Creation began on 02-27-16
Creation ended on 03-18-16
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: Resentment and Depression
The Dark Titan had gotten the attention of these Titans from underwater…and one tried to bite into its left arm.
"Grrraugh!" The Dark Titan roared, and punched the enemy in the gut as it threw it aside, against three other Titans.
Its injury, a series of bite marks that bled out a strange fluid that didn't look at all like blood, regenerated and made the arm look like new.
Within Unit-01, Shinji saw this Titan assault the other Titans and draw their attention away from Unit-02 and Asuka.
Is this Titan an ally? He wondered.
-x-
"The Dark Titan's attacking the other Titans," Eren gasped; it was just like before, over five years ago, as he and everyone else present saw it attacking only the Titans, ignoring human beings.
As the people on the hills watched as this Titan face off against the other Titans that may have craved human flesh for many lifetimes, the Survey Corps felt powerless against these Titans because they couldn't use their ODM gear because the mindless Titans weren't near any of the buildings.
Eren could've tried to use the Coordinate to control the Titans, but these were too far from him, and he wasn't sure if he could control them at all.
-x-
As Asuka got Unit-02 back up, she saw the Dark Titan being ganged up by these smaller Titans that seemed to view it as being more interesting. And this was something she couldn't stand.
"Even just one of these damned things will be enough for NERV," she sighed, and made an attempt to collect one.
"Dammit, Asuka!" She head heard Shinji, and saw Unit-01 get between her and the Titans facing the Dark Titans. "NERV will not get any Titans for their own purposes!"
"If I decapitate Unit-01, you will die from the high sync ratio," she threatened him.
"The same applies to you, Asuka, but I don't want to kill you. So don't make me have to do so. I don't want to kill you or anyone."
"Then you'll never win any war by letting your enemies live, idiot."
She was trying to taunt him into doing something reckless, to lose control. But Shinji was smarter than that. He had time to cope with his new surroundings and understand those around him. And more importantly, he had been able to confide in Kaede about his past problems and she had confided in him about her own past, which, now that he thought about it, seemed based around one thing that was difficult for her to talk about: Her family.
Whenever she brings it up, she mentions a feeling of betrayal, he thought, waiting for Asuka to try something against him that involved the Titans. What did her family do to her?
He then saw Unit-02 make a move towards him, which forced him to retaliate.
"Dammit, Asuka!" He shouted, and used his knife to block hers, and then lifted her up and threw her aside, into the ground near the water. "I'm trying my absolute hardest not to kill you, and you're making it difficult! Are the Titans really worth getting killed over?!"
As she got back up, Asuka looked at him and uttered, "I got orders to follow. NERV wants the Titans and a Titan-powered Unit-01, no matter what."
"This isn't worth dying over, and you know it."
"Gaaaaurgh!" They both turned and saw the Dark Titan, still ganged-up on by the other Titans around it, unable to move as they were trying to eat through its arms, legs and body. "Gaaurgh!"
"What the Hell?! They're cannibals?" Asuka gasped.
"No," Shinji realized. "They're trying to get at its spinal cord!"
This meant that this larger Titan wasn't just some mindless, former member of the human race. It was a person just like Eren, someone that could turn into a Titan and use their abilities. This person, whoever they were, was someone Shinji had to save, no matter who they were. But before Shinji could will Unit-01 to intervene, what he saw next was something beyond unusual.
One of the Titans biting into and munching on the flesh of the Dark Titan's right leg, looking as though it had eaten more than its fill of the behemoth, released the maimed limb and staggered away from the rest of them, grabbing onto its throat.
"Gaaah! Grrraurgh! Urgh!" It roared, and steam began expelling from its rock-like hide.
"Grrruargh!" Three other Titans, the ones eating through the waist and left arm, roared as they let go of the Dark Titan, as steam started expelling from their bodies.
"What in the name of…" Asuka reacted, seeing the Titans steam up and evaporate. "What the Hell is this, Third Child?! That thing killed them?!"
Shinji looked at her and responded, "It's a new one for me."
