No one owns anything.

There aren't any known/discussed locations between wall Maria and Rose that I recall from the show. I did a brief google search and didn't find anything, so I'm making up a name just for the sake of it having one rather than just being some random location, which I guess it technically is.

Edit: I reread this chapter and noticed some annoying grammar mistakes. I'm going to have to go through this story again and see if I messed up in more places like that.

Grisha wasn't sure what the Survey Corps plans were during this expedition outside the walls, but it also didn't concern him in the slightest. Thanks to them, his trip had been going extremely smoothly so far, far simpler than anything he could have expected if he had simply left to make this journey himself. The couple titans he had spotted while riding out towards Shiganshina were all heading in the direction of the Scouts. All he had to do was steer far enough out of their way to not drag a straggling titan's attention while endeavoring to stay reasonably close to the Scouts, a job made easier since they would occasionally shoot our their flares, to make sure nearby titans would stay distracted by them and not turn their attention towards himself.

He only had a couple incidents where he had crossed paths with a random titan and had to minorly change course to navigate around it. He was making great time. Of course this portion of the trip was the easy part, but it seemed fortune was still smiling on him. The sun was setting and soon most titan activity would start to slow down and come to a standstill so he could travel largely unabated. This trip was looking promising.

Indeed, he felt more peaceful now than he'd felt in quite some time since the attack on the walls. He had a goal he was working towards obtaining and a plan he intended on executing. The focus he had was helping him, calming him. He had never really noticed how simple everything gets when you had one clear goal in mind. Perhaps his mind wasn't peaceful, but at the minimum it wasn't overly troubled by conflicting thoughts. He knew what needed to be done and would do his best to accomplish his goals.

Unfortunately for him, he did end up finding himself in some trouble. Up ahead was not one straggling titan, not even two, but three titans in fairly close proximity to one another.

Shit, I better take extra care to avoid that. Definitely don't want any sort of conflict with more than one titan if it can be avoided.

So he redirected his horse to give them a wide berth, his attention staying on the three titans to ensure they stayed away. Unfortunately for him, his awareness of the surrounding area was less focused as a result of the three titans to his east.

That was his mistake.

He soon found himself off his horse, in the hands of a fourth titan. Immediately terror gripped his heart, his worst fears came to fruition and left him with only one option. He bit his hand and transformed, resigning himself to fight at least one, potentially four, titans.

Meanwhile

A lone boy lays unconscious on the ground, his breathing slow and rhythmic. He'd been this way for who knew how long at this point. Suddenly, however, his breathing pattern changed, indicating his awakening.

Heavy eyelids slowly start opening, everything still coming to him as a blur. Slowly he sits up from where he lay.

Where... where am I? Where is this?

Slowly but surely his consciousness was returning from whatever state it had been. His brain started functioning once again. Thoughts storming through his head.

A horrible pain suddenly struck him. It felt like his brain was assaulting him from every angle. Horrifying images were surfacing, things he couldn't understand shooting through his head. He opened his mouth to scream due to the pain.

He felt a hand grab onto his and immediately it all subsided, the immediate relief felt absolutely liberating.

Glancing over he sees a female figure sitting next to him in tattered, rundown clothes, his hand now in hers. No words are shared between the two of them. He doesn't particularly mind, though, it's a comfortable silence. Besides, what was there to say.

He just continues sitting there, staring into the peaceful nothingness before him, waiting for an event he somehow subconsciously knew would be occurring soon.

Back in Shiganshina, the lone titan was still stationary for some unknown reason. Nothing had stimulated any sort of response since the initial attack on the walls. All of a sudden, however, a noticeable shift in the atmosphere occurred in the area. The titan's head shot up, a newfound focus never before present in a pure titan's eyes had appeared.

It ran.

Immediately, Grisha grew to his 15 meter titan form, dwarfing the 5 meter titan that had grabbed him. He grappled it in turn and threw it into the ground, stomping its neck a few times to make sure he thoroughly destroyed the nape, a bit of guilt starting to build in him knowing he was killing his fellow citizens. He turned to see the other three titans approaching. Two titans around his height and one notably shorter, probably six meters or so. Not having trained to use this form, he was debating whether he should try to run or stay and fight.

Run and have to make the rest of the trip in this form, or fight and call back my horse, finish the trip that way. Either way, I'm going to be tired after this and will need rest. Grisha thought to himself. He wasn't a huge fan of either option, but three pure titans shouldn't be too much of an issue he doubts, even with his lack of combat training.

He decided to fight. We didn't want to make the trip in titan form; it would be too exhausting. Even this fight here would take a large toll on him. He likely would need to rest for a few hours immediately afterwards, but if he ran the whole trip in this form he would be in too vulnerable of a state afterwards. And so far he hadn't even brought into account that he would have to make the run back as well if he abandoned his horse here. No, running wasn't a good option. He needed to clear out these titans and call his horse back.

