Creation began on 02-25-21

Creation ended on 05-08-21

Attack on Titan

A Decline in the Warrior Unit: A threat of damnation to bring about salvation

A/N: To all the readers that question whatever it is that the author decides to do in a fanfiction story based off the canon of whatever it is they decide to write on, you can either accept it or leave it alone.

If educated people from across time and multiple dimensions had a chance to meet with him and were to ask him the unnecessary question of why he would traverse an endless abyss of worlds, lifetimes, battles and suffering, he would only answer because there was a will to seek alternatives. And if people were to accuse him of being a hypocrite, well, he'd just say that hypocrisy was the backbone of free will and alternatives. As he docked his rowboat at the pier that had been abandoned by the people that had been trapped by three concentric walls that thought they were all that was left of the world and had to live in isolation from what they believed to be the greatest threat of the human race, he looked up at the night sky that would shelter him or any other person from the threat that persisted during the daylight, and would give him time to figure out a way to affect the society of Paradis Island.

Titans, Eldia, Marley, he thought as he walked around the wall that had been used by Marleyans to condemn undesirable Eldians to an unforgivable fate for one reason or another. By telling the Eldians in the Marleyan internment zones what would happen to their children if they made them join the military, I bought some time to keep the Marleyan military away from here, but not a whole lot of it. Maybe twenty years, give or take, and I'll need every precious hour to change things here. But to begin the changes here, I'll need something that will enable the people to rally behind, something that will cause the hope in their hearts to burn like a wildfire.

He might've drawn strength from the convictions of positive beliefs, but he was by no means a deity, despite many of his abilities bordering close to their level. Humans always had their differing beliefs on what made a deity a deity, whether it was the belief that they could breathe fire so hot that they could melt the densest of stone or the power to bring the dead back to life, and it was because of these beliefs that made for certain individuals that could do the extraordinary, no matter who they were. But half of these extraordinary feats were often seen as a curse by the ones that could perform them when they had no support from those that either saw them as unnatural…or had no understanding of guidance.

You give someone the gift of flight, and they may try to outrace the sun over an unfamiliar terrain, he thought as he walked through the sandy terrain, not seeing any signs of the Titans that roamed during the day. Give someone great strength, and they may think they're untouchable, unaware that they are still just as vulnerable as any other person to factors as cruel as a shot to the heart. But give them a very dangerous power, the kind that comes at a soulless price…and they may try to cheat their end by living on in some other form rather than accept their fate.

He didn't know just yet how to affect the way life was lived here on the island, but when he did know how to, he would do so. A flash of light in the sky got his attention and he looked up to see, noticing that it was a series of falling stars…and his face lit up in realization.

"A meteor shower," he uttered. "That'll do it."

Raising his arms up, he stretched his will around and brought the meteors closer to the planet, directed towards the land within the Walls. The meteor shower would be a way to get around and meet the people that controlled the way society worked within the Walls from behind the scenes. But he would be nonviolent with it, hitting only the streets and empty sections of buildings in the districts and villages; he wanted to change lives, not end them unless there was no other choice, and even if he had to end them, he would choose how to best deal with them.

"Time to kick some chaos," he uttered as the shower of stars began on the districts.

-x-

BLAST! A meteor crashed through the roof of a home, waking up everyone within!

A father got out of bed and panicked for his children. He stopped the second another meteor crashed into the hallway and nearly struck him, just missing his feet.

Elsewhere, in a village, a drinking well had been destroyed by another meteorite, followed by series of additional meteorites that smashed their way through houses and the ground, causing small fires and unrest.

"Aaah!" A woman screamed as she carried her little girl away from the burning remains of their home. "Aaah!"

BLAST! Three more meteorites crashed into the neighboring houses and forced three more families to flee in order to stay alive.

Through all the devastation that seemed to make no sense to anyone as they tried to get clear of the danger, the mysterious stranger that came to Paradis with the intention of ending its stagnation and pushing them forward moved behind the chaos as people were trying to avoid the carnage that he was being careful not to result in any human casualties. Some meteors will hit the Walls, which wouldn't be repaired in time by the people controlling the way things were without influencing the actions of the people that actually did the hard work.

Small meteors the size of bowling balls and horses won't get their attention the way they'll get the attention of regular people, he thought as he found a hole in the wall and moved through it to enter the land behind Wall Sina. But something much bigger than them will get their attention. Nothing like a meteor the size of a mountain to get everyone's attention on such an island.

As he walked towards the center of Sina's interior where Mitras was located, the land around him lit up in a bright shade of bluish-green as a larger meteor came into view. Nobody was sure how big it was, only that it was bigger than the other ones that were still falling around the districts and villages. A smile formed on his face as a thought came to his mind.

