Author's Note: Oh look! A chapter at last! (heh heh). Sorry for the delays, I've been busy with Real Life, but I had a spare hour so I thought I'd update this. STILL working on Melodies (bright side, it's a long chapter, down side, it's a long chapter and I WRITE SLOWLY OKAY). Also still working on Ballad (ALMOST FINISHED with a one-shot ... just not the driver's license one, gah). Also something to note, there was a big scare a little while back about a virus on people's FFN profiles, and so even though the Mods say it's been taken care of, I'm still too paranoid to open people's profiles to access the PM feature. Therefore, until my paranoia settles, everybody's review response is going to be at the bottom of the chapter. Sorry 'bout that. In other, other news, I finally have an account on Ao3! I plan to crosspost over there as soon as I have time to edit the old chapters of these stories, so if you prefer Ao3, keep an eye out for these on there. I'm the same username (SecretEnigma) on Ao3 as on here and there's currently a one-shot collection up on there if you want to look (it's Horizon Zero Dawn rather than FT though).
To clear up a few questions that keep popping up in reviews: Wren is NOT A TITAN and she is NEVER GETTING HER VOICE BACK. Thank you. This arc is mostly me creating an anime-action version of Gulliver visiting the Lilliputians, so while she is titan-SIZED she isn't actually a titan. Just a human. I mean, in Earthland there's an island of friendly shape-shifting demons (Galuna Isle anyone?) so why not an island of tiny people? So, yeah, no dimension jumps, no getting-voice-back-via-titan-healing, none of that stuff. Also, yes, Meeting Erza is the next arc after this one, NO, Erza will not be joining the Raijinshū. I know some people had concerns about that, but there are not going to be anymore members added to the Tribe. I'll deal with the Tribe and their too-tiny lighthouse after this arc and maybe the Erza meeting arc, but don't worry, I haven't forgotten about it.
One last thing before I forget, let it be known that I have neither read the AoT manga or seen the anime beyond ... two episodes and a few video clips I think. I have read a handful of the fanfiction, but other than that, everything I know about AoT is through wiki hunting. Therefor, if a character seems OOC or I get worldbuilding details wrong, I apologize and ask you to just assume that the differences are because these are counterparts to the canon characters and not the canon characters themselves (you, like Edolas, but not as extreme). Now, on to the story!
Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail, Attack on Titan, or any references made in this chapter. The only things I own are my OCs who have run off with my plot.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Foreign
(2 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 6 days since joining Fairy Tail)
Farlan stared at the shadowy kanji hovering just beneath the titan's fingertips and wondered if he had gone mad. "Yes. I understand." The evidence was just a handful of characters in a shadowy magical script, but considering they'd been formed by a titan…
But he didn't think he'd gone mad. He didn't … feel insane. Exhausted, yes, hurt, definitely. His legs and side were throbbing steadily with pain no matter what he did, but the world was as solid and clear as it had been three days ago, or five days ago, or even weeks ago. Before that disaster of a mission that had led to him and Isabel fleeing across the countryside for their lives, barely avoiding death in a titan's maw time and again. It was just … a lot more confusing all of a sudden.
The titan —who he now realized with an inward jolt was wearing shoes and clothes— watched them intently, eyes jumping from one face to the other with an expression that could only be called nervous and tired. But that's … that's impossible isn't it? Titans didn't wear clothes, they didn't make facial expressions beyond their eerie, set smile, and they didn't watch people with that keen gaze that indicated an understanding of social cues or even —dare he even think it— empathy for a human. In all one hundred years of humanity living under the terror of the titan threat, not one report had ever been made of anything like this.
Abnormal titans had caused rumors —myths— about sentient, talking titans to spring up, but all of those had been disproven multiple times. Abnormal titans were just as soulless as the normal ones, just far more dangerous and unpredictable —as proven by the horror show that had almost been Farlan's, Isabel's, and Levi's first and last mission with the Corps—. No titan could withstand the urge to consume an available human for long. No titan had ever been seen with anything resembling clothing, let alone something made out of fabric and leather. No titan ever carried around food that humans could eat. No titan could wield magic —thank every higher power that existed—. No titan could write.
And yet here it —she?— was, silently waiting for them to say something else, shadowy kanji still hovering beneath its —her?— fingertips. Dressed in scuffed leather boots and what looked like a slightly worn shirt and ever-so-slightly oversized cargo pants. This titan hadn't attacked them when they first came in, or at any point after —even when they'd been helplessly sobbing their hearts out from shock and exhaustion and despair that was apparently, maybe, unfounded—. Had offered them a piece of some kind of protein bar that was too large to have been from their stocks —which meant this titan did eat, but ate something other than people, if he dared to believe it—. It was like something out of a bad fantasy novel.
