Chapter 5

Eren's POV:

Although being the King and the Queen, Mikasa and I are still going to the Survey Corps because today is the day when Marley sends their first Survey Fleet to the island. I turned into a Titan and I manage to bring the ship to the shore, the action causes all of the people inside to quickly jump out of the ship as they land on the shore.

"Hello, friends of Marley." Hange says as she holds her arms out. "Welcome to Paradis Island."

The soldiers are groaning until they notice Hange. "I'm Hange, here to greet our guests who've come so far across the sea! Now step this way and join us for some tea!"

Same old Commander Hange, sometimes this woman terrifies me. Levi also brings Nicolo, a Marley soldier, to them. "By the way, we're already friends with the guest that arrived before you. Isn't that right, Nicolo?"

"Captain! Forget about me and shoot those devils!"

"What are you saying, Nicolo?"

"Nicolo! Understand this you devils! Marley doesn't mingle with filthy blood! Go drink your pig piss with your filthy friends!" The captain says.

"Aww! Hey! You sure you wanna be rude to us? Can't you see the Titan behind you?" Hange asks.

Now they finally notice me, and some of the soldiers are terrified of me. The captain seems to be bold and he already points his gun. "We'll never yield to you devils! Say hello to this!"

I notice that my friends are preparing to shoot the captain, but someone in Marley's soldiers did it first. It is a blonde-haired woman, if I remember from the memories, her name is Yelena. And some of the Marleyan soldiers are also pointing their guns at the others. I remember one of them is Onyankopon.

"Hange, I'd be happy to accept your invitation. Let's have tea." Yelena says, and suddenly, she turns around and faces me, "I've longed to meet you, Eren."

Mikasa, Levi, Hange, and I are now at the meeting, as I say, "As the King of Paradis, I welcome you all to our island of Paradis."

I shake hands with both Yelena and Onyanpokon, as they are the representatives of the Anti-Marley Volunteers. Hange is looking at the guns as she says, "Ah! I see! That's how it shoots a bunch!"

"That's a standard issue on Marley. The Marley army has 20000 soldiers per division. With 50 divisions, that's 1000000 soldiers." Yelena replies.

Well, it is expected, I wasn't bluffing when I said that the Rumbling was the only way if we are going against them.

"There is also the navy with three fleets, each comprised of 21 battleships. They've made tremendous progress in new weapons and aerial warfare as well."

Onyankopon says, "In other words, vehicles allowing one to attack the enemy from the sky."

"Huh? From the sky?" Hange yells, and the three of us winced. Levi says, "Hey!"

Mikasa says, "If Marley had such capabilities this whole time, why haven't they attacked in over a year?"

"There are two main reasons. One is the Pure Titans released here. Even with the latest weapons, they would hinder a land assault. They were used as a tool to confine Eldians within the walls, but in turn, they protected Eldia from invasion." Yelena says.

"Well, ain't that funny?" Levi asks.

"Though dawn is coming soon, and that's when Titans are active. But if we're way out here, sipping on tea outside the walls, you must have killed all the Titans roaming around." She turns back to them. "Is that true?"

"More like we've used the Founding Titan to return the rest of the Titans back to humans." I say. "So are you going to report it to Marley?"

"No, it blows away expectations." Yelena replies.

"And the second reason?" Hange asks.

"Currently, Marley is at war with multiple nations. They can't be bothered with Paradis. You defeated the Warrior unit, the pride of Marley, and captured two of their main weapons, the Colossal and Female Titan. Marley's many enemies took notice and were quick to unite and declare war."

The female Titan... that reminds me, maybe it is time to bring Annie to our side. The reason she killed a lot of our people was that she just wanted to see her father again. Mikasa looks at me as she wonders what I'm planning.

"If you guys are secret agents who infiltrated Marley, I'm guessing you came from conquered nations?" Hange asks, and it causes the two of them to tense up. "Oh, I'm right? If you're going up against Marley, I bet you've got big backers!"

"We're not secret agents or anything of the sort. We were powerless. Marley took our homes and forced us to be soldiers." Yelena lowers her head. "We were close to losing hope at ever striking back. Until we met him."

"Him?" Mikasa questions.

"A Titan that people in the world feared, calling it a devil. But I saw something completely different... A god. One that gave hope to the powerless." Yelena says. "Under Zeke Yeager's command, we shot our superiors. We're the Anti-Marleyan Volunteers. Our goal: To free the Eldian people."

Yeah, freeing people by taking away their reproduction ability so that we can just die off. As if I'm going to let that happen again.

At an assembly gathered between the heads of the military, Hange gives Zeke's demands in return for him helping the Eldians; sharing technology for weapons, starting relations between Paradis Island and other warring nations fighting Marley, and providing support.

"That concludes Zeke Yeager's requests. For the sake of Eldians whose existence is threatened..." Before Hange can finish, protests are already happening.

