LOCATION: SHINGANSHINA - YEAR 845

YEAGER HOUSEHOLD

"He's a filthy peasant!"

"He can be scary."

"He's not that bad."

"He's a loyal friend!"

"He's a baby titan."

"He's a monster!

"He's a punching bag!"

"He's a kid!"

"He's a DEMON!"

"HE'S A SPAWN OF HELL!"

It doesn't matter what they say, you'll always be my little knight, John.

"MOM!"

John's eyes shot open as he sprung up from a lying position.

His mind was in overdrive, and it took a few moments for his brain to process where he was.

The dreary wooden wall was a familiar site. He woke up to it after a hellish night plenty of times.

It was his bedroom.

The dreary wooden walls stared back at him, almost taunting him in Charles' place.

The black paint on the walls, dried and cracked years ago, stood chipped in spots that revealed the brown rotted wood that made it.

Shaking his head to gain his bearings, he swung his legs around, sitting at the side of the bed instead of on it. His head found his hands as he attempted to remember the events that had led to this.

He remembered Charles going on a bender.

"You little shit! You think you can just go out like that and not tell me?!"

He remembered dropping Lucy off at the Yeagers.

"You know you two are welcome here any time."

He remembered meeting Deacon and Rex outside the forest for a hike.

He remembered trying to set up the tent, with Rex just watching him.

He remembered Deacon leading them into an unusual cave.

He remembered touching some carving within the cave walls.

Then…

Pain.

Nothing but pure pain.

Then his mother's voice in his sleep.

"Mom." John whispered. He missed her. He missed her so much.

With a sigh, he stood up, stretching. He let out a sigh of relief as his muscles and joints loosened.

Walking towards the door, he made to open it so he could exit the room.

He did not expect what would happen next.

When he went to twist the knob, rather than opening the door, the door stayed in place as John accidentally ripped off the entire knob.

He looked at it wide-eyed for a second.

He was the one who put the door knob on, since Charles couldn't be relied on to do anything at all. He knew that the knob wasn't old.

And since the door itself wasn't damaged, that meant he really did just rip the doorknob off on accident.

Looking at it with wide eyes, his view switched between the door and the doorknob in his hand, trying to actually process what just happened.

"Oops."

Slowly putting the doorknob back in the tiny hole it was ripped from, John carefully twisted it, and sighed in relief when the door opened.

Stepping out into the hall, he was quiet, listening for any signs of the devil.

When he heard nothing, he concluded two things, one of which was good, and the other unnerving.

First, Charles wasn't here.

The second, neither was Lucy.

Maybe she was still at the Yeagers?

He could only hope.

"Please be okay, Lucy." He whispered as he walked down the hall into the kitchen.

There was an empty pack of cigars left of the counter, with a recently smoked one sitting in the ashtray.

Charles must've been here not too long ago.

Not that John cared.

Walking towards the front door with the full intention of leaving, John left himself surprised, and somewhat scared, when he failed to open the door in time, and unintentionally plowed through it, smashing it to pieces.

"What the fuck?!" John whispered to himself in disbelief as he looked at the splintered remains of the door, which still hung to the door frame by the barely surviving hinges. The door was destroyed. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It would need to be replaced, because it would never be usable again.

Looking at the door, wide-eyed, he turned his stricken gaze to the palms of his hands.

"W-what… What the fuck is happening to me?"

His eyes drifted to the nearby carriage.

Charles had bought it months ago, and despite not owning a horse, it had seen it's fair share of use from the corrupt Military Police scumbags who had allowed him to go unpunished, transporting illegal and stolen goods to their criminal contacts.

It was a decent sized transport carriage, big enough to transport at least eight different people. No normal human would be able to lift it alone without tools.

John feared he was no longer a normal human.

Approaching the carriage slowly, John placed his hands under the back of the carriage, roughly level with his stomach.

If he was honest, he was a little hesitant to try, for he was too scared of the answer. With a sigh to steel himself, with little success, he forced himself to lift it up.

He expected to lift the back end of the ground with ease.

Instead, he flipped the carriage, losing his grip quickly and accidentally throwing it when he felt just how light it was.

It shouldn't be that light. It shouldn't feel that light.

John slowly backed away from the carriage, wide-eyed, before he turned tail and ran.

He needed help. He needed answers.

What was happening to him?

Only one man could possibly know.

