1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3. I counted the beat to the waltz. I watched as my father and my new mother danced for great joy across and around the ballroom amongst a variety of other family friends and wealthy family associates.

I, Reinhardt von Mackensen, was born in a little duchy in Wall Sina. My father, August, was the duke. My mother, Luna, was his wife, another noblewoman. She died of the plague when I was five.

Of course, the idea of having a whole family again excited me greatly. My father found love in a wealthy merchant's daughter, named Ciel, in Shiganshina district. Like the gentleman he was, they married in her hometown instead of his. Now was the after-party's dance.

The couple of the hour approached me. "You look bored, my boy," said my father. I was indeed bored, and wanted to dance. I had no partner. I expressed this complaint, and soon found myself clumsily dancing with my mother. I didn't mind the awkwardness caused by the gap in our heights and my lack of experience. I finally had a whole family after six long years of waiting!

…

Or so I thought. As my new loving mother and I danced, I heard a great, distant crack, a thundering boom near me, and blacked out.

I awoke to see nothing but death and destruction. I saw my mother, pinned under a boulder. I begged her to talk to me, to move, but I received nothing but a distant gaze.

It hit me, then. She was dead.

I looked around me to see that the ballroom was littered with debris. Everyone seemed to still be reeling in shock, which suggested I had not been out more than a matter of seconds, perhaps. An older man took my arm as the ballroom's inhabitants fled the building. At the corner of my eye, I saw that my father's seat at the banquet table had a boulder occupying it.

My mother's dead eyes, and the last sighting of my father before I got up to dance consumed my mind. Everything was numb, and then darkness.

I awoke on a rather densely occupied boat. The older man who took me from the building earlier noticed and turned me to face him. I saw the regret and pain in his eyes.

"Why? Why are my parents dead?" was all I could muster. I was lifeless, expressionless, empty.

"...I...son, look." mumbled the man. He was at a loss for words at I was. But he was pointing. I turned in the pointed direction.

An infestation was what I would call it today. An infestation, no, an invasion of those wretched, man-eating beasts. The city was flooded with Titans. There was a gaping hole in the city's once-proud gates. I put two and two together, and it was clear then that the rubble from the gate's destruction was what... did this to me.

"I'll kill them all...every last one of them!" said a voice next to me. It was a shorter boy about my age. Next to him, he had a girl, seemingly an Oriental, and a blonde haired boy nervously hearing his words. I approached them, needing answers. "Why are these...demons here? Why did they kill my family?" I asked.

The look of hurt in the eyes of the brown-haired boy and the girl told me their story. They suffered the same thing.

This trio, who uncomfortably briefed me on what happened, soon became my best friends. Eren was the brown-haired boy's name. The small blond was Armin, and finally the girl was Mikasa. Eren projected his incredible hatred for Titans into a rousing speech on how he was going to become a soldier and make good on his promise of annihilation of the monsters. So was I going to.

That fateful day, this sheltered boy became a lion.

A lion that would not be tamed.

Thanks for reading! Now, a few things I want to confirm before we get into Chapter One. Real chapters will usually be longer than this!

Reinhardt:

Is not a Titan Shifter.

Does not have any secret powers.

Is, however, an excellent and almost innate warrior.

I plan on him being somewhere around Mikasa's skill level, though most likely a little lower. If it feels right and not too ridiculously OP, he might be stronger. Just know that if he were a teammate in AOT 2, the game, he'd be an S-rank at the least.