Hey guys, I'm so so so sorry this is late. School has started and college is an absolute nightmare x.x It also doesn't help that I've been having some serious medical issues (migraines, seizures, etc.) so I haven't had the time to focus on my writing, but I will still upload! It may just be a bit later than usual ^^'
Review Responses:
Jazz: I'll start off by saying, no, Atlas Corp. has no idea their king is a shifter (spoiler) or that the Reiss family is even involved (another spoiler). Also, yes the serum Grisha used on Eren was the same one as in the manga/anime, as you'll read in this chapter. And yes, Eren's titan is definitely the hottest XD
Alex: I'm glad you're enjoying the story! but sadly I have to keep Eren the way he is, hot titan and all XD
(STORY PLOT HELPER BECAUSE LAZINESS) I'd like to clarify that Atlas Corp. isn't run by the government anymore, they were at one point, but when their experiments started failing, they stopped being funded and had to rely on private donations and "other means". It wasn't until Grisha came along and started helping with their serums that they actually got their first shifter, Mathias. Let's just say there was a lot of dead subjects.
But anyway on with the chapter!
Chapter 6: Rogue
Eren followed down the stone steps that curved along the wall of the cavernous room, eyes roving all over, trying to take everything in. Violet smirked at his obvious astonishment.
"For today, I simply want to see your titan form. No experiments or tests or training. Afterward, you can go back to your room. Sounds reasonable enough?" Violet explained, leading Eren into the center of the room and into the circles. Behind them, Eren noticed the guards leave.
"And how exactly do I, you know, transform?" asked Eren, uncertainly. This was the moment Eren both feared and anticipated since he first arrived here. How the hell does a human become a titan? Was there some kind of special word or phrase? Or does he have to just believe strong enough and hope it works?
"I'm afraid you'll have to figure that out for yourself," the woman said. She started walking to the edge of the room before stopping and pulling something out of her pocket. "Oh, and you'll be needing this."
Violet tossed the small object at Eren's feet and he picked it up curiously. It was a simple kitchen knife.
"What's this for?" he asked, handling the sharp object gingerly.
"That's all you'll have, so I suggest you prepare yourself," Violet said, looking toward the staircase. Eren followed her gaze and was shocked to see the guards returning with a very familiar, and unpleasant, person.
When they stopped at the edge of the sparring circles, Mathias clawed at the ground and foamed at the mouth, attempting to reach out and maim one of the guards, but they stood apart on either side of the deranged boy and kept the chains taunt, preventing any damage.
"W-why is he here?" the boy stuttered, clutching the knife a bit tighter.
"You're going to fight him, Eren. You see, for the first transformation you'll need a strong goal in order to fully shift, and I think staying alive is a good goal to strive for, yes?" Violet smirked at the boy, dropping all pretenses of friendliness. "Release him."
Quickly and efficiently, the chains were removed and the guards bolted for the top of the stairs, where Violet had moved to watch and wait. Mathias stared after them for a fraction of a second, debating on going after them, but that desire passed when he turned back and saw Eren standing there, weapon drawn, and anxiety written all over him. He growled, but didn't make any moves to approach him, and just when Eren thought he wasn't going to attack, Mathias did something that Eren never would have expected.
He lifted his hand, brought it to his mouth, and swiftly bit down on the meaty flesh of his thumb.
Heat and blinding light exploded out in a cloud of dirt and dust, and the sound of thunder cracked through the massive stony room. The force was enough to knock Eren back and slam against a set of weights. His head spun from the impact but the sight before him was enough for him to forget about his pain.
Standing before Eren, watching him with beady, black eyes, was the strangest titan the boy had ever seen. Granted, he had only seen a few in his lifetime, but even he knew that the creature in front of him wasn't natural in the slightest. The titan had to be about twelve meters tall and it looked almost like a normal man, with correct proportions and taunt muscles, even its face was practically identical to Mathias's sharp features. It would have been an exact replica, albeit a much taller one, but instead of crazed blue eyes there were two black holes on his face, and in place of Mat's strange white hair were long, shaggy reddish-brown locks. The titan watched him before a sudden shrill sound caught his attention and he turned to face the staircase, where Violet held a silver whistle between her lips. This gave Eren full view of the titan's back and forcing him to let out a gasp of shocked disbelief.
The skin all along the back half of his body up to the back of his head was completely covered in a thick layer of silvery, pencil-thin needles that expanded and contracted with every movement. It was like staring at the back of a metal porcupine. And here, Eren thought it couldn't get any more terrifying.
The titan stared at Violet, who smirked before ordering, "Attack him, Razor!"
