Creation began on 11-07-18
Creation ended on 11-11-18
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: The Devil meets the Queen
A/N: Some people have more courage to stand up to the greatest demon than even they realize.
So far, only three days had passed, and the Akuma Titan remained in the vat of water, never moving or anything. If anything, it gave the simplistic illusion that it was just a large, grotesque statue submerged in a giant pot of water with a plexiglass display in front of its face with a lid on top to keep it from hiding, but it couldn't hide anything much from these people that knew what they could from the people that dealt with its presence before. It and the man that hid inside it were among the worst abominations to have any relation to the nation of Eldia and the island of Paradis, and the sooner the man was dealt retribution for his crimes, the better off everyone would be.
"Would you care for some coffee, sir?" A woman asked Erwin as he stood in front of the vat's plexiglass display of the Titan, carrying a mug of the hot beverage.
"Thank you, ma'am," he accepted the beverage and resumed his glance at the Titan.
It slightly tilted its head at him…and its eyes glared at it.
"With the knowledge we've obtained about the Cart Titan's unique ability, it kinda makes you wonder about the endurance of the other Titans," said Hange as she came over and looked up at the Akuma Titan. "You think any of the other Nine Titans could last as long as a week like this fool claims to be able to?"
"No," he answered her. "Maybe a day or two, but beyond that is impossible. This is why the endurance of the Cart Titan was what set it apart from the other members. Grausam Zanki might try to prolong the absorption into his Titan, but he knows the only way to avoid that fate is to get out of it before it's too late to do so… What happened to your goggles?"
Erwin had just noticed that Hange was no longer wearing her goggles and seemed to have no problem with her vision now.
"Yesterday, I finally found the time to get my eyes looked at," she explained. "The doctors gave me contact lenses to deal with my nearsightedness. For the first time in a long time, I can see more than I had thought was possible for me to see without my goggles or glasses."
"What are contact lenses?"
"They're like glasses, but you put them on your eyes instead of your head."
Suddenly, Sasha Blouse came into the base, running towards Erwin and Hange.
"Is something wrong, Blouse?" Erwin asked her.
"Historia and Ymir are on their way from the orphanage village with Ms. Sogen escorting them on her Titan," Sasha informed them. "Historia wishes to see the Akuma Titan."
"But we don't know what he's still capable of," Hange expressed, concerned for the safety of the queen. "We really shouldn't let her anywhere near Grausam unless he's completely restrained."
"Shinji has volunteered to physically restrain the Titan Shifter; Grausam can't break free from the Eva's grip and can be crushed to a degree by it."
One of the other recent developments in their understanding of the Titans and their powers was Kaede's link to Shinji. For some unexplained reason, the power of the Founding Titan gave the girl a connection to the Asian boy from another universe that enabled them to communicate not only through shared dreams but across great distances, since she was able to communicate with him while he was across the ocean in Marley territory. Nobody was able to ascertain how the girl was able to do this with him when she hadn't demonstrated any similar connection with any Subjects of Ymir Fritz; nobody that was susceptible to being turned into a Titan, from an elderly man to a little girl exhibited no link to the possessor of the Dark Titan aside from the receiving of new, random knowledge from her.
"How long before they arrive?" Erwin asked.
"Eight minutes," Sasha answered. "Miss Sogen is escorting them as the Jaw Titan."
-x-
They weren't in any rush to reach the Titan Forest, and it was a combination of the Jaw and Cart Titans that made the journey within Kaede's ability to escort Historia and Ymir to see Grausam, although eighteen minutes from the orphanage village and the base at the Titan Forest in the land in between former Walls Maria and Rose seemed ridiculously impossible. But Kaede could do it; she was rested and could make the crossing. Besides, she had no interest in talking to Grausam; it was Shinji she wanted to see.
"Kaede, do you suppose that he can ever be stripped of his Titan power one day?" Historia asked her.
"It's possible, but I doubt so," the Titan Shifter responded. "My spinal fluid has no desired effect upon him, except making him worse than before when he made himself stronger."
"And you said that you and Shinji stepped on him multiple times?" Ymir asked. "Why didn't anyone try cutting him at the nape?"
