Hey guys, I'm taking quite a bit of a deviation from my normal content to post this, which is from a prompt of reddit pertaining to April fools, so don't take this too seriously!
So, Eren had a problem.
Well problems if you were to ask any other cadet, but to Eren there was really only one thing that was wrong with him.
Which was the fact that no matter how hard he tried, no matter what he did, he couldn't kill a single fucking plant.
And it wasn't as if it was a 'oh no, I can't step on that flower!' type of deal, it was a 'holy shit I just chopped down a whole ass tree and it simultaneously sprouted another one from the stump' type of problem, and needless to say, he was not impressed with it.
He could've gotten Armin's brainpower or Mikasa's strength or even Jean's fucking uncanny ability to communicate with barn animals but no (which, yes, was the butt of many horse jokes)
He got literal fucking flower power.
Now, it wasn't as if it was totally useless, as he had fond memories of smacking tomato plants until they gave him tomatoes as a child-and boy was it weird to find out that no, destroying a plant until it gives you food is not normal-but because it was extremely unlikely that he could kill titans with a large field of flowers, it was pretty much useless in Eren's book.
That didn't mean he didn't use it though.
When Armin had first found out about Eren's ability when they were around nine he'd immediately made him grow a shit ton of flowers and sold them for a massive profit on valentine's day, which was great because he'd had to use that money to later bribe a bunch of military police to not arrest two ten year olds for possession of contraband, but also seemed to unlock something deep within Armin.
Something that Eren wasn't quite sure was good.
However, that didn't really matter, as growing plants was pretty easy and didn't take away from any of his training, as he could just yell at them and they'd grow quite a bit faster, so he didn't mind indulging Armin.
The first thing that Armin had him duplicate were these plants that had leaves that looked similar to the cassava plants that his mom and dad once grew in a small corner of their house, but were much thinner and had ridged edges, although for some reason Eren did remember some of the leaves of that plant being ridged as well.
But he wasn't ever really supposed to touch that plant, so he never really thought about it that much.
After ripping the leaf to shreds, throwing it to the ground, stomping on it, and then setting it on fire just for good measure, small stalks began to shoot through the ground, each producing many more leaves than the one he had just ripped up and Armin looked ecstatic.
Although Eren didn't really see the value in any such type of plant-it even smelled kinda gross-according to Armin the leaves were very rare and prized and could be sold for a lot to a lot of different people.
Just not to the military police, as Armin claimed that they would collect the leaves and get them in trouble, because apparently the military didn't like the fact that two ten year olds could make more money than them in a single day.
So Eren continued to duplicate the leaves, occasionally cutting down one of the plants, only for another to spring up in its place and Armin continued to be happy.
It became a sort of daily occurrence, with Eren telling his mom and Mikasa that he would be leaving, Mikasa begging to come with, Eren having to sneak out the back door, and then he could go and grow more and more plants.
Occasionally when he would come home, his mom would comment on how he must have been out gardening as he smelled like some of her favorite plants, and to bring back a couple leaves for her the next time, and was always ecstatic when he complied.
His mom always seemed much calmer and more relaxed when he did so, so eventually he made it a habit to bring back quite a few leaves each day, and if Armin noticed anything, he didn't comment on it.
But all good things must come to an end, and with the fall of wall Maria and the death of his mother, Eren also lost all of his precious plants, which he now realized that he had actually grown quite a bit of affection for.
His mom, his father, Armin, Mikasa, he all loved very much, but there was something different about those plants, because...he had grown those dammit, they were basically his children!
But no, those titans, those dastardly titans had taken that from him! They'd stomped right over his garden, crushing his children beneath their uncaring feet and made it so that he may never be able to see them again!
They'd stolen his children from him, his area of reprise, his goddamn pride and joy, all because they wanted to eat a couple humans.