Which was why Farlan was still wondering if he had snapped and gone insane. Or if when the last titan had swatted him against the side of a building, it had actually done a lot more damage than he'd thought and he was currently in some titan's gut, spending his final moments in a deep delirium to avoid the awful reality.
Isabel didn't seem to be having the same mental freeze, she was even reckless enough to take a small step toward the titan as she called up to it —her? Did titans even have genders when they had no biological ability to reproduce?— "Yah- Yah actually-…" She ran a grimy hand through her hair, "How?"
There was a pause as the previous kanji faded away and with a swirl of large fingers, new ones slowly formed, "I learned. Still learning. Slow."
"A human taught yah ta write?"
The titan's head tilted to one side in a gesture of puzzlement —a titan that could emote, that went against all of Commander Zoë's research papers—, "Yes. My sister."
A titan with a concept of familial relations. Sure, why not. It wasn't like his day hadn't been turned far enough upside down or anything. Isabel's shoulders rolled slightly, a sign of her own confusion, "So … humans adopted you? Why would humans adopt a titan? No 'fense."
The titan's nose wrinkled into a frown, "Human I am."
Isabel gave a shaky snort, "Human's don't grow ta be seven meters tall. Only titans get thah tall."
The titan went rigid, shoulders rising like the fur on a cat's back. Farlan felt like his heart was going to stop from fear and Isabel cringed away on instinct, this is it, it's going to turn on us- It stared at them, something old and sad reflecting in its eyes, and it forcibly settled down again with a deep breath. Large, narrow fingers —like a child's hand, Farlan couldn't help but notice, only much bigger— flexed a few times before shadows coalesced into thicker, angrier letters, "I. Am. Human. Not-" there was a pause and an agitated frown, like it couldn't remember the right word, then instead settled for, "monster. Those things live do not. Never have. Dead monster. Those things are…" the kanji trailed off and Farlan watched with a twisting heart and dimly fascinated mind as the titan's expression closed off, eyes wide and glazed like any soldier who had seen a real titan in action for the first time. The muted horror, fear, raw revulsion, it was all there, playing across a larger than normal face, yet one Farlan couldn't help but suddenly see as human all the same.
Another deep, gushing breath —like someone trying to banish the nightmares away and focus on the present— and the letters resumed, "My name is Wren. Mage I am of guild Fairy Tail."
Hazel eyes looked at them questioningly and Isabel —irrepressible as ever, even in the face of impossibility— gave a tiny bow of greeting in between her shivers of cold and adrenaline, "Isabel. Thah's Farlan back there. We're members of tha Survey Corps. We got separated from our unit by a bunch of f-" Isabel coughed, for once seeming to realize that perhaps swearing might not be the best thing at the moment, "by a bunch of titans. We've been on tha run ever since, Farlan took a hit in tha last fight tha ruined his gear, so we came here hoping ta rest and resupply. How 'bout you?"
The titan-who-thought-it-was-human made a face, "Don't know. Woke up on beach. Remember how I got there do not. Last memory is to the guild building after training going. Walked to forest, saw monster, ran away. Ran here, hid, slept, woke up, met you."
Farlan finally managed to retrieve his voice, "Training for what?"
A glance in his direction, "Mage I am. Jobs I take. Train magic for those."
"Titans have mage guilds? Where?"
Another flash of fury quickly smothered —though not quickly enough for his heart rate—, "Not monster. Human. Girl. Live with other humans, taller than me they are. You're just short."
He made a mental note that species was apparently a touchy matter and that there were apparently more sentient titans out there somewhere —which brought up a lot of questions he'd never thought to ask and didn't want to contemplate even now—. He also adjusted his mental thinking from "it" to "she", there was no sense angering i- her into biting them in half if he could help it, "Where are all of these other … tall humans then?"
A shrug, "Magnolia town. Fiore country. Ishgar-" another pause, his suspicion that it was from a lack of spelling knowledge was confirmed when much simpler hiragana sounded out "con-ti-ne-nt. Earthland world." Which was a very thorough explanation for someone who had trouble spelling and who Farlan would have thought couldn't communicate at all until just now.
He could almost hear Isabel scrunching her nose in confusion, "Ah've heard of Earthland, Ah mean, it's tha planet. But what's Ishgar? Or Fiore? There ain't no places 'round here with those names. What's a continent anyway?"
Farlan couldn't stop a sigh despite the craziness of the situation, "A continent is a landmass even larger than an island, Isabel. You didn't think that Isayama was the only landmass on all of Earthland did you? There are ancient records of other landmasses out there, it's just no one has been to any of them in at least a hundred years because of the titan threat."