John didn't know how fast he was going. If he was paying attention, he would've noticed how much quicker he could run. As he ran, he only had one thing on his mind. One goal to focus on.

He had to find Grisha Yeager.

When Deacon Ross woke up, he wasn't sure what to expect.

The last thing he expected was to wake up within Rex's bedroom.

With two beds in his room, one for a friend he might have over, Rex's bedroom was plenty big enough for the two. And it was certainly more comfortable than the dirty old mattress at the canning factory, that's for sure.

Just one thing he didn't understand: why was he here, and not at a hospital, when he knew that Rex's parents didn't like him or John?

To be quite frank, him being here was really unusual. Sitting up with a groan, he spotted Rex sitting on the bed opposite of him, blanket drawn over his chest with his arms resting on his sides.

"Rex?" He called out, checking to see if he was truly out of it.

No response.

"Rex!"

Nothing.

He was out like a light.

Realizing that he wasn't waking up Rex anytime soon, he sat up, groaning as he did so. His body was stiff, having sat on the bed for god knows how long, though it was definitely too long.

Swinging himself off the bed, Deacon stood up and looked down at himself.

Other than the stiff body from laying down for god knows how long, he was fine. In fact, he was more than fine. He felt like he could run the length of the walls, never stopping for any reason whatsoever.

Remembering the horrible pain that the cave had wrought upon his body, he could safely say that he was more than confused. Taking one last look at Rex, Deacon decided that now was the time to leave the room.

He's been asleep for too long, he knows that. He wants to explore.

Opening the door a crack, he peeks out to see if anyone is standing in the hall.

Empty.

Opening the door completely, he steps into the hall, remembering to shut the door behind him so that Rex wasn't disturbed.

Before he could decide his first destination, his stomach seemed to do that for him, a loud rumbling sounding out through the hall. Considering he's been asleep for an unknown amount of time, it makes sense.

His stomach having decided his destination for him, he figured he would raid Rex's fridge. Having been snuck in by Rex multiple times before, he knew exactly where he was going.

What he didn't know, nor was prepared for, was for Rex's parents to be sitting in the kitchen.

The three stared at each other, trying to process this sudden change of events, unsure of how to approach this unexpected situation.

Then Logan cleared his throat.

"Mr. Ross. How are you feeling?" He asked, looking at the boy with genuine concern.

After processing the unexpected quest, Deacon answered a little slowly. "Well, I don't know how long I've been asleep, but it seems to have been plenty of rest."

Logan nodded. "Good. I know we don't get along well, and I maintain my stance on my son's friendship with you…"

At this, Deacon almost expected to get into a shouting match with the man, but he was quickly surprised.

"But I don't want to lose my son more than I already have, and if that means putting up with you and that Gallagher boy, so be it."

Deacon stared, wide-eyed at the admission.

Logan Vastata really just said that he's okay with Rex's friends.

Well, not necessarily okay, but he's willing to tolerate them for his son.

He was silent for a moment, glancing between Maria and Logan, before narrowing his eyes.

"What changed?"

"Our son is unconscious, and has been for some time." Maria spoke up, looking at Deacon with an unrecognizable look in her eyes. "For all of our disagreements, our fights and arguments, for all our irritation with you and Gallagher, we love our son more than anything in this world."

"We don't know what happened to you boys in the forest, but we've been terrified for Rex since you were found." Logan explained. "We didn't know if he would wake up, you boys were in terrible condition when we found you. We decided that if he wakes up, we would attempt to mend our relationship as best as we could.

"I don't want to lose my son, Deacon." Maria told him earnestly. "We've been mistaken about this for too long. I don't care who his friends are anymore, I just want my son to not hate me."

Deacon spoke up before he could even think. "Rex never hated you guys."

They both looked at him in confusion, and slight hope. "Really?" Maria asked, a hopeful smile on her face.

Deacon had to admit it was kinda funny seeing a smile after being so used to her ever present glare. With a smile of his own, he replied. "Yeah! I mean, don't get me wrong, he could be mad at you like crazy, I couldn't tell you the amount of times he's gone on a rant about your ways. But then again, Rex isn't exactly the most… level headed individual, is he?"

Both parents chuckled at that.

"I remember when he was six." Maria brought up a smile on her face as she recalled the story. "He hated baths with a passion. He was such a fighter about it too."