Fuck, that was inexcusable. First they limit the growth of his children by trapping everyone within this sad excuse of a prison walls, then they invade anyway and destroy everything he'd made. He couldn't deal with this injustice, he just couldn't!
So he made a vow, an absolute promise that he'd follow through with even if it killed him. A promise to destroy every single fucking titan that existed, starting with the two worst ones. The ones that had broken down the wall and destroyed everything he held dear. He'd rip them limb from limb and nothing could stop him.
Although a lot of people seemed to be struggling a bit in the refugee camps, Eren really didn't see the issue.
A ton of people complained about the lack of food, but he just thought they were lazy, as all you had to do was grab a bunch of wheat seeds, throw em' at the ground, grab them once they're fully grown and mill them into bread. It wasn't his problem that they were too lazy to do so.
He also began to realize that the military police were lying scum, as there was no way there was truly a food shortage, as crops were so easy to grow, so why not just make more to meet up the demand, as it wasn't that hard.
Even though Armin later explained that wall Maria had had most of the farming land for the walls, they both still agreed that the military police were kinda terrible, so they avoided them at any cost.
On the bright side, Armin had saved a couple leaves from his previous children, so he was still able to continue growing his plants! On top of that Armin had even found some really nice looking mushrooms that were even easier to grow, as once Eren picked one off if its roots, a new one would shoot up immediately, something that Armin seemed really happy about.
Apparently these were super rare as well, and could be sold for even more once they had been left alone to dry for a bit, so a little while after Eren started growing these small mushrooms his 'home' of sorts became full of bunches of the mushrooms, all grouped together and ready for Armin to sell.
As for their 'home', Eren called it that because he was pretty sure that at the beginning they had been paying that rude lady in order to stay in the area, but after a while she kept demanding more and more from them, until one day she just kinda...stopped.
Mikasa had explained to him that the poor woman just couldn't take the stress of having to pay the landowners, and faced with the choice of exploiting three young orphans for money, had chosen to commit suicide by stabbing herself in the back. Multiple times.
And of course Eren had thought this explanation suspicious at first, but this was Mikasa, of course she'd have no reason to lie to him! Armin also seemed to accept that explanation relatively well, and he was much smarter than Eren, so there must have been some explanation as to how this could have happened that he simply wasn't aware of.
So life continued on, simply chugging along like normal, except for one very odd thing Eren noticed.
For some reason whenever he and Armin traveled together, they received the utmost respect. The hagglers at food stations didn't try to skirt any of their rations, people no longer bumped into him on the sides of the street in a sad attempt to pickpocket him, and even better, nobody had tried to kill him for a whole week and a half!
That didn't mean that it would last forever though, as at one point on a slow rainy day, Eren ended up being jumped with some lunatic raving about him being "vital to the biggest drug operation since the great catnip smuggling of 38'" which Eren took a bit of offense to. After all him being involved with a drug operation? Preposterous.
Eren to such great offense to the guy implying that he was involved with drugs that he decided to kill the man on principle. Also because he had implied that his precious children were somehow illegal substances, but that was besides the point.
Unfortunately killing somebody left behind a large amount of residue known as a dead body which had way fewer uses than a living body and was much more dangerous, so h e decided to bring it back to Armin and figure out what to do with it.
After much deliberation and input from Mikasa they decided to turn the body into a grow bed of sorts, placing all kinds of soft foods and plants into it, which was when Eren discovered a secondary effect for his abilities.
Once he'd sufficiently destroyed the seeds so that they'd begin to grow the second they were planted they placed them into the corpse's open cavity, which had been expertly flayed by Mikasa, they placed the plants within which immediately took root.
As they spread throughout the man's body they erupted of any place they could and wrapped around the man's skin, creating a body made out of plants. While this would have been horrifying on it's own, it became even worse once the body opened its eyes and began to move around in a childlike daze
At first Mikasa whipped out her knife in order to put the poor thing out of its misery, but Eren quickly stood in front of her.
