Creation began on 11-12-23
Creation ended on 12-14-23
Attack on Titan
Attack on Paradis: A God's Vengeance
With the Mid-East Alliance now aware of the creature that had devastated Liberio and how dangerous it was for actively hunting down Eldians and killing other people indiscriminately, the rest of the world needed to rally together and fight this thing that was out to get them. This…Godzilla, this…incarnation of a great god. Whatever allies they still had, whoever they could reach and convince to take up arms against the monster, they had to protect the people from the devastation it brought each time.
"Just how much do we know about this thing?" A leader in the Mid-East Alliance asks Magath, three days after the devastation Godzilla caused his home.
"Very little of anything useful," Magath explains. "Just its name, that it's bigger than the Colossal Titan, is apparently more impervious to harm than the Armored Titan and can unleash an explosive blast from its mouth."
"It came out of the water, so it likely lives there and has lived there for much of its life," said Pieck in addition. "And is strong enough to hurl ships into the air and each step it takes is powerful enough to shatter the streets."
"And there's this," the Mid-East Alliance leader reveals to them. "Any injury it does receive, no matter how minute, heals faster than what we've seen in Titans. In terms of offensive and defensive capabilities, this creature is the most destructive force of nature ever encountered before by any nation. It's like a moving fortress."
"How do you fight something like that?" Carlo asks. "We threw everything we had at it, and it just kept coming."
-x-
It had only been a few weeks, but the rebuilding efforts of the volunteers was making a dent with the aid of the intelligent Titans. There was no way to gather any number of the dead due to the severity of their burned remains, so the Titans would have to trample them into the soil as their skin shed off, bit by bit, revitalizing the ground of nutrients and allowing the farmers to begin work in making new crop sources…and anyone who knew anyone from anywhere within Walls Maria and Rose would have to leave behind some kind of record of their existence, as there were over a million people lost. Over a million lives…and very few with names to identify them. But the rebuilding was going along smoothly; the further the Titans walked till they reached the edge of the land they traversed, the more land the farmers could cultivate for more crops and the few architects left alive could help build new buildings for the people that would eventually live in them. It would be months and years before they could eventually recover and move on.
Splash! One of the farmers working near the coast of the island looked over and saw a large, hairy creature emerge from the water and collapse on the beach.
"Hey!" He yelled to the others. "Something came out of the water!"
-x-
Zeke had pushed his Beast Titan to its limit and had to vacate it as quickly as possible before he ran the risk of being absorbed by it to replenish the power exhausted. It took him two days to swim from Marley to Paradis, and half that time was spent drifting in the waves and trying to avoid sea-dwelling risks. It was a miracle he survived made it to the island that had been his original intention to visit only to acquire the Founder and eliminate his people slowly in the future. Now that he was here, he had to focus on his new goal, to get help against Godzilla and protect the people of the world from its wrath.
Laying on the beach beside his evaporating Titan body, he breathed in the fresh air as he recouped from overexerting himself.
Click! He heard a sound and looked up, seeing a man pointing a rifle at him.
"Identify yourself," the man ordered him. "Who are you?"
"Zeke," he answers. "Zeke Yeager."
"Where are you from?"
"Liberio, Marley, across the ocean."
"What are you doing here?"
"I am here to request the aid of the people of this island against the monster known as Godzilla."
Several murmurs were heard by Zeke, and the man pulled his rifle away.
"The monster destroyed Walls Maria and Rose of our Walls," he tells Zeke of their past encounter with it, "and it burned away all that dwelled within them. Not even the Titans of Wall Sina could stand against the creature. It was only because of our current leader that the monster turned away and left, earning us a reprieve. But it will return someday, and when it does, we can only hope that we'll be ready to face it."
Zeke couldn't believe that Godzilla destroyed two of the three Walls. It seemed almost unlikely to be true, since most of the world had lived in fear of the Titans within the Walls. But now, to hear that the fears were diminished due to the Walls being either damaged or destroyed made Zeke feel as though hope was fading away. If Paradis currently lacked the manpower to stand up against Godzilla, what was the point of coming to the island to begin with?