"We did, but he wasn't where Titan Shifters traditionally were when we tried so. He was lower and deeper, and when Shinji tried to rip him in half, he hardened what remained of his Titan until he regenerated the injuries."
"Do you think he's mutating, evolving or something else altogether?" Historia suggested.
"All I know is that he's up to something. Whatever it is, I don't trust anyone that gets in his way to avoid his brutality."
"You're afraid of him?" Ymir asked Kaede.
"No, afraid for everyone he gets near," she explained her concerns regarding Grausam. "It doesn't matter who they are, to him, they're…they're no different from cattle…or cannon fodder…or whatever he chooses to see them as. I won't even let my parents anywhere near him out of fear for their safety, even to confront him on what he did."
"That's a wise choice, Kaede," Historia told her. "How's your mother doing, by the way?"
"She's…a bit worrisome right now. I'm not sure if it's because of Marley, the baby, me or all of the above, but she refused to let me sleep alone in my room when I got home after Grausam was captured."
"Probably all of the above; we're still in a war with a nation that hates us for past atrocities they can't let go of, you're her only daughter who's blessed and cursed with the power of the Titans and is able to do things now that nobody else can, placed in measures of danger too difficult to comprehend in their entirety, and for you, this all started when that man experimented on you to help only himself to escape from the Walls when the Colossal Titan attacked five years ago. She's afraid for you, of losing you."
"I don't blame her for being afraid. Truth is, I'm terrified of Grausam hurting my family and friends more than I am of Marley."
"I am the one thing you cannot stop, Kaede!" Grausam's words echoed in her mind when they met in Liberio for the first time in years.
-x-
He knew they were watching him, waiting for him to slip up, but he prided himself on being much smarter than he realized when he let them put him in the vat of water. All he needed was time and patience, and they'd see… And they'd know… They were going to see how small they were compared to the massiveness of Marley and why they belonged in the past, to flow down that ugly river of shame and be forgotten.
Looking through the eyes of his Titan as its head pressed against the dense glass of the vat, he could see the people below looking up at him, pondering whatever they wanted to ponder about him. He could see these blond-haired, brunettes, the weird-colored heads that were no better or worse than Kaede's unique hair coloring had been because of her father, and wondered for himself what they were thinking about regarding him.
Do they really think they can kill me? He wondered. I'm curious myself; since I haven't injected myself with any more of the Jaeger Serum since before the failed first wave Marley initiated. Maybe that's how I survived, because of my injections. The more I inject myself with the serum, the stronger I become. If that is the reason, I need to make more of the serum and inject myself again.
He then saw these people clear the way for three people, one of which was Kaede, the other two were an older, brownish-haired woman and a younger, blond-haired girl on the petite side.
-x-
"Yikes," went Historia; her reaction towards the Akuma Titan nothing short of fearful of it, even though it and the man inside it were secure. "This is no Titan. This is just a monster consumed by hatred and power."
"Can he hear us?" Ymir asked Hange.
"When we were putting him in the vat to hold him, we weren't really trying to make him comfortable," she explained. "We're not sure if he can hear anything. We don't even know if he can still breathe in that behemoth."
"How is the vat keeping him secure?" Historia asked.
"We've secured his arms and legs with weights when we put him in the vat before filling it with water," Armin explained the mechanics of the security measures they employed to keep the Akuma Titan restrained as he came over. "We're setup all around the base in case he tries to get loose, armed to incapacitate him while Shinji has orders to decapitate him if he escapes outside."
"It sounds like you're all taking large precautions regarding him, but you don't seem convinced it's enough to deal with him."
"Personally, I think he's up to something, and we don't know what it is. Erwin once suggested that Kaede here use the power of the Founding Titan to (Armin looked at Kaede, who seemed uncomfortable with what he was bringing up)… On second thought, never mind."
"No," Historia spoke, "I want to know what Commander Smith had suggested to Kaede regarding the Founding Titan's power."
"Commander Smith had suggested that I use the power of the Founder to take away Grausam's memories," Kaede revealed.
"You…you could do that, you know." Ymir stated.
"No," she responded. "Even if I wanted to, and I don't want to, I don't think the Founder could affect Grausam, even in the slightest."
"Why is that?" Armin asked her.