Isabel spared the time to give him a blank look over her shoulder. Farlan had to remind himself that not everyone was lucky enough to have an ex-teacher for a parent down in the Underground who would teach them what they could remember being taught in an aboveground school before being banished. Farlan shook his head and forced his mind back on topic, "If … if you're telling the truth and you came from a continent, not Isayama, then…" just ask, just do it, this might be your only chance, "Do you know where the titans come from? How were your … larger humans able to fight them off?"
She looked at him and there was something sad and lost in her expression, "No. In Fiore no dead-monsters there are. No dead-monsters in Ishgar either. Yesterday was first sight for me."
Something in Farlan's chest twisted and he sat up despite the pain it caused in his leg and side, "That- that can't be right! The titans had to have come from somewhere else! Somewhere outside Isayama-" his side spasmed and he collapsed back with a fit of coughs and a shudder from the cold. Isabel's clammy hands clamped down on his shoulders a moment later, steadying his frame while her voice shakily reminded him to breathe. He tried to get his body back under control —he was so cold, he'd been so cold for days now— but his body didn't want to listen. In between his hacking coughs, he became aware of a loud scuffle, like massive shoes shifting across the floor and the creak of boards having a large weight redistributed on them.
Moving. The titan's moving-! "Isa- Isa- be- behind you-!" He could feel Isabel turn around, felt her press protectively closer to him with a scream of alarm as large fingers wrapped around them and pulled them away from the wall. Farlan kicked and flailed in between gasping breaths, mind flashing between despair, betrayal and self-loathing for having fallen for the trap of a titan-
The fingers uncurled and they tumbled onto something soft and radiating heat. Farlan's side and leg protested the movement, then protested more when he sat up sharply to look around. Soft shushing noises ghosted over them as Isabel scrambled for her feet, overbalanced, and fell back against a wall of solid, soft heat that Farlan abruptly realized was the titan's midriff. They were sitting right in the titan's lap. She had shifted to stretch her legs out most of the way across the church, tilting them together so that Farlan and Isabel had a wide if slanted platform to perch on.
The hand that had picked them up curled close, but halted at their flinches and yelps. It stayed there, arm curled around them like a wall to keep them trapped —or, if he listened to the optimist in his head he'd thought long dead, to surround them with more heat—. The shushing noises continued until Isabel stopped screaming and flailing, at which point the two could only stare around at their new position with wide, uncomprehending eyes.
Words formed just above their heads, attracting their attention upward towards an apologetic face, "Sorry. Scare you, I did not mean. But cold you were and sick I did not want you to get." Her expression softened, "Won't hurt you. Guild's honor. Let me help. Please."
They had no reason to believe that. No reason to stay when they'd been moved against their will. This titan-who-claimed-to-be-human had come from nowhere, with powers unheard of, and just expected them to be okay with being moved and held by a titan? The same kind of creature that had eaten so many of their comrades and massacred so many people in the days following the Fall of Shiganshina?
Logic said to run. Fear said to crawl away, injuries or no. To flee out into the rain where death surely awaited because whatever was out there couldn't be worse than whatever fate an intelligent titan could think up for them. The pessimist in him said it was useless either way. It was a miracle they'd survived this long on their own with dwindling supplies, and all miracles ran out eventually.
But … if that was the case … then what was the harm in staying? It was warm right there —so warm after so long skulking from hiding place to hiding place, after the dash through the freezing rain and stress of the last two weeks— and Farlan was tired and hurt and he had questions —so many questions— that might finally get an answer. Even if those answers were lies and this titan did turn on them in the next minute, or hour, or day, at least he would die able to say that he'd had a conversation with a sentient titan. That he'd been able to ask all the questions researchers had been trying to find answers to for decades.
If he was perfectly honest with himself … when weighed on the grand scale of his survival options, what did he —and Isabel, because she was too stubborn to leave him even if she should— have to lose by doing this over anything else? Nothing. Nothing would change. Death was death and life was life for however long it lasted. So, just this once, he would allow the optimist in his head to make his decision.
"Okay." Isabel looked at him like he was crazy, but Farlan only shrugged and cautiously shifted to lean against the titan's —Wren's, she'd said her name was Wren, it was only polite to call her by it until she hurt them— middle. The wall of heat pressed against his back made him close his eyes and groan faintly from the sheer relief of not being so cold anymore.