"Were you just about to kill my child?" He cried, throwing his arms out to block the creature from Mikasa's deadly precision.
The two seemed stunned. "I'm sorry, your what?" Armin finally asked after a minute or so of shocked silence.
"My child!"
"Eren." Armin reasoned, "That thing is not your child. It's an abomination and breaks so many laws of nature I'm shocked that it hasn't suddenly stopped existing yet."
Refusing to believe it, Eren just shook his head. It couldn't be, there was no way that it could be anything other than a gift. These powers were given to him so that he could make plant life, what was wrong with it being animate?
"If either of you touch my child, I'll...I'll stop making my other children grow! Don't think I won't do it!" He yelled, and while it took Armin a second to realize what Eren meant by children, once he did he began to panic a bit.
Somehow Eren didn't know it, but those plants were the only reason why they had as much money and power as they did, and if he were to stop providing for the upstanding citizens of the underworld and higher nobility he'd end up in some pretty how water.
How Eren was still totally unaware that they were growing copious amounts of illicit substances within their shared home was a mystery to him, but it worked just fine.
"Now,now, I wouldn't get that hasty." Armin said, attempting to rectify the situation. "We're not going to touch your, er, child, right Mikasa?" he said as he clenched his teeth and motioned for Mikasa to put away the goddamn knife, because we can not lose our free grower. "But maybe we should move him to the basement so that other people don't break in and try to steal him."
Luckily for Mikasa and Armin, due to the lack of necessity Eren still had no clue that plants need sunlight to survive, so hopefully putting it in the basement, a room without any windows, would allow it to die, assuming that Eren didn't intervene.
Eren seemed to brighten at the idea and Armin breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah! Wouldn't want any of those military police stealing him right?" he exclaimed as he lifted the wheat amalgamation off of the ground and ran towards the basement with it.
Once Eren was gone, the two remaining children stood there and looked at each other with a mixture of fear and awe.
"What the fuck. What the fuuuuuck" Whispered Armin under his breath. Yes, Eren's destructive ability to grow had been weird at the start, but this? This was downright insanity, complete madness.
"Let's just hope it dies fast, or I'm gonna kill it myself." Mikasa whispered back, still wary of Eren being able to hear and pulling out their only form of income from under them, and Armin emphatically nodded back.
Luckily for them, after a day or two without any water or sunlight Eren came running up from the basement with the rotting remains of the wheat monster crying, "He's dead, my precious baby is dead!"
While Armin was busy partying on the inside, on the outside he put on his most comforting face and said, "I'm sorry, but plants just weren't meant to move around like that. The strain must have shortened it's lifespan."
Although Eren didn't really look all that convinced he simply took what Armin had said as fact and replied, "He didn't-he didn't even get a full week to live!" in between sobs.
Armin simply placed a hand on Eren's back in between his shoulder blades and said, "I know, I know, and that's probably why you shouldn't do this again. Ever. Please never do this again."
"I just...I just wanted him to have a good life…"
"I know, and I'm sure he did, as short as it was, but your children will live much longer if they weren't animate, so really, please don't do that again."
After a minute or two, Eren seemed to become coherent enough to actually continue to be a functioning member of society and recovered, taking solace in the fact that his other children were still doing well, and continued 'tending' to his small garden.
This included letting out all of his rage on every single plant he could get his hands on, ripping them to shreds and throwing them against the wall. Mashing some of the mushrooms into a paste that may as well have been useless but somehow simply continued to grow more mushrooms, and Armin couldn't be happier.
Within the next week profits went up by 300% and Armin realized the most important factor of his whole operation.
Don't let Eren find out what they were doing.
Which brought him to the current day.
Although many people had commented on how calm Armin and Mikasa were, despite finding out that their friend they had known since childhood was basically a titan, they would simply laugh and say that it certainly wasn't the weirdest thing Eren had done, as really, it wasn't.