"I had a recent dream where I was engaged in conversation with my Dark Titan and the eight Titans we reclaimed from Marley, and in our conversation…she told me that he's…protected because he severed his connection to the unseen pathways that connect all of us to the former Founder."
"Grausam…isn't connected to the Founder-empowered Dark Titan like all other Subjects of Ymir are?"
"No…meaning he isn't susceptible to having his memories taken from him. And even if he was made to forget his crimes against everyone he harmed…they wouldn't forget his crimes. We wouldn't be doing anyone any good through this act…and Grausam doesn't deserve the possibility of being a victim for something he wouldn't have any recollection over."
Also, if Kaede even went down that route, she herself would have to live with taking his memories…and quite possibly having them in her mind, and she didn't want that. Bad enough that she was having a difficult time keeping her anger towards him in check, but she wanted nothing to do with him beyond the fact that she thought she had been damned because of his obsession and desire for power. But every passing hour, every fleeting minute, every agonizing second, she just wanted to…let loose and tear this man apart with her bare hands, rip his organs out and set him ablaze and hope to the gods that he never comes back.
But if I gave in to my anger, I may never come back from that dark place he'll have led me down in order to erase his life from the planet, she thought, looking down at her clenched left hand, and watched it open as she calmed herself.
"Kaede," she heard Historia call her name, concerned.
"Uh…permission to be excused, Your Highness," she requested from her, wanting to vacate the building before she did something she might've regretted.
"You're excused, Kaede. We'll be outside in a few minutes to maybe half an hour."
The girl turned to leave.
Unknown to her, the head of the Akuma Titan tilted as it looked at her vacating form, a cruel smile forming on its face.
"Sick bastard," went Ymir, seeing the Titan smiling through the plexiglass and water.
"If there was anyone that deserved to be executed for being a monster before, it's this man," Armin told them. "It's like he enjoys tormenting Kaede more than he enjoys tormenting us."
-x-
Feeling her anger subside after stepping outside amongst the skyscraper-sized trees, Kaede sat on a large rock and looked up at the obscured sky.
"Did he hurt you again?" She heard Shinji ask her through the Eva as it turned to look down at her.
"No, I…I just needed to get out of there before I feared I might do something regretful," she answered him. "Have you eaten since the last time we spoke?"
"Yeah, I ate lunch an hour ago. Say, I never asked you this before, but… Well, when you're in Titan form for whatever length of time, do you ever get hungry and you can't vacate the body?"
"Now that you mention it, no, I've never felt hunger while in Titan form."
"Not even pain?"
"No. It's the Titan body that gets injured, not the person that resides inside it. Knowledge is power, right? And the memories of the previous possessors of the Titans confirm what the Survey Corps have discovered through Eren, when he had the power, and I through the number of experiments: People that turn into Titans are only connected to them through two of the five senses, sight and hearing."
"But…how did those with the Cart Titan get by with being in Titan form for extended periods?"
"The Cart Titan, as well as any other Titan, for that matter, converts the matter that generates their bodies into the necessary energy that sustains the person inside it. Titan energy flows through the body and keeps it stable for as long as possible before the Titan body is pushed to its limits and has to call it quits. If anyone stays in Titan form for too long, the body will seek to replace the lost energy by absorbing the human inside it, trying to take back the energy it gave to sustain them."
"But that's awful."
"The Titans were just able to help the former empire of Eldia accomplish great things, how they were accomplished and in what way they were accomplished wasn't entirely the most important part of the past. But we know better now."
Still, it gave Shinji a reason to be worried for Kaede, even if she didn't show or develop any negative reactions from periodic use of her Titan abilities. While she might've been stronger than any other Titan Shifter that came after Ymir Fritz's passing, she was far from invincible and had her personal limitations to keep her reminded that she was still a person and not some type of deity among people.
"Eh-heh-heh," he saw her chuckle. "I appreciate your concerns about me, Shinji."
"Your being happy and smiling…is many times greater than your being angry and frowning," he told her, meaning every word.
-x-
The lid to the vat was partially removed and the water only drained enough to allow a degree of communication with the exposed head of the Akuma Titan, but this was all that was necessary for Historia to have her own series of words with the lunatic that had caused so much pain to people over the years.
