Exceed

Break Out

Silver: Second chapter! Now we'll find out who's causing a ruckus in the Underground and what the cloaked person's goal there. This is the first POV of the protagonist. Also I apologize to the German and to the Japanese… cause in this chapter, I mixed up your languages. Some will find this insulting (cause I used Babel Fish and Google Translate, and then combined both), but considering in the SNK world (the Wall) theme is German and the writing system is the upside-down kanji or katakana… it's kinda justified that these two, along with English, will be mixed up and butchered in some ways. Plus with the memory-altering power, they can easily mess up the language and make the people think it's their only main dialect. And yes, I do apologize if this offends you… Also I translated the mixed up language, so you can understand what they are saying.

(Disclaimer: Shingeki no Kyojin is owned by Hajime Isayama. Plata-Azul Firebird only owns this story and the OCs.)

Break Out

There is a huge humanoid not far from where we are and it look at us with a disturbing, blissful grin. My thoughts are racing in my head like a restless horde of mice, as I try to figure out why that huge, abominable thing exists.

Then it clicks to me…

An underground city, people soaring through the air with metallic boxes on their sides, a huge structure in the distance and this…

'Is this for real? Wait, no, is this even real?'

How did a simple 'cousins only' get-together, camping trip turn into this?

All I remember is that we're heading for the camping site and I fell asleep on the ride there.

Then…

:::^A week and a few days earlier^:::

THUD!

"Hiiiiieeeeee!"

Waking up with a sharp pain below my back and something hard poking at it, is the worse way to wake up. Immediately I roll to my side, and then slowly sit up as I place my hands on my injured back.

And O.M.G. I think I landed on my tail bone and it hurts!

"Ow! Is there a rock or- D'oh!" Something soft yet heavy hits my face, knocking me back to the ground and nearly knocking the wind out of me. Groaning as I lay on the ground to recover a bit and pushing the thing off my face.

Rubbing my face, I look at the thing that knocked me down… but due to the lack of light, I can only make out the faint outline of a backpack.

My backpack.

'… Why do I have a backpack?'

…

Oh… right, I remember now. One of my cousins set up a 3-day camping trip, only for young members of the family… as in 25 and below. Plus, it is around the time of a month long-family reunion, which one of my relatives organized.

'Ugh… what the hell did I pack? And why is the place dark?' Placing my hand on my stomach and look back up, the pain subside a bit as I ease off a bit. 'Plus the ceiling has pointy rocks…' I mused, noticing some faint outline above me and have to squint to see what it is.

…

Wait a minute…

Quickly sitting up, ignoring the slight sting on my tail bone and look around the place. I stared at the faint rock formation that formed beneath the earth, the stalactites hang above me and huge pillars of rock support the earth above. I hear echoes of soft dripping of water and the ground I'm laying on is a bit dank to my touch. Sounds of flapping and squeaks tells me that there are bats in this place.

'The heck… I don't remember spelunking in the camping activity list…' as I hoped that there are no creepy crawlies in this place.

At the corner of my eye, something is softly glowing from the distance. Turning my attention there, I see a yellow-orange glow being reflected by the cavern's ceiling and it is not far from where I am.

In other words: Light. And if there is light, then the exit is nearby.

Getting up, grabbing my bag and slinging it to my shoulder, I begin to hike my way towards the light. As I make my way there, I notice that my backpack is a bit lighter than the usual and something is missing. Touching my bag to find out what's missing… and I discover that it lacks the sleeping bag and mat.

Wondering what happened to it and decided to check my stuffs later, when I hear something that made me stop, my eyes widening and breathe in sharply, out of shock. And the sound grows louder as it echoes thru the cavern: glass shattering, wood breaking, dog barking, gun shooting, shouting and screams… terrified, angry and painful screams.

And the source of the sound is where the light is.

…

… I don't know how long I stood frozen on this spot, but that disturbed me like heck.

As I remain where I am, my mind and a nagging feeling began their debate. One is to investigate the source of the noise, and the other is to avoid it at all cause. While I would agree with the latter and avoid trouble, the possibility that the exit could be there and the darkness around me is quite unnerving after hearing that. Shaking off my shock and decided to continue, ignoring the tiny warning in my head that says: Avoid it.