Isabel pulled at one of his hands, "Farlan! Farlan what're yah doing? We have ta-"
He cracked an eye open tiredly, "Do what, Isabel? If we leave this church in this weather, we'll be dead in hours from hypothermia. If we leave after the rain stops, we're probably going to be eaten by the titans that will pick up our scent on the cleared-out air from miles away. What can happen to us in here that will be worse than out there, really?"
Isabel had no response to that. She just stared at him for several long seconds, then looked up at the titan —Wren, Farlan reminded himself—, then back at him, then sagged, "Let me get tha medical stuff at least." Instead of letting Isabel out, there was a soft shifting sound and shadows gently plopped the needed items down next to Isabel. After a few seconds, the lamp joined the assembly of items, followed by the contents of a crate that had been marked as containing food and the pile of blankets Isabel had fished out earlier.
Isabel shot Wren a glare, but seemed to decide against mouthing off. Instead, she snatched the medical supplies up with shaking fingers and set about finally treating Farlan's injuries despite the tremor of her hands and the fear that kept both of their heartbeats just a few shades too high.
.
.
.
.
By the time the rain finally stopped, the sun was high in the sky and Wren was mentally exhausted. Farlan and Isabel, though they had consented to sit in her lap to stay warm, were skittish and nosy as alley cats. When they weren't watching her like she was about to eat them, they were asking a bunch of questions that ranged from awkward —did her kind reproduce? Why did her kind call themselves humans when they were so much bigger than the humans on Isayama?— to unanswerable —why hadn't anyone from Ishgar come to Isayama before now? How had she gotten here? Why?—.
She did her best to answer and remain polite, but it got frustrating very quickly when she either couldn't answer or they didn't believe her —yes, she really was a human, no, she was not going to discuss any potential differences in her anatomy to theirs beyond her size—. She was very glad when they ended up falling asleep sometime during the questions, not long after Isabel had bandaged Farlan up as best she could.
According to the two of them, Farlan had —miraculously— not broken anything when a titan swatted him into a building, but he did have a nasty collection of bruises all over his side and leg as well as a sprained knee that would probably take a long time to recover after being forced to walk on it so far. She couldn't help but frown at the thought that his recovery would be stretched out even longer if they had to walk the rest of the way back to … wherever was safe from the titans —the other wall, was it Rose or Maria? Wren could never remember—. Assuming they could get to safety at all with no mounts, busted gear, and who knew how many titans in between them and safety.
Wren looked down at them, curled up like two oversized cats in her lap as sunlight began to filter into the church and glumly realized that she was going to have to put her search for a way off the island and back to Fairy Tail on hold. At least until she knew they were safe. After all, she couldn't just leave them out in titan territory all alone and injured. It would be a death sentence.
Though, she wasn't sure how she would convince them to let her help. Farlan had only agreed to sitting in her lap because he'd figured he was a dead man either way. She wasn't sure that pessimistic attitude would help her case in seeing them safely … somewhere. There had to be gates in the Walls to let people travel between them right? Worst case scenario she'd just walk to the next wall and teleport them to the other side.
She tilted her head back to examine the sunlight filtering in and suddenly remembered what Farlan had told Isabel about what would happen when the rain stopped. The air was clear and crisp now, perfect for a nice long walk … or for the monsters outside to pick up their scent even from miles away and follow it to the church. The stones were sturdy, but if a mob of titans showed up —and knowing her luck and the grimness of the AoT show it would be a mob—, could she really expect the walls to hold?
Of course, leaving meant going out into titan infested territory and she didn't have a map to show her where to go.
So. Option one was stay until Isabel and Farlan woke up and try to discuss a viable strategy without them constantly accusing her of wanting to eat them. Option two was to just sneakily pack up and leave with the sleeping duo in a bag or pocket or something —she could probably use their supply of blankets to fashion a carry sling/hammock type thing easily enough— and see if she could find the next Wall by herself to return them to safety.
If she did option one, they'd probably end up arguing for hours, get ambushed by titans and end up trapped in the church. If she did option two, Isabel and Farlan were guaranteed to freak out the minute they woke up and they'd probably still be ambushed by titans, but at least they'd be out in the open where Wren could run away. Or even teleport if it really came down to it.
If she chose option one, Isabel and Farlan would be informed over whatever course of action they ended up taking, which would minimize the panic. If she chose option two, she'd probably be able to make it a decent distance toward the next Wall before disaster a la titan happened. Probably. At the very least, she'd be able to see the titans coming.
It really all came down to which she valued more, manners and other people's feelings or tactics and everybody's odds of survival?
Decision made, Wren began discreetly working free any spare blankets she could retrieve without waking Isabel and Farlan and set to work.
