Quick Author's Note: So here's my attempt at writing an AoT story and just letting it lead me where it will. I hope to continue it regardless, but I would appreciate any sort of serious feedback or reviews anyone reading may have. Also an extra warning: this story will be graphic and will deal with a lot of subjects people can get uncomfortable with (more so down the road). Read at your own discretion.

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"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary;

men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."

- Joseph Conrad

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.

.

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Where had it all gone?

.

.

It didn't seem possible.

.

.

It wasn't possible.

.

.

"Did you hear me?"

.

.

"Yes."

.

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It wasn't fair.

.

.

.

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It was the third time it had happened in the last month.

Despite being close to the end of the gloomy and testy January it had been, Joe couldn't help but fight down initial feelings of rage that came on unwanted. From his position on the bench he could see across the park to the only other person who had chosen this as their place of study, solace, or what have you as the weekend ended with its usual abruptness.

She was a small blonde from what he could tell; he had spent a lengthy few moments being mesmerized by the way the biting wind tossed and toyed with her hair, but had escaped its song and had returned to his work only to find that minutes later, he was going to need to intervene again.

How many of these damn types exist?

The perpetrators this time were only three in number which meant (in theory) his very real looking toy wouldn't need to rear at them. They approached her, loudly spouting crude appreciation for her looks.

She was clearly attempting to ignore them but was unfortunately succeeding only in egging them on. The low hanging pants wearer who must have been the ringleader stepped forward heavily and closed her laptop forcefully. Now she raised her head only to offer something that was clearly along the lines of "Not interested." Too stupid to take a hint, the three continued laughing and instigating.

By this time, Joe had crossed the field and was close to enough to be heard through a raised voice.

"Fairly certain she's not interested guys."

He hated the amount of brainless rude schmucks that meandered this park; the more he saw, the angrier he got. Acting as his own sort of moderator was all he could do to keep from letting his emotions completely take control.

Now they turned to regard him, all pretense of being noisy and suave vanishing as quickly as the wind. He saw the annoyance and anger in their eyes, but no clear signs of being under any kind of influence.

That'll make this easier he thought, mentally cracking his knuckles as the ringleader spoke.

"You know, at no point did I see anyone invite you into this conversation, bitch," the one in the middle tried, throwing all the derision and spit into the statement as he could.

Cute Joe smiled inwardly except you already lost that one.

"I didn't recall seeing you gentlemen receive an invite from her neither."

"My face is my invitation, you little shit. Now how's about you get the fuck outta here fore I bust one in your head."

Not concerned at this point, but certainly now intrigued, Joe offered a winning smile.

"What with?"

In a dramatically sloppy show, the ringleader reached into his several sizes too large sports coat. Eyes on him all the way, Joe waited until he saw a flash of nickel within the coat's seemingly endless depths before rolling his hand to his back and drawing an onyx handgun as fast as a blink.

"Not gonna lie man, totally thought you were bluffing. Now hit the shit before I show you how capping actually works."

The stunned into silence boys paused only briefly before turning tail and vanishing around the corner of the library without a glance back. Tossing a careful look around to ensure his act of aggression hadn't been witnessed by any passerby, Joe returned the gun to its tucked spot before turning to the girl. Up close, he imagined she was around his age; she had a small yet striking form and powerful eyes. Damn powerful eyes, he felt pressured just making eye contact.

"You a student here?" he prodded, by way of conversation.

"No."

Well that was certainly a daisy. Not often would a saved damsel not offer any sort of verbal thanks; not that it happened often, but this response was certainly unexpected. Possibly a little refreshing. Joe sensed that there was a lot more to this one then met the eye and, prepared to leave it at that, he offered a real smile before turning back to his belongings.

"That's not a real gun is it?"

He stopped.

Daisy and a half.

"Pardon?"

She gestured towards his midsection.

"The screws and the barrel. Both are wrong. And I'm pretty sure I saw the warning written on the side. Not to…

He threw up his hands in an act of mock surrender.

"You got me."

She turned back towards her computer flipping it up to resume work while adding,

"I had it handled."

He tilted his head, brow furrowing in confusion.

Well let's not get too carried away.

Completely prepared to offer his own opinion on who could have managed the handling of the situation, he only managed to collect his thoughts before she reached into her bag and yanked out a Glock and proceeded to drop the magazine and pop the one in the chamber before holding it up to him with raised eyebrows. As she asked a question, he found himself annoyed and shocked that not only had she pulled and unloaded a real gun, she had done it in the same time it had taken him just to pull a fake one.

"Know what this is?"

He swallowed before answering, doing his best to keep a level tone. Sure he knew his guns, but didn't want to sound a wimp letting her know.

"Glock-19 by the looks."

"What generation?"

