Rod Reiss slowly crawled across the smooth surface of the cave toward the shattered syringe, its spilled fluids leaving a bright stain.
Father…Uri…Frieda…I'm coming. I thought Historia would understand…but…I'll do it myself. I'll kill Grisha's son at any cost…
He licked the bluish liquid, and his body began to glow.
A few days later, the Scouts and the Garrison had prepared a defensive perimeter along the walls of Stohess, ready to face the largest Titan they had ever seen.
As Erwin watched the Titan approach, he found himself feeling uneasy. While the target was slow, it was also enormous, and killing it would be difficult.
But more than that, its movements were bizarre and counterintuitive. If it was a normal (albeit large) Titan then it should have gone after whichever humans happened to be closest. If it was an abnormal, then it would have been drawn to the largest gathering of people, and the closest place to the chapel that fit this criteria was Orvud.
Instead, it had gone southwest toward Stohess. Why?
It was a question that Erwin desperately wanted answered, and yet he suspected that he would never know for sure.
"FIRE!"
The Garrison leader of Stohess raised his voice, and the wall cannons began to fire upon the target.
Impressive as the barrage was, it had no effect on the enormous Titan, which continued to crawl toward the walled city.
Hange looked up from her work. "Any luck?"
Levi shook his head with a grunt. "The cannons had about as much effect as a swarm of cicadas pissing on it. Looks like it'll be up to us."
Eren looked nervous, and the rest of the Scouts continued to get ready for when the Titan reached the wall.
Slowly but surely the Titan crawled forward, getting closer and closer to the wall, the cannons having little to no effect. The Titan closed the distance to the outer gate of Stohess…
And continued to crawl right past the wall, ignoring the city and continuing to head southwest.
"What the hell?" Levi exclaimed. "What's it doing?"
Though he didn't show it, Erwin was just as baffled. The Titan had ignored not one, but two major population centers.
Where was it going?
After getting over their initial shock, the Scouts had analyzed the Titan's path, and predicted that it was heading for a point on the wall just east of Trost.
Unsure of why it was doing this, they had adjusted their plans accordingly. After doing a few quick experiments with Eren's hardening ability, they decided that they would just let the Titan escape into the outside world and go after…whatever it was pursuing, as killing it seemed like more trouble than it was worth.
To the Scouts good fortune, it happened to be in the middle of the night when the Titan reached Wall Rose, and after crawling up to the wall it pulled itself up, its massive bulk causing the wall to crack, and before long a section of the wall came crashing down, and Rod's Titan fell forward, crushing the wall and the Colossal Titans that had been buried within.
After Rod's Titan crawled away, continuing south, Eren transformed and used his newly gained hardening ability to restore the missing section of the wall. It was a bit rough, and it was made out of blue crystal, which made it look out of place when compared to the rest of the wall, but it did its job, and Wall Rose was whole once again.
As Mikasa fussed over Eren's unconscious form, Erwin stared at the retreating Titan with a frown.
Where was it going?
All through the night, Rod's Titan continued to crawl in a southward direction, scraping the ground and setting fire to any plants that had the misfortune of being in its path.
And then, just before dawn, as if directed by an invisible guiding light, the Titan slowly began to change direction, gradually shifting from the south until it was heading due west.
Many kilometers away, on top of the walls of Shiganshina, Reiner slept while Bertolt kept watch. Zeke and Pieck had left for the port the previous day, and would be heading back to Marley for a meeting and to pick up some more supplies before returning.
Bertolt felt nervous with the Warchief gone, but he tried to suppress this feeling. Zeke was only going to be gone for a few days, and would be back soon enough. It was unlikely that anything major would happen in those few days.
Right?
A few days later, Zeke and Pieck were about to board the ship that would take them back to Paradis.
But before they could, they along with everyone else in the harbor noticed many columns of steam in the distance. At first they thought that they were distant ships, and wondered if some enemy nation was about to attack.
But as the steam drew closer, they saw what was actually causing it.
A large group of Colossal Titans were swimming toward the harbor, and Rod's Titan was at the front of the group.
Rod's Titan didn't know what was going on.
It didn't know that it had destroyed part of Wall Rose. It didn't know that the section of Wall Rose it had destroyed had been quickly repaired.
It didn't know that it had destroyed part of Wall Maria. It didn't know that, since there was no one there to repair it, the Titans buried within the wall had been exposed to sunlight now that the wall was broken.
It didn't know that these Titans had subsequently woken up, begun to move, caused another section of the wall to break, which exposed another Titan to sunlight, and so on, until the entire southwestern section of Wall Maria had fallen.
It didn't know that it was only the extra reinforcement on the outer districts that prevented the rest of Wall Maria from falling.
It didn't know that, as a Titan with royal blood, it had unintentionally influenced all of these newly awakened Titans to follow it.
Rod's Titan knew almost nothing, for its head was almost completely empty except for two things.
The first was an insatiable hunger, and the second was a singular thought.
Eat Grisha's son and take his power.
The Titans continued to swim forward, and Rod's Titan headed straight for Zeke.
Author's Note: Before I say anything else, I have a special announcement. Since I'm almost finished with Leader of the Warriors, I'm going to turn another of my What If stories into a full story. The catch is that this time I'm going to let you guys pick which one. To cast your vote, just leave a review or DM me to let me know which story you'd like to see me continue. You can vote for more than one story if you want, just bear in mind that only one will win. I'll be counting any and all votes submitted between January 27, 2023 and February 28, 2023, and will announce which story won sometime in March.
Let me clarify though, I reserve the executive right to pick which story to continue. So while I will do my best to honor your votes, if the story that gets the most votes is one I can't think of any way to continue in a compelling way, then I will pick the story with the second largest number of votes. That seems unlikely, but we'll see.
Anyways, be sure to leave a review, either to let me know what you thought of this story, to vote on which story you want me to continue, or both.
I'll be perfectly honest, I hastily wrote out this story mainly for this announcement. I was originally planning to release a different What If story and make the announcement there. But that particular What If story ended up being much more ambitious than I originally thought, so it's still in the works. So if you're wondering why this story is so short, that's why. But I wanted to give you guys another story, even if it was a short one, rather than just posting the announcement by itself.