Chapter 2

Combined Arms


The shadows retreated as the sun rose over the horizon.

It emphasized the colors of the blue and yellow flowers that swayed gently in the breeze along with the grass and trees.

If it wasn't for the ruined farm house that looked like it had been stepped on, one would easily confuse the scene with a picturesque view of a North American or European field.

This farm house had been a desolate and lonely place the past few years.

The owners, whoever they were, had run the second the news of the disaster had gotten to them.

Now the only inhabitants were the birds, plants, and occasional family of rodents.

But every so often another of nature's long list of mammals would visit it.

Green coats with a white and blue coat of arms, riding on horses that reached incredible speeds.

The farm house had no way of knowing who they were or what they did, but they were the only beings that would ever try to keep the place at least somewhat hospitable.

The Survey Corps was not a popular group back home.

Yes, they were the only ones still trying to reclaim the land lost to the Titans four years prior, but not a single mission had brought any actual progress.

The closest thing they would ever even count as success was a return with minimal casualties.

And that didn't come often.

Every single soldier in this attachment knew the horrors that entailed venturing beyond the security of the walls. Most rookies never made it back, and even the most skilled of the corps were capable of little more than quick kills to individual titans. Oh, there were exceptions, the ones that would venture on multiple occasions beyond the walls were those capable of fighting multiple titans on their own and coming out alive.

That was a necessity if you went on multiple expeditions.

This particular detachment was in charge of perimeter watch, which is why they were stopping at this old farm.

It was the closest thing to a supply depot the corps was able to maintain outside the walls. Materials for the eventual sealing of Wall Maria, food, water, and what few medical equipment they had available was stored in secure parts of the decrepit home.

Other than food for the horses however, little else was necessary on this particular run.

Any member of the corps with even a little amount of experience would quickly realize that this detachment hadn't had a single casualty so far.

"Ahh… this is the worst!" a woman with dark brown colored hair wailed rather loudly, startling both the rookies and some of the veterans.

"Keep it down, the field wont clean itself…" a tired voice said, one that had gone cynical due to years of life's relentless beatings.

"But we haven't had a single encounter! Not one titan from Trost to here!"

The statement actually got the tired man to narrow his eyes slightly.

"That's a good sign in my book." Another young man said his light brown hair now dirty by the dust.

"Didn't some appear on the right flank?" another girl with chestnut colored hair asked while handing the older man a rake.

Captain Levi was the kind of man who would do his damndest to keep an area cleaner than he found it, and his team had been effectively indoctrinated in this belief.

The other girl kept her goggles on as she looked through a telescope, trying to see deeper into the nearby forest.

"But still… if the titans disappear all of a sudden we would have learned next to nothing of them. And…" she stopped as she realized that the older man had moved his cleaning operation to the barns, ignoring her genuine concerns in their entirety.

Her subordinate continued to clean the vines and moss off the small fence that was mostly made of rocks and wood.

He turned, realizing that he was alone with the, possibly genius or possibly insane, chatterbox of the survey corps. He took a breath, and waited for his commanding officer to ask him a question.

"Hey, Moblit-" she was cut off by some rather large branches breaking nearby.

An eight meter titan nervously peeked through some trees, seemingly studying the soldiers.

Hanji's face lit up as she took a breath.

This was it; small, seemingly abnormal so it might not try to eat them… she could probably capture this one.

The potential answers from a captured titan… the possibilities…

"W-whoa! Titan! Titan!" one of the rookies yelled, drawing his blades.

Levi turned from his job and looked into the forest.

It was just standing behind some trees.

It almost looked scared.

"H-hey, levi! Can we catch it? I think we can catch it!"

"Are you stupid? We don't have the gear to catch anything right now." he sighed.

"But look, it's so small. I bet we can overpower it!"

She wasn't entirely wrong. There were over thirty of them, and only one of it.

But only God knew by how much humanity had outnumbered the damned things before, and now look at us…

"Not worth the risk. It-"

A sound off in the distance caught their attention. It was faint, but they could tell it was an explosion of sorts, similar to thunder or cannon fire.

The small titan made a noise not unlike a frightened child before running deep into the forest.

"What the-? Hey! Get back-"

*Boom*

*Boom*

Faint explosions rang in the distance, catching even Hanji's attention.

Not titans…

"What… in the world?"

"They're faint, but they don't sound like thunder… it's almost like cannon fire." The younger girl mused.

The captain frowned.

The expedition hadn't brought any cannons with them and even if they had, his detachment was supposed to be the furthest units on the left flank. No one else was supposed to be in that direction. It couldn't be coming from the walls, and the sky was clear, which meant that someone else was in the uninhabited land that used to belong to the residents of wall Maria.

"Something's not right here. Petra, Oluo, on me. Eld, and Gunther keep watch until we're back."

He was about to mount when Hanji gave him a look.

"You're the scientist, your call."

She smiled and mounted her horse.

The explosions had somewhat decreased in intensity, yet grown louder as they cautiously moved forward.

"You think it could be an underground group that stayed behind? I heard some people did that. Maybe they got some equipment and stuff." Oluo, the man that looked older than he actually was, mused.

"It's been more than four years; I think they would be out of munitions by now." Petra replied just as several explosions rang much louder.

They got to an open area that was mostly just a stretch of hills and trees, except for a large structure visible off in the distance, as well as smoke.

"Whoa … was that there before?" Hanji asked, rather impressed.

The captain shook his head.

"The corps hasn't been anywhere near this area since the wall fell, but I would remember hearing about a big ass temple out in the middle of nowhere."

They realized they hadn't heard an explosion in a while.

Cautiously, they advanced toward the structure.

It was suddenly eerily quiet.

As if the air itself was afraid of making any noise. Then, off in the distance they heard the booming footsteps of the enemy.

"Captain! Titans to our left!" Petra exclaimed, seeing several large deformed heads peer by the hills not too far away, and moving pretty fast for that matter.

Levi frowned and went to Load some blades when-

Whistling?

*BOOM!*

Two of the larger titan's heads disintegrated instantaneously, leaving only a smoldering body that quickly collapsed on itself.

That startled them.

"Dismount! Stay low!" Levi ordered as more whistling started.

"What in-? Who on earth?! Ha-ha! That is amazing!" Hanji yelled with glee and worry as several other explosions rang out and this time three titans went down in smoke.

"Captain, what do we do here?!" Oluo asked, keeping his panic well hidden, but his eyes were wide with uncertainty.

Levi thought it through. The projectiles were not exploding on the ground and causing rocks and dirt to fly in all directions like most cannons. These were precise, instant and deadly, but they were specifically targeting the titans. They weren't firing at a set of coordinates; they were targeting the titans and their weak points and utterly annihilating them, seemingly with ease.

As he considered this, he saw Hanji crawling up the hill.

"Hey! What are you-?"

"Come on! They're killing titans, aren't they? Let's at least find out what they are!" she yelled back.

With a frustrated sigh, he said "stay low and out of sight!" while pulling his hood over his head.

His subordinates followed suit.

Once at the top of the hill, they peaked and saw strange boxes with long and thin turrets swiveling to the sides. The turrets themselves seemed odd compared to the cannons they were used to seeing, but not too unfamiliar. It was the distance that was insane. The slowly disintegrating bodies of the giants were still many meters behind them, and the strange cannons were at least a mile away.

Cannons from the top of the wall could fire that far, but these were visibly doing it from the ground.

Levi focused his sights on the structure behind the boxes, raising an eyebrow as several men in green suits were wandering around it, carrying what appeared to be rifles of sorts, except they were black instead of the more common oak wood brown.

"Well, they're human from the looks of it." he muttered.

"You think they're some other faction from the military? Maybe they're the garrison experimenting on new weapons, or some secret operation." Petra mused aloud.

Levi narrowed his eyes, staring at the bizarre structure.

Several smaller boxes similar to carriages moved out of it despite the lack of horses.

He noticed a small one moved down one of the hills, seemingly on its way to the larger ones with the swiveling turrets.

As it stopped next to a pair of them, several men hopped of the sides and began unloading some boxes.

From the turret, a man popped his head up, seemingly shouting orders to the guys carrying boxes.

Suddenly something crashed through the trees near the strange men.

"Come on, move it!" the commander yelled as the drivers from the Humvee carried boxes of munitions for the tanks and IFVs.

As the men were unloading them one of the other tankers yelled over the radio.

"Contact six o clock! Six o clock!"

The commander whirled around barely in time. It was one of the crawling ones that moved on all fours like an insect, eerily similar to the one had harassed the first MRAPs that had been sent through months before, coming out of the forest at top speed. The creature jumped in the air and went to bite through the Abram's armor, attempting to take the commander as a quick meal; instead it found that it couldn't bite down on the top of the tank like other things.

The commander had barley ducked back into the turret, while the pair of men that carried the munitions had actually thrown themselves under the light Humvee, hoping not to be spotted as the monster tried to bite the top of the Abrams.

The problem here was the range, the Bradley's IFV could turn its turret right and fire several rounds into the creature's head, but the vital neck wound would be difficult from its angle. Other tanks further to the left opened up with their coaxial machine guns, but the abnormal actually pushed itself on top of the tank so that it was harder for the vehicles to get the necessary hit. Fire from the left and right couldn't hit the vital spot, and firing a 120mm round would pose too much of a needless risk.

Off from the hills near the gate a barrage of bullets and grenades flew directly into the beast.

"Up, five degrees…" Dave somewhat nervously instructed as Matt fired short bursts of the MK 19. He was being careful to hit the giant and not the tank crew or the nearby allies, and the same could be said of the other Humvees and MRAPs unloading their main weapons onto it.

"Right on target." Dave added calmly as the titan seemed to spasm and suddenly collapsed from the tank, dead. Whether it was their 40 millimeter grenades or any of the other support vehicles was up for debate, but the important thing was that the monster was dead.

The Abrams powered up and reversed on the gigantic corpse, crushing a part of its body easily, leaving only a decapitated head; its face contorted as if it were in a state of permanent agony as it slowly evaporated into nothing.

Ilse shuddered. If it wasn't for the armor and heavy firepower, everyone here would have been devoured long before the late morning sun shone on the field.

"Hey, Miss Langnar, how many does that make?"

She glanced at her notebook, thirty-four in the last six hours since they had arrived.

"Thirty five with this one." she called to Jake.

The soldier grinned and stretched in his seat, as if he owned the place.

"Well, that's probably more than any of-" he was cut off as Matt kicked the back of his head from the turret of the Humvee.

"Dumbass! Will you keep an eye on the damned battlefield?!" the younger soldier half yelled.

"I am! Geez, can you relax? These naked retards can't do much of anything against modern weapons." He said, somewhat irritated.

The private hadn't realized that both his close friends from his squad and the girl they were escorting had suddenly clamped up due to the intimidating man standing just outside his driver's seat.

"Oh, since you're so confident in your brothers in arms then, why don't you go assist the engineers in setting up the camp, Private Jackson?" Sergeant Roy said ominously, glaring at the younger man through the window of the Humvee.

Jake swallowed before yelling "Yes, Sergeant!" and grabbing his gear and running out of the Humvee, fear in his eyes.

Matt shook his head, staring at the now mostly pulverized corpse of the only titan that had even made it to the main line of the defense. Despite how easily most of these were being dispatched, he genuinely couldn't imagine how any society would fight against an enemy like this without modern weapons.

Maybe digging a deep enough trench with spikes or other obstacles could slow down some of them long enough to build some actual fortifications that could theoretically drive them off after a while, but the cost of human lives and time would be unsustainable, and the titans didn't seem to understand the concept of self-preservation. Ilse had described gear that allowed her and this world's military to swing around high enough to cut the nape, but even that wasn't as easy as it sounded. He had an image in his head of a certain web slinging hero, but the amount of coordination needed to fly around a massive moving target like these things and cutting just right without getting grabbed and eaten was also something he had trouble comprehending.

"I still can't imagine how you people manage." he said, his ever so slight accent from Kansas materializing when he spoke.

"I've said it isn't easy. But we do what we can." The girl said, writing something into her notebook.

"Still, a hundred years and you haven't developed something to make killing these things easier? I would suggest making hot air balloons to drop stuff on them from above or something."