-x-
As the wind blew the steam away, the Survey Corps were able to get near the scene where the large Titans fell…and counted at least twelve people they didn't recognize because they looked like they were covered in rock-like husk.
"Ugh…hmm…" Levi heard several groan as they tried to move.
Shinji, still in Unit-01, looked at the remains of the Dark Titan's body…and found that they wouldn't be finding out who was in it. The degenerating remains had a large hole in the nape, right where someone would be if they were controlling the Titan body.
Asuka, who had seen this as the perfect opportunity to retreat, fled while Shinji was distracted.
-x-
Hiding in an alley, the Dark Titan's human source felt depressed.
I hate this power, they thought. I hate that I have it, that he forced it on me, that I had to use it.
Deciding to return home when the rest of the people did, they could hide among them as though nothing had happened. For right now, they felt weakened, like they had run a mile or two, carrying a tremendous weight on their shoulders the whole time.
-x-
So far, the twelve people that used to be Titans felt like they had been buried underground for many years, able to wash the dried mud and rock off their bodies, were able to think more clearly.
"So…we've been underwater for a long time?" A man asked Levi, who was interrogating the former Titans. "How is that possible?"
"Titans don't need to breathe," Levi explained. "Is there anything you remember from before you were a Titan?"
"I was visiting my grandmother," a woman explained her last memory to Levi. "Everything after that is a blur."
"So, what you were doing earlier in the day is all you remember?" Levi asked again.
"Yeah, that's right," went another guy that was once a Titan, explaining that his last memory was running to see his girlfriend.
"Somehow, trying to devour the Dark Titan turned them back to normal," said Armin to Eren and Mikasa, as they were all confused by this phenomenon.
"But they were unable to kill the Dark Titan," went Eren; they had seen none of the former Titans go anywhere near the neck or spinal column of the Dark Titan. "And only a few of them only went for the arms or legs."
Mikasa wanted to say something, but decided to keep her thought on the Dark Titan to herself.
-x-
Shinji, under orders from Levi to dispose of the remains of the Dark Titan body that barely evaporated, found that the remains of this particular Titan had raised the Eva's power more than the Colossal Titans and the regular-sized Titans had. Although they were just remains, they increased the time left to over one-hundred-five hours.
Nuts, he thought, unsure of how this was possible, but took it for what it was worth. Whoever was behind this Dark Titan, I owe them my eternal gratitude.
While this increased power would provide a greater edge against Asuka if she ever shows up again, the fact that the Eva was now stronger would make her and NERV want it even more. Worse was that there were bound to be more of the Titans underwater…and coming to where the people were, since Titans were drawn to the life force of large populations.
-x-
"Kaede! You're safe!" The girl's mother sighed as she returned home.
"What happened to you?" Her stepfather asked her. "We thought you were still in the city when the red behemoth showed up and attacked."
"Nothing happened," Kaede told them, and returned to her room.
"Are you hurt anywhere?" Her mother asked.
"I'm fine."
Closing the door, Kaede sighed and fell to her bed. She thought about Shinji and how he was doing right now. One of the things she liked about the building she lived in was that she got a good view of the water and the Eva that knelt in front of it, as if guarding the city from future threats from the Titans, and now the people were aware of another threat that wasn't a Titan, from this world Shinji was from, and that was something she found unusual. People that wanted him to come back, or at least the Eva he was using to protect them from the Titans…and the Titans themselves for their own purposes.
Why can't more people be like Shinji? She wondered.
-x-
"…The nerve of that jerk!" Asuka grunted as she did a diagnostics check of Unit-02 from within the plug. "Protecting people he doesn't even need to protect! Refusing to let NERV take possession of some of these…Titans as he calls them…and gets in the way constantly!"
When she was done with the diagnostics check, the Eva picked up something on its scanners. Something big was approaching from the west of the base camp. It wasn't as big as an Eva…but was within the twenty-meter height.
"Well, hello!" She expressed, activating the Eva and turning it to face the location of the incoming.