"Third. You can tell by the rail and the thumb… "

She smiled for the first time before finishing his sentence.

"… rests on both sides."

She reloaded and stowed the gun with similar speed and began to type.

"There may be hope for you yet."

Not sure how he felt about this sudden turn of events, he mirrored the actions of the gentlemen whom he had previously threatened, before finishing his turn and striding uncertainly back to his spot. He caught a glimpse of the name on her login screen, Reiss.

Well Miss Reiss… can't say I expected that.

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She never let it show that if bothered her; she would never give him that.

As his gin soaked breath rolled down her back and he thrust his decaying manhood into her, she did her best to focus on whatever else she could to keep herself elsewhere mentally.

We're supposed to take the larger shipment forty-two miles out on the first… I have to get my rifle cleaned well before then, it was acting up last weekend… Annie mentioned we'd need to swing by the backway before going in tonight to make sure the vehicles are stocked… definitely low on ACP rounds… ever since that screw up at downtown fucked us to…

Dammit. She couldn't even keep metaphorical terms at bay. Biting her lower lip as he thrust unexpectedly hard, she tried to get back into the solitude of her own head, but failed as he began to really enjoy himself.

"Yeah… I know you like it. You don't make a sound, but I'm betting you love this like I do..."

His hands moved up to pinch her nipples which were involuntarily erect. She lowered her head in disgust; she couldn't even remember the last time she had been properly aroused.

As he changed his grip to hold her waist just above her butt, she realized for the umpteenth time how little all her power was of use to her in this situation, a situation that kept coming back.

Her impressively chiseled form, her skill in hand to hand combat, her marksmanship… all of it failed to be of any use when she was dragged back to her childhood during these visits to her parents which had, as of late, unfortunately increased in frequency.

She had done her best to hide the trips from her friends and fellow "employees"; she could never tell them what was done to her in the late of night by the man who was supposed to have raised her. Despite being mostly on equal footing with the rest of them in the records, she had taken natural command of most of their operations and they had become her true family.

Certainly more than this one.

Her mother, just down the hall was surely bawling into a pillow; she wouldn't ever bring herself to try and intervene in this nightly ritual after what had happened the last time she had tried. She had told her boss and her friends that the scars had come from a nasty fall down a mountain after a strenuous hike; that had sounded better in her head then explaining how her father had whipped her with a scourge that was supposed to be nothing more than a prop used in one of his bizarre, twisted films. And while it had been covered in fake blood from time to time on camera, off the set it had become one of her demons after claiming a fair share of real blood.

Hearing an increase in his panting and a slowness in the forced intercourse, she gently but sternly rolled him over and began to ride him much faster then he had been fucking her from behind. It made her sick, but she had to end this as quickly as she could; much more in here and she might finally snap.

After what seemed like hours, he signaled his climax and she pulled off to let him shower her face with his seed. He never came in her, but had come close on a few occasions, when he was more intoxicated than normal.

Offering only a disturbing guttural laugh, he threw her to the ground and walked out of the room closing her door. She waited a long time until his telltale snores echoed from down the hall. Only then did Mikasa rise to her feet to clean herself.

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Another nightly walk never failed to get him thinking about the hated future. He always went with the intention of clearing his mind of the negative and focusing on nothing, but more often than not, the opposite happened. This particular eve found him swearing silently to the skies as a result of his hate for having to take a language to be a history major.

Truly though, if he planned to fulfill a career busying himself with historical events and works, what was the damn point of two semesters of wasting his time with dead gibberish? Granted he had chosen the language himself but in his eyes, they were all as meaningless. Spitting angrily, he continued down the path that was never lit, towards the shadow of the mountain. Despite the apparent blackness, the near full moon allowed him enough sight to manage a short paced walk.

On him he had only his jacket, wallet, phone, and, just for shits and giggles, a replica non-firing Colt .45 revolver. While it could do little else then look pretty, his was loaded with six blanks in case he needed to deter a possible mugger or a violent drunk. He nearly fired one towards the moon in his state of ire.

Seriously, two fuckin semesters? Isn't just one enough or do you really want your pound of flesh and blood to go with another?

Unleashing one of his frequent heavy sighs, he got his emotions under control and continued.

On this particular dirt path, the only traffic it ever received at night was the occasional nighttime jogger or dog walker, but this late he dismissed it as very unlikely that either one would be out. Therefore, it went without saying that he froze mid step when he heard a very faint but very distinct shout ahead in the darkness. He waited about a minute before moving forward, much more slowly. After roughly a hundred paces he noticed a soft orange light of the trail towards the hug of the mountain and the soft and consistent breeze of voices sliding through the trees.

Now while eavesdropping was hardly something Joe practiced normally, on this night with his blank firing gun, he felt an irresistible tug towards the other human life out in the cold this late as him.