"Whenever you're ready, Your Highness," Levi expressed, holding up a microphone for her to accept.
She accepted it and spoke across the base, "Hello, Grausam Zanki. I'd welcome you back to Paradis, but from what I hear, you're not well-liked by anyone here."
The head of the Titan tilted upwards to face the platform where the girl was surrounded by several people and responded, "Who are you and why should I care, exactly?"
"My name is Historia Reiss, and I am the queen of Eldia."
"The Eldian queen of Paradis? You, little girl? Really? I'll be honest, but when I imagined meeting someone of royalty, I was expecting someone a little older and more regal. You barely look like you're mature and are quite…plain. Personally, I think you're no different from an eight-year-old pretending to be in charge of everyone around you."
Ymir raised one of her blades up slightly, but Historia gestured for her to lower it back down.
"Is that right? I look plain to you?" She asked him. "I actually take that as a compliment, even if it's from someone that isn't respectful of the personal space of others."
Then…Historia spoke something that nobody else except Ymir understood as an old language that dated back several centuries due to being versed in it. It seemed that Grausam was familiar with the language, as his Titan's face raised the eyebrow under its left eye. If only everyone else could know that Historia said to him, "The depraved things you've done… The people you've harmed for your own goals… A man that does what you do…is one doomed to fall out of the grace of others, never to embrace their hearts that are closed off to him…and you've severed your connection to the nexus that was the Founder, the progenitor of the the Eldian nation, Ymir Fritz. You might never reclaim your connection to her, lost to her and everyone else."
"Must you really speak in that language?" Grausam asked her.
"You understood her?" Ymir questioned.
"The language is so simple that it's not even a challenge to speak it."
"(Then you, too, know the language of the Old Eldians)," she spoke in the same language as Historia had to him (A/N: "()" will represent ancient languages that can't be understood by the others).
"The…'Old…Eldians'?" Grausam spoke, sounding offended. "To be blunt, I didn't understand this language until after my third transformation…and it was odd. I think the fact that the Titans have been around for over two-thousand years makes learning other languages a poor choice or something of the sort. Marley was at a loss on how long they've been around, exactly; they can't agree on whether or not they've been around for twenty-five-hundred years…or twenty-five-thousand years. I guess their hatred of you people degraded their recall, excluding their most recent history of their disgust towards those on Paradis."
Historia handed the microphone to Hange and let her ask a question.
"You're an unusual person, Mr. Zanki," she spoke. "Is there not a single shred of remorse in you for your victims? No conscience?"
"Why should I feel for others?" He asked her. "People live and die all the time. I'm numb to death. Whether you die from natural causes or by someone that has it in for you or some other factor, not including myself…because you just bore me with your presence, the same as the rest of you, I won't give a damn."
"Hearing that from you tells me all I need to inform Her Majesty of your personality defects that make you unfit to be around others (Hange then turns to Historia). This man isn't just a psychopath… He's a sociopath, as well."
"What is that and what does it mean?" Historia questions her.
"He's incapable of even the most basic humanity. He has no capacity for compassion, no sympathy, no understanding of the most rudimentary forms of right and wrong, light and darkness. He's completely deprived of any sense of conscience. In his mind, these are all pointless things to worry about."
"So, even if he were surrounded by dead people, he'd be indifferent," Levi spoke in realization.
"How does someone like him end up this way?" Eren asked.
"This isn't something that usually happens by accident. My best guesses are that Grausam Zanki's a bad seed, meaning he was born this way…or he's had a history of bad behavior towards others. If there's anyone else from before the attack on Wall Maria's Shiganshina District that knew him, excluding his relatives, they could explain more about him."
"That might be impossible, since after the fall of Wall Maria, dozens of sick and elderly people either died of natural causes or facing the Titans to retake the wall," Erwin revealed. "We should probably question the only other person that would want nothing else to do with Grausam."
"And who might that be?" Historia asked him.
"His son, Sig Zanki-Sogen."
"Kaede's stepfather? Yeah, he would want nothing else to do with him; how does he get through each day, knowing that he's the son of an awful man?"
-x-
"…I think the best way to deal with him is through the combined power of all of Ymir Fritz's Titans," Kaede suggested to Shinji as she sat in his Eva's left hand.