-x-
"…This is most unusual," went of the men from the Survey Corps on the ship, examining the liquid remains of the Dark Titan body that didn't evaporate. "I think we should've kept that thing instead of having Ikari dispose of it, Captain."
"Why is that?" Levi questioned him, also in the room they were using to examine the samples taken from the body.
"Based on the information we were able to find from the Yeager house and the remnants of knowledge and technology we have been able to salvage from outside the Walls thanks to Ikari, this fluid that bled out of the Dark Titan appears to be the same as what's needed to trigger a Titan transformation in a normal person. This substance is spinal fluid."
"Then, the Dark Titan is not only some sort of Titan Shifter, it's a walking sack of spinal fluid in its arms and legs?" Another man in the Survey Corps in the room asked.
"That's how it seems to be," the man examining the sample explained.
"We need to ascertain the identity of the Dark Titan," Levi declared; if they could find whoever this Titan Shifter was outside the Titan body, their chances of eliminating the Titan threat would increase to higher heights.
-x-
It was a Titan that came near their camp. A wondrous, fifteen-meter with arms and legs disproportionate to its body and head. It lacked proper teeth, but its face made it look like one of the boys that Asuka disliked. In her mind, this Titan resembled Toji Suzuhara in all the worst ways.
Asuka had used the Eva to grab the Titan and keep it in check whilst the men that were here prepping for her arrival got the restraints ready to cage the humanoid.
Soon enough, it was captured and in check. They even a makeshift mouth guard on it when it kept trying to bite one of the men that was closest to its mouth.
"That's one in our possession," one of the men expressed.
-x-
Shinji didn't sleep as peacefully as he wanted to while on the building beside the Eva. Every time he closed his eyes, he ended up opening them sometime later. With Asuka and some people from NERV here for Unit-01 and whatever Titans they could get their hands on, it was now a necessity for him to be near the Eva to protect the people should Asuka come back to the city.
"Not able to sleep, either?" He heard someone say to him, and turned to look behind him, away from the sight of the ocean water and at Eren Yeager.
"It's not easy," he told the young man; he wasn't sure how old Eren was.
"No, it's not. I don't think it ever is easy."
"People that don't sleep well usually develop problems that stem from lack of sleep."
"And what are your problems, Mr. Ikari?"
"Besides my past issues that I saw someone with a license to practice therapy, my father, Asuka, NERV and everything else back home. I'm trying to help the people here with Unit-01 and NERV wants me to come back with it and some Titans for their own use after discovering that they could be used to give power to an Eva. And then, there's my father and everything he's either done or not done."
"Coming from you, it sounds like your father is a real jerk."
"A man that has never said anything nice to you or has spent a day with you for over a decade isn't someone I'd call a father."
"Looks like we're in a similar boat, then." Eren told him.
"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Shinji asked him.
"Ever since we returned to the Shinganshina District with your aid…and overthrew the would-be king of mankind, I found out something my father did that I hate him for."
"He turned you into a Titan Shifter," Shinji expressed; Armin had explained to him what the man's father had done to him. "Armin told me while we were out at sea."
"That…and what he did before he did that," Eren told him.
"Before?"
"You heard about the Reiss family, right?"
"Yeah, they're the royal family that had the Coordinate ability that could control the Titans."
"My father, Grisha Yeager, shortly after Wall Maria fell, attacked the Reiss family in his Titan body."
Shinji found this hard to believe. He recently learned what he could about this world's history, including how much of it had been manipulated by those with the Coordinate, along with this ideology belonging to the First King that seemed tied to the royal family's bloodline. But it all seemed so cruel and so disillusioned with delusions of grandeur tainted with lies. To be bound by the beliefs of someone that could've done so much good for humanity by stopping the Titans, but instead chooses to condemn the surviving members of the human race with a semblance of peace.
"He attacked them…and killed nearly everyone in the Reiss Chapel where they were during the fall of Wall Maria. Only Rod Reiss got away. My father murdered another man's family in order to gain possession of the Coordinate…and then he turned me into a Titan in order to devour him and gain possession of the Coordinate."
"That's terrible," Shinji told him.