"I don't know how much good it would do us to have a few hot air balloons when the whole world is infested by them… to our knowledge at least."

But seriously, how come no one back home thought about it?

"Yeah, maybe…"

The radio crackled to life.

"Uh, hey anybody else see that over the hill?"

Dave raised an eyebrow and walked over to the side of the Humvee to pick up the radio.

"Negative, Hitman Actual, you see something?"

"I ain't seeing much of anything from here." another voice chimed in before Hitman Actual responded.

"Maybe, about eight or nine hundred meters from our position, uh, due north-east… anybody got better eyes on those hills?"

"This is Hunter 2-3; we don't see anything from here, over." One of the tankers replied.

"I got nothing from here either." Matt told Dave after looking through his binoculars. The small ranged drones they had might pick up something, but those were busy monitoring the southern flank.

Ilse put her own down before sighing slightly.

She had partly hoped it was the survey corps, but for all she knew the Marine had just seen a bird land or take off. Maybe no new expeditions had happened since hers, there were always rumors the government wanted to cut down more funding for the corps, and if that had happened then the nearest scouts would be miles away, inside the walls.

"Hitman actual, drone is circulating the area, possible contact, but whatever it was seems to have retreated." Another voice chimed in on the radio.

Ilse raised an eyebrow, wondering if the scouts were actually closer than she had expected.

"I said stay down!" Levi ordered, mildly irritated with the supposed genius that was Hanji Zoe.

"But you saw how they handled that titan! Even when it overwhelmed one of their… their… weapons of complete destruction, they took it out, no problem! Why are you so worked up? " the woman half whined as the three Survey Corps members dragged her back to the horses behind the hills.

"No idea who they are, and our orders are not to make contact with people we don't know. What if they're not pleasant allies? We need to have some level of suspicion here and follow procedure."

"W-we have a procedure for something like this?" Petra asked, worried as well as curious.

The captain shrugged.

They didn't have a technical procedure for the possibility of outsiders who weren't titans appearing within the walls, but they did have some amount of common sense.

A certain commander had to be informed before further action was taken in regards to these… people that had guns that spat lightning-quick fireflies instead of bullets, and cannons so accurate they could kill titans from a mile away.

Matt sat down on the ground, relaxing by the wheels of the now silent Humvee, the tanks and heavy guns had gone quiet for the day. He eyed several diggers and Army engineers working the ground so that it was at least flat enough to become a motor pool. Not too far from that, other construction equipment was busy at work in flattening the area that was mostly filled with hills. Unless he was mistaken, that would be the landing grounds for the air support that would be coming through later in the night or the next morning. He turned and glanced at the now setting sun. The field was covered in the orange light, casting shadows all over the place, something that reminded him of his time back home.

Feeling a bit nostalgic, he was oblivious to the approaching boots.

"Hey, lazy-ass! Working hard?" Jake called, dropping to sit down with his friend.

"Told you to stay alert." the younger of the two replied.

"Man, shut it… the hell is Dave and the girl?"

"Getting some more ammo from the trucks. We're about done for today anyway, so once he brings the ammo and drinks, all I have to do is pack em on the gun, and we can just relax." He said, stretching.

Jake sighed, exhausted from digging and carrying stuff around.

"You know, if not for the giant naked zombies, this world wouldn't be half bad. Kinda reminds me of Germany…"

"You've been?"

"Yeah, man. Back in 2015, class graduation trip. Saw fields just like these…"

"Lucky, all I got for a graduation trip was a day trip to Universal… half a day… also it was in California…"

"What's so bad about-?"

"Got the ammo! And some extra goodies." Dave said, running to the Humvee as he blew a pinkish bubble. He offered his teammates the small pack.

"Gum?" Jake asked.

"Dude, Five Gum?! Where'd you-?"

"Mint… you have something else." Matt mumbled as he took the packet.

"Uh… Bazooka Joe, but this one is mine."

Matt rolled his eyes.

Jake didn't say anything.

Being met with awkward silence, Dave started the conversation.

"Besides, Matt needs the fresh mouth for the lady friend."

"I've only talked with her twice, don't see how-"

"Matt, Matt, Matt, I should've known you'd try to get your hands on the forbidden fruit. You're eighteen and she is clearly sixteen. How shameful."

"I think I've said a grand total of thirty-five words to her since we met." the young man replied with little care.

"That the amount of time you're gonna last with-? Uh… What in God's green earth is…?"

The sun had finally set in its entirety, but off in the distance a low glow could be seen that couldn't belong to the lingering sunrays.

"Uh, all stations, anybody got eyes on the freaky lights over by the horizon, uh north-east, near the forest?" Dave called into the radio.

"Affirmative, we see them too."

"Are the COs aware of- are those torches?" Matt mumbled.

"Hell of a lot of them, kind of looks like-"

"Is that the Survey Corps?" the young girl yelled, excited, and coming out of nowhere; startling the three soldiers.

"I don't know, who else could it be?" Dave told her, hiding his surprise.

"No one! Do you think-?" she was silenced by the approaching boots.

"You three, get that thing running right now! We have a possible friendly contact and we should seize the opportunity." The Army officer ordered.

Ilse stared as the three soldiers moved with a purpose, but she wasn't sure what she should do.

The Army officer gathered as much.

"Hop in, the Marines are getting one of their own prepped up, but you're basically our ambassador in this situation. They don't carry guns or any other weapons?" he asked her.

"I- no, sir… we usually keep some muskets in a wagon, but given that titans are the big threat…"

"Alright, then let's go!"

"You ever see anything like that?" the jaded captain asked his superior.

To the commander of the Survey Corps the answer had to be a resounding "No, I have not".

He had seen plenty of military outposts in his day, but the sight he was seeing through his spyglass was unlike anything he had seen.

The few tents near the strange structure were larger and much better lit than any of their own personal ones.

The strange machines carved hills with the ease of a hundred workers with pickaxes, and instead of a large walled perimeter, the strange mobile cannons were surrounding the camp, occasionally moving their turrets, as if scanning for the enemy, large and brilliant lights that shone more than any candle or torch probably made it easy for them to see, and then there was the issue of the large structure at the center of it all…

His attention was quickly drawn to the pair of vehicles that were making their way out of the secure perimeter, bright lights emitting from the front reflected the green grass.

The vehicles passed the odd machines and moved with a purpose… towards them?

"What should we do? Should we approach them?"

Commander Erwin wasn't sure how they did it, but these machines were not exactly something too insane compared to the other curiosities on the hill, really just horseless carriages. What he was unsure of was what these strange men wanted.

"We stand our ground here. If what you said is true, then they should have been able to kill us by now, and yet they haven't."

The captain shrugged, finding that he was actually more distracted by the excited fidgeting of the girl with goggles on her head than the mysterious machines headed their way.

The vehicles stopped at the foot of the hill they were on. Erwin could see that there was at least one man on the top of the vehicle, holding on to what he was certain was a kind of gun… what kind he didn't know, but he had no intentions of provoking these strange men.

A door on the side suddenly opened, not unlike a carriage, and a small figure popped out of it.

The small figure ran towards them and stopped a meter away from him.

Is she wearing a Survey Corps uniform?

Crashing her right arm over her heart, and her left arm behind her back with glee, the girl saluted the officer before declaring her identity.

"Private Ilse Langnar, Second Batallion, 34th Expedition! Reporting!"

Erwin winced at the statement, but Levi was entirely caught off guard by it.

"Wait, the unit that was completely wiped out last year…" he half asked, half recited from the report he had read and memorized several months prior.

"Yes sir! I have… so much to tell you!"

Erwin glanced behind her at the man in a green uniform and raised an eyebrow. Said man had gotten out of the larger of the two vehicles and had approached them almost cheerfully.

"Commander Erwin, I presume." The man stated in an accent the commander did not recognize.

If he had been paying attention to the young man in the top of the smaller car, he might've noticed the soldier roll his eyes.

"Yes?"

"Commander Erwin, I am General Connor, United States Marines… that doesn't mean much to you right now, but… well, we have plenty to talk about back at our station, if you would like."

That was the one thing the Survey Corps commander was certain of.

"Um… General?"

The man nodded to the young girl before recalling what he had told her less than a minute ago.

"Ah, right. I don't suppose any of you have a spare horse so that Ilse can answer some of your questions as we make our way back? She is part of the Survey Corps after all."

"Here, I have a spare." Petra chimed, earning a smile from the now officially back in action scout.

The general got back in the car, nodding for them to follow him.

"Ilse, we'll have to wait to get back to the walls to confirm your identity, but I'll take your word for now. Who are these people?"

Quickly thinking, she went back to all the information she had been absorbing in the previous year, she recited the important things first.

"Well, they're a military force from a country called the United States that exists just beyond that structure over there." She stated pointing at the large gate.

"On the other side? You mean that Building over there takes you somewhere else?" the tired captain asked.

"Yes, sir! On the other side lies a world where titans do not and never have existed. Humanity has been able to advance technologically much further beyond the gate than in this world…"

An excited noise came from behind them, but they all promptly ignored Hanji, she would get her answers soon enough.

Erwin stared at the girl.

Every single word that had come out of her mouth sounded insane, yet he was looking at the evidence right in front of him.

They followed the curious vehicles down the hill and towards the gathering of curiosities they had never dreamed of.

Hanji glanced at the larger vehicles with the turrets, quickly noticing a couple of men sitting on the top, drinking something.

"Huh… hey, Levi, I think these people have discovered a way to make fortresses mobile."

"Brilliant." He muttered back without emotion or interest.

"Um, they call them tanks. They are similar to mobile fortresses with cannons and machine guns." The survivor of the lost second battalion stated.

"They call them tanks? They should have gone for something more destructive, not something that holds water…"

"We can ask them about that later, right now we need to know what they want with us." Levi said, glancing at the girl.

"Well, deep down they want to help us, captain. But if you want them to be more specific…"

Erwin, Levi, Hanji, and Lagnar stood inside the surprisingly cozy tent, facing General Connor and his officers. They all surrounded a table with a map and several papers, some with pictures on them, and after a brief moment of pause the marine general spoke up.

"I suppose Ilse told you who we are, at the least."

"Yes, you come from a land beyond that gate; a land where titans have never existed and humanity has been able to advance far more than in our own world. Your nation in particular stands for individual freedom, the pursuit of happiness, and liberty from tyranny. But that's just lip service, is it not?"

The marine general grinned at the blonde man.

"Well, I wouldn't say you're a hundred percent right, but I would admit that all Ilse explained to you is probably stuff that makes us look as good as possible."

The girl almost opened her mouth to protest, but ultimately remained silent.

"What exactly is your… nation's objective here, general?" the shorter captain asked. He was accustomed to assuming that there was no one outside the walls, but now…

"Well, we had this… gate, doorway, open up in one of our most populated cities, which is also an international trading hub, and when we discovered that it leads to another world where a hostile species is slowly pushing humanity towards extinction, well… Our goal is to secure the area surrounding the gate, which has already been done, but also to secure a mutually beneficial alliance between our two countries." The general said, rubbing his chin slightly.

Erwin maintained a stoic expression, eyeing the general.

It hid an excitement he hadn't thought he could ever experience again. This was an opportunity, not just to reclaim the land lost to the titans, not just to ensure that humanity got its freedom back, but it would potentially prove the theories his father had taught him.

Yes, these soldiers were from another world entirely from the looks of it, but they were human. Yet still, he needed to know…

"General, you are aware of our situation."

"Yeah, Ilse told us of the attack four years ago. I won't lie, commander, we had made a plan should contact with you not been made before the end of the week. We wanted to seal up the broken wall before moving in to make contact with the rest of the population."

Confirmation!

"W-wait a second! You could have sealed up Wall Maria in a week?!" Hanji half yelled before Erwin could ask properly.

"Hell, we could be doing it right now if we weren't busy orienting ourselves. But we need a flat ground to land our heli- uh- flying machines."

"Flying Machines?!" the odd girl yelled, glaring at the girl that had been to the other world, who nervously began staring at the ground.

"Well, they have… several different types of flying machines…" she said, smiling as politely as she could without making eye contact with the excited scientist. She had been ready for an interrogation, but this felt more like leading a child through a toy factory, explaining stuff that was mostly basic knowledge of how things worked while the others were only interested in the toys.