It was much closer to the sixth or seventh weirdest thing Eren had done, if they were keeping a list which Armin swore up and down he wasn't, but that was besides the point.
The main point here was that somehow, Hanji had found out.
Not about the drugs or anything, as that would have been preferable, but no. They found out that any plant Eren destroyed in his titan form would come back much more luscious, more full, and overall better, and had gone absolutely bonkers over it.
Or they had been bonkers before, but the distinction didn't matter. What did matter was that they had immediately told Captain Levi, who hadn't believed them at first, but was forced to once Eren pushed over a tree and a new one immediately shot up through the stump and took its place.
Even Armin had been a little impressed at the display, as his ability certainly hadn't been that powerful before, but maybe being in his titan form strengthened it a bit.
After Eren had exited his titan form, not passing out for once, Hanji began to relentlessly drill him on everything pertaining to his ability, and while Armin prayed to everything that could hear that Eren wouldn't immediately tell her the full extent, unfortunately it looked like god had his earmuff on today because Eren proceeded to tell her everything.
Everything from the flowers they'd sold as a child to the ridged leaves and mushrooms as he called them, both of which got a small pause from Hanji as she inquired further about the nature of these plants.
Armin thought he was dead, done for, until after the question of "Do these leaves happen to make people relaxed and hungry?" Came up and with Eren's answer Captain Levi of all people asked if he happened to have any on hand.
Mikasa's jaw dropped to the floor at the question, as neither of them were stupid, they knew exactly what this meant, and Levi hadn't asked the question with rage or contempt, he'd asked with genuine curiosity and want.
"Ah, no, but Armin knows where my garden is so you can ask him if you want some!" Eren responded, eager to please and Armin felt his stomach drop.
Now, he was fairly certain that the Captain had asked because he was interested in buying some of their, ehem, 'crops', but he also really didn't want to get persecuted for illicit drug possession and growing, as according to Commander Erwin there was a strict no drugs policy for the survey corps.
(Of course, everyone else knew that policy was bullshit as Erwin had written that policy while high as a kite, but it looked nice on paper so nobody changed it, plus it made for a funny shock with the newbies)
So he and Mikasa did the not so brave thing and decided to hide for the moment.
Meanwhile Hanji was having a field day.
"So you're telling me that any plant, any plant matter will grow once you destroy or hurt it?" they asked, practically drooling onto their clipboard.
"Well, I wouldn't say I'm hurting the plant, more like tending to it y'know." Eren responded as he continued to absentmindedly pluck strands of grass from the ground, bigger better strands growing up from their roots in its place.
Hanji just hmmmed and continued to write something down before asking, "What about dead plants?"
"Well I haven't really tried it with dead plants but there was this one time with that man…" He paused, wondering if it was ok to continue since it wasn't directly answering their question.
"Oh, please continue, I want to hear everything even if its only tangentially related to your abilities."
"Ok, well it all started when I killed this man in an alley…"
And so Eren told the story of his 'first animate child' as he called it, and Hanji continued to eat the information up, nodding emphatically with everything Eren said.
After he finished they grabbed his hand and started leading him towards their lab, claiming they had "so many experiments to do!"
Not wanting to disappoint Eren followed along, but asked "Don't we need a dead body to test this?"
Hanji just replied, "Oh sweetie, this is the Survey Corps. We have more dead bodies lying around than a graveyard." and they were off.
At the same time as this was happening, Levi continued to stomp around the castle, frustrated with the lack of Armin or Mikasa he was finding. Fuck, how hard was it to find two teenagers who were apparently part of a source of possibly infinite drugs.
After an hour or so with no luck, he finally stormed into Erwin's office and said, "Shitwin, we've got a situation on our hands."
"Would it kill you to be a tad bit more polite." Erwin said as he began picking up the papers that had flown off of his desk when Levi had slammed the door open. "I was in the middle of something."
"Yes, and trying to figure out how to fuck all of the newest recruits is not something, besides this is much more important."