"For a long time, I thought he was just missing somewhere, not dead. Every now and then, I get these looks from people that now know the truth. The kind of looks that mean, 'That man's father killed an entire family'. They likely fear that I'll do the same to their families."
Shinji then uttered, "That's likely their perception of guilt by association."
"Guilt by association?" Eren questioned.
"It's when someone you know does something wrong, and sometimes, you're subject to the fallout of their crimes or sins because you know them. It's informal and a way to put blame on someone that has done nothing wrong, even though someone else has. It's not entirely different from pressing charges on any number of criminals that don't know each other, but have committed similar acts of atrocity."
"And what of your personal opinion about my father?"
"I never met him, so I can't give an opinion about him."
"Not who he was, Shinji, what he did before he died."
Shinji sighed, thought about it for a moment, and then expressed to Eren, "You kill one person, you're nothing but a murderer. But to kill an entire family, even to take from them a power that they won't use to help mankind break from the reign of the Titans, you're a family annihilator, Eren, a murderer that targets only families. Your father could've just gone after the one that had the power you now have to control the Titans if they weren't going to use it or were under an influence that made it so that they couldn't, even if they wanted to. But instead, he chose to kill the entire family when he took possession of the power. His reason for wanting the power taken from the Reiss family was admirable, but his morals towards the Reiss family members that didn't have the power was wrong, Eren. Even if we end this and stop the Titans for good, your father's crimes will still be on you because of what he chose to do…just like how I'm probably viewed because of my relation to my father…and I want nothing more to do with him. I wash my hands of him and his own sins, whatever they might be. If it's possible for you, do the same thing…and wash your hands of him and his sins. Not everyone deserves to be guilty because of an association with someone that did something unforgivable."
Eren sighed and expressed his thanks for Shinji's opinion.
"Hey," Shinji stopped him as he walked away. "Not that it's any of my business, but…does Mikasa ever smile or show some sort of expression? It's…a little creepy."
"Not as much as she probably did over six years ago, Shinji," he responded. "Have you known anyone that lost their parents to murder?"
"No…but I knew a girl whose face hardly ever changed expression. I don't even know how she's doing back there."
"Girlfriend?"
"No, nothing like that. We just worked together and NERV. She was…is…close to my father. Closer than I never was. Anyway, it's nothing. No point in trying to believe in something that wasn't anything to begin with."
"You mean, there wasn't anyone back in your world that…was something more than a friend?"
Shinji thought about Ayanami, and decided there wasn't anything to talk about with her. He thought about Asuka, who wasn't anything like a friend than she was an adversary at the moment. And then, there was Misato, who was older and sometimes difficult to understand because of what happened to her as a result of Second Impact.
"It's hard to be close to anyone back there when everyone around you seems to have other interests that don't include trying to build, rebuild or maintain relationships that should be stable, but aren't even close to stable…and you face creatures that are named after God's messengers that want to destroy mankind and you don't know why."
"Like the Titans before we found out why they only attack humans."
"At least with the Titans, there's no agenda beyond their senseless eating of whoever they can get their hands on."
-x-
The next day, the Survey Corps were doing door-to-door visits of everyone that lived in the city they were cleaning and learning more about.
"What's going on?" Kaede asked a man on the street as she saw some talking to people.
"They're doing background checks on everyone," the man explained. "It seems to relate to the Dark Titan that showed up the day before."
"The Dark Titan?"
"Something about it caused twelve of the Titans from yesterday to turn back into normal people. Whoever they are, the Survey Corps really wants to find them."
With this being shared, Kaede returned to her daily chores outside of home.
-x-
Deciding to put the remains Shinji hadn't consumed with Unit-01 to use, Levi had the large scraps of the Dark Titan body thrown at the two Titans that were in custody from before the people left the Walls.
The Titans ate at the pieces like regular Titans did with humans…and suddenly grabbed at their throats as steam was emitted from their bodies.
The other Survey Corps members present watched as the two Titans fell to their knees and then their faces, their skin evaporating and someone emerging from their necks.