'I hoped that I didn't wake to a nasty situation like a gang fight or being kidnapped or…'

My train of thoughts stops when I see houses at the bottom of the cliff… Lots and lots of grimy houses and some deteriorating ones, with people living in its poor conditions. But some of them are on the streets due to some houses lacking some roofs or no longer safe to live in. And not just houses, but there are also a few towers in the area and a few of them are crumbling. The light that I saw came from torches and lanterns hanging outside of the houses or rock pillars, and some houses have lights in them.

"An underground city?" I said to myself with surprise on seeing it. I knew things like these exist but from what I read, the underground cities are a network of tunnels or houses built under a gap of a cliff. This one is completely different and seeing actual buildings beneath the earth surprised me, along with people actually living in it.

…

The mere thought of raining rocks just disturbed me right now... Followed by a thought of earthquakes, flood and the possibility that a sink hole would happen and bury this underground city.

Yikes.

I don't know which situation is worse: living in a squatter area or in the underground.

… Okay, they're both worse. The only thing that makes them different is that the squatters got blaring heat and storms, while the underground got raining rocks and the threat of being buried alive.

Shaking my head away from the bad thoughts and deciding to head down there to I find out where I am. Making my way there, once more the nagging feeling began rearing its head but I immediately ignore it and focus on my task.

Getting down to the place is dicey, due to the lack of stairs, some wet stones and little to nil lighting. I wonder why the place lack any sets of steps as I manage to reach the bottom, nearly slipping off a rock while clinging on the wall. Once I regain my balance, I carefully turn around, then jump off and land on a crouching position on the ground below. Patting the dirt off my hands and looking at the cliff I climbed off, before turning my attention to the underground city.

While the place is filthy like the squatters' area, this place is a lot more spacious and some houses look good despite its decaying state. I look at one of it nearby and it looks like one of those houses you would see in a city to the west. 'This would've been a pretty house, if this was built above ground and maintain.' as I walk into the place.

As I walk, I see people are slumped by the side of the road and looking blankly at the ground or at some random rock. There are some who moved their eyes to look at me as I pass by and then stares back blankly at random places. I feel sorry and concern for them, as I continue on my way and to look for someone to ask. Of course, there are trashes and broken stuffs everywhere, and there are stray animals as well. Then I become troubled on seeing a dead guy on one corner and dried blood on the wall and the ground.

'… Keep on moving, keep on moving…'

Eventually I spot someone who is a little more active in the area. I jogged towards a foreign woman who is carefully setting up her food stall, due to the booth's missing leg and the weight of her merchandises.

"Excuse me?" I asked the lady, who stared at me with a brow almost reaching her hair line. "Can you tell me where I am? I'm a bit lost and… new to this place, so-"

"Was zum teufel are you lu koto? (What the devil are you saying?)"

I stopped talking when she speaks in an unknown foreign language that is mixed with English, and stared at her in confusion. She then talks at me with that language again and everything she said, aside from English, just flew over my head.

Yep, I'm lost in a place with the strangest language barrier I have ever heard… but why do I feel something is off with it.

… Wait, did I hear Japanese in it?

"Oi! Lauter! (Oi! Speak up!)"

Holding up my hand to calm her down as I back away and thanking her for her time, before running off into the place to find an English speaker. Walking around the underground, asking if they speak English and earning strange looks, I find their language is still off… As if they mixed up English, Japanese and another language which is bugging me a lot.

… Why do I feel that, if my sister is here, she will give these people a strict lecture about languages?

'Teufel…?' I thought as I momentarily stop and think about that word that I could easily remember. 'She said teufel… teufel… Teh-yu-fel…? No, that's not right.' I swear there's something familiar about that word and I just can't put my finger in it…

Did she mispronounce that word?

If that's the case, then the word is pronounced Tah-yu-fe and it means devil in…

As I manage to figure out the third language, somebody grabbed my arm which snaps me out of my thoughts. I turn to see a tall, rugged man sneering at me, as he holds my arm tight and I wince at the pressure of the grip.

