Creation began on 10-09-20
Creation ended on 10-22-20
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Hope from the Sky: Unexpected
Kaede caught Grausam before he could pick up speed and knocked him aside his head, sending him falling back onto the ground.
"Urgh!" He grunted as he tried to get up again.
"Oh, no, you don't!" She told him and kicked him in his face and waist. "You're not going anywhere! You have tortured too many lives to be allowed to go free!"
She got on top of him and started wailing on him, this time letting him know firsthand of the anger he had wrought upon himself with her. While he had heard of the concept of a woman scorned before in his past, but Kaede was no woman scorned. No, she was just a girl throwing a fit over what he did to her in order to make his own plans to escape from this island when it had walls to keep the people confined. Even though it had been five years since that day, the wounds were still fresh because of his twisted desires.
Even without Titan powers, she's furious over him, thought one of the Titans that was a Garrison soldier, watching as Kaede continued to hit Grausam, managing to land a few blows to his face.
And this girl was the first of the Jaeger Titans? Petra Ral thought as she was one of the other Titans that had attacked Grausam's Akuma Titan. She's more temperamental than Yeager, but has more control over her temper.
Bash! Grausam was struck in the face again by Kaede and he had had enough of her assault.
"Damn bitch!" He yelled, and finally managed to knock her off onto the side. "You think you can kill me?! You can't kill me!"
Kaede got up and kicked him hard right where the light didn't shine, causing Grausam some discomfort when she did.
"Ooh!" Hange gasped; she hadn't seen Ms. Sogen perform such a move since the revelation that she was the Dark Titan became public knowledge. "Miss Sogen has a lot of anger!"
"At least she has restraint," went Levi, actually impressed by the fact that the girl's Titan creation and control was a bit more advanced than they had expected, and this was the first time she had put both to use on Subjects of Ymir that weren't Titans already.
It had only been minutes ago, but Levi's witness of Kaede's ability to turn several Survey Corps and Garrison members into Titans with intelligence. Not only that, but they were very powerful, even though they were not fifteen meters, the standard height of the Titans.
"Bitch!" Grausam yelled as he punched Kaede in her face, knocking her away. "I'll break your damn neck!"
He reached for her neck, but she headbutted him in his nose, knocking him backwards.
"Aaaurgh!" Kaede yelled, more in annoyance than in pain; her mother once told her she'd be able to use her head in an effective manner, but she probably didn't mean as an actual defensive weapon against Grausam or some other cretin. "Now, who's the bitch?!"
Grausam started to generate a much bigger right arm as he summoned his Titan.
Grip! A large hand reached over Kaede and grabbed Grausam; one of the newly-created Titans had gotten close by in the ensuing madness and tightened its grip on the old man.
"I'll break your legs, Grausam Zanki," the Titan spoke in a female voice, and ripped his legs off, crippling him.
"Aaaurgh!" He screamed as he was dropped to the ground. "Aaaurgh…aah… No! No!"
He tried to generate his Akuma Titan again, but his body, having already transformed into the Akuma Titan a few times, was already beginning to regenerate the lost limbs. Until he had regrown his severed legs, he couldn't transform.
The Titans around them started to evaporate and release the people they were made from.
"You might've demonstrated some improved abilities, Grausam," Kaede told him, "but you're so focused on trying to cause pain and suffering unto others that you up and forgot something very important about who you were trying to do away with."
"And what is that?" He questioned as he tried to crawl away.
A pair of boots blocked his path, and he looked up to face Levi Ackerman.
"You forgot that Ms. Sogen here is much stronger than you'll ever be," Levi explained, and then took his blades…and sliced his hands off. "And unlike you, she keeps her anger in check, showing restraint…and doesn't have any axe to grind in anyone else's back except yours…and isn't some rogue obsessed with power and domination. You let your lack of self-control get in the way, and that is why you failed."
Slice! Levi used his ODM blades and hacked off Grausam's arms, up to his shoulders, hindering him further.