So he charged in, hoping to take them out fairly quickly, reaching for the nearest titan and ramming it into a nearby tree. He went over to finish it when the other 15 meter titan grabbed him and went to take a bite out of his arm. He pried it away punched it's head as hard as he could, taking a large chunk out of its head. He turned to see the titan he had thrown into the tree was already up again, so he backed away for a moment to regain his bearings a bit before going back in to fight.

He sighed to himself. I suppose I shouldn't have expected this trip to be completely without incident.

Two weeks ago

Erwin Smith, Hange Zoe, Levi Ackerman, and Mike Zacharias were gathered around a table, discussing the plans for their next expedition in about two weeks time. They had been here for a few hours examining a map of the island for good areas to potentially spread humanities influence once again. Minor debates on the realistic usefulness of certain areas based on their location from Shiganshina. Too close to the breach and you run the risk of heavy titan presence resulting in the possibility of heavy casualties. Too far and the magnitude of required resources to maintain and utilize it become quite expensive.

The recent issue, is that the debate about how far is too far was starting to get more lenient. They needed something out that direction and soon. The area between Trost and Shiganshina was critical in that it had the highest concentration of titan activity, which meant it was the most dangerous but also the most important area to get a foothold in. And as a result, the group had decided they would look a bit further east and west for potential locations to set up.

All in all, however, this trip was looking to be promising. Fairly short, only one night outside the walls if everything goes according to plan, but that was largely because there would be nothing practical done outside of general scouting the area. It was too far away to bring anything permanent when they weren't sure this town would be the one they would use.

While not perfectly located, as it was fairly far east compared to Trost and Shiganshina, the land was lightly forested for effective use of ODM gear while not so forested that vision would be significantly hindered. The hope, while not necessary for determining the usefulness of the land, was that the small town in the area was not in too rough of shape so they could utilize existing infrastructure as well, but who knew what was still in tact once the titans made their way through any given land. This point is especially true since this area was far enough out of the way that it was very possible titans made it there before news of the titan attack did.

"Seems straight-forward enough. Establish the usefulness of the land and possible nearby resources, and, if deemed suitable, document as much as possible for future planning. No development so there is be no need for extensive resources." Hange commented.

"Like planned, it's off the beaten path by quite a bit. It could be argued we are stretching our reach with this location, but limited contact with titans and limited time outside the walls should equate to limited casualties. " Mike added his opinion.

"While not perfect for ODM use, it's good enough for defensive purposes from most directions. Good for killing titans. I trust your judgement here, Erwin, let's do it." Levi stated simply.

And like that, they agreed on a location. They would head towards the town Kaifu and see what could be salvaged, if anything.

Signal flares shoot through the sky from the south, signifying to those at their hopeful new outpost that titans had been spotted from that direction. Considering the sun is setting, this would likely be their last encounter for the night, not that they would be taking any sort of risk pertaining to that thought. Guards will be stationed in shifts throughout the night, just in case. With titans, you could never traverse too carefully.

Speaking of traversing carefully, Erwin's mind couldn't help but wonder what that bright flash of light had been in the distance to the west of their location. Heck, he doubts anyone even would have spotted it the occurrence if it hadn't been for random chance. While he considered sending a decently large force, he delegated the investigation to Levi and his squad, the most successful squad amongst the Scouts.

No need to risk the mission on this. All they are tasked with doing is reconnaissance, and if shit does somehow hit the fan, they should still be in visible range for flares if we need to support.

In this case, Kaifu is not perfect but it would make do. If they spent too much time being picky the titans would attack again before they accomplish anything. The hope that they could stage from this location was pretty high actually, since no one could really set up a base in titan territory comfortably. No, this would be more of a depot, a small haven for brief stops, than anything else. This place would be their safe-ish location to regain their bearings and gear up outside of friendly territory, mostly in the instance of emergencies or other instances where their plans went off-course and detours were necessary. The less time spent in titan territory the better, so unnecessary stops were ill-advised. But at the same time, it was good to have a backup plan. As the war against the titans developed, who knew, possibly they could turn this into something more but currently it just isn't feasible.

After all, no one could come out here without risk. All they could do is try to minimize the current risks in any ways they could.

A green flare shot out, indicating the last of the titans had been defeated.

"Hange, your squad is on first watch for the night. Normal procedure. Just in case squad Levi is curtailed, be ready to support if necessary."

It was now a waiting on game on when squad Levi would return.

Squad Levi shot through the air, heading west in an investigation of what appeared to be an explosion of some sort based on how it had been described by the eyewitness scout of the instance. While Levi had been of the opinion that the witness was seeing things due to nerves, Erwin deemed it worth the time to check on things.