"Are you sure?" He asked her.
"Yeah… The power of the Founder may be useless against him if he's severed his connection to the invisible pathways that connect all of Eldia's Subjects of Ymir, and none of the other Titan powers I have are effective against him, which means the War Hammer Titan is our best bet."
Within his plug, Shinji sighed as he agreed with her, but he still wanted to keep from having to cross the line.
"Hey, you two up there," they both heard Historia's voice yell out to them as they looked down and saw her and Ymir step out of the building. "We gotta go!"
Shinji lowered Kaede down and the girl greeted the queen.
"How did the conversation go?" She asked Historia.
"It went pretty much the way I had expected it to," she explained. "Grausam is…unyielding in his immorality. He even threatened to come after me if the opportunity presented itself."
Kaede bowed her head in apology for her step-grandfather's threat on her life.
"But all I told him was that he should beware the wrath of his past," Historia revealed.
"What did you mean by that?" Shinji asked, confused.
"While he doesn't seem at all interested in monarchs or royal bloodlines, he's definitely interested in power, which means he's interested in the future he desires to escape the past he rejects."
-x-
Escape the past and run to the future
It was only for five extra minutes, but it was a series of words between the queen and the Akuma Titan that was heavy in its volume.
"…I hate it when Marley stresses how important it is for there to be bloodlines that possess royalty to them," Grausam expressed his opinions regarding the royalty concepts, "but since none of you are Marleyans, I guess I can share my beliefs on the matter. I think royal blood is worthless to the future of the world…so I think you, little girl, are pretty worthless. You represent the past, a pathetic binding for those that believe in learning from it, and there is nothing left to learn from the past…except for how wretched it had been once to live on this awful rock."
"Well, we've improved by an astronomical degree in the past few months since we retook former Wall Maria," Historiatold him. "How far we've come since then has only been because of everyone putting in their all to help retake our place in the world. In fact, a lot of our efforts only got better because of two people that are a lot more than they seem on the outside. Actually, you know one of them."
"My Guinea pig, Kaede? You think she's so special just because I gave her the power I sought to escape from this Hell? Truth be told, she isn't special or anything. I only used her because she was the most convenient for me to work my serum on. She was just a pawn, no more than an insignificant means to an end for me. What you see in her is beyond me…and honestly, I could care less about why."
"Well, you might've made your step-granddaughter your greatest enemy by giving her the power first instead of yourself. Some of us believe it's because of you turning her first, she's become so powerful and is able to do all that she does."
"First come, first served."
"That's right. While you may have improved on your progress is making Titans more versatile and efficient than the Titans we've dealt with in the past, no matter what you've done to make them better, all of them, including yourself…will always be second best to her Titan."
"I…am many times better than that little bitch," Grausam uttered.
"I doubt that," Ymir retorted, letting it be heard that she had a different opinion on the two in terms of both what they were capable of and who they fought for and against.
"Whatever she's capable of, it's only because she's a prototype, prone to defects, however major or minor they may be. Surely, even the very first of the Titans was prone to flaws, with later Titans showing corrections to the defects. But I will show you, eventually…and I'll free all of you from the future, down to the last Eldian."
"And what, free yourself from your past as one of us?" Historia questioned. "That's impossible."
"Don't debate with me, girl!" He yelled, unable to move an inch due to the weights. "You might at least have the opportunity to die while you still have the option of doing so quickly instead of slowly!"
Historia frowned and then calmed herself.
"When we find a way to do so, you will be disposed of, Grausam Zanki," she informed him. "Imprisonment or execution will be your only options, as it's too dangerous for any of us to simply let you live, knowing what you're capable of."
"You better pray you can kill me, then. Otherwise, I will kill you, then them…and everyone else that exists on this pitiful island. I'll just tell Marley the royal family died a long time ago to spare myself the indignity of being reminded that I lived in a place so miserable that I had to escape it…because anywhere else is better than life here. And just so that you know, your status as a member of royalty or nobility means nothing to me. A throne or crown is just a physical and metaphorical symbol of status. Blood is just blood. Anyone and everyone has a right to claim the power to dominate others, no matter where it is they reside or who they are…if they can take it."