"Urgh! Aaaurgh!" A man groaned as he emerged from the remains of the seven-meter Titan that was once called Bean.
"Aaaaurgh! Gaaaugh!" Another man groaned as he emerged from the four-meter Titan that was once called Sonny.
"Incredible," gasped Armin as he saw the two former Titans returned to humanity.
-x-
Using a pair of binoculars, Shinji looked at an expanse of land away from the city and saw a space shuttle that had to belong to NERV…and next to it was Unit-02.
"Oh, no," he muttered to himself on the building roof as he saw the red Eva load something into the ship that he knew would dread the human race if it got loose.
BOOM! He turned to the ocean water and saw an echo of the day before.
"Here we go again," he uttered, glad that he got in his plugsuit when he got up.
-x-
Asuka noticed the Titans that rose from the water being of similar size to the ones from the day before, likely larger in numbers than in size, and decided against going after any of those Titans due to Shinji getting in the way. Also, she didn't want to risk damaging her Eva because of the Third Child refused to see NERV's reasoning for wanting the Titans.
A bigger Titan may be more desirable, she thought, just as Unit-01 appeared and began to engage one of them, but the smaller they are, the easier they will be to manage.
And with that, Asuka took Unit-02 and walked away from the base camp and further down the expanse of land.
-x-
Levi's orders to Shinji regarding these Titans was quite simple. Since there were still some remnants of the Dark Titan from the previous day, he was try and force as much of the Dark Titan flesh that he was told was saturated with spinal fluid, the very substance that Titan Shifters had to turn Titans back into humans, into mouths of the Titans until they got enough of the spinal fluid into their taste buds to trigger a regression back to humanity.
Holding a handful of the remains in both hands, he had the Eva shove as much as he could into one Titan's mouth.
One of them grabbed the Eva's left leg and tried to bite into it, only to shatter its own teeth as a consequence; Shinji never thought he'd be glad to know that the Eva had over one-thousand plates of fortified armor to go with its AT-Field.
"Ouch," he expressed sarcastically, grabbing the fallen Titan and shoving a bit of the spinal fluid-laced remains into its mouth. "Eat this!"
When he jammed bits of the flesh into at least five of the Titans, they started choking and evaporating. Using that as a distraction, he forced the other Titans to fall backwards into the water.
-x-
Setting as many stacks of the Dark Titan body's remains as possible, the Survey Corps members had to make sure that Shinji had as much of the remains as possible to stop this new wave of Titans.
"How's it looking up there, Eren?" Armin shouted to Eren, who was watching the scene between the Titans and Unit-01 from atop a building rooftop.
"He's a juggernaut out there!" Eren declared, watching as Unit-01 led seven of the Titans away from the buildings and toward a beach.
Then, he saw Unit-01 make a dash towards their location, its hands empty of the remains.
"He's coming back for seconds!"
-x-
"Are you alright, Kaede?" Her mother asked her as they and everyone else were on the hills as the Evangelion ran from the Titans.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she answered, but in truth, the girl was anything but fine.
Every now and then, she would feel like she was being hunted by something that she wanted nothing to do with at all. It was like she was stripped bare and left out in the rain to freeze because of something she was accused of.
"Hey, it's running back over to the Titans!" She heard a man say, and she saw the Eva returning with something in its hands as it approached the Titans.
"It looks like it's trying to put something into their mouths," another woman had told those around her.
"That's the idea," said a female member of the Survey Corps keeping watch over the civilians. "The Dark Titan from yesterday didn't deteriorate as much as we thought it would like regular Titans, and it had something that could be used to turn the tide around."
-x-
"…Well, what do we have here?" Asuka wondered, finding a rather unusual sight in front of her. "A rural settlement?"
In front of Unit-02 was a medium-sized town or village, with lots of trees and small houses. Unlike the city in which Unit-01 was currently residing, this place seemed more out of place because it looked like it belonged in a fairy tale or primitive timeline.
"Maybe the people there know where to find more Titans."
To be continued…
A/N: Uh-oh! Does anyone think they know just what it was that Asuka found in the world of the Titans? If so, then please share.