Moving towards the spot where the path gave way to true forest, he stepped cautiously forward, not wanting any sort of attention to be drawn towards himself. If at any point he deemed he should swing around, he wanted to be able to do so as the ghost he was trying to be. Not hauling ass with others following, shouting in raised voices.

Let's just be super quiet and see what we can see. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. YOLO…

His damn excuse for everything stupid he attempted.

Not stopping to question the obvious as to what would be gained by spying on unknown individuals out in the forest in the middle of the night, he continued to push up to the clearing where the voices were coming from. The spot was well off the path; if not for the lights, he likely would never have spotted it. The lights, as it turned out, were being projected by three vehicles, two black Sedan looking cars and something that, quite frankly, could have easily passed for a mini APC. It had its lights off but its presence was clear in its foreboding shadow.

Now having identified the fifty or so square feet of space and the vehicles, Joe moved his eyes to the people. There were three men with their backs to him and facing them were six young women. Moments before conversation resumed, he was shocked to notice that one of them was the small blonde girl he had encountered in the park two days prior. He noticed second, but no less importantly, every single person was holding some kind of firearm, ranging from a single 1911 pistol to some clear looking Kalashnikov rifles.

"Look… all we want is to head back and check with our guys… we got no clue where the other hundred grand went…"

The man in the middle of the trio spoke now, and each of them looked less than comfortable. One of the girls, sitting on the hood of the sedan on their side cracked a smile before retorting. She looked faintly native but had all the skepticism of a full blown American.

"Well that's pretty special. And here I thought everything was going to go without a hitch."

She gestured with her AK-47 towards the three men before looking at the girl to her left, still smiling.

"I'm thinking we pop one, you know, just so they know we're serious, then haul the other two back until we get the other half."

"Shut up Ymir."

The response came not from the one she had addressed, but from the girl who was clearly in charge. She was at least as tall as Ymir who looked to be about the peak height of the group. She had raven hair to about her shoulders and was packing a heavy looking revolver. Smith and Wesson perhaps.

Those eyes…

She inclined her head very slightly towards the men before speaking to them in a very steady and low voice.

"Six days ago we agreed on two hundred g's. We were promised that money this evening as long as we supplied the product, which we have. Now, you look to be pretty low chain lackeys so I'm not blaming you, at least not yet. All I want is for you to answer this simple question: where's the other half?"

That always hated awkward silence followed. The girl who Ymir had spoken to blew out a long breath.

"I gotta say, I'm with Ymir on this one, if we make it look like…"

"Shut up Ym… uh, Ilse."

This came from the brunette who looked slightly too excited to be there.

"I mean, my name's Ilse, I've been working with y'all for a while…"

Despite an air of light heartedness, Joe sensed this was a situation about to blow up. It came down to whether the three men were telling the truth, or, if not, would be willing to give up their due before stocks came to shoulders. Then, catching his eye as if by will, he saw several stacks of green bills protruding from a sack off to the left behind the women. Hating himself for it, he realized that no one was watching it. He began to work his way around far to the left.

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It certainly wasn't showing, but Mikasa was getting angry; Annie could tell by her breathing. It had increased ever so slightly in frequency and she saw the slow change in her grip on her Python. She would stay in control though, that was something that never changed.

Not that she herself wasn't getting annoyed; if she had it her way, Annie would have shot these three punks minutes ago.

Speaking for all of them, Sasha spoke up, proceeding herself with a long sigh.

"Guys, here's the thing. Regardless of who's attempting to fuck who in this here situation, we need to get paid. So you tell us where the money is or you're gonna have to hurt: plain and simple."

She smiled broadly as she asserted this and Annie very softly shook her head. It would take some serious extremes to get Sasha to not smile.

"I mean, we should hurt em regardless right…? Like if only for wasting our time…"

Typical Ymir. Hoping to scare the shit out of these losers before the inevitable. Sasha replied with a slow shrug.

"Well yea, but I was kinda not gonna tell them that…"

"Oh shit, you right…"

Krista slugged her in the shoulder earning a very exaggerated "Owwwwww."

Lowering his head and speaking more to the ground then anyone else, the middleman uttered once more.

"I swear to all of you, we were just given that money and no more, I don't know what to tell you, the money was a pickup."

As he spoke, Mikasa turned very slightly to catch Annie's eye before addressing the men one last time, confirming what the blonde already knew. Unnoticed, she thumbed the safety off her double-action Luger.

"Well, if that's really the truth, I guess we can all go our separate ways."

The three men's eyes widened with surprise and relief; they slowly began to lower their firearms.

"Just one more thing. Annie?"

All eyes on her, the blonde spoke for the first time that night as, with lightning speed, she brought her sidearm up.

"Auf Wiedersehen."