Historia then gave the microphone to Hange and walked away with Ymir.
"Whichever method gets rid of him works for me so long as he's nothing but a bad memory," Ymir told Hange before she left with Historia.
-x-
"…So, Grausam is just as bad a conversationalist as he is bad at everything else he does," said Kaede as she took Historia and Ymir back to the village. "It's probably best for now that you stay away from him, Historia."
"Yeah, that's the plan," Historia responded. "He seems to think that you're flawed, though, despite you being so powerful already."
Inside her Titan, Kaede had a look of concern on her face.
"His beliefs are just that," she told them. "They're just his beliefs, his opinions. I don't think I'm flawed, and neither do those I talk to."
But deep down, the girl didn't want to think about the possibility that their inability to kill Grausam was because her, because she needed the last of the Nine Titans to do the job. Or worse, because the sick bastard was likely, truly, immortal, and an immortal Titan Shifter would be impossible to kill, because they'd be everlasting. And even if they found a way to do him in, it'd only be temporary…and he'd just come back.
"A member of the Wall Cult once told me before I even knew who they were that evil can't be killed, Kaede," she remembered her mother telling her when she was seven years old. "Wherever there is good, you will always find evil, just as day opposes night. I only told him…that evil doesn't need to be killed. It only needs to be held at bay. Your father agreed with me. When you hold the evil that exists in the world at bay, goodness can spread beyond the world you know."
"Hey, Kaede?" She heard Ymir say her name.
"Yes?" She responded.
"When you get the last Titan from Marley and deal with Grausam…try and bust his balls for me."
"Eh-heh-heh!" Historia laughed.
"Eh-heh-heh-heh!" Kaede followed suit. "Yeah, I gotta do that to someone like him one of these days."
-x-
Two more days passed until a member from the Garrison arrived at the facility in the forest and informed Erwin and Levi of something they needed to hear.
"What is it that you couldn't say inside?" Erwin asked the man as they all stood on the Eva's right palm, held up in the trees.
"It's one of the Marleyans we're holding in custody at the prison facility in Trost," he explained. "He wants to talk about Grausam Zanki's behavior. He claims he used to be part of this research division Marley had to investigate the power of the Titans."
"And why would he want to talk to us now?" Levi asked him.
"He just informed Commander Pixis of the next wave of Marley's attack on us would be in another week from today."
Inside his Eva, Shinji wondered why a Marleyan man that was once the enemy and now a prisoner would willingly divulge sensitive information to them now after telling them that Marley's second wave of their invasion force would be coming soon. Unless he was trying to lower their guard or had a change of heart, there was no point in trying to appeal to the Eldians if the hatred was so strong.
To be continued…
A/N: Ooh, now we have to wait for the next chapter to know what happens next. I'm interested in knowing what the Marleyan that wants to talk has to say about Grausam. Are any of you?
Omake (Friday-influenced)
"You see them?" Shinji asked Kaede as they stepped out of the building and onto the empty sidewalk with Historia and Ymir after their double date ended at the theater.
"There ain't no Marleyans out here," went Ymir to them. "I don't know why we should be concerned about some turf war between the three rival factions. We're just a guy and three girls hanging out together, aren't we?"
"An Asian guy and three Eldian girls with unwanted ties to the three factions that want to kill each other to claim territory," Historia expressed.
"I don't see why the Marleyans would want to come after us, anyhow," went Kaede as she held Shinji's left hand. "Huh?"
She stopped walking as they all looked down the street.
There was a large truck in the middle of the road.
"Who leaves a truck in the middle of the road at this time at night?" Historia questioned, and the headlights of the truck illuminate the quartet.
"We're gonna get you Eldian bitches and your Asian ape!" A man from the Marley faction shouted, raising a gun up with his fellow members as the truck started moving their way.
"Oh, shit!" The four yelled as they ran down a back alley.
Unfortunately, they didn't realize that the guns held by the Marleyan gang…were just water guns made to look like actual guns.
"Ah-ha-ha-ha!" The Marleyans laughed, unaware that they were about to crash into a wall.
CRASH! Their truck hit the wall, and they all got hurt.
"Ow…" They groaned.