"Rude."
"Look, I've got some information that you can either hear from Hanji and have very minimal of because we both know you stop listening the second they start talking, or you can get it from me and share a part of the spoils."
Erwin sighed and swiped a hand across the second half of his desk, moving everything that had been there into a drawer and said, "What could possibly be so important."
"Eren, titan wonder boy Eren, can grow any fucking plant in seconds by destroying them."
Erwin simply continued to stare at him, unblinking as he said, "Ok? That's odd but I don't see what's so important."
Levi didn't say anything but just pointed to the small potted plant containing a multitude of ridged leaves in the corner of his office and it suddenly clicked. "Oh. Ohhhhh."
"Yeah, we've got what could be infinite good times on our hands, as well as a little cash here with wonder boy."
"But isn't he staunchly anti-substance?" Erwin asked, already running over the ways to possibly force Eren to destroy plants, all for the sake of the Survey Corps of course.
"That's the thing." Levi responded, "Somehow his twitchy blond friend had him growing shit like shrooms for years and he still doesn't know what they are."
"So where is Armin then? Bring him here immediately."
"That's the thing. I've been looking for the two for an hour and I still can't find them."
"Let me get this straight then, because to be honest this is a lot to take in." Erwin breathed, lacing his hands in front of his mouth. "We have a titan. Who may or may not be an infinite source of drugs. Who has been growing for years, albeit unknowingly. And you can't find the two people who set this up."
"What the fuck did I just say."
Erwin opened his mouth to respond, but then his office door flew open and in stormed the very person they had been talking about, with Mikasa in tow. The two looked frazzled and quite a bit afraid but Armin quickly made a salute and asked, "Permission to speak, sir!"
"Yes, that's acceptable, and the way you should ask to speak with me, right Captain Levi?"
Levi just grumbled as he plopped down into one of the many chairs that lined the sides of the office.
"Well, um Eren has this ability-"
"Oh, don't worry I've heard all about it." Erwin interrupted, taking a bit of joy in watching Armin squirm uncomfortably.
"Ah, well, um, I know that it's against the rules, but we've got a bigger problem on our hands right now."
"Pray tell."
"I'd um, I'd rather you come and see."
Deciding to humor the poor boy both of the two men stepped out of the office and walked a small bit down the hall only to both stop in their tracks.
In front of them was what could only be described as an amalgamation of cannabis plants in the vague shape of a human, shuffling around the halls aimlessly, rubbing itself along the walls.
"That," Levi started, "has to be simultaneously the most horrifying and amazing thing that I have ever seen in my short, short, fucking life."
"What the fuck is that?" He continued whipping around to question Armin because it seemed like he had at least some knowledge of the situation.
"It's um, well it's one of Eren's children." Armin explained as he tried to move backwards because, oh walls it was walking towards them and he did not want to be anywhere near that thing.
"I see." Erwin responded. "May I ask why he decided to fuck a plant? And why do you know this? Is this a common occurrence."
Armin flushed bright red and stuttered out a, "well-um,no, thats-uh." Before Mikasa came to the rescue explaining, "No, he simply makes them by putting parts of a plant into a corpse. He considered all the plants he grows his children."
"That's actually marginally more terrifying than the mental image I had in my head, which I didn't really think could be topped." Levi exclaimed, still transfixed on the plant (person?) that was steadily shuffling closer to them.
"So." Erwin asked with a bit of apprehension in his tone. "Exactly how much do you think one of these would sell for."
"Well I did the math a while back and…" Armin seemed a bit apprehensive before he motioned for Erwin to lean down so he could whisper something in his ear, and walls , Levi could almost see the money symbols appear in his eyes.
"Well, I'd just like to say that it looks as if the Survey Corps will no longer have any financial trouble, and Levi," Erwin said as he began to walk towards the poor shambling creature, "if you happen to see Eren, tell him good job, and to destroy a ton of those poppies that are in our front garden."