"If everyone's life were a movie, it would take over ten sequels just to do them all justice," he told himself as the meteor crashed into the ground behind him, sending him flying in the air. "I live and die for this!"

But nobody saw him. Nobody needed to see him unless he wanted them to. He was able to reach his destination within a minute: The Reiss family home.

Smash! He crashed into the building's attic and through the ceiling just over the living room, just in front of the family.

"Aaah!" A younger Rod Reiss gasped, seeing him rise up. "Who…what are you?!"

"I…am the guy that's going to change your future," he told them. "A darkness is coming. An inevitable darkness that must be avoided at all costs. To avoid this darkness, the first step is free the people from the life behind the Walls. The second step is to admit the truth and the final step is to seek coexistence."

"Sir," said the current holder of the Founding Titan, Rod's father, "you know not what you speak of. Please, leave."

"Mister Reiss…I'm here for a benevolent purpose…and you are bound by a self-loathing man's belief that his own people have sinned against the world and must be killed to atone for crimes that need to be atoned for in a different way."

"One way or another, we are a disreputable race of people that belong buried in the past and don't deserve a future."

"You're wrong. Everyone deserves a future, no matter who or what they are or were in the past, no matter who their ancestors even were. Anyone that disbelieves this is lying, to themselves and everyone around them. You deserve a future. Your sons deserve a future. The people within the Walls and beyond them deserve a future…and I'm part of that future. So, do you think you can fight back against the ideology of the person that made the Titan you carry within you useless…or are you too enslaved because of him and his venomous self-loathing?"

Mister Reiss, seeing within this dark stranger some sort of aura, a power unlike what he knew of in the Titans, wanted to speak out against the belief of a future…but felt compelled to reach out to this man.

"Eldians are doomed," he told him, "and I have no choice in the matter."

"There's always a choice."

"Not when the one that has the Founding Titan has no choice but to obey the will of the one that condemned it to torture us all."

Several more impacts on the ground shook the house and forced the father to fall to the floor.

"I'll show you the crossroads of your next choice," the man told Reiss as he reached down and grabbed his right arm.

FLASH! They were somewhere in a vast, desert-like environment under a night sky with strange cloud formations.

"Where…are we?" Reiss asked.

"This is where all with power similar to what you inherited from your predecessor come to at least once in their lifetime. I guess you could call this place a metaphysical representation of these…paths that to and away from your primordial ancestors. All Eldians descended from Ymir Fritz and the original king that manipulated her to do his bidding are like an extension of the Founding Titan, able to be manipulated however possible, including the ability to be turned into Titans. But…if one were to get close enough to the original source, Ymir Fritz herself, then maybe…just maybe…a new path can be forged. A better one."

"I…remember being here once, but that was a long time ago."

Suddenly, a giant tree of light appeared behind them, with a little girl in rags, her face deprived of any sense of independence.

"It looks like you're lucky," he told Reiss, pointing to the girl. "She's the original source. Ymir Fritz herself."

Reiss tried to move towards the girl, but he found himself prevented from doing so by a pair of chains that just appeared out of nowhere and pinned to the ground. He also felt like he couldn't voice his opinions or thoughts on ending the suffering of his people, which only felt worse because of these chains.

"Karl Fritz's vow renouncing war," the dark stranger told him. "Any with the Founding Titan after he possessed it would be chained by him. But I doubt the previous holders of the Founding Titan didn't attempt to break the restraints. How will you break those restraints and retake your future, Mr. Reiss?"

"Can't you help me?"

"I could, but then that'd be cheating; a man that has power but no means of using it must find the strength within himself to break his barriers that keep him from harnessing said power. Look at the chains. Look at your hands. See what is there…and what needs to be done. I'll look away."

Turning away, the dark stranger gazed towards Ymir Fritz, who seemed completely devoid of a soul now, just following whoever had the Founding Titan…until Karl Fritz got a hold of it and put it on lockdown against the royal family. The sooner he got the Founding Titan back into the order of controlling the chaos and ending the suffering, the sooner he could deal with her among the people suffering.

Reiss looked at the chains and his hands. He saw a solution, but it was an unpleasant one.

"Aaaurgh!" He yelled…and ripped his hands free of the chains, skinning them in the process. "Aaahh!"

The stranger turned back to see him on the ground and sighed as he helped him up.

"Not the solution I was initially seeing, but that method works, too. Congratulations. You broke yourself free from your ancestor's vow to renounce war. How do you feel?"

"I…I…" He spoke, but that was a strange question to answer right now; it was strange due to how he was feeling now. "I feel…like myself."

"What do you feel like doing?"

Reiss looked at Ymir Fritz…and, with his newfound freedom, approached her.

To be continued…

A/N: SibertronSSC sent a review asking to update this, and now I've completed this chapter. I hope this soothes y'all until the next chapter. Please, enjoy this.