Before Eren had time to process her words, Mat's titan, Razor, spun around and curled into a tight ball of hazardously sharp spikes. The steel-like spikes dug into the stone ground as the giant ball began to spin and catch on the floor, sending the titan flying forward toward Eren.
With a yelp of terror, Eren lunged away from his spot on the floor, bolting for a safe place as far from the impact as possible. From behind him, the boy heard the resounding crash and crunch of Razor plowing into some of the training equipment and the wall behind it. Bits of rock and dirt scraped along Eren's skin as he skidded to a halt a few meters away, barely missing the carnage. Adrenaline pumped through his body and urged him to keep moving, to keep fighting even with his only weapon being a measly knife that could barely do anything against the monstrosity trying to tear him apart.
Razor unfurled and shook his head, growls rolling out its throat and eyes scanning the room until they landed on Eren again. The boy had just enough time to run out of the line of fire before the titan crashed into the wall again.
"You can't run forever, Eren! You'll have to fight sooner or later!" sang out Violet, smiling wide in sadistic excitement.
"How the hell do I fight that thing?!" Eren bellowed furiously. He rolled out of the way for the third time and managed to get on the other side of the room, confusing the spiked ball.
"Use that damn head of yours, boy!"
Eren growled under his breath. This woman was absolutely fucking crazy if she thought he was going to live through this much longer! He could already feel his muscles aching from the sudden exertion and his breath was coming out in hard pants. Even if he wanted to he couldn't think straight!
After the fourth dodge, Eren was starting to get sloppy and slamming into equipment to keep on his feet. His entire body shook with an overdose of adrenaline and Razor seemed to be getting faster. If he didn't think of something quick, he was dead! Think, dammit! If there was any time to miss Armin's big brain it was now!
"You better hurry up and transform, Eren, or you'll get squished like a bug!" laughed Violet hysterically. With her carefully composed mask removed it was painfully obvious how cruel and insane she was now. She was enjoying this far more than any sane person ever should.
When Razor slammed into an empty section of wall again, Eren quickly hid behind a thick stalagmite. The boy sucked in as much air as he could, doubling over in exhaustion. While his body recovered, Eren quickly ran through ideas, each one more desperate than the last. He looked down at the knife still clutched in his hand, utterly confused at how this tiny blade could help him, but suddenly a flash of firelight glanced off another piece of shining metal. When the brunette looked down, he saw his father's key dangling from the strip of leather around his neck.
Flashes of pictures slipped across his vision and shook his body uncontrollably. Images of an unfamiliar forest surrounded him and there stood his father, tears running down his cheeks and fluid-filled syringe in hand.
"This shot will impair your memory…" his father said. "That's why I can't explain now…"
His vision became hazy and his voice faded in and out.
"Listen to me. Take back Wall Maria and reach the basement."
The doctor moved toward his son, his hand shaking. Eren took a step back, wide, innocent eyes scared and confused.
"This power will help you then!"
Another step forward, an equal step back.
"Their memories will tell you how to use it."
His father lowered the syringe.
"Eren!"
Eren's body jolted from his hiding space, barely conscious of his own movement. He stood before the titan once more, this time completely calm and his face set with determination.
In the blink of an eye, the knife slide across his palm and was promptly tossed away. Blood dribbled down his wrist and just as before, the room was filled with encompassing light and burning heat.
Standing there, in all his furious glory, was Eren's fifteen meter titan. Its entire body was chiseled with defined muscles that looked almost bulky next to Razor's lean frame. Long, shaggy brown hair hung around its grotesque face and toxic green eyes shown through the tresses. Its face was probably the most terrifying feature with its exposed teeth, sharp nose, and strange elfish ears. Overall, Eren's titan exuded strength and infallible rage.
Without giving Razor a chance to recover from his initial shock, Eren's titan bolted for him, letting out a roar that had Violet and her guards covering their ears. In the next moment, Eren lifted his hands in a fighting stance and sent a haymaker towards Razor's head, using enough power to whip the titan's head to the side and completely disorient the needle titan.
While he was struggling to clear his head, Eren grabbed Razor (being surprisingly mindful of the quills), lifted him over his head and slammed him hard onto the ground.
Razor tried to curl into a ball again, this time out of protection, but the furious titan grabbed his arms and ripped them off, pressing his foot into Razor's back for added force. Blood gushed out of Eren's foot from slamming down on the needles, but he was so overcome by fury that anything other than his goal was ignored. Razor writhed on the ground, snarling and screeching with blood and steam flowing out of his wounds, before his leg swung out in a desperate attempt to knock the opposing titan off balance, but Eren was quicker. He jumped out of the way and grabbed the legs, lifting the fidgeting titan up and tossing him into the wall where several stalactites fell and impaled Razor.