"Hey! Let go!" I demanded as I try to get my arm free. But this guy just pulls me close to his face and I nearly gagged at the strong stench coming from him.

"Gut, gut, ein Oriental. (Well, well, an Oriental.)" The man said as he grabs my face and forces me to look at him. "Hmmm… And eine hubsche too. (And a pretty one too.)" I move my face away as I scowl and he chuckles at my reaction.

"I'm not an Oriental." I hissed as I try to get my arm free while putting some distance from this guy. As I thought of this guy as one of those negative stereotypes against Asians, a rather smelly, sleazy guy approaches and examines me.

"Oi, oi, are you dies ist sicher ein Oriental? (Hey, hey, are you sure this is an Oriental?)" the sleazy guy asked as he looks at me, way too close for my comfort.

"Personal space!" I shout at him, which made him back off and looks at me weirdly. "And I'm not Oriental, I'm a Pacific Islander!"

"Was zum teufel is sie lu koto? Is sie damu? (What the devil is she saying? Is she dumb?)"

My brow twitch in annoyance on hearing the latter. 'Language barrier or not, I can somewhat tell what you're saying!'

"Ich shiranai aber wer care. Werde get ein kyodai zahlen and the Bosu werden begeistert sein e motte iru ein Oriental in seine brothel. (I don't know but who cares. We'll get a huge pay and the Boss will be thrill to have an Oriental in his brothel.)" The taller guy said with glee as he looks at me like I'm the rarest item he has ever seen.

'These guys are human traffickers!' I've read about the brothel and I don't like it at all. Although I'm thankful that some part of their disfigured speech is understandable, right now I need to get out of this situation.

Immediately, I flail my arms around and manage to hit the huge guy on the throat causing him to choke a bit. He then growl at me and attempts to slap me on the face, only to miss when I bend backwards to avoid it. Also he ends up slapping his companion on the face, as my sudden action and weight cause him to tilt forward a bit. As his friend swears, I jump and stomp hard on their feet, thus making the huge guy release my arm. Finally, I shoved the huge guy towards his friend and immediately make a mad dash away from these idiots as they collapse on one another.

But then I look back when one of them shouts something and points at me. To my shock, these guys got more friends as a group of rugged and sleazy men walks out of a house and a corner.

'Oh snap!' and I just kept running.

:::^*^:::

Breathing in deep and calming my racing heart.

"… Guh."

I lean on the wall and fall down to the floor, in a room of a ruin house. Somehow, I managed to lose those thugs thru a series of blocking their way with whatever I can get my hands on and throwing them behind me. Also I weaved thru desolate houses to confuse them, and I either use the doors or windows to get in and out of it. And when one managed to catch me, I stomped on their foot hard and knee them by the nose… or kick them on their nuts.

'… Oh man. Of all places to wake up in, it has to be the red-light district and in a place where there are negative stereotypes against Asians?! And they want to sell me into a brothel! That's sick and wrong!' Since those idiots are planning to sell me in that sick place and this is an underground, I assumed this place to be a red-light district. But this is the first time I heard of an underground red-district… unless they're using this cavern as a mean to transport their 'goods', which is one of the old ways a crime group would use.

If I remember correctly, prostitution is illegal in many places except for… some, which are the red-light districts, as long as they're regulated. However, not many of those places have brothels because it's illegal.

… Prostitution is legal and the facility or organization itself is illegal… Really? Why not make both illegal!?

'Am I somewhere in Europe…?' I assumed that because of their accent and dialect.

And holy crap… the third of their dialect is German! Badly pronounced German! And it's mixed with English and Japanese! Its sounds wrong!

Breathing out and tilting my head backwards, gently hitting the wall. I kept myself on alert as I think about my situation that I landed in. As my strength recovers and lament on my looks since I lean more to my mother's side of the family, I hear noises outside. Something fell on the roof above me, causing me to jump on my feet and grip the strap of my bag. A trio of voices talking just above me and I'm ready to run, in case they decided to look in this house. While waiting and preparing my escape, I pick out a few English words from their conversation like 'commotion', 'mess', and 'searching'.