"I wield the power of the seventeen-meter Beast Titan," he reveals to them. "I thought I could kill Godzilla by hurling artillery shells at its head. I only managed to harm it, but I couldn't kill it…and it destroyed my home. My family, my friends, everything…gone."
-x-
Swimming through the ocean, Godzilla searched for the next landmass to punish the people responsible for his kind's downfall. There really were many of them to pick and choose from, far more than he had originally thought, just as the one that ruled over them had informed him. And he would destroy them all before returning to that little island and finishing what he started. When it was over, there would be peace. Everything left would be beneath it.
"Grrrr!" He growled as he swam faster beneath the waves.
-x-
It was a nightmare! Even though it seemed like the Mid-East Alliance was preparing all that they had to stand against Godzilla, it still felt like they were short on time, armament and manpower. Then again, they were preparing to face an enemy that exploited the power of the Titans, not a creature from the ocean depths that had a vendetta against the people from Eldia's past that it took out against the people of the world. However, the people that held onto their hatred of the Eldians from over two-thousand years ago could see no comparison between their inherited hatred and this creature's brooding hatred towards that particular race of people…but were starting to realize that it was a long time for any one person or creature to be angry with someone else for something someone they were related to or associated with did to them a long time ago. It was like the long-forgotten days of a war…and how the people that had nothing to do with it chose to blame the people descended from the ones that had everything to do with it, basically nursing a one-sided hatred.
Facing out against the ocean where it would appear, the allied ships waited for signs of the monster's arrival. Even if they all made a unanimous decision to exterminate the Eldians and former Subjects of Ymir in the foolish hope that it would stop Godzilla, they couldn't take a chance that they would be wrong and the creature continued to come after them; if it was dead set on dealing with them itself, it wouldn't stop until every last trace of their existence was purged from the Earth. And the beliefs of a god's fury being greater than that of a man's would mean that a god's vengeance would be comparable to a great tidal wave of blood and screams that would wash away all that stood before it. This and Godzilla's fiery poison would reverberate across the memories of those left alive for years to come.
"How many Titans do we have to face Godzilla?" A newly appointed general in the alliance asks Magath while in an airship ready for takeoff.
"For now, only the Cart Titan," Magath answers; the operation to take the Founding Titan from Paradis resulted in the loss of the Colossal, Armored, Female and Jaw Titans, the Beast Titan was likely lost because none of them had been able to confirm whether or not Zeke Yeager had survived the attack on Liberio, and the Tybur family were likely an absolute last resort with their War Hammer Titan, which, while powerful, could only be used in moderation, as it was a taxing power for whoever possessed it. "The War Hammer's being reserved as an absolute last resort."
"Only two Titans?"
"We lost three of the four sent to Paradis and we can't confirm the status of the Beast Titan. The Jaw Titan is unknown."
"And Godzilla is the reason Marley was devastated?"
"Marley, Paradis…and anywhere else on the planet yet to be attacked by it."
"Then I guess the saying is true: You reap what you sow."
Magath had heard the saying, as well, but didn't think much of it until now. With everything that occurred after witnessing the power of Godzilla, the devastation caused to Liberio, the lives taken in an instant… As much as he feared the Rumbling and was willing to do everything to make sure it never happened, he was more afraid of Godzilla because of the colder rage it expressed towards the world. But still, he'd rather face this one monster than an entire horde of monsters that looked like giants without clothing or skin.
"One monster is better than a legion," he tells the general.
"Yes, that is true, but what are our chances?" The general questions.
"If we survive this? I hope we survive this. And if we do, we cease the violence and discrimination. Even if Godzilla is the result of Eldia's past actions, that's all it is. The result of past actions. And the people responsible for those actions have been dead for generations, just like everyone else from that time is dead. If we keep holding the people of today responsible for what the people of the past did, it will never end."
"When the Mid-East Alliance was formed, it was to defend the allied nations against the imperialism that Marley and its allies were committed to. We spent years developing methods to protect the people from your nation's forces, so they would still have their homes to return to, their peaceful lives to return to without being uprooted by the savagery of war. If there's anything to be learned from war, it's that it's Hell on Earth. So, if we survive this, I hope there's no more war. No more violence. No more bloodshed."