Outside of the tent, the rest of the team was trying not to eavesdrop, and they were not alone. It was an odd mixture of boys and girls in completely different attire. Some had a green, blotted uniform that was filled to the brim with gadgets the scouts couldn't figure what they were for and weren't sure about asking.

The others were the legendary Survey Corps, the ones Ilse had spoken about and described as the best chance humanity had in defeating the titans, but most of the Americans saw them as kids, just as scared as they were when they went into that strange land.

Neither of them wanted any misunderstandings.

Petra glanced at the soldier with the darker skin tone. She wasn't sure if she had seen anybody with that tone in her life. But skin color aside, the equipment he was wearing was definitely unlike anything she had ever seen. What intrigued her, and probably most of the scouts, was the squawking that would occasionally sound from the small box on the vest the man wore.

Said soldier would reply into it like it was completely normal.

A communication device of sorts?

The soldier noticed, and smiled at her.

"If I might ask, how the hell do you use those?" a voice she didn't recognize asked.

She turned and saw one of the other soldiers from somewhere else. He was clearly young, maybe her age, maybe younger, but the gear he was using was still unknown to her. Unlike her comrades, these men were able to walk silently, not burdened by their heavy gear that made more noise than usual in the field.

Just what all that gear was for remained unknown to them all.

And if there's one thing that scares anyone, it's the unknown.

Still, she straightened herself out; she had been asked a question by someone who was most likely a recent recruit in his own world.

"Well, it is a rather complicated system of gears, but you are able to fire hooks with great accuracy and a fair amount of freedom considering the length of the cable."

"I figured that much, I meant how do you fight the giants with… well, literal swords."

She blinked, surprised by the question. Before she could answer, however, she was cut off by one of her comrades.

"With training and accuracy, you dolt! I doubt it's as easy as shooting them down with your mobile fortresses, but we can manage without them." Oluo stepped in, acting rather hostile with the American soldier.

"Yeah, it can't be easy… sorry about that." the young soldier replied courtly.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever… hey, is it true you have flying machines?" he asked changing the subject quickly.

Matt nodded at the question.

"That's insane, I always figured it was possible with big enough balloons, but I have no idea how you make a large machine that can fly." the girl said.

"I wish I could tell you more, but most platoons here, including ours, are mechanized infantry or Armor, not Air Force."

"Ooh, hear that Petra, Air Force. Our friends here are just infantry. Tell me, when do we get to meet these elite Air soldiers? I bet they are far more impressive than-"

"Hey, you watch your mouth, old man, every other branch of the US military hates the Air Force, and right now they're not here." a second American approached the conversation.

"Old man? Forgive me, but are you talking about Eld? He isn't that old, right Eld?" the older than he looked scout called.

"Please don't drag me into your fights." The other man groaned.

"Bah, don't you want to teach these spoiled kids a lesson or two in respect?"

"Dude, he sounds just like my dad… it's kind of unnerving." Dave whispered to his friend right before the chestnut haired girl jabbed the old looking kid in the ribs with her elbow.

"My apologies for this idiot... I know he looks all wise and old, but trust me, he isn't."

"Hey!" Oluo complained, but Petra simply kept talking.

"Anyway, how come the other branches hate the Air Force?"

"They're nerds."

"Cocky pains in the ass… most of them."

"God damned rich kids."

"Um…"

"Remember that one F-22 pilot back in Jersey? Bastard had the girls at the bar all over him."

"I bet at least one of those girls was a Russian spy. I bet intelligence must've had so many leaks that month…"

"Uh…"

"I met this one pilot back in Arizona, the dude kept bragging about how the Marines always get hand me down equipment, while the Air Force actually has tax payer money invested into it. For-"

"I think you just poked an anthill, Petra…" Oluo whispered to the younger girl.

"Hey, you guys can't be that different… inter-service rivalries happen here right?" Matt asked.

"Inter-service?"

"Uh, you're the… Survey Corps… there has to be another military branch that is just insufferable. Right?" he asked, earning a response.

"The damned Military Police!" the man who hadn't wanted to get involved declared loudly.

The Army and Marine personnel turned to look at him.

"They are the worst people here. They enlist, and then they work their asses off, not because they plan on fighting the titans or using their skills to benefit humanity, but because the top ten new cadets of every regiment are allowed to join the Military police and live within the innermost wall! And not because it is dangerous or needs certain titan fighting skills, no, they all join because it's the easiest branch to live in!"

Hmm… maybe soldiers really are just soldiers no matter where you look…

Back in the tent, the commanding officers and their subordinates were doing their best to ignore the conversations outside and plan their strategy.

"If you can get the supplies and helicopters tomorrow, and we bring some of our own, we could theoretically fly to the district and plug the hole almost overnight." Commander Erwin stated as he glanced at a picture of the flying machines these strange soldiers were offering for their mission.

"Maybe not overnight... The reinforced barrier would need to have some foundation built, and you guys need at least some extra time to allow your cement to dry. We could speed it up with some equipment we have on standby, but even then it would take us almost a day to get it done…" General Connor noted.

Even with America's logistics being the best, plugging a hole more than sixty feet tall with a reinforced barrier would take at least most of a day given the materials the Army was bringing through.

"So we're going to have to engage the titans no matter how you slice it." Levi stated.

"Does that really matter? Plugging the hole in the wall in less than twenty-four hours! It isn't just unheard of, it would be the biggest engineering feat in this planet's history!" Hanji exclaimed.

Well… in this world…

"Commander Erwin, what do you think?"

Erwin stared at the pictures he had been given.

He liked it. Simply land these machines on the top of the walls and wait for nightfall. Then one group would work on building the foundation for the wall and another would explore the district, executing what titans they could before sunrise.

Should the enemy make a move…

"These… cobras… how far can they fire with accuracy?" he asked, the general turned to Ilse who took a breath before speaking up.

"Thousand meters on the main gun… the anti-tank- the larger missiles it carries can go for a few miles with great accuracy." she said, already familiar with the weapons coming through.

Erwin ignored the amazed exclamation from his subordinate and smiled.

"I say we go forward with the operation."

General Connor blinked, glanced at his subordinates, and nodded.

"Alright then. Let's gather the troops."

He moved to exit, ignoring the doubts the shorter captain was making known to his superior.

"Think we can get it done? Never tried something like this…"

"We've never had an opportunity like this; it has been almost five years since the wall fell, and more than a century of the titans walking the earth as if it was their play thing. We haven't had a single victory since and if what Miss Langnar says is true…" the commander glanced at the girl, who quickly stood at rigid attention.

He smiled slightly.

"For once, we may have a chance to gain a victory in this awful conflict that plagues our world."

Levi didn't reply; moving to follow the American general outside…

…where all the other Americans and their own members were actually arguing like children over who had met the most arrogant soldiers…

The short captain allowed some cautious optimism.

Maybe this is the beginning of something good.

Oluo covered his eyes from the rising sun as he stared at the gate, where several trucks carried the metallic birds out of the dark opening.

"I thought they would be a little scarier than that…" he mumbled to the chestnut haired girl.

Yes, the odd mouth and teeth that had been painted on them made them look like strange, snake like creatures, but the larger ones were no longer than some titans, and the regular ones were almost like the cars and carriages they were used to seeing, only with odd metallic bars stretching from the top.

"Damn… you'd think the Marines would be bringing some of the newer stuff…" Jake muttered, staring at the old looking Cobra attack choppers, and Hueys that genuinely looked like they had last seen action in Vietnam. The Army was bringing in entire squadrons of Chinooks for cargo and troop transports, and at least those looked like they had actually been taken care of.

"What newer stuff?" Dave mumbled back.

"Hey, remember you guys are still stuck with the Humvee. Is comparing our stuff really something you want to do when you're still using a vehicle from the previous generation?" A nearby Marine called out.

"Hey! Our girl works fine. And we didn't get stuck trying to put our Humvees together in Iraq!"

"Yeah, whatever, man. Glad your car does what it was asked to do."

The Marine smirked, laying himself back slightly, comfortably standing next to the intimidating MRAP.

The M114 Humvee looked like the cheaper toy next to it. Arguably worse for the small group, it looked like an old toy when compared with the scattered amounts of newer and shinier Army JLTVs.

At least there were only a couple of those to show off…

"Well… you showed him…" Matt called from his post atop the vehicle, watching over the field ahead of them.

The Abrams tanks sat there in the distance, silently waiting for the enemy to crawl or walk up from the horizon. Not too far behind them, the other soldiers from the so called Survey Corps were wondering around, the ones that had kept watch alongside the tanks the previous night were now switching with others who had been allowed to sleep.

"Think we'll get sent to help in the sealing of the wall?" Dave asked, tearing open an MRE.

A mildly irritated Ilse stomping behind him answered the question.

She sat down in the passenger's seat and crossed her arms, pouting like a little girl.

"Uh-" Jake began only to get cut off.

"General Connor says the Marines are going, along with most of the Survey Corps veterans, but I have to stay here." she declared, the sixteen year old girl suddenly manifesting and speaking over the combat veteran that had survived the cruel titan infested lands before finding her way into another world.

"Well, yeah… I don't know what we could do. The choppers are going to get filled to the brim with personnel and supplies, so our old girl can't go. And even if we packed the M-K, they're taking the Cobras and putting friggin miniguns on the hueys. I doubt they'll be lacking in firepower." Jake pointed out.

Off in the secure and now flattened field, several men were loading 20 millimeter rounds up into the old attack helicopters, while several others were placing different types of machine guns on the smaller ones.

"Still… I waited so long for this moment, but now I have to sit back while the commander and the rest of the corps accomplish the big mission." she sighed.

"Hey, don't worry about that. Pretty sure the second the hole gets plugged we'll have to be put on stuff like titan hunts and clean up duties, so you'll still have plenty of time to do good." Dave said.

The girl sighed, nodding. She was surprised how quickly it seemed the titan threat would cease to be a problem within the walls despite a major population of titans still living nearby. Deciding to change the subject, the girl turned to the young man on top of the Humvee.

"Hey, Matt, how come you don't say much?" she called to the tired looking soldier.

"Huh?"

"How come you don't talk much?"

"…A very wise man once said that being a man of few words save plenty a friendship… plus, if I spent my very, very sensitive vocal cords on telling people about my riveting life of cleaning toilets, military gear, and other things I wouldn't be able to yell at these guys when they suddenly decide that adding charcoal to Cocoa Puffs to heat them up with a lighter is a good idea."

"Every God damned time-" Jake groaned.

"Next to a munitions box."

"Matt-"

"During live fire exercises!"

"Jesus, how come a guy makes one mistake you gotta keep reminding him of it?"

"How come the Army still lets you carry a carbine with live ammunition?"

"…I'm beginning to get the feeling you guys aren't exactly the best of the best." Ilse stated.

"How can you tell?" the three soldiers asked in unison.

"Maybe the fact there's a Marine escort for the escorts?" the Marine standing by the MRAP replied, deadpanned.

"…My dad says they once tricked a whole unit of Marines into thinking the Crayola boxes they bought were new MREs and a whole bunch of them actually bought it… guess he's a liar." Dave mumbled.

"Wait, what-?"

The radio cracked to life.

"Contact, contact, we have hostiles at a thousand meters, north east, coming up on the hills."

"Whoop, time to stand by until one gets into range, which they probably won't…" Dave exclaimed, grabbing a pair of binoculars just as the tanks opened up.

"Ha-ha, don't jinx us." Jake muttered as he grabbed his carbine.

"Yeah, we are short four tanks after all." Ilse replied.

Boom!

She stared at the smoking guns, a look of concern on her mind.

I hope they make contact with the rest of the corps…soon…

Mike Zacharias was a man of few words.

Loyal to the point of being compared to a dog, he was more than happy to take charge of the remainder of the corps whilst Erwin took a large contingency of scouts to investigate the sight an excited Hanji and concerned looking Captain Levi had mentioned seeing.

That had been almost twelve hours earlier.

The expedition was supposed to head back to the walls on the second day, but after receiving a messenger confirming that someone else was out there, and said someone was going to help them seal the wall before the end of the week, well… what was he supposed to say?

This was Erwin that was sending the message, and despite the high mortality rate of the corps, the man was a gifted leader.