"Oh this I gotta hear." Deacon remarked as he took a seat at the kitchen table, listening to the story.

"He wouldn't ever cry, he would scream and yell at us, saying 'No Bath!' or 'I don't need one!' and he would swing his little arms and feet all around, hoping to catch off guard."

"We had so many fragile valuables broken because he'd swing and knock them all off the tables." Logan spoke up. "There were days it took both of us to get him clean."

Deacon busted out laughing at the image, Logan himself chuckling as he recalled the memory.

"He never likes baths? Did you try bubbles?"

"We did." Maria nodded. "He didn't like them. At all."

Deacon's eyes widened. "Really."

Logan laughed as he recalled this one. "Oh, the very first time we tried it, he was happy till some of the soap got in his eye. Next time, we didn't get a chance to do anything."

Maria laughed. "Once I put him into the tub, he picked up the bottle of bubble soap and threw it at the mirror, screaming 'No bubbles!' It was the cutest thing, I couldn't even be mad over the broken mirror."

Deacon was laughing his ass off as they finished the story.

"You know, that kinda explains this one incident we had with him." He said, catching the two parents' attention.

"Oh?"

"How so?"

Deacon smiled. "Okay, so you know the hot springs around Maria, right?" When the two nodded, he continued. "Okay, So we went to one of the ones that had a waterfall. It was me, John, Rex, Mikasa, Eren, and Armin. We're-"

"You better not be telling what I think you're telling!" The familiar voice rang out as all three occupants turned to look at the source of the voice, finding Rex standing there with a smile on his face.

Upon looking at him, all three of them froze, staring at him in shock. Rex took notice of this.

"What? What's wrong?" He asked, as Maria brought a hand to her mouth shock, and Logan could only stare stupefied. "What is it?!"

"Rex…" Deacon's voice caught his attention, and he saw the same shellshocked look on his face. "Your eyes…"

"What about my eyes?" Rex asked in confusion, causing them all to widen their eyes, disbelief evident on their features.

"You… can't tell?" Logan asked slowly. Rex was starting to get worried.

"Tell what?" he asked, his voice wavering as his worry grew.

When none of them responded, Rex bolted out of the room, looking for the nearest bathroom he could find. When he found one, he sprinted inside, looking at the mirror, at himself.

And then he froze.

He understood.

His world stopped.

For his eyes didn't look normal. It looked as if orange glass was sitting over them. His eyes were an orange translucent color, and he couldn't make out anything, not his cornea, his irises, nothing. It was all a solid orange.

With a scream of fright, he jumped away from the mirror, his hand shooting up as he did so, as if to push himself away.

His fear only grew from there, as a bright orange beam of light shot from his outstretched hand, destroying the mirror, and the wall behind it.

"REX!" Deacon's voice called out from down the hall, and not even a second later a blur, crashed through the bathroom door, going to the other side of the room.

And then Deacon was sitting against the cracked marble of the wall, looking around in shock, processing that he was no longer in the dining room.

Deacon and Rex looked at each other, fear and horror prevalent on their faces.

"What the hell happened to us in that cave, Deacon?" Rex asked, his voice quivering.

"I don't know…" Deacon said, looking around, seemingly too scared to move. "I don't know…"

When Grisha Yeager woke up in the morning, he knew it would be a busy day. He had an appointment within the interior, a regular checkup, and considering the fact that these folks were nobles, he wasn't about to turn away the money.

Though he was a little unsure of his decision, considering recent events.

After the boys had been found in the forest, both Mikasa and Eren were terrified that they had been killed at first.

Though Lucy had the worst reaction.

Upon hearing of her brother's condition. Lucy started bawling. She was crying so much, stuttering, hiccuping, yelling that Charles had finally killed him.

Nothing any of them could do would calm her down.

It wasn't until Grisha returned from his check up on the boys that he was able to calm her down, letting her know with certainty that John was okay for now, and that he wasn't dead.

That was true.

Now.

Then, he may have stretched the truth a little bit.

While the boys were in no danger of death, they were very much the opposite of the word fine.

All three of them were covered in cuts and burns, they're entire bodies seeming to have been riddled by some unknown attack. They each had a look of pain etched onto their faces, even while unconscious.

That wasn't the worst of it though.

Each boy had a an abnormal condition about them as he examined them.