'Great… these idiots are still looking for me.' And then I hear something odd. It sounds like an air pressured shot, followed by a zipping sound and it is finished by a sharp sound of a faint metal hitting a stone. Curious, I walk to a nearby window and look outside. At first, I couldn't find the source of that sound till I heard a sound of hissing to my right and just above me.

Turning my head to see… three set of clothes soaring in the air with steam tailing by their end. For a moment, I thought some kids are doing some sort of prank on someone. Then I hear the air pressured shot again and the clothes changes direction… revealing three bodies swinging and soaring thru the cavern.

My mouth just drop open out of amazement as these three people flew and flip thru the air, like daring circus acrobats. Something glint slightly on their sides and I notice that they have steel boxes attach to them. I couldn't get a good look on how it is attach to their sides, but those things seem to be heavy.

The thought of flipping in the air with such cargo and the lack of net… Is there a circus or a stunt exhibition going on?

Looking at them once more… something is nagging on the back of my head, have I seen them before?

"There ist sie!(There she is!)"

"Crap!" I immediately push myself off the window and getting the heck out of the room. Instead of running to the front door to get out, I run into the other room and leap out another window. Outside, I immediately scramble up and run to the left, hopping over leftover walls from ruin houses. While running, I spot something in the distance which is by the cavern walls far from me. It looks like it's been carved out and turned into a…

"Stairs!" In relief and joy to see that, I quickly change my direction and head there. 'Finally! The way out!'

But then I skid to a stop… in front of me are three rugged thugs, one of them is the lanky guy who thought I was dumb. And these guys are not happy, considering how I managed to get out of their clutches. Turning back and about to run the other way, when 4 more of them block the path and among them is the guys who mistaken me for an Oriental…

… I don't know whether I should blame the strongest yet faint part of my mixed heritage or that I'm so unlucky.

Looking back and forth at both sides, there's a chance from me to get away from them but not without a scratch.

"Get ihr! (Get her!)" The lanky guy shouts and they all charges towards me with a battle cry.

'Crap… This is going to be the worst dog-pile!' Preparing to move to avoid the worse hit.

FWOOM!

The next thing I knew, after stepping aside to avoid the first tackle, I see is gray smoke… literally.

'What?' Looking around as I step back a bit, but I can hear someone shouting something and some are groaning in pain. It could be that they collided on one another, since it's hard to see in this smoke. And thanks to this, I'm hidden and somewhat safe for now. Taking advantage of this, I carefully search for a wall or an object to use as a guide, so I can silently get away.

Then loud grunts and yelps are heard, along with loud bangs as if someone is hitting somebody with a flat metal. Still I kept moving, thinking that these idiots are hitting one another, depending on blind luck to get me or sort of like that. But then somebody grabbed my arm and drags me away, causing me to yelp in surprise. 'Crap! This guy found me!'

As soon as I'm out of the smoke, I finally see the guy who is dragging me. This person is wearing an entire black get-up and I can't tell what this person looks like, because the hood and a scarf which covers half of the face. The only thing I can tell about this person is that he/she is taller than me and has a shield poking through the cloak. I tried to get my arm away from its grip, but the person held on me tight as we continue to run. "Let go!" As I try to yank my arm out of its grip again.

"Don't run off on your own, it's too dangerous for you to be here." The person said with a deep voice, as we take a left turn. I was about to say something but it got stuck on my throat due to surprise, and look at this guy with a mix of shock and a little joy.

This is definitely a guy but... holy shit, he can speak English! I found my English speaker!

"You can speak English!"

"Yeah." He replied as we took the next turn. "I know you got questions but this is not the right time to ask."

"Eh?" I hear a faint shout somewhere and multiple footsteps.

"We need to get away from these twats and out of here." He takes a quick look back and growls in annoyance before he looks forward. Shouts are heard and I look back to see… Oh great, they're after me again!