Magath could agree on that, hoping there would be no more wars beside this one, which was just a war to survive. There wasn't anything more to be obtained through warring with other nations or people of different ethnic groups. If he survived this, he would walk away from the violence and hatred. But the wait for Godzilla to appear…just so they could fight for their survival as a whole against it…was agony in its own right.
-x-
But Godzilla didn't attack another location affiliated with the Mid-East Alliance. This time, he attacked another country located in the northern part of the world due to the number of Eldians there. The buildings that fell from his mighty footsteps became debris that used his tail to whip into the air to strike as many people as he could that were further away from him, watching them fall to their doom. Whether they were Eldians or not, he didn't really care, just as long as they fell from their would-be grace; anyone that harbored Eldians in any fashion…were just as guilty as the ones that had killed his kind and left him clinging to life as he tried to escape the slaughter, so they, too, would suffer.
Run all you can, he thought as he stood in preparation for his next attack. It doesn't matter, anymore. For you, it's already too late to do anything. For my kind.
His back spikes glowed as they jutted out of his spine up to his nape while absorbing the atmospheric heat around him.
Snap! They slammed back into him, and he unleashed his fury upon the world again.
The beam of poisonous fire streamed across the air and sent buildings shattering from the air pressure it caused. When it got as far as it could, it caused an explosion of pure hatred that spread across the land around Godzilla. Countless people, buildings untouched by Godzilla, animals from dogs and cats to mere rodents, eradicated within seconds. And in front of Godzilla was another cloud shape representing his power and vengeance, something he looked at with fascination; this power he possessed was similar to the power of his enemy…and he would use it to cast his guilty verdict on all that stood against him.
"Rrrrrraaaurgh!" He roared at the cloud shape that seemed to be intertwined with his own existence. "Rrrrrrraaurgh!"
-x-
Grisha was shocked to see Zeke after many years. Both because he was here on Paradis and because he had obtained the power of one of the Nine Titans. But it wasn't the time for a reunion when they were both strangers to one another and the people they had were no longer around due to factors beyond their control. Even if they both wanted to do something for their people's future as a part of the world, it wouldn't be the way they had envisioned it in the beginning. It wouldn't be anything that they wanted it to be.
"…Welcome to Paradis, Zeke Yeager," Frieda greeted the man.
Having witnessed the devastation that had been worked on by the survivors on his way to the land of Wall Sina, Zeke couldn't believe that such destruction had been caused by the fire Godzilla had unleashed within the course of a single night. It might've been worse before he showed up, but at least they were trying to rebuild what they had lost, and they were using the power of the Titans that they had kept for over a century for a better cause than one of death, destruction or domination. If they could use that power to help rebuild Liberio, he would at least have some personal closure to the loss of his grandparents. But he reminded himself of why he was here to begin with.
"What brings you here?" Frieda asks him.
"I seek aid in destroying Godzilla," he answers.
"It's impossible to achieve right now, even with the Titans," says a farmer to him. "It's too big and too dangerous to take on. There's no way to even harm it without getting killed in the process. If you fought it, then you know it's not easy to face, and it's a miracle that you survived your encounter. Over a million lives within Walls Maria and Rose didn't, and we didn't know this monster existed until after it showed up to Wall Sina. Nothing we have here can stop it."
"How did you manage to survive it when it did show up here?"
"It was because the ruling body convinced it to leave for now and take its vengeance against the people of the world," went another farmer. "There are more of us out there than there are here."
Zeke couldn't believe what he was hearing. The only reason they had survived was because the Founder had sacrificed the people beyond their island to protect the people that were left on it. However, it was doubtful that the Founder had intended for Godzilla to attack Marley first; the motherland was simply close by, and the creature was going to attack it sooner or later. Either way one tried to talk about it, this creature was out to get rid of all Eldians, and didn't care about the non-Eldians that were just in its way.
"The Founder is said to be able to command all other Titans," Zeke says to them, "able to make them do anything imaginable. How can they not face Godzilla and stop him?"
"Because even the Founding Titan has limitations that the royal family cannot overcome," Frieda explains to him. "When Godzilla returns, and he will return, we hope we'll be ready to face him. This time is nothing more or less than a reprieve. How this creature feels towards us for what befell it and the rest of its kind…is a vengeful hatred that it will not let go of until we're all dead. That is how far it will go to wipe us out. A vengeful god of hatred whose very breath is a poisonous substance that ignites fire in the air around him."