By the time they woke up, Wren had already formed the hammock/sling/harness thing out of blankets, tied it around her front —that way protecting her vitals would also be protecting them if, Mavis forbid, she had to fight—, slipped out of the church and was well on her way toward the next Wall.
The Wall was actually a lot closer than she'd assumed it would be. It had been easily visible in the distance once she'd looked for it, and unless her estimation skills were way off, it was only a few miles of brisk walking away. Which … didn't make much sense to her at first, considering she couldn't have run that far yesterday when fleeing the first titan. But then she'd realized that if everything was proportional to people like Isabel and Farlan, then their equivalent of miles would be shrunk down to their size too. They wouldn't need as much space as a population of normal-sized humans, and the island probably wasn't even that big, all things considered, so the Walls were likely much closer together than they would be if the humans here had been normal sized.
Didn't make the walk any less nerve-wracking though. She had to keep an eye on the Wall and her senses spread out for signs of titans, all while walking through an eerily shrunken and abandoned countryside. There were signs of previous inhabitation all over the place if she knew where to look. Abandoned wagons by the sides of the roads, farmhouses collapsed in on themselves —or destroyed by a titan—, fields left to run wild that still showed signs of previously being farmland.
She had even held a staring contest with a small herd of now-wild cows —and wasn't that a weird sensation, staring down at cows that were only about a half foot tall when she could clearly remember what it was like to be dwarfed by angry bovines —she was never taking a farm job again, no matter what Freed said about helping the community—.
Thoughts about homicidal cows were dismissed when Isabel stretched in her hammock-sling, kicking Farlan in the chest in the process. The kick had Farlan waking up with a pained grunt and Wren slowed her walking pace a little, just in case she needed to catch him once he fully woke up and got his bearings. She kept an eye on her surroundings even as she watched him stretch and grumble to himself, then yelp as he almost slid out of the sling. He caught himself before Wren could and looked with wide eyes, "W- What the-" he sputtered for several more seconds before looking up sharply and shouting, "What are you doing? Where are we?" He kicked Isabel in the leg with a frantic, "Isabel, wake up!"
"Wha-?" Isabel sat up in her sling with enough force to pitch over the side and halfway somersault out before Wren caught her and dumped her back into the sling. Isabel gave a startled shriek as she was plopped back into the fabric and Wren inwardly preyed that titans weren't auditory predators.
Isabel took in their surroundings with wide eyes, "Oi! What is this? Where's tha church?"
It was easier to form kanji now that her hands were free, and with them in the sling, she didn't even have to turn the kanji around for them to read it, "Left when the rain stopped. It wasn't safe anymore. I didn't want to be trapped in there."
Farlan looked like he was debating pitching himself out of the sling despite the ground being so far below and Wren's movement, "Then why did you take us along? Where are you taking us?"
"I'm taking you home." Wren pointed at the Wall coming ever closer to illustrate her point, "You wouldn't make it back there on your own, you said so. So, I'm taking you there."
There was dead silence for what felt like a long time, then Isabel quavered, "Y-yah- Your jus' … takin' us ta Wall Rose? Jus' like thah?"
"Yes."
Farlan was very quiet as he asked, "How do you expect us to get to the other side? All the gates are locked from inside and it could be weeks before the next patrol passes by on the Wall."
Well. There went Plan A of just dropping them off at the nearest gate and resuming her quest to get off the island. She'd just have to use Plan Be then, "It's fine. I have magic."
She could feel their fear in the way they went rigid and realized she probably shouldn't have said that. Isabel sounded breathless, like she was the one power-walking through the countryside with two passengers rather than Wren, "Your going ta break open one o' tha gates?"
"No. That would-" An intense wave of revulsion and wrong-wrong-dead-wrong washed over her and Wren forgot all about reassuring her passengers. Her head snapped to the right and terror crawled up her throat as she spotted three titans on the horizon. They were making a beeline for Wren's position.
And they were closing fast.
Pantherlilies. She spun and took off at a run, heart already hammering, mind barely thinking past the instinctive panic long enough to wrap an arm around the sling to ensure her passengers wouldn't fall out at her sudden change of pace. They yelped and shouted questions that she was in no state of mind to answer. But then one of the titans behind her gave a gurgling roar and the two fell deathly silent in understanding. Another roar —shrieking and inhuman, like the dub roar, but so much louder and more terrifying— echoed somewhere more to her left and Farlan breathed a curse, "Mob call. Now they all know we're here."