"Gaaaurgh!" He yelled, unable to move without his limbs.
Surrounded on all sides by these people and Titans, made a cripple all over again by factors out of his control, and at the mercy of his step-granddaughter, his greatest enemy…and greatest mistake of his existence.
I refuse to let it end like this for me! He thought, trying to trigger his Titan transformation again; he was not some old man who had accepted his fate to live and die confined to some small space on an island, he was a man destined to escape his fate, time and again, and he would escape again from those that sought his end. I will not die here!
Slam! Kaede's Dark Titan manifested from behind her and covered Grausam in her Titan flesh, forming a sort of hardened chrysalis that rendered him frozen in his predicament.
"Sorry about that," she uttered to them. "This will keep him from acting up."
The diamond-like chrysalis showed Grausam trapped in his crippled state, his expression one of pent-upped rage towards the world. But in this state, time was, more or less, frozen for him for now, and he was kept in check.
"Are you sure he can't do anything in this state?" Levi questioned the Dark Titan.
"Unless he has other abilities similar to the War Hammer Titan, he's not going to do anything for a long time," she told him. "He's stuck in diamond, a victim submerged in hardened flesh that transcends time and space. Only his mind can grant him some semblance of freedom."
"…Ahh…" They heard a silent moan coming from Grausam's diamond prison.
"We've dealt with him again," went Petra, "so, what do we do with him this time around? We can't put him back in Titania's Abyss and pray that nobody comes looking for him again."
Kaede knew this to be true; so long as there were people, like those from Shinji's world, that possessed the means and drive to go after someone like Grausam, he couldn't be dumped into the abyss again, no matter what they tried. And so long as he was alive, there was always going to be a chance for him to get away…and harm others to keep from being imprisoned again…and again…and again. Therefore, he needed to be dealt with in a way that he couldn't escape, that he couldn't hurt anyone else for as long as he lived, even if it was for eternity, as he himself claimed of his so-called immortality.
"What are you thinking, Ms. Sogen?" Erwin asked her.
"Just someplace beyond this world," she stated cryptically, and then looked to the Titans she had made out of her people. Return to your previous state.
The Titans started to evaporate and expose the men and women that had volunteered to be turned into them.
We got him again, Shinji, she told her boyfriend from afar. He's stuck in diamond, crippled and incapable of moving.
Cleanup in the water is going well on my end, he responded. If there are any survivors from this invasion attempt, they won't survive in the ocean for too long. The evaporating Titan flesh heats up the surrounding water to a boiling point.
Yeah…but we've won…again.
Yeah…
There seemed to be a silence between the two that indicated that they weren't as okay with the outcome as they thought they would be, and not because of the deaths of those that became Jaeger Titans due to Grausam's serum, but because it was their desire for power and control that drove them straight to their doom. Still, they had to accept this as their reality, as they had to do whatever it took for them to protect the people of Paradis Island from being harmed by a foreign aggressor and a former member of the society of the island community.
-x-
Shinji had to look away as the ocean water had risen in temperature and caused several bodies to float up, sickened by the sight of what he felt was an unnecessary decrease in the human population from his world by people with unnecessary goals against a people that didn't need to be carried out through violence. Even as he forced himself to look back, he was still disgusted by the sight of the scalded corpses. People with cruel agendas, willing to go to war with people that have no quarrel with them, would often meet with much worse than resistance in the end.
"Ikari-Kun," he heard Rei say to him, "there's no trace of any remaining Jaeger Titans…and the people inside them have been scalded to death by the temporary rise in the water temperature around us."
"So, it's over, then?" Asuka suggested.
"It would appear so."
Shinji lowered his Eva's AT-Field and the Eva shrugged a little, as if relieved of an immense weight that it had been carrying for some time now.
"No," he uttered, "it's not over yet. There's still Grausam Zanki to be dealt with."
"That crazy man?" Asuka questioned. "Then, let's deal with him."