"Isn't he glorious?" breathed Violet, lilac eyes wide in awe. "He's absolutely magnificent! And he doesn't have any of those irritating deformities ruining him."
"Ma'am, shouldn't we stop him? As dangerous as Razor is, he's still valuable," insisted one of the guards, tapping the metal at his hip.
Violet sighed and waved them off; disappointed she couldn't watch her perfect titan fight anymore, but grudgingly agreeing that Razor was important.
When the needle titan had stopped moving, Eren stalked forward, skeptical of Razor's stillness and ready to finish the job, when the strange sound of whirring and shouts pulled his attention away from his enemy and towards the two tiny creatures flying in his direction. He was about to swat at them like irritating flies, but they dodged agilely away from his hand and proceeded to slash at the nape of neck. The cuts were shallow enough to make the titan freeze in its tracks, but not enough to kill the boy inside.
Eren collapsed to the floor and the two guards were quick to hack at his neck until they could easily pull out the unconscious brunette. One of them slung Eren over his shoulder while the other went to retrieve Mathias from his mutilated titan. When they were both back at the staircase with their respective shifters, Violet nodded toward the door.
"Take Razor back to his room, make sure to lock him up tight," she instructed. "I doubt he'll be too pleased when he wakes up."
The guard holding the white-haired boy nodded and left quickly through the door. Violet turned her attention back to the Eren. She moved around the man and grabbed a fistful of brown locks, lifting Eren's head off the guard's shoulder and exposing his marked face.
"I knew I saw potential in him," she said out loud, purple eyes watching the boy fondly. "But I never expected something like this. He's practically a prodigy."
The guard snorted. "A titan prodigy?"
"Mm. Have you ever seen any of the others learn to shift so quickly? It took them at least a good twenty to thirty minutes to fully transform and that's after taking quite the beating from Razor. He managed to do it in less than five minutes! All while never taking a single scratch from Razor! He's absolutely outstanding."
The boy shifted and his eyes cracked open slightly, barely conscious. Violet smirked at him.
"You've done well…Rogue."
When Eren opened his eyes again, he was staring at a dark ceiling, tucked into his bed, and beyond sore. His head pounded and his body ached more than he could have ever believed. He'd never felt this horrible, not even during his military training. It felt like he'd been trampled by a dozen horses and then slammed into a brick wall.
The boy groaned and carefully rolled over, facing the doorway. A few more hours of sleep would hopefully null the awful pain, but sadly the universe had other plans.
"Wakey wakey, pretty boy!" bellowed out a familiar voice as his room door exploded open and banged against the concrete wall. Eren winced at the noise and glared at his intruder.
"Do you mind?!" he snapped.
Riah laughed out and barged her way into the room.
"Riah, you shouldn't annoy him after his first shifting. You remember how awful our first shifts were?" scolded Gwen, entering his room as well and giving him a sympathetic look.
"Ah, he's fine. Besides, he's been sleeping for almost two days. He needs to get his ass up!" remarked Riah, flopping down at the foot of Eren's bed.
"Wait, two days?!" Eren exclaimed, jolting up in bed and immediately regretting it when his head spun. "How have I slept for two days?!"
"Actually, it's a lot shorter than most of our recovery times. Hell, it took Hannah almost a week before she was even conscious," Riah said, flailing her hands excitedly.
"So, how did it go by the way?" Gwen asked, interrupting Riah's coming tirade.
"I…don't really remember…" Eren admitted, face scrunching in confused frustration. "I remember Mathias transforming and running for my life, but then…something happened and I…defeated him, I guess…?"
That stopped the two girls in their tracks. They both stared, wide eyed, at the boy. Riah even had her mouth hanging open as if she'd just witness some great miracle.
"W-what?" Eren asked, uncomfortable under their stares.
"You defeated Mat's titan?!" yelped Riah, pouncing on him and causing further pain to his overexerted body.
"I-I don't really know! I just remember being terrified and then the next thing I know, he's lying on the ground, and can you get off me!" he snapped, very nearly shoving her off, but thankfully she leapt up and off his sore legs.
"Damn son! No one's ever beaten Razor before!" the cat-girl said, looking very impressed. Next to her Gwen nodded, equally awed. "How'd you do it?"
