called out with a voice that nearly has lost its German accent but still held a bit of rasp-iness to it. Armin's footsteps padded down the stairs and he came and delicately snatched the bill out of my hands. He walked into the kitchen and we could hear a distinct 'ding'. He came back into the room and took one look at us.
"God, who used the fucking blowtorch this time?" He asked, exasperated after looking at our marks and burns.
"We both did, Armin." Mikasa replied monotonously as always. Armin let out a sigh and grabbed both of us by the wrist.
"The hell am I gonna do with you guys when someone catches on fire?" There he goes, overreacting. He is very logical and intelligence but it's probably just because he cares about us. Afterall, he and his grandfather were the ones to take me and Mikasa in when our parents died in the third war. We now run the engineering company with them. Back then, it was just Armin's grandpa and his dad, but his dad died along with our parents, same with his mom. It was just us, but we were happy this way. We got food, clothes, and love so it didn't matter which way.
Soup, bread, and greens. It's like that nearly everyday, not like it's enjoyable. The pollution outside probably rotted everything in the market. I took a large chomp out of my bread and slurped down my soup, while half of it probably dripped down my chin. Mikasa pulled out a hanky and wiped my face while I tried to push her away in vain. Satisfied with my cleanliness, she took a spoonful of her own soup and slid it in her mouth. Armin's grandpa had some meeting with his friends today, so it was the three of us now, but not for long as the door creaked open just then. Armin stood up to get his Grandpa's serving from the stove and set it on the table. Grandpa Arlert sat down and gratefully nodded at Armin. He cleared his throat and pulled out a rumpled up flyer that had been ripped off it's post.
"Said another wars starting. That's exactly what we need to knock this society off its regained balance from the last war." Grandpa Arlert snorted in doubt as he continued on, "It's apparently gettin' citizen volunteers. Men and women of all ages... Looks like it's desperate to get itself out of the fucking gutter."
I took another look at the flyer in the middle of the table. What the hell are these 'newly invented robots'? I pulled the flyer towards me and read the small print in the middle of the page.
"German engineers have just created the perfect battling device called the Titan. It is a gasoline powered humanoid robot made completely from indestructible material. Only the most skilled and the most brave-hearted will be able to control the titan and lead us to victory."
I nodded and slid the flyer back to its original spot. My emerald eyes gleaming with anticipation, I proudly announced,
"I'm gonna join this war."
Thanks for reading! I appreciate it! Next chapter may be up soon.