~ Prologue ~
"Hey! Long time; no see." An old man outstretched his arms, motioning to embrace.
A twenty-something woman approached and outstretched her arms too. The two of them hugged.
"My goodness! Dad!" she pulled away. "I never expected to see you here. I thought you were still on the Burgess."
"Well, I pulled a few strings. Your uncle Francis persuaded his boss to let me come. I do have Central's gratitude for saving the 9th Fleet during the Jovian campaign.
"That was... when you had the Sparissa ram the enemy command ship, right?"
"Ah! You remember! I'm pretty sure your mother said you didn't like listening to my stories."
"Well, to be honest... It's kind of hard to forget when almost everyone at the academy brings you up when they talked to me the first semester."
"Ah, I see. But, it's good that you learned the official fleet tactics from your teachers, eh lieutenant?" The father pointed to the patch on her shoulder.
"Yes." She smiled a little. However, her father could notice something wrong.
"Daniel?" He spoke the single word with ragged breath.
She nodded as tears slowly began to form in her eyes.
"Aw, come here." He hugged her and patted her back. "I know. I miss him everyday too."
"He looked too much like you." She said as she wiped the tears away.
"Attention, all personnel assigned to the Epsilon, please report to your posts. Departure is in 15 minutes. This is the final call." A voice on the loudspeaker announced.
"Well, that's me." she remarked. "Thanks for seeing me before I leave Dad."
The father put a hand to his daughter's face and smiled. "Your mother would've been proud." A single tear ran down his face.
"I know." His daughter hugged him once more before making her way to the ship.
As she walked to the connector, her father called out to her. "Come back alive, you hear me!"
"I will! You'll hear my stories when I'm back in a year!"
~ Chapter 01 ~
Armin sat on his green standard-issue cloak, running his fingers between his toes.
"The sand grains here are so small." he expressed with wonder. "Amazing."
"Amazing? This stuff is a pain in the ass. Why'd I even take my boots off?" Jean groaned.
"Why don't you wash it off with the water?"
Jean shot Eren an annoyed look. "Right, and get even moooore sand between my toes."
Eren reciprocated the facial expression. "We have empty canteens, Jean." He pointed to a horse strapped with several small water tanks.
"You fuh–" he stopped himself and sighed heavily. "Thank you."
"Calm down Jean. You're too sensitive." Connie said as he finished filling up a canteen.
Jean turned to face him.
"What?"
Jean sighed and put an arm on Connie's shoulder. "You're right. Old habits."
Connie lurched back, his face marked with a countenance of suspicion. "You're acting weird today..."
Jean shrugged and walked to the water horse. He had just recently visited his dear mother in Trost. She had just recovered from a rough bout with pneumonia. Despite being in such a bad condition, she still maintained a cheerful demeanor. Seeing her like that affected him.
Connie rubbed his chin bewilderment. "He's definitely acting strange today."
Sasha walked by and spotted the canteen in his hand. "Say Connie, can I have some of that water?"
The red haired girl had some jellied bread in her hand– Connie's jellied bread.
His eyes narrowed. "Sasha" he paused to breathe. "...why do you have my bread? And why are you eating MY bread?"
Sasha immediately stopped chewing. "Oh. Ahm sohreh. I dihnt know" She immediately swallowed the food matter and rewrapped the rest of the bread. "I couldn't help myself. It smelled so good."
"You could've asked, Sasha." Connie said in a blunt tone as quickly snatched the bread.
"So... can I get some of that jellied bread?" she asked with a toothy grin.
"What? You just ate half!"
"I'm sorry! I didn't know, okay?"
"Don't worry about it." he expressed his displeasure with a sigh. "I just can't believe that you're still not full after eating an entire half." he said, as he began to wrap the bread paper with twine.
"Can I have some of that water then?" Sasha pointed to the canteen hanging to his side.
"Umm... sure." Connie smirked as he handed the can to her, walking away as soon as she started to open the top.
"Aghh!" Sasha spit out the water and wiped her mouth. "What? Connie, you–"
"Ahahahaha! Ah, my sides hurt." He rubbed his obliques to relieve the laughing pains. "That was too funny. Your face..."
"Jackass." Sasha raised the canteen to head height, telegraphing her intentions. The short boy promptly darted away.
The canteen flew from her hand straight towards his shaved head. Then—pang!
Caught off guard, Jean inadvertantly dropped his right boot and grounded his still-wet foot.