Initially, Zeke's plan was to take the power of the Founding Titan and use it to euthanize the entire Eldian population to keep them from reproducing, thus ensuring their own survival against the rest of the world by dying out within a generation or two. But upon learning that Godzilla was going to wipe out the Eldians as a form of vengeance for what they had done in the past to its own race, he found himself feeling disabused from his previous belief that he could save his people that way if a creature far older than they were was dead set on killing them, regardless of the casualties it caused non-Eldians around the world. It was no different from bombing a civilian center that had innocent people living in it…just to take out a handful of known targets; the people in the way were either victims or just…collateral. This was what Godzilla was doing, only harsher and more or less deprived of any measure of what they understood as humane…because the creature had no such capacity for caring for such a race as diverse and widespread as humans.
"How long before it comes back?" He asks Frieda.
"Unknown," she answers. "He will return…when he returns. More than likely after he has finished with the rest of the world. May God have mercy upon our souls."
Zeke still couldn't believe this, but what choice did he have? The power of the Titans was a power with limits, and trying to get rid of Godzilla was what seemed nearly impossible to do with it due to its greater size, strength, durability and regenerative prowess. In addition, the beast could spew fire from its mouth that was hot enough to decimate cities in an instant. It didn't feel like they were up against a god, but a devil great enough to be considered a god.
Grisha suspected that if Zeke was somehow alive, it likely meant that his grandmother and grandfather were dead; if Godzilla attacked Marley, then it meant all of Liberio was ash and debris and corpses. Maybe those with the power of the Titans had survived just enough to get whatever survivors they could to safety, but to what good did it do them if they were forced to flee from a beast that was not going to let them live long? And if there were a handful of survivors left around the world, what chance did they have of being to rebuild from what could've been less than nothing? As he was learning from the arrogance of warfare, those affected greatly by the effects of the destruction were the ones that had to live with the aftermath and try to rebuild their lives. It never mattered whether they were on the victorious side or the losing side, there was always going to be losses.
And we're treating this like a war when the enemy isn't even a person or country, thought Zeke as he had no choice but to accept that Paradis was just as unprepared to fight Godzilla as Liberio had been, and this island had been attacked first and lost two of its three shields that were meant to be spears against the rest of the world. The enemy is a monster that hates us for what was done to it ages ago.
So much hatred…no room for forgiveness, thought Grisha.
-x-
Nothing remained of the city that was desolated. There shattered buildings, scattered pieces of glass, wood, concrete and human remains, and the air itself felt like a poisonous vapor. And if there were any survivors, they didn't have long to live. There was nothing and no one greater than what Godzilla had become. And he still had aways to go before the planet had been cleansed of his enemies.
Destroy them all, Godzilla thought, looking around for any survivors…and saw none beyond the staggering pair that weren't his enemies, and turned to seek out more enemies to dispose of. Do not let a single one live.
As he turned to leave, the surviving pair watched in complete silence and misery at how their city was gone, along with the people. It felt like the aftermath of a Great War, but they weren't at war with anyone…and they couldn't understand how a creature like this was not viewed as a Titan…or how it could feel such overwhelming hatred towards them. It would be understandable if the creature despised Eldians, but this… This was overkill, completely unnecessary.
"It took decades to build this town," said the man, "and it destroyed it in an instant."
"So much death and destruction," added the woman, tears falling from her eyes. "So much hate. What did we do to deserve this?"
"It hates Eldians, but it's willing to kill other people just to get rid of them. It doesn't care about anything other than its twisted vengeance."
-x-
"…Zeke," Zeke heard his father's voice behind him as he stood on a wagon after loading it with sacks of fertilizer and vegetable seeds.
"I honestly don't know how you're still alive…and I don't really care right now," he tells Grisha, "but everyone else is dead. Nothing we threw at this monster was good enough…and it destroyed everything in an instant."
"Everyone lost everything in an instant because of that monster."