But something still bothered him; it was as if the air had changed. It wasn't for a lack of titans though. They had been few and far between less than twenty four hours ago, but once the sun rose up, he could smell plenty of them not too far away. They were all moving elsewhere, however, and they hadn't had much trouble dealing with the occasional wondering titan that made its way to the long abandoned farm.

That said, given all their statistics on losses, the six wounded men lying inside the barn wouldn't make any tax payers happy.

Most of the large titans that had appeared were quickly taken out by Mike; but at some point, two of the younger recruits had been closer and had attempted to take one out by themselves. The angle on one of the men had been off, and the creature bit into the man's leg. The only reason it didn't tear it clean off was his comrade who barely managed to switch gears in midair and hit the weak spot in the nape of the neck. The other four had been assisting him and had wounds varying from broken ribs to shattered legs.

Assuming they made it back, the men were looking at a sad existence for the next few years if they were lucky.

And these were light casualties…

Something caught his nose then.

Not titans, it smelled of… gas?

"I have eyes on commander Erwin!" some older soldier called.

Mike turned to look at the hills. The commander and several others galloped on horses towards the farm.

"Mike! Have the men gathered the supplies?" the commander asked quickly.

"Just as you ordered, sir."

Erwin nodded, looking both excited and calm.

He then paused.

"Have there been any attacks by titans?"

"A few, sir, but there are no losses yet, just some injuries so far."

The man nodded, staring at the floor.

"How are the wounded?" Levi asked.

"Alive. All six are in the farm back there."

"Good enough. Everybody, gather around!" Erwin ordered, a crowd quickly and efficiently forming around him.

He took a breath and from his horse began the announcement.

"Soldiers, we are moving to seal the wall in a few hours!"

"Wait, what? How?" a young recruit asked.

"Last night we made contact with a group of people that were not from here. Although they don't understand it themselves, a doorway has been opened to another world." Erwin stated simply.

Confusion rang among the corps.

Another world?

Impossible!

Right?

"These individuals have brought weapons and technology that could help us seal the wall with minimal risk to ourselves. Using both our supplies for sealing the wall and some of the barriers they're bringing forward from their own world, the wall should be sealed hopefully by this time tomorrow."

"Um… commander, no offense, but this sounds too good to be true. Where exactly are these men?"

Erwin smiled.

"They… have a sense of humor." He said, firing a green flare into the blue sky.

Mike finally raised an eyebrow at that.

Levi shook his head. Knowing what was coming.

It took a minute, but the first thing they felt was a light rumbling, then they saw four green beasts that were seemingly made of iron, with a large, swiveling turret that pointed straight like an arrow and seemed to move on its own, like an animal.

Behind them followed what seemed to be large carriages not unlike the ones the corps used for transport, except that they didn't have horses and looked like they were made of iron or something similar to it.

Some figured out rather quickly that these were man made machines, others simply stood in silence, never having anything for reference other than horse drawn carriages, these strange vehicles mere existence might as well be impossible.

"Mike! Moblit! Mobile forts! What do you think?" a certain eccentric scientist yelled from the top of the iron vehicles.

One of the large transport vehicles had a strange white square with a bright red cross on it. It stopped near Erwin.

There was indeed a driver inside, who asked about injuries.

"Six, in the farm." the commander replied.

The man nodded and hopped off, ordering several others to move out and get the wounded.

Mike looked around him, seeing that even the so called mobile fortresses had drivers as well.

Was this even real?

Years of defeat against the titans had made the men of the survey corps much more cynical, despite their hopes for victory. The idea of any victory simply being given to them just like that was too good to be true.

He then noticed Hanji dragging her visibly shaken subordinate towards one of the iron beasts that had four tired looking men peering from holes in the surface of it.

Yeah, this was real.

Levi watched with a small sense of satisfaction as a bony eight meter class titan simply went crunch when the American tank decided to accelerate and run it over instead of maneuvering around it. The mobile forts these people from someplace else brought with them were impressive killing machines, despite them possibly having trouble doing the same to a fifteen meter class titan. The Americans were spearheading the formation with their heavy vehicles that were still keeping up with the horses of the survey corps. The lighter transport vehicles were dead center, carrying the supplies the survey corps would use to fix the wall as well as their wounded.

"Anyone in this frequency, be advised, FOB is currently engaging a major force of hos- titans." The new equipment, radio, barked into his ear. The Americans had given a few of them to the commanding officers of the corps, ear-pieces they called them in order to allow for easier communication.

Look, flares work great for signaling, but this is a bit more efficient… they had said.

Well, they're not wrong…

"Solid copy, we proceed as planned... should clear the forest in two minutes."

They cleared it thirty seconds earlier than they expected.

Levi struggled to count the exact number of gigantic fifteen meter types that were slowly advancing, in spite of their numbers constantly decreasing due to the heavy fire of the tanks.

Some of the members gawked at the sight. The beasts that haunted their world were being swiped aside as if they were nothing.

Almost…

They were getting closer, uncomfortably so, to the main perimeter of Abrams. Fire from the hill with the giant structure erupted almost immediately after one got too close, but still they could only focus on so many targets at once.

"Damn it, Matt, the neck!" Dave yelled, despite not being in any direct danger… yet.

"Trying! Thing keeps- God Damn It!" he cursed, the giant he was trying to take down kept wobbling awkwardly from one side to the other, the 40 millimeter grenades impacting the wrong spot, leaving gaping holes in the chest and shoulders, but not the vital weak point. The Abrams ahead of it were engaging targets at a further distance while the men took care of the closer ones.

At least, they were supposed to.

But this particular target was proving annoyingly stubborn for the crew of the Humvee.

"Movement isn't an excuse, just hit the damn-"

"Oh quit crying, I got it… retards." The Marine next to them called.

Controlling the .50 caliber remotely, he let the machine gun fire a relatively long burst before the Titan collapsed a few meters from the tanks.

"You're welcome!" the Marine called in a somewhat sarcastic tone.

"T-thank you!" a somewhat agitated Ilse replied.

The crew on the Humvee glared at her slightly.

"W-what? Do we really want to risk damage to the tanks?"

"Man, here I thought you were cool." Jake mumbled.

The girl groaned.

I get battle stress, but is this really their only way of-?

The MK-19 firing up again interrupted her thoughts.

As did the panicked cursing of the men around her.

She paled as she saw a massive fifteen meter type gunning it for the perimeter.

The Abrams fired immediately, but the thing had gotten too close and jumped out of the way and over the tanks not unlike a ballerina, as if it had expected the large guns to fire first.

Now it was quickly moving towards the mostly exposed hill by the gate.

Right where most of the men were.

It was immediately met by machine gun fire and 40 millimeter grenades, some of which hit its leg, knocking it down.

One of the Marine LAVs fired with the 25 millimeter chain gun, breaking the monster's head into pieces, just as a burst from the Humvee pulverized the weak spot, causing the titan to slowly fade away with the wind.

No one cheered, or said anything. The support guns simply went quiet for a second as the tanks took care of the remaining, much slower, fifteen meter tall titans with their own machine guns.

"That… made it closer than yesterday's abnormal…" Ilse stated after a minute, if only to say something.

Matt let go of the MK-19, took a deep breath, and sank back into the Humvee.

The tanks stopped firing then, as no more titans were visible in the horizon and the last one dropped to the floor, slowly turning to dust.

"God damn…" Jake muttered.

"Yeah…" Dave replied.

Even if it hadn't killed or wounded anybody, the mere sight of that monstrosity gunning it towards them was much more intimidating than anything they had seen so far. They knew the threat was deadly, but their weapons had yet to actually be challenged by anything, and yet the fact that for a moment, even a moment, they might not have been able to stop one of them was chilling them to the bone.

"Never underestimate the enemy." Ilse replied.

"No kidding…" Matt replied, rubbing his eyes.

For a while the only noise around them was the radio confirming that the rest of the corps had arrived as well as some construction material, both for their own buildings and the little project their commanding officers were cooking up with the rest of the corps.

"…this thing flies?" Eld asked as he stared at the odd metal beast in front of him.

The man in a green uniform with a stupid looking helmet stopped attaching a gun to the rear of the bird and turned to him.

"It better. Unless you want to go on foot." The soldier replied, returning to his work.

Levi approached his subordinate.

"So far their weapons work well, doubt their helicopters won't perform excellently."

"Any word on the wounded, captain?" he asked.

The short man grimaced.

"Two of them lost too much blood; they might not make it, although the Americans keep talking about bringing in some special medicine that might help… overall, I don't know."

"I see. Any word on when we head out?"

"One hour. That way when we get there the sun will have begun to set and the titans will start to become inactive. The Americans are already loading up our supplies as well as theirs."

Eld nodded, surprised.

He wanted to ask if this was really it, after all those years of trying and failing to even start the slow process of sealing the walls.

But he knew better.

The captain was a usually calm man, but he knew just as much as the rest of the team that this short man carried more stress than any of them, and they didn't need to annoy him with dumb questions about a mission.

Wait, where did he-?

He noticed the captain had moved towards the flying machine, slowly passing his index finger along the surface of the metal bird.

"…Filthy…" he heard him mutter.

The man working on the gun visibly shook before staring at the captain.

"Uh… filthy?" the American asked.

"You have dust and plenty of dirt all over the floor, which is understandable, but the seats and windows… are not."

The American stared in disbelief.

Eld wondered if the presence of humanity's strongest had the man at a loss for words.

"Well, this one will be carrying ammunition and the gun for support, so not too many troops will ride here… hopefully the ones your team will be riding in are… should be cleaner." The soldier said nervously.

Levi simply nodded with an unreadable look on his face before walking away.

Eld smiled slightly before overhearing the American mutter something.

"Jesus… this world has neat freaks, too?"

"What?"

"Nothing." he stated, going back to working on the gun.

"Wind, two-fifty, fuel one hundred…" Troy heard on the radio as the different pilots kept going over the lists before takeoff.

He was one of the few Army officers tagging along, and all he was in charge of were a few Army engineers that were helping the Marine engineers.

He glanced at the one of the other CH-47s, the one being loaded with the last bit of cargo needed for the completion of this mission.

It wasn't much, certainly nothing that could stop the gigantic abomination known as the Colossal Titan that was probably roaming the earth somewhere, but with the supplies from the survey corps, it should hold long enough to be reinforced with better supplies at a later date.

It would certainly hold out longer than if the Americans had just gone in with their own supplies.

Having almost a year to prepare, the Americans had amassed and created a large steel door, not unlike the shutter doors often used to protect storages, only larger, and thicker.

With the special cement mix from the Survey Corps and some steel workings of their own, sealing the wall was achievable. If only long enough to effectively fix the hole with better materials, but again, that could wait.

"All instruments are good, we are ready for takeoff."

"Understood, Hillclimber, Godspeed."

Here we go…

The beast- Machine shook and rumbled as a whinnying sound increased to the point that Petra was glad the ear protection the men had given her was doing its job.

It was so stupid in her mind, she went up against the enemy without any armor to defend herself or long rage weapons. She was able to fly meters above the ground at high speeds with little issue.

Yet she was petrified of this weird machine from another world.

Her gear lay by her feet, secured to the floor, but that was little comfort.

Even more annoying, she didn't even have to look at the scientist to her immediate left to know she was enjoying every single second of the ordeal.

The rumbling then relaxed slightly, and she felt her stomach drop without moving somehow.

Are we-?

"Ha-ha! Moblit! Look out the window! We're airborne! Truly airborne!" the girl yelled, the radio picking it up and broadcasting it for the whole cabin to hear, much to the amusement of the Americans and irritation of all the scouts.

Hanji was probably the only one visibly enjoying herself.

What the hell is so exciting about being in the air?! We're constantly flying around, and with much more control over where we go! Oh-

Moblit hid it well, but the feeling of being airborne without actually being able to control how high or fast or really anything else made the scout feel nauseous.

The rest of the Survey Corps veterans were either stone faced, forcing a calm demeanor, or simply unmoving as the machine took off into the air.

High above the strange structure, then the tall trees, and then they were able to see for miles ahead.

"Alright, Hillclimber, proceed south west until Wall Maria is visible."