Wonderful, muttered the —somehow still functional— sarcastic part of her brain, titans have a messaging system. What was next? Pack hunting tactics? Her magic sense was roiling with more and more "titan signals" coming from both left and right, getting closer with every minute —how did they run so fast on such malformed legs?— and Wren began reaching for the shadows in case she needed to teleport. She didn't want to, not yet. She didn't know how Isabel's and Farlan's tiny bodies would handle it, and if she wasn't in range of the opposite side of Wall Rose, then she would only be wasting her stamina. But if she had to-
There were titans in front of her. By the Wall, heading her way. She couldn't see them just yet, but she could sense them, in a way that made her stomach churn and her eyes blur with tears. She swerved, still aiming for the Wall, but this time at an angle. A towering monster lurched into view out of the corner of her eye on her left. It was huge, eight feet at the least, possibly more, just as disproportionate and horrifying as the smaller ones trying to run her down. It stumbled and crashed to the ground, slamming into the two other titans that had been following it and causing a confused jumble that she took immediate advantage of.
Swerving more to the left bought her distance from the other titans, but it also took her farther away from the Wall. A curse flickered through her mind as she tried to find a way back on course that wouldn't force her too close to the remaining titans pursuing her. In the sling, Isabel and Farlan were clung tight to her shirt. Isabel was screaming, but Farlan was a tight sort of silence that meant he was panicking beyond expression. Wren sprinted her way in a zigzag across the landscape for what seemed like an eternity, trying desperately to avoid the titans that seemed to spawn out of thin air every time she thought she'd managed to shake them. Why? Why do these things have such great noses? Seriously, the rest of them is basically braindead so why the nose?
The Wall was getting farther away despite her best efforts, because apparently the thing was a titan magnet that only the scent of fresh, freaked out shadow mages could beat. Her lungs burned from the exertion and she had long ago decided that teleporting would be worth the risk, but she couldn't concentrate long enough to pinpoint a shadow that was far enough away to be safe. Another broken town arose and she fled to it, hoping to find somewhere —anywhere— that would buy her time to teleport away.
She was halfway to what looked like the main square when a stubby titan, shorter than her but just as terrifying as the larger ones, lumbered out onto the street in front of her. Wren froze, mind spinning between blind terror, wild anger at the unfairness of it all, and the realization that there were titans behind her too she was trapped she-was-trapped-let-her-out-she-couldn't-get-out-. She felt Farlan's shudder through the forearm still protectively wrapped around her middle. He gave a gasping sound that sounded distinctly like a plea and- and-
One of the titans behind her lunged and flight instinct snapped over into desperate fight.
The shadows of the houses launched up in rows of thick spikes and in any other situation Wren would have gagged at the sound of the titan ramming itself mindlessly onto the sharp points. Adrenaline washed away her revulsion and she twisted on her heel, one hand snapping out in a silent command that sent the impaled titan crashing through a ruined house. Another one lumbered forward and with twitches of her fingers, the spikes shifted to scythes and swung. Despite her adrenaline, her stomach still lurched at the sheer amount of red that resulted from the attack. The titan fell to steaming pieces in the street, but she was already twisting to face the next one, shadows warping into a crude battle axe that buried deep into the oversized skull. Not good, get the nape-get-the-nape-
Her arm yanked upward and the titan's own shadow inverted, impaling it at the neck. Keep going more coming gotta run gotta hi- Her overworked senses exploded with warning a half second too late to stop teeth from sinking into her outstretched arm.
If Wren could have screamed, she would have. Her mouth opened and all the air in her lungs rushed out in a horrified burst at the throbbing sensation of pain-wrong-get-it-off-get-it-off-pain- that suddenly encapsulated her whole world. All of her thoughts and combat training stalled, faltering under the weight of the pain and wrong and revulsion that slammed into her. It wasn't the worst injury she'd ever gotten, somewhere in the far back of her mind she knew that. But the pervasive wrong of the titan was smothering and overpowering, like it was suppressing all her higher thoughts and narrowing everything down to the sensation of teeth in her forearm and how her magic recoiled from the area like a wounded animal from a loud noise.
The teeth pulled away from her arm and for a heart-stopping moment the titan looked her in the eye, blank and unseeing and so achingly empty-
"Wren!" The scream was grating and frantic and loud, but welcome in how it jolted her out of her shock and back into motion. She pitched backward, away from the titan, a shockwave of shadows ripped out from her feet with enough desperate strength to send the monster flying like a thrown ragdoll.
She slammed her hand —slick with the blood trickling down her forearm don't-think-about-that-now— onto the street and the shockwave turned razor-sharp, cutting the rag-dolled titan and the other three that had begun to approach without her knowing into half a dozen pieces. It only took a few seconds of stunned —horrified— staring to realize she'd somehow missed their napes. Her muscles trembled and she scrambled for a shadow to teleport to, but the pain in her arm and the burning in her lungs kept scattering her thoughts like glass shards.