"What do you think we'll find, captain?" Levi hears Petra ask from behind him.

"Probably nothing, possibly something. Either way we're tasked with a quick investigation. See what we can find and leave." He responds.

Eld chimes in from his side, "It seems strange that anyone got sent from the testimony of a single witness. I understand Erwin's paranoia about titans, but this seems pointless."

"Take it up with him when we get back if it bothers you so much, nothing is stopping you." That comment was met with silence, Eld apparently deciding it wasn't worth the time.

Moments later, Levi signals for the squad to stop having seen the scene in front of them finally, a look of shock appearing on their faces.

Smoking corpses of four titans were sprawled throughout the area. But how? There was no the way scouts had been here, no one was this far out of formation, it would have been signaled.

"Who could have... what could have done this out here?" Petra quietly asks. "No scouts should have been here. I don't understand."

"We'll see what we can find. Fifteen minutes, tops. After that we leave either way, the sun is getting low so we need to head back to report. Whoever or whatever caused this could still be in the area. Don't do anything stupid like die here amongst a bunch of smoking corpses."

And with that they began a fruitless search of the area to see what they could discover. Levi and Eld investigating the bodies while Oluo, Gunther, and Petra examined the surrounding area.

"Captain, you need to see this." Eld was standing on the body of one of the dead titans that had fallen face down, the back of it's neck exposed. Upon arriving, Levi immediately noticed what was troubling Eld so much.

Eld voiced what Levi was thinking, "There is no indication that anyone cut this titan's nape for the kill. This was way too brutal, too imprecise, to be done by any scouts utilizing ODM gear."

And he was right, Levi had to admit to seeing no cut marks on this titan, no evidence that anyone had killed this titan in the normal way. Its nape had simply been pulverized. And yet no one reported having heard cannon fire. Even from the distance they had been from this battle, cannon fire would have been loud enough to be heard. Yet nothing anyone on this island had developed that they knew of could resulted in this kind of death. Even if this had been the result of cannon fire, cannons would have blasted a hole through the neck rather than simply crushing it.

And based on the state of the other titans, it could only be assumed that the other three fell to a similar fate.

Shortly after, Petra and the others came back to report what they had seen.

No evidence of the use of ODM gear in any nearby trees and no evidence of cannons having been used in the area. They were in extremely unknown territory. There wasn't even any evidence of what caused the explosion that had been spotted, prompting their initial investigation.

And with that, they all came to the same conclusion - that none of these titans had died conventional deaths. None of the titans had any signature cuts at their napes. None of the nearby trees or buildings indicated ODM gear had been used to tether to anything nearby. There was no way any sort of cannon or explosive had been used to accomplish this. It appears that they had simply been beaten to death, but what possibly could have physically beaten one titan, let alone the four that were here, in such a manner. None of them knew the answer.

And while an explosive itself didn't cause this he didn't think, an explosion was the trigger for it as that was how they even knew anything had happened out here.

No one knew what to make of the scene that were witnessing.

They grouped up and left, discussing the mystery the entire way back to camp where they reported to Erwin and an intrigued Hange about what they had discovered.

Grisha Yeager recovered his horse just fine after finishing his fight with those titans and rode his horse for probably only a couple more miles before arriving at a nearby town to the south and succumbing to unconsciousness to recover from his injuries. While he emerged victorious in the conflict, the fight had not gone as smoothly as he had initially hoped. The two other 15 meter titans proved quite resilient and just had not gone down easily, resulting in him taking more damage than was ideal. He needed time to recover.

Fortunately, it was nighttime and titan movement was essentially nonexistent, so he could afford to rest a few hours in the abandoned town. Normally he wouldn't risk being exposed, having only the walls of a building to protect him, but it was the best he could do out in the middle of titan territory. He couldn't turn around and there was nowhere safe for him to go nearby that he would make it to before passing out in transit. Even so, if a titan happened to wonder through this area, it would be highly unlikely to spot him and attack with him being heavily secluded inside the building he was currently in.

Unfortunately for him, the bad luck that began with the conflict with those titans was only the beginning.

A massive hand broke through the walls of the building he was currently residing, seemingly knowing where he was already, and grabbed him before he had enough time to react. Once again, panic struck. He wasn't even sure if he had enough energy to transform again as is after the altercation from before, but it doesn't matter. He goes once again to bite himself to begin to transform but stops short. He got a good look at the titan that was holding him, stunning him into nonaction as it slowly brought him to it's mouth.

"Dina... I guess you did find me after all."

It bit down.

Man, coming up with a story is hard haha. Maybe I should try to plan a bit more and then continue this story. I have jumbled ideas but not enough connecting events to bring everything together. If I do end up doing that I'll probably end up posting one more chapter in the fairly near future then take a bit longer between uploads to try to actually plan better.