Eren was about to remind her that he couldn't remember how but he was cut off by a bored, drawling voice from the doorway. "He isn't going to remember how, numbskull." Lily sauntered into the room, lavender eyes roving over Eren's tired body with great suspicion. "It'll take weeks before he remembers anything about his shifts and even longer to gain control of his titan."
"Yeah, but Lily, he freaking beat Razor! No one's ever done that, even the guards have a hard time getting Mat out when goes berserk!" Riah boasted, lamp-like eyes excited.
The blonde rolled her eyes, unimpressed. "So what? That just means he's even more of a monster than that basket case. From what I can see, that's far from a good thing."
"No, it's a lovely thing," chimed in another voice, this one light and airy. Dove joined the other girls, greatly annoying Eren. Why did they all feel the need to crowd his room?!
"Dove, do you even know what we're talking about?" Lily asked, eyebrow raised.
"Butterflies?" Dove asked, head cocked to the side and violet eyes glazed over. Lily sighed and grabbed her hand, pulling her out of the room.
"Um, what's up with her?" Eren asked, staring after the twins.
"Which one, the bitch or her dopey sister?" Riah snorted, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms.
"Riah! Don't be so mean," Gwen reprimanded, only causing the girl to roll her eyes. Gwen turned to Eren, her face softening in tragic pity. "Dove hasn't ever been a very strong-minded person, that was always Lily's role, so when they started the experiments, Dove started…losing herself."
"Think of her like the opposite of Mathias. Dove's completely bonkers like him, but instead of being aggressive and savage, she's docile and air-headed. She barely recognizes any of us anymore, and when she does, she never gets our names straight. Hell, I doubt she even recognizes her own sister half the time. She never knows what's going on or how to feel angry or sadness or fear. She's basically like a blank doll, needing everyone to take care of her," explained Riah, uncharacteristically somber.
"That's…that's just awful," Eren muttered, feeling slight shame for having been irritated with the girl earlier.
"Yeah, well, we're all a little like that," Riah continued, flashing a wicked, toothy grin. "See, my insanity only comes out when I'm excited. I usually go overboard and end up hurting myself or others. Otherwise, I could almost pass as normal!"
Gwen sat on the edge of Eren's bed, being careful not to jostle him and gave him a sad smile. "We're all a bit funny here, Eren, but that doesn't make us bad people. We're just a bit…different."
"Am I going to go…you know, funny?" the boy asked hesitantly.
"Probably, especially if you're becoming Miss Drake's favorite," snickered the cat-girl. "You'll be getting plenty of attention from her, no doubt. Bet you'll turn out as crazy as Mat."
"Like hell I will!" Eren growled, startling the two girls. "If you think I'm going to sit here and take whatever crap she tries to force on me, you're sadly mistaken. I'm getting the hell outta here the first chance I get."
Riah raised her brows in surprise, turning to Gwen. The sweet girl simply frowned.
"Eren, I don't think that's the best idea," Gwen whispered, remorsefully. "We all want to get out of here, but every time we try to escape, the guards always manage to stop us and then…"
"And then we get punished," Riah finished for her, eyes hard and serious.
"So what? Is the idea of punishment really so bad that you won't fight back?" Eren said, feeling that rebellious fire building up. These girls were no different from the thousands of others who are content inside their cages.
Riah was suddenly in his face, yellow burning into blue-green. Her teeth were clenched in utter fury and her ears were defensively pulled back.
"You don't know shit," she snarled venomously. "You don't know what punishment is like. You think its running some laps? Going without dinner? Maybe getting locked in our rooms for timeout? Hell no!"
Eren sat back in his bed, very alarmed and instinctually defensive. Riah followed him, refusing to give him space.
"Punishment is absolute torture. It pushes us to the very edge of sanity and then right before we break, they pull us out and say, 'Be grateful we actually care about you.' Then they send us back to our room to cry and pray we never have to go through that again."
"So until you go through that torment you have no right to go spouting off that self-righteous bullshit to us! You think we don't fight? You think we don't try hard enough to be free from this hell? You're dead wrong! We've fought back our entire time here, and you know what it's gotten us? Nothing but pain, frustration, and insanity! Until you've lost everything like we have, then you can decide whether we should be fighting harder or not."
With that said and done, the cat-girl left in a huff of rage, leaving a very overwhelmed and shocked Eren. Gwen sighed and walked to the door as well.
"She isn't wrong, you know. We have been trying to leave this place, but a person can only endure so much before they lose their will to fight," she said, wisely. Just as she closed the door she added, "Get some rest, okay? You'll feel better if you do."
The door clicked close after those parting words. Leaving Eren feeling worse than when he originally woke up.