Hanji wondered why the pilots kept repeating their mission objectives but decided it could wait, enjoying the view. She saw one of the smaller helicopters, the ones with big guns, fly next to them before pulling back, probably to form a formation of their own.

Like us, but different… fascinating.

Plenty of titans were visible under them and in the distance.

Some saw them and started to follow them.

Better to keep them off their base…

The late afternoon sun still shone as they made their way to the ruined district where the crisis had begun almost five years prior.

Just as it began to turn into the evening sun, glowing orange, the massive structure of the walls came into view.

Troy stared in amazement. All the recon ops the US had managed to send through before the main force entered had only managed to travel a few miles away before having to pull back, never seeing the walls.

They stretched from one end of the horizon to the next, making the Great Wall of China look like a sand castle. Ilse had described them, but to actually see them made the American officer begin to realize just how little they knew about this world.

How long did it take them to build something like that?

Surely it had taken them centuries to do so, but if the titans had only appeared a little more than a hundred years prior, why build them? Did someone know about their threat and plan ahead?

Or was there some otherworldly technique they were unaware of?

He was forced to push those thoughts aside as the helicopters landed on the top of the outermost wall, just above the breach.

Erwin exited as the whirling blades began to slow and the whinnying engine began to die down, his soldiers following through.

The Americans hopping out of the smaller crafts and others did something he considered somewhat odd, they got on their knees, looking down their rifles as if there were hostiles nearby.

One yelled "Clear!" and they all got up like nothing had happened.

"What in the hell…?" he heard one of the scouts murmur before Hanji started with her theories.

"Ooh, very interesting, they're probably making sure no titans managed to climb up here… caution always pays- wah!"

"We could see no titans were up here from the chopper assuming that was their concern… dumbass…" Levi groaned after jabbing the scientists on the elbow slightly.

Erwin ignored it, they were all on edge as this had been the end goal of the corps for a long time and to reach it so suddenly was not only unprecedented, it was still hard to believe it was actually happening.

"There are way less of them around than I would have expected…" Troy mumbled to himself as he observed the giants wondering around the empty town through binoculars, many moving towards their position high on the wall. It wasn't that there weren't a lot of them, but for some reason he had expected an infestation, not unlike ants scrambling around the carcass of any dead animal, except gigantic.

He had been more than impressed with the sheer size and scope of the walls, landing the Chinooks and Cobras had been relatively easy while still giving them all a comfortable area to set up as a temporary base of operations, radios and monitoring equipment quickly set up just above the area where the hole was, not too far from a large indentation in the cement; the only evidence of the existence of the Colossal Titan.

If found, we have to make it a priority to take it out… wonder how well it'll handle anti-tank missiles…

The sun was setting, and the team had a special idea to clear the area of hostiles without risking themselves too much.

Oluo, however, shuddered slightly as he observed the monsters below him converge into a mob several meters below him.

"That… is… I mean…God… there are still so many of them." One of the Marines muttered, walking up to him.

"Yeah, worst part is when they charge you. Even up here you can imagine how terrifying they are."

The Marine mumbled something resembling an agreement, but Oluo wasn't sure. The earlier attack back at the base had given the Americans plenty of data to imagine a horde of titans charging down at them, ready to eat them alive.

"C-4 charges are all prepped up!" an engineer called from the area they were amassing their explosives in neat groups, ready to be used.

Part one, distract the enemy, moving them to one side of the wall or the other.

Simple enough…

The titans had already noticed the flying machines and had instinctively followed them; something many more were incentivized to do as several scouts stuck themselves to the walls and acted as bait, visible but always out of reach.

Part two was more complicated. They had to wait until the sun went down and the titans stopped moving. Then the smaller helicopters would drop two teams of Americans while the veteran Survey Corps members used their own gear to climb down the walls and coordinate with units called explosives teams.

Apparently the Americans could see in the dark and would give them special goggles to do just that themselves, said ability was to plant explosives on the unmoving abominations and kill as many as them as possible in one swift move before another team scouted the destroyed district and the rest began working on sealing the wall.

Certainly more simple than slowly and methodically delivering supplies to fix the wall on a specific route in order to eventually make their way to Shiganshina and seal it after many years of moving the necessary supplies, but still, it would be a challenge.

"The amount of flesh that's going to go up in the air will be insane. You guys ever blow stuff up before?" another Marine asked, a wicked grin on his face.

Oluo shook his head, but he was extremely curious as to how destructive this so called "C4" could be.

The sun slowly set behind them.

With the majority of the prefab buildings still being set up, Jake couldn't help but be glad he wasn't on construction duty after the previous day.

Guard duty was a bit more relaxed, especially guarding the entrance to the gate.

The sounds of the base around him were soothing in their own way, and he could appreciate the bit of manmade noise mixed in with the nightly sounds of nature. He hadn't been able to focus on it too much the previous night, but the night sky was gorgeous.

Arguably more so than back home.

Even when he went camping, he had never seen so many stars.

"What's crazy is that they're basically the same as back home." The soldier next to him said aloud.

"Yeah… think NASA will send some probes out here?" Jake asked.

"I would think so, but not for a while. Doubt they would find much of anything, though."

This world was oddly similar to earth.

One moon.

Humans.

Green trees and grass.

Breathable air.

Really, the only weird thing was the titans. Maybe the survey corps was weird in its own way, but not that strange. Of course, Ilse had mentioned that there were forests of giant trees, but you could find some of those back home as well.

Is this a whole new world or a whole new universe?

"My aren't you a curious one?" a girl's sultry voice whispered.

Jake whirled around, staring at his brother in arms.

"…I heard it too…" the man said, visibly shaken.

They turned to look at the gate, M4 carbines aimed downwards, but with the safety off.

"Who goes there?" Jake called in a deep voice, irritated that he defaulted to something so simple, yet still attempting to not sound nervous.

The other soldier returned a confused stare at him.

Silence.

"Okay… maybe I'm crazy… could've been the wind after all."

"God, you white people and it must be the wind. Don't you retards know that that's how you get impregnated by some alien demon thing?"

"Piss off, man, I can't see anything in there. Maybe the corps members are screwing with us."

Jake stared unblinking into the darkness of the gate.

Nothing.

"Alright… we should call it in at least…"

Both men went to do just that, blissfully unaware of the magenta colored eyes gleefully watching them from the darkness of the structure that bridged both worlds.

A playful smile formed on the owner of those magenta eyes before she vanished with the winds once more.

Things were getting interesting.

"I'm just saying I should have been on the mission." Ilse sighed, propping up some of the prefab material.

Mike simply nodded as he assisted with the same thing.

"But, you know, I can't complain. You have no idea how happy I am to be alive right now."

Mike simply nodded.

The girl frowned slightly.

She was about to ask the man something when Matt calmly walked over there with a hammer, looked at Mike, and offered it.

The scout saw the hammer and nodded, taking it. Matt nodded again and walked off.

Ilse stared, wide eyed.

"Um… do guys just have a secret silence code or something?" she asked, genuinely curious.

Mike smiled at her before going back to working on the prefab buildings.

Before Ilse could ask again she overheard Jake's voice in the distance.

"Just saying, if the brass thinks we're crazy and sends us home, I ain't about to forgive you."

Wonder what that's about…

A loud explosion was heard in the distance, followed by what sounded like bursts of automatic weapons fire.

Ilse turned to her superior officer who had narrowed his eyes.

"Five meter class if I had to guess… must've snuck up on the men riding those steele machines... Couldn't even smell it properly with all the stuff in the air. What exactly is all that? Gas?" he asked her.

Ilse nodded, she had heard of the talented officer who could smell titans from miles away but had never actually met him.

Matt's radio crackled nearby, a very irritated voice shouting "Hunter actual, what the hell is up with the night firing?!"

Another voice replied.

"Small crawler, Sergeant, almost snuck past us. Threat is neutralized now, over."

She had yet to encounter the type of titan that remained active at night, but considering how bizarre the abnormal types were, it was always possible night types were more common than expected and she knew how dangerous those could be. Even worse, the sealing of the wall rested on most of the titans being inactive during the night.

Hope they're okay…

"Fire in the hole!" a man yelled.

Erwin didn't really understand why the man screamed that just as they detonated the explosives. He knew it was to let everyone know that they were going to blow up a bunch of titans, but everyone was already cleared… maybe protocol…

The ground shook, a cloud of dust flew into the air, hiding the unmoving bodies of the monsters caught in the explosions.

Soon the smoke cleared and the men could count the dead monsters.

"Uh… hard to tell, but given the heavy amounts of steam I say we have a good number of tangos down… if not most of them…" a voice came in over the radio.

"Excellent, sergeant, excellent. Get some of the MARSOC guys to help you clear out any of the stubborn ones." The commanding officer replied.

Radio… we could use that to great effect in our expeditions… saved several lives-

Erwin pushed the thoughts away. Those who had died were being avenged even as he inspected the building materials they had brought.

Several meters below him, the Americans were already working on installing their iron gate. It was an almost comical sight as the workers had brought special tools but required help from his scouts to hang on the walls along with the equipment. Oh they had brought some ropes they were using, but it seemed that the scouts and their three dimensional maneuver gear were the far more efficient option, leaving the ropes to holding the tools and supplies.

Nothing fancy really, just flat pieces of iron linked together so that they could be rolled into a container that could drop them down and lift them up on command. But when combined with the materials the corps had brought along… it would certainly take a hit from the colossal titan to take it down again…

Hopefully…

He had to wonder where those destructive abominations were now. If original reports of the event were to be believed the Armored Titan survived direct cannon fire, but these American guns were far more destructive and accurate…

How would an American tank hold up against the armored titan?

"Your boys are sleeping, right?"

Erwin turned to glance at the American officer. He had ordered Levi and his team to rest up in one of the flying machines the Americans called a helicopter, that way they would be able to help during the final, more dangerous stages of the next day.

Given the eerie lack of sound coming from the inside of that helicopter, I wouldn't say they're asleep, but…

"Yes, hopefully they won't be needed tomorrow, but just in case, it's better to save our ace for last."

The American nodded before glancing at the men working on the giant gaping hole in the structure.

"On the light side of things, everything seems to be on schedule." The Marine muttered.

"Yes… do you think your men are alright?"

The commander glanced behind him then, hearing a small explosion ring throughout the mostly empty district. The possibility of an abnormal attacking in the middle of the night was a given, but not something he or any one of them could afford.

Erwin hoped his men as well as these…"Special Forces" were able to hold off or destroy any titans approaching.

Moblit watched as the American used his rifle to destroy both eyes on the seemingly sleeping titan. It had been sitting on the remains of a destroyed house, eyes wide open and unblinking; a disturbing parody of the humans its form tried to mimic. But despite being very much aware of the men in front of it, the beast did not attack.

It just sat there… watching, or at least, pretending to watch.

At least, until the American destroyed both its eyes with two short bursts from his assault rifle.

Two members of the survey corps walked to the left of the creature, firing their cables at its head, hooking themselves to it.

"Alright-alright-alright! Quickly now! No time to waste!" the ever energetic Hanji ordered the soldiers, both hers and the Americans.

The men collectively pulled on the cables, slowly forcing the titan to lie on its side. The creature was more than cooperative as it rolled on its stomach, exposing its weak spot.

The man that had stood by with the HK-416 moved ahead and awkwardly climbed on top of it.

Moblit figured that the Americans didn't like risking their men in order to learn basic things about the titans, but this was important if they intended to fight the enemy in a more efficient manner.

The American stared through his night vision goggles, eyeing the nape of the monster's neck. He knew simply shooting it would probably work, but if he remembered the information that had come from New York, you had to be precise.

He was somewhat startled by the energetic girl suddenly standing next to him.

"You know where to shoot, right?"

"Yeah, sort of, the issue is the exact spot."

"Well! As we discussed, this area right here!" the woman pointed with her blade, making an oval shape on the neck of the unmoving monster.

"I know that, but here's the thing…"

The German manufactured HK-416 fired three rounds directly into the nape, the sound somewhat reduced by its silencer.

Hanji observed with curiosity as the wound healed.

"Interesting…" she mumbled.

"Yeah… you guys cut the whole nape, our tanks and heavy rounds outright pulverize the damned thing… but when we use our rifles… we need more precision…" the soldier replied, unsure what that information meant for the Survey Corps, but knowing full well what it meant for him.

