Creation began on 02-02-24

Creation ended on 02-08-24

Attack on Titan

Grausam Zanki, Condemned to be Redeemed: Day of Reckoning

Grausam considered himself to be a superficial man when it came to his mobility; ever since he regenerated his right leg and abandoned Paradis, he became driven to make sure he could never become an invalid again. But each time he looked at his regained limb, he was reminded that he was no longer the Jaeger Titan he had tried to become when he learned his step-granddaughter was alive and seeking revenge against him. Even after two years of serving the Survey Corps and making sure their Jaeger Titan Corps was maintained, he still thought back to the days when he was knowingly hurting others…but only to remind himself that he couldn't go back to being that wicked person, anymore. He was doing this for absolution, for redemption, and to have some light in the dark place he would be going back to when this was all over for him and that man that brought him here came back for him.

"Thinking about your past again?" He hears Dina Fritz-Yeager say to him as he looks up at her, seeing her holding a cup of steaming liquid.

"Yes," he answers her and then rises from his chair; they were in a room in Shiganshina District's Survey Corps HQ, mainly so he had a space to continue producing his Jaeger Serum, and mostly to protect Dina from potential danger.

It had been two weeks since Dina and Ymir were restored to human form by the Jaeger Serum, and Captain Levi had left with the latter girl to Wall Sina for a different mission only she could carry out, while the former woman, Dina, was being taught everything she needed to know about life behind the Walls in case something went wrong later on. Put quite simply, Dina was being educated to serve as a monarch if the royal family became compromised…and Ymir was being tasked with befriending and protecting an unaffiliated member of said family that needed a friend and protector. And it was Grausam's job to make sure that both women were able to control their Jaeger Titan abilities without risk. As a consequence of being Titans before being injected with the Jaeger Serum, some aspects of their previous Titan forms were carried onto their Jaeger Titan forms; for Dina, it was her lips and jawline being able to split so her mouth could open wider, mainly when she was angry, and for Ymir, despite her Titan also being fifteen meters, the arms were disproportionately longer than the feet, enabling it to knuckle-walk if need be, and engage with better blows from a safer distance. But the bonus for their Jaeger Titan forms was the ability to speak through their Titans, which made the total of Jaeger Titans capable of speech seventeen now, and another boon for the people of Paradis in the future as far as Grausam knew.

"I thought you'd be one to do what some wives do when they meet their spouses after a long time," Grausam tells Dina, reminding her of the fact that she and this Grisha Yeager had met a week ago…and all she did was talk with him, confirming many things that were both informative…and difficult to look past yet.

"Why?" She asks him.

"Even though my wife is nothing more than a memory in my heart, I don't forsake my love for her. I don't even look at another woman with interest. Regardless of whether it's a mission put upon one by another or a personal desire of one's heart, when one pursues another love interest while still committed to their primary partner, you cast shame on your commitment. If I found out my wife was with another man and it was because of something on my part, I'd probably beat the crap out of the other guy, the same way she would likely bust me if I ever took interest in another woman. Of course, that's just me. I don't know this Grisha Yeager, and the discovery of how he managed to avoid your previous fate… I wouldn't look the other way if you wanted some personal closure."

"As much as I would probably enjoy that, probably, our marriage was one of necessity. I do still love him, but our relationship has become strained by many things, not just distance or time. Another issue is our son, Zeke, who likely hates us because of what we tried to do."

Grausam recalls his memories of Zeke Yeager, remembering how he had practically contributed to Marley's revolutionized monopoly of Eldians more than the holder of the Beast Titan ever did due to providing Marley with additional Titans with intelligence. He decided not to mention to this woman that in his past, he had killed her son because it didn't matter in this new predicament that they were in. But if history had its echoes, then it was possible that Zeke Yeager in this world was also the Beast Titan, a seventeen-meter Titan that always possessed animal traits in addition to the humanoid traits, and in the Yeager man's case, it was some sort of ugly-as-Hell monkey or a creature from the tales of old that some referred to as Bigfoot.

"Do you know which of the Nine Titans Marley possesses?" He asks her.