Rex had been hot to the touch. Literally. After taking his temperature, he was stupefied to find that despite boys vitals showing nothing but signs of recovery, his temp was 125 Degrees. Despite that, his internal organs showed no signs of deterioration, from what he could distinguish.

Deacon, on the other hand, his affliction lies within his internal organs, mainly, his heart. When he examined Deacon at first, he was almost horrified to find that Deacon didn't seem to have a heartbeat, but it didn't escape Grisha's attention that despite that, he was still breathing. After administering a heart relaxer, he was surprised to find the Deacon had a heart beat alright, it was just beating rapid fire. Grisha was unable to count the beats per minute, they were just too fast for him to keep track of. Despite that, the boy was physically fine.

John, though, had scared Grisha completely.

John was barely breathing. Grisha had to actually put his ear to John's face to feel the barest breeze of breath. His skin was also hard as a rock, and not in the sense of pressing against a knot. John's skin literally felt like a rock, and it made it difficult for Grisha to check his vitals because John's organs were so smothered by the sudden density of his skin. Even then, most of John's organs were slower compared to the other two. However, like them, his organs showed nothing but signs of recovery.

Eventually, he deduced that whatever happened, all three of them were recovering, though he made it a point that he didn't know how long, and for the first possible week, he would be visiting every day to check up on them. Logan and Maria had no problem with it, to Grisha's surprise, even offering to house both boys, though only Deacon was taken, since Charles refused to allow John to stay anywhere but his home.

This was three weeks ago.

After the first week, Grisha advised both sets of parents to keep an eye on the boys, but deemed they would be fine.

Charles didn't seem to care about Lucy right now, he seemed to be awaiting John's return to consciousness, and it wasn't hard to figure out why. So the little girl had been staying with him and Carla ever since John had dropped her off that night.

After Grisha had told her John would be fine, Lucy seemed to be back to her normal self. But it became noticeable as the days went by that the longer John was asleep, the more withdrawn the child would become.

She'd still talk and play with those she knew just fine, but she would barely speak a word to any stranger they would come by. If Grisha had to guess, the possibility of losing John, as well as having already lost her parents, terrified the poor girl, and she couldn't bring herself to trust people since she didn't know who did it.

It really broke Grisha's heart.

He could only imagine what was going through her head.

Grisha was broken from his musings by a kiss from his wife. It was just the two of them in the house at the moment. Eren and Mikasa had gone to fetch some wood, and Lucy had gone with them, saying she wanted to help.

Though Mikasa would probably end up doing a majority of the work compared to both her companions.

"Grisha, dear, what's the matter? You look as if the weight of the world is on your shoulders." She asked with a small smile, though she had a pretty good idea of what plagued his thoughts. After all, even Eren and Mikasa had noticed Lucy's change.

Grisha sighed. "Lucy. I keep thinking about what all of this is doing to her." He admitted, leaning his head into his hand. "I'm worried, Carla. The longer time passes and John is asleep, the more she withdraws. And even though they are recovering, none of the boys have woken up. It's been three weeks Carla."

"I know, Grisha. Believe me, I'm worried too, but we must have faith that he'll wake up." Carla said, pulling Grisha's head against her navel. "For our kids." She stopped for a moment, before speaking once more. "All of our kids."

Grisha placed his hand upon his wife's, who was resting upon his shoulder. Looking up at her, he smiled.

"You always know what to say, Carla. Thank you." He said, causing Carla to return his smile.

"You're my husband. It's my job to know." She said, leaning down to give him a kiss.

Before their lips could meet, both jumped out of their skin at the sound of what sounded a bomb going off, along with a familiar voice crying out Grisha's name.

"GRISHA!" The long awaited voice of John Gallagher rang through both their ears. Causing both their faces to shoot towards his direction.

He was standing in the same clothes he wore when he was found, still shredded and burnt in places. He had a look of absolute fear on his face, and he was panting hard, out of fear if one were to guess.

Meanwhile, their door was destroyed completely. What was left hung from the hinges, the hinges themselves barely hanging onto the bent door frame. Wooden splinters sat all around the ground, along with what was left of a corner.

Though neither of them were paying attention.

"Grisha… I need help…" John's voice was quiet, his face pale as a ghost, shaped into an expression of almost utter fear.

Upon hearing his tone, Carla made her way to him on instinct, intent on checking the boy over to see what was going on. "John, what's-"

Whatever she was going to say was interrupted by John's panicked movements.