Another short burst from the assault rifle, this one much more focused on the very center of the nape and the beast shook ever so slightly before it began to go up in smoke.

The scientist was already hypothesizing about what that could mean.

"You know, if we could capture one we could use your rifles to pinpoint an area in order to get a clearer picture as to what we have to hit…" she mumbled.

"Well, we'll have to save that for later." The MARSOC operative stated, hopping off form the disintegrating corpse.

Hanji followed, slightly more somber now as she was deep in thought.

With all that done, the strange combined force kept moving through the abandoned district.

No noises were present in the darkness, which made the area ever more disturbing to the men and women exploring it, hunting for monsters that could devour them whole.

Several decomposed bodies remained already dry and almost gone in the ruins of the district, yet still acting as a still image of the horror that had struck humanity that fateful day.

For the American special forces team, this was… different.

Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East in general had plenty of areas where bodies littered the floor and everything was destroyed.

But not like this.

"Christ… I thought titans ate the people whole…" one of the Marines whispered, staring at pair of legs that were strewn near a house with a hole in the wooden roof.

"Not necessarily. They can't digest things and sometimes they get full, so they eat a part and leave the rest… like that one." Moblit whispered back, pointing with a flashlight towards an intact body that was missing a head.

These things work better than regular torches… but I don't know if it makes me feel better being able to see things in so much detail…

"God…" the Marine groaned in response. This enemy's entire existence was something that felt entirely unholy. They shouldn't exist at all, yet here they were.

There was still no noise coming from the empty buildings.

The Marine continued to stare at the bodies near the house. It didn't take a detective to figure out what happened. An almost skeletal hand still clutched a rusty pendant, moss and other plants growing around it and the pieces of what had probably once been a handbag. Someone was probably trying to grab some belongings and got snatched up and devoured right there. All that was left were those small pieces no one would notice unless they looked.

The utter silence of it all felt too heavy to ignore, yet he pushed himself forward regardless.

Decontaminating this is going to be a-

Moblit's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of wood and bricks suddenly being shoved aside.

Similar to a landmine going off, a large figure emerged from the remains of what might have once been a bakery, tossing debris in every direction as it turned to look for its prey. It spotted them almost immediately, staring back at it in surprise, none of them certain of how to act.

Big mistake.

Its arm darted towards one of the closest humans, an odd looking snack given that it was covered in completely different clothing compared to the others she had eaten so long ago.

"Oh f-! It's got me!" The Marine yelled, partly in panic, and partly in pain as the fat, five meter sized titan began crushing him in her grip.

His buddies opened up with their rifles, taking out one eye before the thing showed some small level of intelligence and covered its eyes with the same arm it was using to hold their brother in arms.

"God- Tim, hit it with the two-oh-three!" one of them yelled, some level of panic as they tried to save the man ahead of them.

In modern war it is one thing to die getting shot or blown to bits by the enemy.

It was to be expected.

But like some of the things in this world, this was different.

Being grabbed and broken by a monstrosity like that.

Torn and chewed up in its mouth.

Assuming you somehow survived you wouldn't be digested.

You would just… slowly die in its stomach.

This was not something the Marines would ever allow to happen to their brothers, but they were clearly helpless here. The M203 grenade launcher might not kill the titan, or it might hit the man they were trying to save and simply blinding it might not work.

All they had going for them was that it was slow.

Unsure of what they could do, they almost forgot they weren't the only trained forces in the vicinity.

In one swift move, Hanji had used her gear to hook herself to the head of the monster and get above it. Once positioned over its head, she let gravity take its course and fell to the ground, swiftly cutting the nape of the monster's neck in one second and landing on the ground like nothing had happened the next.

The creature stammered and fell to the side, releasing the Marine.

Moblit watched with some degree of pride as the Americans stared dumbfounded at the speed with which Hanji had taken out the creature.

"These head torches are really something great! Hey, soldier! Can you still walk?" she called with glee.

The marine rolled to his side, clutching his chest while taking heavy breaths.

"Let's get a med evac, now!" one could only imagine the internal damage a beast like that caused.

"…rine…" the American breathed.

"Excuse me?" Hanji asked.

"Rine… Ma-rine! Call me a Marine or my name, not a soldier…" the man groaned at the energetic woman as he lied on his back.

"Or… maybe not? " the other American mumbled.

"If I could read your name tag I would call you by your name. Unfortunately I can't do that… yet." The girl said, grinning.

"I-"

"Take it easy, dude. If you can walk we only have another street to clear. But maybe we should get you to a medic back at the wall."

"I'm fine… just… out of… breath…"

"Splendid! Then we move forward! Onward men from another world!" she said, marching down the street again.

The Marine turned to Moblit.

"She always like that?" the Marine asked.

"You get used to it."

The rising sun brought both hope and dread to the commander of the Survey Corps.

On the one hand, they had survived the night with minimal casualties… by the American's standards. By Survey Corps standards this was unprecedented.

One Marine with a pair of fractured ribs, courtesy of an over enthusiastic titan, and one survey corps scout who had twisted his ankle while walking on the roof of a decrepit house that almost collapsed with him on it.

But the American officers seemed… concerned.

"…and it was moving slow. We've seen what the quick ones can do." He overheard them mutter amongst themselves.

"The Cobras, Chinooks, and Hueys are fully stocked, as long as we conserve ammo and missiles, we should hold them off long enough."

Erwin glanced at the men now adding the materials the corps had brought along to the hole.

Said hole in the wall was sealed for all intents and purposes, but it was more than a little important to finish reinforcing it.

And that cement needed time to dry.

"Captain!" a voice came over the radio.

The Army lieutenant listened in.

"Our eye in the sky detected several large groups coming over the hills… both inside and outside the walls…. Time's up."

"Levi!" Erwin called.

The captain and his team had gotten little sleep the previous night despite their orders to be well rested.

But it was enough. The four elites ran up to their commander.

"The hole in the rear wall is our biggest concern right now; keep them away from the teams finishing up the reconstruction here."

"Understood. Let's move, people!" the captain ordered, his team moving with purpose.

Troy watched the team throw themselves from the wall before hooks shot out and stuck to the walls, using their gear to swing along the side of it, moving quickly to reach the hole on the other side, where the threat of titans was just as bad. White smoke reminiscent of jets back home was all they left behind.

"Primitive tech or not, these guys are legit." One of the MARSOC operatives mumbled as he finished setting up the .50 caliber M82 Barret anti material rifle.

Troy himself had picked one up in order to assist with the men on the ground. The walls made for excellent sniper nests, and the Special Forces were more than happy to take advantage of that.

The .50 caliber rounds might not help too much, considering the distance, but it might just be enough to make a difference.

The sound of the helicopter engines starting up let Erwin know that this was indeed the final push.

No… not final…

This was the first.

The first of many needed to reclaim the land beyond the walls. He was unsure if he would see the day when the enemy of humanity was wiped from this earth, but he would give everything to bring that day within grasp.

"Contact! Uh… thirty plus enemy approaching, bearing south…" the radio chattered, the pilot was oddly calm at the statement, but it mattered little to Erwin.

The fight began, and all hands would be on board this time.

Unlike his brethren, his face was permanently contorted into a frown. He had no memory of who he was… nothing concrete at least.

He somewhat remembered lots of blood.

Lots of blood- why would that be one of his memories? Did he even have a past? That memory of lots of blood suggested he did.

But it didn't matter.

He was stuck.

Something was telling him that he was walking towards… something…

He saw them, and it triggered another memory.

Walls.

Large, impenetrable walls.

Just like back home.

He must have had a home once.

But he was outside this time. Why would he want to go back in?

The electrical signals in his head that barely classified as thoughts were interrupted by a noise he did not recognize.

Up above him…

What was that?

He stopped, as did another one of his brethren, one with a larger head that was barely supported by its much smaller body.

He saw several odd figures flying high in the sky.

Release!

The thought multiplied over and over in his head. He knew that if he could just… eat the right person…

He extended his arms as far as he could but to no avail.

He heard what sounded like thunder…

Then he didn't think anymore.

"Creepy how they reach out to us like that…" the Marine yelled as he poured led into the advancing crowd of titans, the M134 more than up to the task. Most of them had kept going, ignorant of the helicopters above them, slowly killing them from behind as they advanced towards the walls.

But two, one large and one slightly less so, had stopped and tried to reach them by extending their arms as far as they could.

Two rockets from a Huey gunship had stopped them in their tracks, the smaller craft dancing around the slow monsters.

Despite this, the enemy kept moving forward.

They would be whittled down little by little, but several others were making their way.

An advance that could only be slowed down or fully destroyed. There was no reasoning, no convincing them, of stopping their continued push to destroy humanity.

The Marines in the helicopters frowned briefly at the implication, and kept firing into the horde.

"Now!" Levi yelled over the sound of the American Cobra firing into the enemy formation up in the sky above him and his team.

A large and very fast abnormal was gunning it towards them, and despite being shot to hell, the vital weak spot was never hit before it reached the broken entrance into the Shiganshina district.

The second it reared its smoking face through the hole, all five members of team Levi swarmed it, Petra and Oluo cutting its upper joints while Levi and Eld focused on its ankles, all limbs were cut or made useless in an instant, the comparatively small blades more than capable of doing their own damage, before Gunther finished it off with a simple cut to the neck. Any one of them could handle this on their own, but it was much less risky to do it as a single, deadly unit.

"God damn!" a voice in the radio exclaimed, quickly being followed by others.

"Nice."

"Color me impressed."

"You guys aren't half bad."

"Damn it! Cut the chatter, jarheads! We still have a fight on our hands!" the last voice screaming over a burst of automatic fire, heard both on the radio and in the distance.

Levi forced himself to ignore the annoying radio chatter on his ear. The communication device the Americans had given him was an amazing piece of technology, but it was also an easily converted tool for distracting and annoying the men doing the fighting.

The cobra attack helicopters above him continued to fire into the relatively small crowd of titans approaching them from the inner side of Wall Maria, knocking them off one by one.

"How much ammunition do you have, Cobra… one and two?" Levi asked, almost forgetting the call sign for the helicopters above him.

"We're good, captain."

Yeah, unless a large mass of them runners creeps up on us that is…

Levi pushed the thought aside and nodded to his team, listening to the engines of the helicopters above him. He moved his team to reposition themselves on the walls as more gunfire erupted above them.

"This really makes it easy, huh?" Eld asked, feeling both relaxed and excited as the situation continued to escalate. "We really might just reclaim the wall by today!"

"Stay alert, abnormal titans are a challenge even against these machines of theirs…" Levi replied.

He couldn't have been more right.

"God damn it! Little ones are clumping up en mass; 20 millimeter rounds aren't gonna cut it in time, switching to hellfires!"

Erwin stared as the rockets shot out of the flying machine above him at incredible speeds towards the group of small titans that were running at full speed towards the team finishing up the sealed gate.

The explosion was more smoke than fire, but it knocked down all the running beasts. Granted, temporarily, but still, better than nothing, and the smaller helicopters suddenly started to riddle them with heavy rounds of ammunition. After just two seconds, the mass of six meter titans was a slowly dissipating mess of flesh. It was a chaotic sight, the flying machines moving quickly, just out of reach of the monsters, but still visibly struggling to keep them off their comrades below, barely managing thanks to the fire support from the top of the wall.

And that didn't include team Levi guarding the rear opening… he couldn't imagine how bad it would be if those beasts got to the still wet construction from the inside.

They would easily tear apart the men working on the reinforcing the steel with wooden pillars unless they were evacuated on time, and even then they could accidentally break said pillars apart, although it would be less catastrophic than if the beasts reached the outer structure before it was finished.

Just added a problem to the already precarious situation…

"How much more, commander?" the American officer asked, observing the ongoing battle through his binoculars, his foot tapping nervously.

Erwin moved to the edge and made a call through the radio.

"Everything is in place, but it still needs some time to dry up completely. I would estimate about twenty more minutes and we can get the men out of there. By that point most of the abnormal titans should have been dealt with and the other much slower ones won't be able to reach it before it's fully dry." He breathed, speaking almost mechanically.

The commander of the Survey Corps was shocked, he… they were just a mere twenty minutes away from achieving the first victory for humanity.