"Agh, damn it! Watch where you're throwing shit! I just washed this stupid sand off."
Connie and Sasha couldn't help but to giggle at Jean's anger. "My apologies, Jean-bo."
Connie laughed even more at Sasha's comment. "Ahh! That one was good!"
Jean shifted into an expressionless state as his face slowly turned red. "Goddamnit you–" he raised his boot in anger before abruptly cutting his sentence. His jaw dropped.
Behind him, Mikasa and Eren also stood in shock, all their mouths agape.
"What're you looking..." Connie questioned as he turned one-eighty.
"Jean?" Sasha slowly turned around to view the phenomenon that had captivated her friends.
A large fiery object descended from the heavens, leaving a thick, black smoke trail in its wake.
"Survey Corps! Get to your horses! We're moving out, now!" Levi was already mounted on his horse, gear strapped, and a signal gun in one hand.
The former members of the 104th quickly snapped to their senses and ran to their horses. With wicked pace, they donned their 3DMG and slipped into their boots, stopping only to splash a small amount of water onto their soles and toes.
"Let's go!" Commander Hanji shook the reins, prompting her horse to burst with speed.
"It's heading northwest, to Shiganshina!" Armin announced.
"Wait! It's turning!" Jean observed the object with a telescope, noticing the changing orientation of the silhouette.
Eventually, the fire on the object burned out. The strange thing slowed down considerably and a long white trail spewed out behind it.
"That's not like any meteorite I've ever seen. It's probably a Marleyan device." Levi speculated. There was a slight but noticeable tinge of fear in his voice.
No one here had ever encountered the Marley and from Grisha Jaeger's descriptions in the books, they were clearly outmatched. It would be absolutely impossible to attack an airship.
"It's straigtening out!" The mysterious object changed direction once more—pitching into a vertical orientation.
Looking through his binoculars once more, Jean reported the object's position. "It looks like it's going to land inside the city!"
"I just hope the Garrison can handle it." Eren muttered. There was a very real danger here. If the Marley were to land in Shiganshina, they could transform the new settlers into Titans. That would make it impossible to rearm and resupply. It would be even worse if they had Shifters with them!
~ 10 minutes later ~
"Prepare yourselves." Levi pulled out a shell and inserted it into the signal gun. With a pull off the trigger, yellow smoke flew into the sky. Mission ended.
"Come on..." he whispered with anticipation.
Suddenly, the gates started to move. The exterior chains became taut and the heavy stone covers moved up, opening the wall tunnel into the city. Levi and Eren sighed with relief.
As the team entered the city, they noticed that a huge crowd had gathered. The people weren't there to welcome them back—they were all surrounding something close to the granary.
"What the hell...?" Eren's eyes widened. Immediately, he prompted his horse to bring him to the crowd. In the middle was a large conical object. It was white in color, with complementary light blue vertical stripes.
A black plate lay several meters away from the white object. It seemed to be made of non-metallic material. A curious villager moved to inspect it and immediately recoiled upon contact with the plate. "Aghh! Damnit!" he shrieked.
"What is it?!" another asked.
The curious villager gripped his fingers and winced. "It's hot. So hot that I can't feel the skin anymore."
Armin walked over to the black plate and inspected it himself. With open palms facing down to it, he could feel the heat radiating. "Can someone get me a bucket of water?"
As Armin examined the plate, Eren and the others surrounded the object with swords and guns drawn. Although the villagers hadn't reported any activity concerning the object, they had reason to be cautious. After all, the Marleyans did have superior technology.
"There's a door on the side." Hanji observed. "Should we open it?" The commander noticed that her corpsmen were slightly trembling.
"I'll open it." Eren responded. He was quickly stopped by Mikasa; her arm blocked him from walking any further.
"Stay back, Eren." Mikasa warned as she moved forward to the mysterious object. Seeing the hatch on the door, she sheathed her blades and pulled the lever down as indicated by the arrow.
There was a loud audible click as the door unlocked. It startled the villagers as well as the corpsmen. Mikasa pulled forcefully and opened the door. Backing away quickly, she readied her swords.
The inside was empty...
"Eh..." Eren noticed the craft was missing a ceiling. "I think someone was in here at some point."
"Armin." Levi called out. "What did you find out over there?" The blonde boy motioned for them to come to him.