"Absurd! I don't even want to hear it!" "He's the Beast Titan! He turned the people of Ragako into Titans and incited a panic! This is the same person who nearly annihilated the Scouts!"

Zachary says, "His one and only goal is to retake the Founding Titan. Since he can't do it by force, he'll attempt it diplomatically."

Pyxis says, "He should know we'll expect that. Let's hear what else he has to say."

"According to Zeke, he has a secret plan to solve the Eldian issue. To carry it out, it requires the Founding Titan and a Titan with royal blood." Hange says. "With both, the world can be saved. However, he will only reveal the plan when his conditions are met."

"Bullshit!" "He must think we're idiots!"

Eren stands up and says, "What Zeke Yeager said was the truth, when I got into contact with a Titan with Royal blood, that was Zeke Yeager's mother, Dina Fritz, that made me able to use the Founder's full power while still under the vow of renouncing war. However, the vow ceases to exist. Meaning that we don't need a Titan with Royal Blood."

This causes everyone to stare at me with shock. Levi asks, "Why did you keep quite about this for so long?"

I reply, "I was concerned for the queen's safety. However, it was careless of me."

"But we still can't have those soldiers on the island!" "Yeah, we oughta hang them all!"

"No, we can't do that!" Hange says, "To protect the island from Marley's scout ships, we need the volunteers."

The rest of the meeting goes smoothly as we manage to persuade the military to keep an eye on the volunteers while they help us with the production of the weapons and other technologies.

After the meeting's over, Historia, Mikasa, and I are now walking towards Annie's prison. Armin is already there as he is waiting for us.

"You guys are here..." Armin says.

"It's time for us to free Annie from the crystal prison." I touch the crystal, and suddenly, Annie lies drenched and limp, surrounded by the broken crystal fragments. She starts to cough out liquid as I say, "Annie, it's been a while."

She notices the four of us and she says, "Oh... it's you guys. What do you want?"

Mikasa was about to take action before Historia stop her. She says, "We're here to talk. That's all. You have been staying in that crystal for almost a year, did you know? A year can happen a lot."

I say, "We know everything about Marley, and we also knew about your warrior comrades. First of all, I want to ask you about the damage you caused to my teammates or the people in Stohess?"

Annie stares at us with a cold tone as she says, "We were praised for killing people. We were taught that once we were beyond our borders, we could kill combatants and civilians alike. We were atoning for our deeds as Eldians and on a mission to save the world. So anything was justified."

Armin says, "Annie, you wanted to stop that, right? Are those people necessary sacrifices for you?"

"No... I don't care one bit about that saving the world stuff..." Annie lowers her head. "I was abandoned by my parents not long after I was born. They say my blood test showed my mother had been having an affair with an Eldian or something. So I was taken into the Internment Zone by a man of Eldian blood who'd come from another country. Apparently, they put him there for similar reasons. His goal was to train me into a Marleyan warrior so that he could make his own life better. For as long as I can remember, he was always beating the martial arts techniques of his motherland into me. The only value I had to him was in whether or not I could become a Warrior."

The four of us frown, I thought her father was a nice person, but I guess he's just like my father before he got into the walls. "Time passed, and I grew strong, just like he wanted. So I paid him back for all the pain he'd shown me until that point. I made it so that he'd never be able to walk straight again, but...he was happy. "Now you can kill your enemies, even unarmed," he said. And so, it all stopped mattering to me. Who people were, and where they came from. Whether they lived or died. I couldn't find any value in life... including my own. Yes, until then, that is... it was... the morning when we were to head off to the island for the plan to retake the Founder... the man dropped to his knees and apologized to me. He told me... that everything he taught me had been wrong. He cried and pleaded. He wanted me to come back. My status as a Warrior...our title as Honorary Marleyans... he said that none of that mattered so long as I returned... that man was my father. He saw me as his own daughter."

"I see..." Historia frowns, she still has some doubts, I can't blame her, the last time when she met her father again, he did the same thing, only that he never cared about her but her blood.

"I have a father waiting for me. And others have people just as important to them too. I used to not care about anything, but it's different now. I think I've committed irredeemable sins. If it meant returning to my father, I'd do it all over again." Annie sighs.

I say, "Retake the Founder, was that the reason why you wanted to kidnap me back then? Because I am the Founding Titan? No, it is not just you, Reiner and Bertolt tried to do the same thing. Heck, even the Beast Titan and the Cart Titan were also here..."

Annie widens her eyes and Armin says, "And Annie... I... I ate Bertolt, and now I am the Colossal Titan now."

Annie looks at Armin since she doesn't expect Armin to be a Titan Shifter like her. Eren says, "The rest had escaped back to Marley, and Marley is now having a war with the Mid-East Nations."

"So I was abandoned by them... seriously..." Annie frowns, I can understand that means she won't be able to get back to see her father.

"That's why we're here for a proposal, what do you say you work for us instead of work with Marley?" I ask.

And I'll cut the Chapter right here, as you can see, Annie is revealing her past to the others and I hope you like this chapter.