To be fair, it wasn't exactly easy.

A random titan came running from the onslaught of projectiles, it was large, but along it were two others that the American flying machines had focused on before quickly turning to it.

It got uncomfortably close to the men working and finishing the structure.

Erwin heard the helicopter fire another missile before the radio crackled to life again.

"That's about it for the hellfires. Our commotion seems to be quite the attraction for them."

"Yeah, Cobra three and four, focus on harassing and distracting the others, keep them off our guys." The other American barked into the radio.

Erwin stared at the mixture of men at the bottom of the wall.

Mostly Survey corps with a few Americans, neither of whom were anywhere near as armed as the tanks he had seen on that hill.

Survey corps with their gear, Americans with their own… his men in particular were still on the reinforced seal, looking for anything that needed to be fixed before the cement fully dried.

He held his breath as yet another group of titans emerged over the horizon, the flying machines firing as they moved closer before pulling up, allowing the others that were still flying around to have a go at the mass.

Just hold on… just a little more…

"HERE THEY COME!" the man from another world yelled some meters away from him.

Moblit shook his head, trying to wake himself up.

True, he had helped in the night operation, but he did not want to leave the others shorthanded… plus…

"Come on, Moblit! Those fliers can't keep them all off of them!" Hanji yelled, hopping from the tree they had been standing on, some tiredness seemed to present itself in her voice, but it could be his imagination. The woman was just as energetic as the small helicopters dancing in the skies above them.

The trees around the entrance to shiganshiha district were not exceptionally large, especially when compared to the forest of giant trees that grew further within the wall, but it was enough.

The titans getting through, what few had managed, were small, easy to handle and dispatch. As he sliced through a particularly skinny one, he wondered if he had managed to decapitate its head entirely. He didn't bother getting distracted as a few others tried running at him forcing him to pull back slightly before they got close enough to grab him. one hopped into the air, mouth wide open, snapping shut just as he jumped away, his gear pulling him from the, now very real maws of death. The abnormal actually made a face as if it was frustrated. The growl of an American helicopter gun sliced through the air, tearing into the monster, many bullets missing their mark, but they were too many and too fast for the shooter to ever miss the vitals, killing the abnormal titan.

Lots of those up and about…

His biggest worry, however, was that the colossal or armored titans, the ones that had actually started all of this, would appear again. Though he wasn't certain, he had noticed that the Americans were not firing their far more destructive rockets anymore and that may be an indicator that they were either low on them, or completely out.

Hanji might have known since she carried a radio, but…

"Alright, that's that… Commander, is that the last of the runners?" she asked the small box.

Nothing.

She blinked, realizing she had pressed the wrong button and asked the question again.

She was laser focused on ensuring the success of this mission.

Tracer rounds flew above them then, a slow, five meter tall titan appeared from behind a tree. The high caliber rounds of ammunition tore its face to pieces, which didn't kill it but caused the Marines to hold their fire as the creature flailed about, seemingly in pain, before another one of the scouts hopped onto it, fully decapitating the head.

"Hanji, get yourself out of there, the closest titans are dead and the others are too far away to cause too much trouble. We need you all out of there now! It's time to test if this works or not." The commander's voice cracked on the radio as the lifeless titan fell to the floor.

The moment of truth had arrived.

One of the smaller helicopters landed and in quick succession picked up the few Americans while the members of the survey corps gunned it up the wall with their gear.

Hanji hopped onto the ledge, startling one of the Americans with the large rifles, and immediately whirled around to look at the titans.

Though she would never admit it, she held her breath, truly worried of the possibility of the beasts breaking through their newly established barrier.

But with no visible entrance, the slow, dimwitted creatures simply stopped in front of the wall, glanced up at the food out of reach, and stupidly began trying to reach for them, ignoring the recently dried cement.

Nobody celebrated.

"So… how do we know it's solid enough?" Troy asked no one in particular. None of the titans were actively scratching on the newly sealed wall, making it hard to tell if just how effective the structure was.

"Err… it should be dry by now… did… did we succeed?" Hanji replied, turning to her commander.

A minute passed as no one spoke; nothing but the sound of helicopters hovering in the air filling the void.

Seemingly unsatisfied, Erwin hopped off the wall, using his own gear to scale it until reaching the top of the now sealed breach, the smaller titans moved towards him, desperately clawing the cement in an attempt at climbing up to reach him.

The seal held.

With that confirmed, the commander moved back up the wall, landing in front of the still silent team. The Americans were seemingly confused by the lack of cheers, though Erwin knew his own men wouldn't cheer yet.

To gain that much without a single loss after losing so much was… unbelievable.

The golden haired man breathed, turned to look at the American, looked behind him and said "It's rather… anti-climactic…" he smiled slightly.

"Congratulations, Commander." The American officer said.

He didn't show it, but the commander of the Survey Corps felt a heavy weight fall on him. Humanity's first victory in a hundred years had just been achieved and yet all he could worry about was the deaths he had indirectly and directly caused.

How many died just to bring us… me… here?

And still he knew nothing.

No new information about the titans had been gained.

No information on the mysterious colossal and armored titans had presented itself. A part of him had secretly hoped that some answers would present themselves on the way, but none had.

If that pair was intelligent and they wanted Wall Maria destroyed, why didn't they show up?

Perhaps they could get some conclusions from that knowledge on its own but it left more questions unanswered than answered.

Worse still, the new players…

They were as in the dark as he was about that strange gate and the titans.

But they had helped achieve the first real victory in a century against these mindless monsters.

Many, many questions had to be answered, but…

He smiled as he saw the oddly cheerful Americans congratulating the Survey Corps members.

Oluo stared at the giant metal shutters covering the hole in the wall before turning to Petra to ask his question.

"But what if they do?"

The girl sighed, "Can we just appreciate the respite? Why do you have to bring up the colossal titans now?"

She was trying to enjoy the break they had gotten. Most of the titans within the wall had moved to follow the Cobras as they returned early, so the inside of the Shiganshina district was empty of threats.

Then Oluo had to bring up the possibility of the wall being breached again.

"Look, missy, I'm a realist, and we have to worry about this sort of thing. These Americans probably didn't even consider that possibility." He mumbled the last sentence, getting the girl to wonder something before she asked him.

"Are you jealous of our new allies or something?" the girl asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.

"What?! No! I'm just saying they have no long term plan for monitoring the most vulnerable spot in our defenses! Think about it! Even if we secure the second breach in the district, we won't really be able to come back here until the whole of Wall Maria is clear of titans. And unless they establish some sort of fort here, which they don't have the men or the supplies for, how will any of us know if there's a breach? I'm telling you, Petra, they did not think this thro-"

"Break's over, you two." The bored voice of their captain stopped Oluo in his tracks.

Levi handed his two teammates an object that looked like a stake with a mirror ball on the top.

"What are these?" the young girl asked.

"The Americans call them sensors; they will tell us if titans have breached the wall. All we have to do is plant them near the entrance. Now come on, they're already getting started."

"Wait- how do these even work?" Oluo asked.

"How should I know, but they have something even stranger if you can believe it."

Somehow, despite preparing themselves, they still couldn't believe it, and neither could the majority of the corps.

"Once the signal is set, we will have 24-hour monitoring of the sealed breach. If something happens to our work, you'll be the first to know. Well, we'll be first, at least until we can install some electrical equipment in your own office." Troy told Erwin as he showed the surveillance system his engineers had set up.

"How is… how does this work?!" a fascinated Hanji demanded, grabbing the American by the chest and pulling him uncomfortably close to her.

"UH- light reflects off… um… I don't know the exact science, but it sends a signal that shows us what's happening here to a computer a certain distance away, like our radios but with pictures… um, no not pictures… think of a telescope!"

The brown haired woman looked frustrated with the answer, but dropped the soldier. Troy sighed.

"Uh… guys?" Troy asked his engineers.

"Look, it works similar to our radios, but the process is not exactly the same either. We can talk about it back at the FOB later if you want." one of the men said.

"Hmm, that would be much appreciated. I have plenty of questions, though…"

The young man smiled politely, saying "Ask me whatever you want; I'll gladly help where I can!"

Nobody noticed the look of turmoil on the two members of team Levi as they wondered if warning the guy about just how demanding the scientist was, but ultimately resigning the Army engineer to his fate. Erwin even seemed to be about to say something, but kept quiet.

Troy checked the camera once more.

The small camera and its equipment were solar powered, and had a decent broadcasting range, one that the Americans could send to their own base and inform Erwin of any emergency at the wall. The same could be said of the sensors the scouts had placed all around the sealed breach, so any unusual seismic activity would be picked up and sound an alarm back at the FOB.

Erwin was aware of the cameras, but to be able to keep an eye on their work while being miles away… he was impressed.

Troy smiled.

By the time the helicopters touched down, the sun was already dipping below the horizon and there was a small crowd of Survey Corps. Members gathering near the landing sites, which were now somewhat more developed since the squadron took off the previous night.

Erwin wasn't used to the warm reception he found himself receiving when the flying beast opened its doors and let his units out into the secure area the Americans had built.

"We saw it! We saw the sealed wall!" someone cried.

"This is the first victory for humanity in a hundred years! How does it feel commander?" another much younger scout asked loudly.

"Everybody calm down, the commander has earned himself a break." An older officer, Erwin wasn't sure who, said.

He wasn't surprised to find Mike walking over to congratulate him as well as lead him and the other scouts into what was very quickly becoming a small town. Ignoring the small tents the corps had set up, the Americans had several wooden structures all lined up neatly, not unlike most of the nearby villages within the walls. But the structures, though wooden, seemed far sturdier than mere tents, another reminder of the technology these soldiers from another world brought with them.

"They build fast, and after you left, most of the titan attacks stopped." Mike stated.

"I think they followed us in the flying machines."

"Oh…"

"But there were no casualties, at least, no fatalities, and the wall is now sealed. Saying that I'm impressed would be an unbelievable understatement."

"I understand, their tools and weapons are beyond anything we have ever seen."

"Yeah, I guess when humanity is busy fighting itself, it can come up with some very efficient killing tools." Levi mumbled as the scouts were approached by the man that went by General Connor.

"Congratulations, Commander, I hear your men performed splendidly." The man said, smiling politely.

"As did yours." Erwin said, shaking the general's hand.

"Well, go ahead inside. I would like to have a private word with you in the officer's chambers, but your subordinates can go into the mess hall, the City of New York sent us plenty of dishes to celebrate the success of the mission."

Erwin nodded for the rest of the scouts to go ahead as he followed the General down a different path.

Levi watched the men walk away, a part of him wondering what they would discuss, but he already had a decent idea of what it could be. Upon turning to continue down the street he realized his entire squad was standing around, waiting for him not unlike loyal dogs.

"Well, what are you waiting around for? Let's go eat."

A large structure seemed to be the center of attention at that hour, with lots of noise coming from it.

It was oddly clean inside.

Then the smell hit them.

"What… is that?" Petra asked.

"I don't really recognize many of the smells, but go ahead, the food is great." Mike said.

The scene was oddly homey for a relatively bare structure.

Levi could tell the tables were cheap from a distance, seemingly made up of some kind of plastic, but the Americans sitting in them were chatting away happily like nothing.

Not unlike his subordinates.

The Survey Corps didn't exactly get a very high budget, so a lot of their furniture was outdated or cheap, yet he rarely heard a complaint come from any scout about the accommodations.

Some of the Marines that had worked during the night walked past them, one saying "Son of a bitch, they brought Pizza over while we were gone? God damn, do I love New York!"

Pizza?

The usually stoic and bored captain was surprisingly impressed with the buffet presented to the scouts. Meats, fruits, vegetables, really any food brought along with them on missions or at their bases was stored in wooden boxes, having to be constantly cleaned before being served, and even then there was a strong chance of it being filthy and in need of more cleaning. The budget never spared much room for sanitation much to Levi's chagrin.

But this… oh, this was very different.

The food rested on incredibly clean plates, seemingly kept warm by the material said plates were made of. Though it seemed much of the food had also arrived in boxes, Levi noticed that these strange circular bread loaves had a clean paper beneath it to guarantee the food remained sanitized in its delivery.

