Creation began on 05-08-21

Creation ended on 05-13-21

Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan: Strange Happenings

It was like a switch had been turned in Eren Yeager. At first, he was thinking about getting revenge against the Titans by joining the Survey Corps…and now he was reevaluating his priorities, which included the possibility of either joining the Garrison or Military Police instead of the Survey Corps. He still felt the need for vengeance, but it wasn't at the top of his priorities, but rather at the very bottom. Instead, he just felt that he needed to protect who and what he still had in his life.

Armin and Mikasa couldn't really understand it, but it was like Eren had been…replaced by someone that looked like him, had some of his mannerisms, but not his anger, his rebellious attitude and stubbornness to do as instructed by adults. It was just…odd, even as they were set to graduate from the Cadet Corps.

"…So…Eren," went Sasha Blouse to the oddly-calm boy as they were sitting along the top of Wall Rose in Trost District, "you made the top ten of our class…just barely. Which branch will you join? The Survey Corps, the Garrison or the Military Police?"

"I feel compelled to join the MPs," he answered her, looking out at the district below them.

"Why them? It'd probably be better to join the Garrison," said Connie Springer to him.

"Have you ever had one of those feelings where you're supposed to do something, but you know you shouldn't and should probably do something different?" He asked him. "I can't even remember what I was thinking of when I said I wanted to join the Survey Corps. They have a high mortality rate due to their profession. It was a miracle that any of them came back from these expeditions of theirs at all. How many corps members returned from the most recent expedition last year?"

"All but six people returned," answered Jean Kirstein. "Usually, it'd be more than twenty of them killed by the Titans, but lately as of the last three years, there have been fewer Titan sightings than usual. I was able to get in touch with one of the members that went out there, trying to find out what was going on, but even he was stumped. Normally, there's hordes of Titans out there, but now… I don't think anyone's ever seen this before."

"I don't think anyone ever expected something like this," went Armin. "Fortunately, however, because of the decline in Titan activity, the expeditions have been less disastrous from the previous ones. It's possible that even the next expedition will make it to Wall Maria and reclaim it this time."

Eren then looked out at the land that was the buffer between Walls Rose and Maria, thinking of such a possibility of reclaiming Wall Maria for the people, but nothing really beyond that if it wasn't possible. He wanted to protect what mattered to him, but as of late, the very thought of going beyond the Walls seemed…like little more than a fantasy…and one he didn't want to see become a reality. But he couldn't stop others from wanting to venture beyond the Walls; free will and the ability to make one's own decisions were what made people a complicated bunch. Still, he wanted to protect Armin and Mikasa, the two people he had left in his life after the death of his mother and the disappearance of his father, presumed to be dead. So long as he could keep them safe, even from a distance, he was fine with them wandering off into the unknown so long as they returned in one piece.

"Eren?" He heard his name being called by Mikasa behind him, and turned to face her.

"Yes, Mikasa?" He responded.

There was a sudden silence around them. Behind Eren, a sudden burst of light and heat was seen and felt, followed by…the appearance of a large Titan head that was over the top of the wall.

Eren turned back to look…and felt a sudden impulse to reach out to Mikasa and get her away from this monster. It was…the Colossal Titan, the very fiend that had attacked the last of humanity living behind the Walls five years ago…and it had finally returned.

"Fight!" He remembered himself say to Mikasa when they were little. "Fight or die!"

Except something inside him felt that what he said back then was very different from how it was usually supposed to be sounded as. The very word "fight" could be interpreted in many ways, but in his mind, it meant a completely different word that left him sickened by his past actions: "Kill". To him, to fight was to kill or be killed, to live or to die when the mere act of murder did worse than to mark you as a murderer; killing in and of itself left a stain upon your soul. And as much as he knew that anyone could follow that drive, he didn't want to unless it was absolutely necessary; he didn't want to tarnish his soul any further with unending violence.

However, as the Colossal Titan was considered an enemy to the people within the Walls, that meant it needed to be defeated to preserve the future they could have.

"This is it," he uttered as he used his ODM gear to soar back up to the top of the wall. "Time to do what we spent all that time training for! There's your target!"

Eren eyed the Colossal Titan with a look that meant to signify its defeat at the hands of the people it harmed. If anyone could defeat the Colossal Titan, the largest Titan they had ever encountered, they would most likely go down in history for its defeat, immortalized for future generations to hear about.

Burst! The Colossal Titan released a wall of steam from its body, sending Eren falling backwards onto the wall.

"Urgh!" He groaned, getting up and looking as the Titan wiped away three cannons on the wall. What the Hell?! It destroyed the cannons!

Even Armin took notice of this action. Five years ago, the Titan just kicked a hole in Wall Maria, letting the Titans get inside Shiganshina District. This time, it destroyed the cannons nearby, and they hadn't even used them against it yet. To do something like that, to dispose of something that had yet to be used against this Titan of remarkable height and power… It made the young man rethink everything they knew about the Titans.

That wasn't a random move, Armin thought. It was…deliberate! This isn't an ordinary Titan. It has intelligence.

"Grr!" The Colossal Titan growled as it pulled back its left leg.

-x-

"Hmm?" A young man reacted as he awoke from his nap atop a giant tree; he thought he had heard something akin to an explosion from afar. "I thought I had four days to prepare."

He got up, leapt from the branch and bit into his right hand.

BOOM! Crashing onto the ground, knocking away a handful of Titans below, the fifteen-meter Titan with an irregular jawline reappeared and ran towards its destination.

The Titans left behind got up and chased after it.

-x-

The Colossal Titan had breached Wall Rose's Trost District. It might've been a bad day for the people living in the city, but there was a positive side to the new situation. There were only ten Titans seen entering through the breach, and each of them were less than thirteen meters. Whatever had been going on in the last few years, it had caused a major drop in the number of Titans that had been seen and fought. Thus, it would be a minor difficulty to deal with ten Titans if they were dealt with quickly.

"Rrrraargh!" The Colossal Titan roared as it vanished in the cloud of steam it produced.

"It's gone!" Connie gasped.

"No way!" Sasha added, but then looked down at the ground, seeing at least three more Titans from a distance, which brought up the number to thirteen instead of ten, and that was only if they managed to get through the breach. "Three more Titans up ahead!"

Down below in Trost District, managing to score a direct hit on the nape of one of the Titans, Eren had brought down a ten-meter Titan.

My first Titan kill, he thought as he landed on a rooftop nearby. Why do I feel so guilty?

"Grrraurgh!" He heard another Titan nearby, probably twelve meters. "Grraurgh!"

Maybe it's because it's either you or us, and we deserve a future, he thought.

"We must die for our sins," he heard a man's voice, echoed alongside several other voices, several male and one female, which made Eren feel sick. "We never should've been born at all."

He shook his head and stopped thinking about the voices. He had to focus on what he could do and who he could protect, which were the district and the people for as long as he could.

"What a day this is turning out to be," he uttered as he jumped off the rooftop and flew towards the Titan.

To be continued…

A/N: Does anyone ever get those feelings where they're being taken advantage of by others that don't know when to not cross the line? It's sort of like that in this chapter; the decline in the Titans' activity is because of someone, but nobody is sure who it is, but it helps the Survey Corps to a degree.