-x-
The world around him was fuzzy and distorted. It was as though he were lost in a maze of white noise and shadows. There was some degree of pain, but he was unable to voice it on account of feeling numb all over.
"…He was fortunate to survive the impact…" He heard a female voice utter.
"…He won't be as fortunate if his fate is decided to be severe…" A male voice went.
"…I don't care if he doesn't have the power of the Titans, anymore, I just want to know if he can't do what he did once before…"
"…I'm afraid of him…"
"…He frightens me with his anger…"
"…It's for Historia Reiss to decide…"
"…Her advisors will help have our best interests…"
Opening his eyes, his vision corrected to show that he was inside a room, the sound of a machine beeping and the sight of an IV drip leading towards his left shoulder indicating that he was at least alive.
I'm still alive? Eren Yeager thought as he recalled what happened to him. Grausam…threw me away from Paradis…and I hit the water… I was found…and then…nothing.
He was fortunate enough to be alive after being tossed with such force and ending up in the ocean with such brutality. But that couldn't erase the fears of the people that hailed from Paradis that were fearful of him because of his past actions in another lifetime. They wanted reassurances that he wasn't a threat, that he was no longer capable of causing problems for them. The mere fact that he was alive had the people that found him still fearful of his actions.
"Were we able get in touch with Paradis?" He heard someone else say.
"Yeah, we were," another voice responded. "The failed attempt to take the island failed and the entire invading enemy has been dealt with severely. They have Grausam Zanki again, and all that's left to do about him is dispose of him. Again."
"And what about Yeager?"
"That's for the queen to decide."
"He might not be much of threat, anymore…but I don't know if I can ever forgive his past crimes, not after what they cost people before."
"Forgive and forget is what we're taught…but that's something those who are truly incapable of change often refuse to consider. Whatever Historia Reiss decides to do with him, I'll accept only because my wife is still alive on Paradis…and because this guy hasn't crossed the line and sacrificed her for the sake of his own freedom above all others."
Eren found that despite this small mercy, there were probably countless people that wanted him dead or at least locked away for as long as they felt he was a threat to them. He didn't blame them for thinking this way; after much time to do nothing but think, along with a near-death experience, he had to accept that, in at least his alternate past, he really had crossed many lines, moral, ethical and personal. In his own defense in that other life, he only did what he did because he knew, due to the former power of the Attack Titan and his own discovery of the Eldians that used to live in Marley at the time didn't see the ones that lived on Paradis as being the same as them, but then he had to look the other way when realizing that because of Shinji and Kaede, the majority of the Eldians that had been housed in the internment zones by the Marleyans were less resentful of the ones that lived on Paradis after Kaede reached out to each and every one of them and was able to liberate the majority of them after explaining what Shinji did to save them from the Colossal Titan when it attacked them a third time. While there had only been a large handful of Eldians that chose not to flee from Marley when the opportunity came, it was also disturbing to know how Marley was so corrupted by their hatred of Eldia and attacked every other country in this world that either sympathized with Eldia…or didn't hate the nation as much as they did. And when it wasn't enough to simply hate them…their own self-destruction was evident in the way they consumed their own resources to the point of cutting short their own lives within a few years without more resources to replenish their needs.
We were getting through to them after they had exhausted their own manpower and weapons against us, he thought, accepting that the Marleyans they had in their custody after their failed attempts were starting to see that they weren't the monsters they were constantly trying to believe that they were. We were getting through to them after they were down. They were beginning to see who we really were.
"You could've just walked away," he remembered his mother telling while he was unconscious, "let go of the anger, the drive for vengeance, after you took back Wall Maria."
"It'll be two days until we return to Paradis," he heard another voice outside the room he was in.
Two days. In two days' time, Eren would be back on Paradis Island…and then his fate would be decided for him by Historia.
To be continued…
A/N: The next chapter will decide the outcome of the poll that will close on Halloween. In the meantime, I hope this chapter will leave you wanting to see what becomes of both Eren and Grausam in the future.