These Americans took their cleanliness very seriously…

The thought was challenged by seeing a Marine drop a slice of food onto the floor, yell something along the lines of "five second rule!" before picking it up and eating it in two bites.

Never assume…

"So… what exactly is this?" Gunther asked, studying the triangular slice of bread that seemed to have some kind of cheese melted over it… along with other ingredients he didn't exactly recognize.

"New York Pizza, best in the god damned world… both of them!" the American handing him the plate said cheerfully.

"That… doesn't really answer my question."

"Wheat, cheese, marinara sauce-"

"Mari- what?!"

The American stared at the man with uncertainty before simply saying "Um… it's a sort of sauce that… you know what, let it speak for itself. Enjoy!"

Realizing he wouldn't get any answers, Gunther moved on with the rest of the team, all of whom were standing awkwardly, looking for an empty table.

Levi had noticed that the two types of Americans, Army and Marines, had subtly different uniforms, same for their respective officers, but he wondered if officers and the enlisted ate in separate rooms, much like the Military Police, or if it was a bit more relaxed. The fact the Commander and the General went and ate elsewhere suggested that officers didn't eat along with the enlisted men, and yet-

"Yo! Captain Levi!"

A young man was waving at him, as if to summon him and his team over to the table, which aside from a few other soldiers was rather empty.

Petra recognized the American as the dark skinned man she had seen that first night, suddenly realizing the same unit was there, including Miss Langnar.

"Come on! Sit over here! plenty of room!" the colored man called.

Ilse had a look on her face, which suggested that she was either having trouble breathing or seething with anger, Petra couldn't tell. She gladly sat down next to her captain, who raised an eyebrow at the men.

"You know, seeing you up close, you're way shorter than I expected…" the dark man said, smiling.

Ilse covered her face.

Levi glanced at her, asking "These guys looking out for you or something?"

Without looking at the officer, Ilse nodded.

"I apologize for my friend, Ilse mentioned that you were the strongest or something and… well…"

Matt was unsure of what to say, Jake had been the one to invite these five elite troops over, and he wasn't exactly used to talking with the elites, even if he was the most responsible guy in his little squad.

Or maybe the way the Captain seemed to look into one's mind and soul with those piercing eyes had a way of making one nervous…

"I see. So… Miss Langnar?"

"Yes!" the girl almost yelled.

"How exactly are things on the other side? Nowadays, I mean." the captain asked.

Ilse looked at her superior, noticing that the entire squad had yet to even touch the food.

"Well… people are friendly, it's very safe…"

The captain eyed the Americans before asking "How many wars are there going on over there right now?"

Huh?

"Um… I don't have an exact number, but not as many as one would think, actually… form what I read, they're living in the most peaceful time in their history."

Levi nodded.

Matt raised an eyebrow, saying "Captain, if something's bothering you, feel free to ask. We're on the same team after all."

"Just being cautious. Maybe a little curious..." Levi added, glancing at another table where a certain scientist was furiously writing down the information an exasperated engineer was reciting.

"Well, you haven't tried your food yet… you guys have an officers eat first policy or something?" Jake asked, also noticing that none of the members of team Levi had even touched their food.

The four members of the team glanced at their captain, who simply nodded.

Almost as one, the four scouts inspected the bizarre food, and took a bite out of it.

"Huh… tastes pretty good." Eld mumbled.

"Yeah, a bit hot, but… nice." Petra smiled.

Gunther simply nodded.

"I've tasted worse." Oluo said.

"Captain?" Jake asked as Levi took a bite of his own.

The captain shrugged.

Jake stared at him intently.

"It tastes good." he said unceremoniously, unsure what the American wanted.

Jake groaned.

He handed Matt and the other soldier a little green box.

Ilse shook her head.

"Never bet against a Jew…" Jake muttered.

"I'm Turkish…" Dave added.

"I meant him…" Jake said, signaling towards the survey corps captain, who seemed unsure of what the word Jew meant but didn't care enough to ask… yet.

"Oh, right, I wanted to ask!" Petra said suddenly, interrupting the Americans.

"Ilse, I've noticed that despite them all being American, many are… very different."

Ilse looked at the girl in confusion.

"Like… how come your skin is so much darker than his? And the two of you have way darker skin than him." she said, pointing to Matt.

It was Matt who regained his composure fast enough to ask "Are… are you asking why their skin is darker?"

The chestnut haired girl nodded, sensing she might've asked the wrong question.

Dave began to chuckle.

Ilse grabbed a napkin and covered her mouth with it, cleaning something.

"W-what?" Petra asked.

"Well, their world never had titans, so humanity was never driven to near extinction, so all those races that are rare here are abundant on their world, and the US has plenty of people from all over the world, so…" Ilse said quietly.

Petra shook her head.

"I think my little friend here just wants to know is why your skin is different. What kind of land do you hail from that changed your skin so drastically?" Eld asked.

Matt covered his eyes this time.

"Oh, my God, you guys are so naïve…" he mumbled.

"Hey! Watch your tongue! Unlike your Marine friends, you boys didn't do anything!" Oluo protested, shutting up the young soldier.

"Uh… Naïve wouldn't be the word I would use either, Matt…" Ilse replied.

"Why would he think we're naïve?" Levi asked, now curious himself.

"Ah- N-n-n-not naive! Misinformed would be the- I mean that in a- I- I- uh…"

If eyes could be equated to firearms, Levi would have battleship cannons…

Before Ilse could answer, Jake cleared his throat, getting the attention of the others.

He forced a polite smile, saying "Uh, Let's just say that the world is a very big place. And there are all sorts of… people living in it. There are lands that are entirely made up of sand- and I mean like... Imagine an entire valley made up entirely of sand, and then apply it to the entire land mass, there are places with whole valleys made up of salt or ice… or places where the sun doesn't shine for an entire month… or entire land masses made up of ice… people actually live in lots of these places, so… different places, different people." He finished simply.

The scouts blinked at that.

"Whoa…" Petra's mind was busy trying to imagine the lands described, the previous subject forgotten.

Levi was silent.

He had grown up literally underground, and now that he worked with the corps, he knew how large the world really was. But he had never once considered just how different it could all be… he hadn't had the chance or the points of reference.

Lands made up of salt and ice, places the sun didn't shine… Was their world like that as well? Was it all within reach now? Flying machines, carriages that didn't need horses; with these advancements, could they establish bases beyond the walls finally?

Thinking about it, he took another bite form the odd food known as pizza.

Didn't taste half bad…

"So… we shouldn't expect a hero's welcome then." General Connor sighed.

Erwin nodded with little emotion.

"Well, our representative is coming through, and she knows a lot about negotiating… maybe she can work some magic… thanks for the heads up, Commander, I'll let the officers know."

"Thank you, General, I'll send a messenger back to the walls to inform every one of the success of the mission."

"Right, and if you want, I'm sure some of the food should still be on the table. We'll worry about the king later. Enjoy yourself for now, you've earned it."

Erwin nodded and exited the small building.

He had wanted to say more, but he wasn't sure if he should share all that information just yet. His suspicions of the history books, the odd unquestioning attitude everyone had towards being the final remnant of humanity… even he couldn't technically disprove that they weren't all that was left…

But what proof could anyone else bring that they were, in fact, all that was left?

But sharing that information right now was not exactly wise in his mind. No, he would see how the Americans reacted to their own governing body first, build a bond, then bring up the worries he had and see if they could do anything about it, but even he was uncertain of what the king and his men would do with this new reality.

He could imagine that the king would- should be impressed and thankful of the wall being retaken.

But all he heard whenever progress was made by the Survey Corps was that it cost too much and wasn't worth it.

He could only hope things would be different this time.

With all of this in mind, he eyed the starry night sky, wondering what awaited him in the following weeks.

He wanted to be optimistic, especially now, but a part of him suspected that this was only the beginning of a much harder struggle.

Rest would not come easily to him.

You must return home!

I promise, all the answers are in that basement!

Just hold still, this will only take a second!

Dad- what are-?!

"Eren!"

The teenager opened his eyes to an annoyingly familiar sight.

Most boys his age would kill to have a girl of that caliber looking at them the way she was looking at him, and many in his own unit were silently jealous the girl only worried about him.

But to him, it was a slight annoyance more than anything else.

Oh, it wasn't because he disliked her or took her for granted; he was just mildly annoyed at how often the girl tried to play the maternal role that had been robbed from them both at a young age.

He managed a groggy "Yeah?" as he began sitting up, the cart they were on made it impossible to sleep while it moved in the early light of the rising sun, stars still visible in the sky, but the events of the previous night had made it an annoyance he could ignore with relative ease.

Damned thieves…

"You were talking in your sleep." The dark haired girl said, a subtle worry lining every word.

"Oh… yeah, I had that nightmare again…" he found himself admitting, albeit begrudgingly.

All the other members of the 104th trainee squad that were in the same cart with them were fast asleep in spite of the first rays of the sun shining down on them as they moved back from the mountains.

"Maybe we should see the base doctor when-" the girl began. She didn't mean to sound repetitive or overprotective, but Eren was the only family she had left and she would first tear apart every monster outside the walls before letting harm befall him.

"Mikasa, it's not a big deal… I just… I guess we have to make our way to that basement eventually. Someday... until then I have to just ignore these nightmares. But I'll be just fine until then." he sighed, a little more optimistic than usual, but that was more in order to get the girl off his back.

Something that wasn't easy to do…

The cadets were slowly making their way back to their home camp, an incident had occurred during their training which had almost resulted in fatalities after several… unwelcomed visitors attempted to steal their equipment. Cut off from many of the villages, they had to fend for themselves, leaving the thieves to the garrison troops that were there as guards once they had been taken care of. They hadn't received any news from home in weeks, and even then, unless it was something monumental, they would be too distracted discussing the events of the training exercise. It was a trial by fire for the young soldiers, one they managed to pass with flying colors. No one died, and the threat was not only contained, it was handled fairly well even when the violent thieves had taken a hostage.

Confidence was gained by every cadet that wasn't named Mikasa Ackerman.

No, all she gained was the sick feeling in her stomach that came with knowing that she could never be by Eren at all times, meaning that her family was vulnerable, which by itself meant that she could easily lose it all whenever he wasn't near her.

It was much to think about…

So distracted were the young cadets that they never noticed the pair of strange Military Policemen chatting by the entrance to the camp.

So very distracted were the young soldiers that they never even heard one of them utter the words "The wall is apparently sealed, but what I hear suggests that there are way bigger problems."

So very, very, distracted by the events of the previous night that they had no idea they had missed on some information on that rare monumental occurrence that rarely happened.

No, the young cadets evaded the knowledge of life changing news for one more day, too worried about their individual problems.

But the knowledge would come for them soon enough.


A/N: So, that split form the main cannon much faster than I expected. Major characters show up for the first time here, and I always worry I didn't handle them right. At the same time, one of the bigger end goals of the main series just got solved in… what, three days? I just can't see a modern Army coming through and not act to seal up wall Maria in the first week, let alone the first month. It would make the situation far more manageable for all parties, make the titans a more manageable threat, and it would be a bargaining point at any negotiation table the US might have to set up with the government within the walls… I just didn't see it not happening. Hopefully the whole way it was done felt realistic, but let me know if it wasn't. (I keep worrying I may have both downplayed and over played the titan threat given the numbers coming from beyond the walls) I also wanted to show that despite our modern tech, it was thanks to the Survey Corps the wall was sealed up as fast as it was, since it would take the US more time to effectively seal it on their own without maps or guides.

Of course, things are very different from the main story now and the cannon divergence will hopefully be enjoyable for you to read. I wanted to add a little more of Eren and Mikasa talking, but the chapter was long enough, so I will save that for the next chapter.

Thank you all so much for reading and all the feedback; I hope you enjoyed this latest chapter. Anything you believe should be done better or differently, feel free to leave a review to let me know, they are all greatly appreciated! Any advice or suggestions on how to handle the cast or other story elements are also welcomed and greatly appreciated, so feel free to let me know! Thanks once again for reading, and I hope to have the next chapter up soon!

Right, and before I forget… VERY IMPORTANT- these first two chapters didn't really have many spoilers for the manga or anime, but be advised, starting in chapter 3 there will be MAJOR spoilers for Attack on Titan.