"And it hates us for what was done to it in the past, only it's worse than the Titans because it's bigger, more powerful and more destructive. I actually thought the Rumbling would be capable of stopping it, only to find out that not even scores of Titans can harm it when it can just whip its tail around, stomp them to bits or burn them away with its poisonous flames. How can something like this exist…and we have nothing that can stop it?"
"The Earth holds many secrets. Some that can go unheard of for many generations. Others that can go almost forever unheard of."
Zeke jumped off the wagon and closed the back of it.
"I couldn't save them," he tells Grisha. "I have the power of the Beast Titan…and I couldn't protect any of them! What was the point of possessing these powers…when I can't do the one thing that matters most?!"
Grisha wishes he could comfort his son, to let him know that he did everything he could under the best of circumstances. But even those circumstances felt like the world making a joke of their predicament and laughing at their plight. To simply know that Godzilla was here, alive and out to kill them for the sake of a vendetta that started before any of them ever drew their first breaths…was just an unfortunate and unbelievable combination of factors beyond anyone's imagination and control. All they could do in the end…was their best.
"For years, I hated you," Zeke reveals to Grisha. "For years after you were brought to this place to serve a life sentence, I have hated the very thought of all that you and Mother did. And then, I come to find that, because of a creature like this, none of it even matters if it's going to do away with us in due time out of the hate it has towards us for what our ancestors did to it long ago. What was the point of any of it…when none of it was going to make any difference?"
"Despite the suffering," Grisha responds, "this is the lesser of two evils. In a previous future that can no longer be, the Rumbling would've transpired and the whole world would've been ruined in less than a week."
"And the Rumbling in this case doesn't work because the Titans that make up the Rumbling have been decimated?"
"And would be reduced to nothing the moment Godzilla felt they were a threat to it."
"How can a creature like this exist…and we're powerless to stop it?"
"The unexpected is full of surprises."
"And you say this is the lesser of two evils? That if the Rumbling occurred, the world would've been destroyed in less than a week? How is this the lesser fate when people are still dying?"
"It is not the Titans that are attacking. It's Godzilla."
"Godzilla. He's not a god. He's a devil. He's the Devil!"
Grisha didn't deny his son that sense of anger and opinion; Godzilla was more like a devil than an actual deity. Or rather, he was a god of hate and destruction. He rivaled a devil, but only in his destructive methods. And the thing about him that made his actions worse for them was his unwillingness to forgive them for what their ancestors had done to him and his race.
"What our ancestors did to him," he informs Zeke, "he will never forgive us for."
"He is cruel that way," Zeke responds.
They both then looked up at the gray sky, a subtle moment of empty peace in a storm of quiet rage and pain. Even if there was a grace period for Paradis, it wouldn't last forever. When Godzilla chose to return to the island, there would be more Hell to pay. If only Grisha could see the future like before, maybe he could do something more, but such a power was useless at this point; the ability to receive memories of events yet to transpire had been removed by Frieda because the power behind it was without clarity, and those that acted upon such memories could sometimes result in the very dangers they were trying to prevent from coming to pass. So the power to look into the future was no more…and while Grisha was somewhat grateful, as it freed him from the memories of his younger son, who would never possess the power of the Attack Titan because he was dead like everyone else from Shiganshina, he still felt the lingering echoes of the memories because they were akin to a phantom pain; his brain playing tricks on him that his body no longer had the need to respond to.
I'm sorry, he thought as he felt sympathy for the rest of the world. I am truly…truly sorry.
To be continued…
A/N: My favorite part in this chapter was Magath agreeing with the Mid-East Alliance character that if they survived the future conflict with Godzilla, they'd put an end to the hatred that has done them no good with the monster now that it attacks anywhere Eldians might be. It showed that while Godzilla was just as worse as the Titans they feared and despise for existing, they came to terms with the existence of a creature that felt the same degree of hatred…but was willing to go to extremes to dispose of its own enemies, even killing other people that had nothing to do with its pain. The second favorite part was Godzilla attacking a different city not affiliated with the Mid-East Alliance, demonstrating his intelligence and willingness to target other places that didn't have the time, resources or manpower to setup defenses or were even informed of its impending attack, similar to what was done in Godzilla vs. Biollante; instead of showing up in the location the military expected him to arrive to, he shows up in a different location where they weren't prepared. There is more in store in the future. What do you expect to see happen next?