"Don't touch me!" He yelled jumping against a wall away from Carla, cracking the wood of the wall in the process. Carla jumped back in shock, surprised at the defensiveness of the boy. Upon seeing the hurt look on her face, John swallowed. "Please, Carla." His voice was quivering as he spoke, something they had almost never heard. "I don't want to hurt you."

"John, what on earth is the matter?" Grisha asked, stepping next to Carla, though keeping his distance so as to not send the boy into a panic attack. It looked like he was about to have, he had all the signs.

He was glad none of the other children were here to see this.

"I'm scared." He admitted. "Grisha, everything I've touched today has broken." He felt himself begin to shake a little. "First a doorknob, then a door…"

"I'm sure it can't-"

"Then the carriage."

Grisha's eyes widened.

"What do you mean by carriage?" He asked, looking at John in confusion and slight worry.

John slowly slid down the wall into the fetal position. Carla couldn't take any more and approached the boy once more.

"John, please, calm down." She said, crouching next to him, pulling his face to look at her own. "You're going to send yourself into a panic attack."

"I am panicking, Carla." John's quiet voice quivered once more. "I'm stronger than any human should ever be. I'm scared to touch anything out of fear of breaking it."

Despite what she had just been told, Carla couldn't take the boy's fear anymore and pulled him into a hug, tucking the side of his head into the crook of her neck.

"Shh. It'll be okay, John. I promise." She soothed as the boy continued shaking, though the shakes were dying down little by little from her soothing words.

Once she had him calm enough that he wasn't at risk of a panic attack, only then did Grisha voice his earlier question.

"What did you mean by carriage, John?" He asked, crouching down next to the boy.

"The carriage in front of Charles' house."

"Yes, what about it?"

"I flipped it."

Silence.

Grisha was unsure of what to make of that statement. Even Carla was a little confused by his words.

"You… flipped it?"

John nodded. He attempted to swallow down his nervousness as he explained. "After the doors, I wanted to see if my hunch was right. I was only gonna lift the back end of the carriage off the ground." He stopped speaking for a moment, looking at his hands in fear. "It was way too light to be normal. It caught me off guard and I lost my grip."

Grisha and Carla were both stunned by his explanation. It sounded impossible. It was hard for them to believe.

But John had never lied before, and he never had any psychotic breaks, despite all he had been through.

Grisha decided to at least let him prove it.

"I'll be right back."

As he walked away, he heard John speaking to Carla. "What's happening to me?"

"It'll be okay, sweetie. It'll be okay." Carla continued to soothe him as Grisha stepped through the now busted door to the outside.

Looking around for something hard enough to prove, he spotted a stray, unused brick sitting along the road. Picking it up he walked back inside.

"John." He said, crouching down next to the boy. "Will you break this for me?" He asked, looking at the boy.

John looked between Grisha's face and the brick for a moment, before understanding dawned on his face.

"You don't believe me."

The way he said, he sounded so betrayed, almost as if his entire world had fallen, no one left but himself. It broke Grisha's heart.

"Grisha needs to see for himself what you mean John, before he has any chance of helping you." Carla jumped in quickly, playing the damage control in Grisha's place.

John looked at Carla for a moment, before looking at Grisha.

Then slowly, he reached out, hesitantly, and he picked up the brick from Grisha's hand.

The moment Grisha's hand moved away, they watched in disbelief as John effortlessly crushed the brick into dust within his hand, the few bits that were left crumbling and falling to the ground.

"See what I mean?" John said.

Grisha looked thoughtful for a moment, before grabbing John's hand.

"Let's get you in a chair and see what we can figure out."

A/N: Finally done with the second chapter! This one's shorter than the first by about 1500 words, but I wanted to actually grasp the reactions they would have to their powers. I wanted to show that how terrifying abilities like these would be, not just to witness, but to gain, in the world of Attack on Titan, where so many people within the wall are paranoid. Despite appearances, these are three ten year olds in a paranoid world, and they are waking up after three weeks (Unknown to them at the moment) to find that they have abilities no normal person should have. They are scared, scared of hurting their close ones, of being hunted, getting in trouble for something that is simply out of their control.

Anyway, the next chapter will be the discussion of the boys powers, the debut of Eren and Armin, and the commencement of the series with the OCs.