"How many times do I have to tell them that I'm not Oriental!?" I shout in frustration as we both enter a ruin of another house and then exits thru the back.

"You look like Oriental." He points out and I turn at him with annoyance as we kept running.

"I blame my mother's side of the family, which is insanely strong in the looks department despite the diluted East Asian lineage."

"Then you're a mixed race?"

"Duh." I deadpan.

"Well, you're still partly Oriental. Even if you say that you're not, you still look like one and people in this place find Orientals exotic. I doubt they'll just let you go."

"… What is wrong with these people?"

"Underground sickness, perhaps?"

Before I could reply back, I hear those air pressured shots not far from here. Looking up, three daring acrobatics, who I saw earlier when I was hiding, are swinging towards our direction. But my current companion seems to be a bit annoyed and mutters something about crazy-swinging people.

"Okay, just hold on to my cape and don't let go." The man said as he let go of my arm. Because this guy helped me and is the only English speaker in this place, I decided to follow him and grab the edge of his cape. I can't see what he's doing but a few clinking noise is heard, as he grab something beneath his cape. Suddenly smoke came out as he tosses the thing behind us.

I barely caught a glimpse of it, but look sort of a…

He does it again, this time throwing it forward instead of back and I realize what it is.

"Smoke grenades?" Colorful smokes merge together and making it hard to see, as we both run into it. Then we dash inside another house, exit the other way and just kept on running. Then I look around and notice that we are running further away from the stairs. "Hey! The stairs are that way!" I pointed out.

"Nope! Not going there!" he replied as we hop over a wall of a ruin house. "Those stairs got a quite a price if you want to get up and out, not to mention the guards…"

"Wait. Since when you need to pay to get out of the underground?"

"Apparently, this place does."

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Suddenly we both skid to a stop and I nearly fell forward if he didn't put his arm in front of me, as something flew over our heads with those familiar hissing noise. Then right in front of us, the three daring people reappears, flipping in the air and land on a wall of a house on their feet.

I can't see their faces since their hoods are up, like his guy beside me… but I somehow caught a glimpse of steel blue eyes from one of them. And those eyes seem to be assessing the situation with a deadly flare.

"This way!" Rudely snapping out of my surprise, my companion drags me into another house once more. This time, instead of running out the other way, we went through multiple houses by legging it thru the windows.

But not all of these houses are empty.

"Sorry!" I shout as a woman screeches in surprise of our sudden entrance. The two of us quickly run out of the house while ducking from random things being thrown by that enraged lady.

"Well, that was entertaining." The man running beside me looks amuse as he suddenly hands me his shield. "Hold that for a moment."

"Dude that was your idea to go thru there." As he opens a few pouches from his vest or jacket, I think. And I notice that the shield has a few specks of blood in it… he used this as a blunt weapon, yikes. "By the way, do you have any other idea how to get out of this place aside from the stairs?"

"Yeah… there is another way to get out, but it will take a week and possibly a few days to get to the surface." He then takes out a bunch of smoke grenade and a few smaller, colorful ones… are those firecrackers? "Hold the edge of my cloak. I don't want you to get lost in the incoming smog." Tossing a handful of smoke grenade to each side, I grabbed his cloak as he tosses a smaller one.

And those cause quite a stir…

:::^*^:::

The entire underground is covered in smoke that is slowly dissipating, and the residents are frankly annoyed that the smoke is taking too long to clear out. The man did cause a panic in the area, due to mistaking the small crackling, firecrackers as rapid gunshots. Fortunately, none of the residents are hurt… except for those who were chasing us, blindly running around just to get me. But the other pursuers, the ones who swings in and fly in the air, didn't risk it and stops.

As for me… I'm sort of concern for the people in the underground city cause smoke can kill if inhaled too much. Thankfully, the ceiling is a bit higher and has a few small holes, allowing the smoke to get out… yet the area is still blanket in smog.

'How many did this guy throw out?' As I look away from the smoke covered city, to the black-clad man who is leading me into the dark caverns and blending in it. The two of us are stumbling in the darkness and this guy didn't want to use his lantern, until we get a good distance away from these crazy people.