One of the titans had already grown back its arms and a leg, it was crawling toward her with an open, vacantly grinning mouth-
There was a rush of wind, a flicker of dual light strands, and the song of steel cutting through flesh. The titan flopped to the ground with a shriek, body steaming, its nape gone. There was another rush of wind, then another and another and suddenly the titans were all still and steaming, napes gone, pervasive aura of wrong-death-empty fading away as they did. Beleaguered instinct prodded her trembling limbs into motion before her thoughts could form and she yanked the shadows back to her body, swelling them around her own neck like velvet shields just as the steel-bearing wind rushed for her nape. Shadows spiked like a gangster's collar and the blur of movement veered sharply away, spinning to a stop on the top of a building. The other blurs landed on what other rooftops were intact and resolved into something much more recognizable.
The Survey Corps. Armed to the teeth, green cloaks swirling around their shoulders like ruffled feathers. They were staring at her with wide eyes and past the buzzing of shock in her ears, she thought she heard them gasping over her magic and clothes. She flinched as another scout landed on the rooftop, expression flat and angry as he took her in. His fingers flexed on his blades and she found herself focusing only on him, wide hazel eyes locking with pitiless, smoldering grey.
She never thought she'd be terrified of someone who didn't even come up to her knee. But if she had to be terrified of any of the tiny people on this island…
Well. Levi Ackerman certainly seemed an appropriate choice.
His legs coiled to spring into motion again, ignoring the shriek of one of the other scouts —the mad scientist?— to not kill her and Wren braced to run again and hope that she could escape the famed Titan killer without having to fight back. The chances of her hitting him were slim, but with their size difference and the strength of her desperation-fueled shadows, all it would take was once to make an irreversible mistake.
He took off across the roof in a sprint and Wren slid her feet back to dodge the incoming attack-
"Levi-aniki, stop!"
The famed titan killer stumbled across the tiles so badly that he almost face-planted. His gaze whipped down toward Wren's middle and she suddenly remembered her passengers. Small hands pushed against the forearm she had wrapped protectively around the sling and she shakily lowered it. Absolute silence fell over the scouts as they stared. Levi's eyes were wide in a an almost snow white face and she could see every muscle in his frame lock with disbelief. Isabel waved from her sling, frazzled but unhurt as far as Wren could see. Farlan raised a shaking arm, "Don't … don't kill her. We… She's not like the oth- the titans…"
Levi still wasn't moving and none of the scouts said a word. Just stared. The silence stretched on too long and the throbbing in Wren's bleeding arm combined with her exhaustion from running for so long to send her shakily to her knees. Isabel pitched herself fearlessly out of her sling and Wren barely caught her in time to keep the much smaller girl from giving herself a concussion of some kind.
She was distantly surprised when Isabel didn't flinch at the fingers curling around her —though she heard the scouts on the rooftops gasp and one of them make a strangled noise of horror—. She deposited Isabel on the ground with a shaking but gentle hand, then weakly offered her palm as a platform for Farlan. She was even more surprised than she'd been with Isabel when the blond unhesitatingly crawled onto her palm and let her lower him to the ground. He staggered a bit as he stepped off her trembling hand to the ground, but didn't seem to have gained any other injuries since leaving the church.
Farlan looked up at her and offered a weak smile, "Thank you." He turned to the scouts on the rooftop, eyes finding the frozen Levi as he ran a hand through his hair, "Hey, Levi. You showed up just in time."
.
.
Review Response: Dear bwatuwant, hello! Wow, two days to read all of these chapters? I'm very flattered you liked it that much! (laughs) It is pretty hard to find good oc stories on here sometimes isn't it? I'm glad you consider Wren's adventure one of those stories! To answer your concerns/questions, no, Erza will not be joining the Raijinshū. She and Wren will develop a close friendship, but the Raijinshū will not be gaining any new members. I can only handle so big of a main cast... Anyway, the lighthouse problem will also be dealt with in a later chapter. At the moment, Cana and Ever share the guest room while Laxus and Freed camp out in the living room on futons. Mest actually does spend most of his nights over at his own place, but when he does stay over at the lighthouse, he camps out with Freed and Laxus. I agree it's an ... awkward situation, but I DO have a plan to deal with it. I just need to cover some other stuff first. Thanks! I have a lot of fun sticking minor characters and crossovers in the story to help flesh it out rather than rely on too many ocs. Don't apologize! I love long reviews!