"Look at this." Armin picked up his bucket of water and threw it at the scorched bottom side of the black plate. The water evaporatored instantly.
"Seems pretty hot." Jean poked the plate with a branch. The wood at the end got darker.
"Now, this side." Cuppint more water in his hands, Armin poured it on the grey side, opposite the scorched portion. The water beaded and flowed off.
"Incredible." Hanji commented with obvious amazement.
"What is it?" a puzzled Mikasa asked.
Hanji adjusted her glasses. "This burned part of this plate... was subjected to very high temperatures. Yet, the inside is significantly cooler relative to the blackened side. The heat couldn't penetrate at all."
"This is definitely advanced technology." Armin announced as he walked over to the white object. He looked inside and found something completely alien. The others kept experimenting with the plate.
A small window displayed colorful moving prints. Armin put his hand on the window and the picture suddenly changed. Words appeared: 'Replay sequence?'
"Commander Hanji, Captain Levi! Take a look at this!" Hanji and Levi poked their heads through the door and saw Armin crouched inside.
"What did you find Armin?" Hanji asked as she stepped into the cramped interior.
"This window had moving printings in it. I can't understand what it said but—the letters..." He trailed off as he slowly turned his head. "The letters are similar to the ones in our alphabet. Yet, the words are completely foreign."
"Strange." Levi pondered, his hand cupping his face. "The books in Eren's basement clearly indicate that the people of Marley speak the same language as us."
"Hmm..." Commander Hanji was also confused. She had presumed that this thing, whatever it was, had been Marleyan in origin.
"I don't think this is thing Marleyan at all." the blonde boy concluded. "When we saw this thing from the beach, I noticed it was glowing at first. It occurred to me that the same thing happens to shooting stars. This thing came from the sky! This has to be some sort of flying machine."
"... I've got this! Go lieutenant!" a masculine voice suddenly rang in the interior of the craft.
~ Armin, Levi, and Hanji can't understand the dialogue; it's a different language ~
Hanji quickly pulled her hand back from the center of the window. The three of them fell quiet and payed close attention to the picture with moving color printings.
The window displayed a picture of the interior of the flying machine. There was a chair in the middle and two people clad in full armor. "Good luck sir!" a young woman saluted the man from earlier and closed the door of the craft.
She sat into the chair and adjusted some straps in her chair. The unknown female then turned her seat to the moving painting window and began pressing things.
Levi looked around the inside, looking for the device that had made the memories of they were currently watching. He found a light blue glass object with another glass mechanism inside it high in the interior.
On the window, the woman twisted and pulled a lever directly above her. The craft jolted and the walls and floor became transparent like glass. The outside of the craft was dark, yet dotted with stars in the background. On the bottom portion of the window, the three corpsmen saw a giant blue and green object. The craft was headed towards it.
"She's definitely in the sky at this point." Armin pointed out.
The blue and green object grew bigger and bigger—then floor and walls became opaque again. Red words appeared on the walls instead: 'Reentry.' The female gripped the straps on her chair and remained in her seat. This continued on for six minutes on the window.
Some villagers gathered on the outside of the craft and attempted to see what was going on.
"What's that?" the curious villager asked Levi, who was still outside.
"I haven't got a clue." He said bluntly.
The woman began to move again. She pressed a couple more things. The top of the craft came off and she pulled something on the bottom part of her seat. The chair detached from the floor and fire followed it on the way out. The window then turned black and displayed more foreign words.
"So... that young woman escaped already. She got out through the roof..." Hanji said as she stepped out of the craft.
"She could be anywhere by now." Armin sighed. "This is something we should be cautious about. We don't know if she's hostile or not."
Armin stepped out of the craft, shaking from thought of coming into contact with this unknown person. (She would surely have advanced weaponry that not even Captain Levi could beat.)
Later, the three shared the information they had gathered from the mysterious craft to their fellow corpsmen and the villagers.
That afternoon, the Survey Corps asked the locals to help search Shiganshina for anything strange.
There was still no sign of the soldier who escaped.
~ Author's Notes ~
Hello! Thanks for reading my story. I hope I grabbed your attention. I plan to update this story every 5-7 days.
Parenthesis is for a character's thoughts.
example: (Damnit, there's nothing here! Those bastards took everything!)
Brackets is for direct lines of communication from me to the readers.
example: {They do have guns; they're just broken}
See you soon and thanks again! Feel free to ask me any questions.