Slowly, my eyes have gotten used to the darkness and I'm able to see some faint outline of the underground cavern. But I can't tell whether I'm back in the area where I woke up or not. A hiss is heard followed a soft glow in the front, and then orange light brightens a small area. The man held up the lantern and looks around the place, while I squint a bit for looking directly at the light.

"Over here" the man said in a hush tone and pulls me towards… wait, is that a stone brick wall?

"Hold this." He then promptly hands me the lamp and he walks towards a big rock near the wall. He pushes forward by its side and slowly reveals a hidden opening behind it. "All right, ladies first." As he points at the hole.

Looking back and forth at him and the said exit… "You're not very good at making first impression…" I said out flatly as I cross my arms.

"Well, either you trust me and get out of here. Or you stay here and have the worse time of your life." He points out as we look back at the city when we heard a crashing noise. Although it is covered in smoke, the light's glow pierces through it. While it's slowly clearing up, the place is still in chaos and in a foggy mess due to the multiple smoke grenades he just threw crazily away. Not only that, those idiots are still looking for me… due to the faint shouts of 'Oriental'.

For a moment, I didn't utter a word or say he's right… but these people are crazy and I want to find my cousins and go home. "I think I'll take a gamble on you." I stated and immediately crawl into the hole.

The man then follows and seals the breach with the rock.

:::^Back to the present time^:::

I'm starting to think that it is a bad idea to follow this guy.

While getting out of the place, I've noticed an odd structure within the wall... it looks a bit creepy as it looks like a muscle ligament. My current companion, Zaman or Sam for short, explained that's it's an architect thing, pushed me out of the wall's interior and into another cavern.

Once we got out of that place, the cold air caught me off guard and I have to brace myself to keep warm. This guy have supplies and horses ready by the exit, he lend me a coat from the cargo. As he saddles up the horses, he told me that we'll be heading north because it's the safest and he needs to get me away from this area. Fast.

I was about to ask why and this happen, answering my throat-stuck question.

And right now, I'm mentally asking a new question: Since when I became a cosmic plaything?

This thing is a Titan… A titan from Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan.

How the heck I got here? Am I dreaming?

I pinch myself… and unfortunately, it hurts and I'm definitely not sleeping.

"Well… someone took the wrong pickle from the pickle jar." He stated simply as he place a hand on his hips and the horses beside him just whinny.

"How can you say something so light right now?!" I shout at him with bewilderment, as the titan arrive and leans in to grab us.

Silver: The timeline of this story is in 843, a year before the ACWNR and before the fall of Wall Maria. So yeah, our protagonist has a chance to meet the Thug Trio, but didn't happen because Zaman needs to get her out of the Walls… why? The Walls is not the safest place at all, it can make you dumb or drive you mad… and I'm not kidding due to the government system and the first king's will. Anyway, after this, it will be back to the norm 3rd person view and… I feel that I suck on the first person… like what I did in my Sonic fanfic… Ugh… roll the sneak peek, please.

Sneak Peek:

"No, not today, on your debut."

"Aw... but I'm glad to see him alive."

A smile forms and places a hand on her shoulder. "Patience is a virtue, partner. You'll meet him soon"

Multiple thundering footsteps are heard, they look down to see those huge humanoids goes racing into the forest… towards the source of the roar.

"It's time."

Silver: Yes, the next chapter is a time skip. As for how the protagonist survived 7 years outside, will be written after the Wall Conflict arc is resolve (after chapter 67 or 68)… yeah, this story have multiple arcs. Anyway, it seems the heroine has a partner… and that partner is a native of the Wall… Any idea who this is? Also, yes, the protagonist is a mixed race; majority of her heritage is Pacific Islander, yet the faint Oriental side is ridiculously strong in the look department. Hence she can take the heat, but not the cold. See you next chapter!

FUN FACTS: This story was born when I thought of putting mechas in the SNK world. Eventually, I removed the mecha idea after learning that the titans are humans trapped in a daze and must consume a shifter to get their humanity back... mechas are OVERKILL if they exist in this world.