Dear DannyPhantom619, hi there! Well, I'm not sure how many of those characters Wren will actually end up meeting, but Light probably won't be one of them (unless I decide to pull an Edolas and make FT!Light an actual good guy rather than a villain in disguise). I might give L a cameo as a magic detective or something though...
Dear Faiiary, greetings! I'm glad you enjoy the story so much! Yeah, the Bickslow/Wren interactions have been a bit muted lately, but I do have plot to think about. I'll try to give them some fluff scenes later if I can. Oh there will definitely be angst and cuddles when Wren get's back to the rest of the Raijinshū, not to worry about that. Don't worry, I'll deal with the lighthouse situation later, I just need to get through this arc and maybe the Erza Meeting Arc first, and NO, Erza is not joining the Raijinshū. She's just going to be Wren's kohai. Levy and Erza teaming up might be a good idea actually ... I'll think about it. Wren's 'death' does actually effect her, I just leave most of it offscreen because this is an adventure story, not an angst one. I'll try to give Levy some more screen time if I can, I don't mean to ignore her, but it's hard to give all the characters equal love and still move the plot forward you know? But I'll think about it. Hope you enjoyed the update!
Dear masimagine, hiya! (laughs) Well, glad to know the crossover is going over well. I have a few other crossovers planned later down the line yeah, but only with anime I either know personally or respect. A video game crossover might happen to way WAY down the line, but I'm not sure yet. Also yes, all of her stuff is sized proportionally for her, so its gigantic to the poor islanders. Hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!
Dear Dark Rose Charm, hi there! Well, here's the next installment! Hope you liked it!
Dear SummerWulfe, hello! Ah yes, cliffhangers, the bane of every reader's existence and the most useful tool in any writer's. Sorry-not-sorry about that, and for the one I just left with this chapter. (tips hat) Thank you, I try! I'm so thrilled you enjoy AMOSC as well (even if it's just the first 20 chaps so far)!
Dear rarae aves, hi! Aw, thanks! Yeah, I've been having so much fun with the smaller crossovers (Whitebeards notwithstanding) that I decided to try a bigger, much more obvious one so see how it went. So far it's going well, if angsty. I hope you enjoy the ride and thank you for your lovely review!
Dear Shyakugan, greetings! Thank you! Sorry this update took so long, life and all, but I hope you liked it! I'm toying with doing more crossovers at a later date, especially if this one continues to be so well received, but we'll see.
Dear DrapetaDracona, hey there! Hmmm, that's a very interesting suggestion! I'll add it to my list of potential crossovers.
Dear Mads-Chikistorm, hiya! Aw, glad to hear it! No worries, this story still lives and thrives, I just need the time to edit and post it.
Dear Guest, hello there! Well, I hate to say it, but grab your tissues 'cause the angst is strong with this arc...
Dear Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, greetings! (tips hat) Well, thank you, I put a lot of work into this. Yeah, I really wanted to expand on different characters and their backstories, and while having Mest join the Raijinshū wasn't 100% planned, I thought it fit well. (evil laughter) I have a plan for when Mest leaves and what happens to Wren and it's going to ... interesting. While I noticed the extensive use of English writing in Earthland, I stand be them speaking Japanese and having a kanji writing system. There are jokes and things in Earthland that only really work in that language, plus sub is what I know over dub. In the story, the explanation (which I've sprinkled in a few times I think) is that English is an ancient semi-dead language that is rarely spoken anymore, but is still used as a writing system for older establishments (guilds, governments) or magical equations/anagrams/puzzles (which is why it's so prevalent in magic magazines and in magic guilds). If that makes any sense at all. I'd go into my head-canons in more detail, but I don't want to take up too much of the review response section and it would wander into spoiler territory.
Dear Old Diggy, hey there! Oh. OH... OOOHHH... (evil grin) so adding that idea to the list, because that would be a wonderful filler chapter to help break up the angst that keeps creeping into the main arcs. Thanks for that!
Dear JuuRoku, greetings! Well (shrugs) no idea what to say about "relevancy" that won't go into spoiler territory, so you'll just have to either trust me and stick it out or go read something else I guess. One thing I can promise is that this is not some cliche ploy to give Wren her voice back or make a time skip. Her physical voice is never coming back. Ever. And I have no need to perform a long time skip without just ... you know, saying it's a time skip. That's why I keep putting the "X amount of time since joining Fairy Tail" under the chapter header, it's to alert the reader to how much time is passing and when a time skip happens. Ugh, that piece of advice again. I fully acknowledge that it is valuable advice, especially to beginning writers, but at this point it gets trotted out and shoved in my face so often I feel like pulling a Toph and going "Wren showed up. Stuff blew up. I think a cat was involved. The end".