"Only the seven of them," she answers him. "The Armored, Colossal, Female, Jaw, Cart, War Hammer and Beast Titans."

"Their sizes?"

"The Armor and War Hammer are stated to be fifteen meters. The Female is said to be fourteen meters. The Jaw and Cart are five and four meters, respectively. The Beast is between fifteen-seventeen meters, depending on which animal form it assumes. The Colossal, the biggest, stands at sixty meters."

Because he only had his past memories to rely on, in addition to the information based on Dina's own knowledge, Grausam could only say that the Titans that Marley would likely send in the beginning to attack Paradis were the Colossal, Armored, Female and Jaw Titans, and Zeke wouldn't be in possession of any of them, as he would have the Beast Titan.

"What makes you so certain of this?" Dina asks him.

"Some things don't change unless the people in the present change them," he explains to her.

-x-

She could see it happening before her very eyes, and as strange as it was, she felt it was different from what she once saw. While she understood that change was inevitable, this type of change was unlike anything she had originally witnessed while in this realm that existed outside of time. Instead of a day in which the human race that lay trapped behind the Walls would flee from the wrath of the Titans and regroup to fight back against an impossible foe, she was seeing a small band of would-be protectors stand up against the foe with a similar power and persist like an infestation. But an infestation with a purpose that was to protect the people instead of enslaving them, which would make them be seen as the only hope that existed between salvation and damnation, life and death, a future and an ending. And in addition to this shift in what was coming, as she made her frequent visit to the farm to see her reason for coming here at all, she saw the young girl with someone that shouldn't have been around her so soon…but was around her now, which was a shocking surprise; not only was this new person more than a year early, they were returned to human form and possessed a power that was similar to what they would've originally obtained.

Something has changed the future and affects the present, thought Frieda Reiss as she walks up the path and sees her half-sister, Historia, accompanied by an older girl with tan skin and freckles on her face. How is this possible? What the Founder sees and knows should be absolute; there is nothing that can change what is to come…but something has changed what is to come…and it is a powerful change. A very powerful change.

A drive compels Frieda to try and affect the tan-skinned girl from a distance, to try and drive her away from Historia, but even in the seconds she was in the realm of the Eldian paths that united all Subjects of Ymir Fritz, she couldn't see the other girl that was a Subject of Ymir anywhere; it was as though she was out of bounds, unreachable, even with the power of the Founder. Instead, she sees this Titan with dark skin, long arms and an imposing face standing in front of her.

"The power to enforce your will over hers is useless," she felt she heard the Titan say to her. "She is protected against being manipulated. Those that receive this power are all protected against being manipulated by those that possess the power you have. We are their guardians, and you are a trespasser. Stay away."

"Hello there," Historia greets Frieda.

"Hello to you," Frieda replies with a smile; even if the other girl was off limits to her influence, she was the least of her concerns. "How are you today?"

All Frieda really cared about at this moment was her sister, who, in addition to the changes she saw yet to come, was going down a different path from what she once saw her go down.

-x-

There might have been talk about disbanding the Survey Corps a few years ago, but after the results they had gotten in the last two-and-a-half years that enabled these handful of villages to be established outside the Walls and the number of Titan kills or captures, there was no way the Paradis government could speak ill of the third military branch now, even if part of the reason they were so successful was due to the aid of an old man whose specialty made him invaluable to their cause. Even if they only knew some of the truth, which was not a whole lot, the Survey Corps became an untouchable force that had a goal to protect the people from what was to come, something the government had yet to learn about. But Grausam had gotten the Jaeger Titan Corps as prepared as he could possibly get them with his research and augmentations of their Titan powers. About three months after using the same methods to restore other Titans to human form as he did to Dina and Ymir, Grausam had managed to increase the overall size of eight of the Jaeger Titan Corps' members to at least thirty meters, at least half the size of the Colossal Titan, while still retaining their speed and mobility; he feared that if he tried to increase their size to fifty meters, they wouldn't be able to move as well, and he couldn't guarantee that they would have hardening capabilities like the ones he had managed to produce in his past.

Any day now within the next year, Grausam thought as he stood atop Wall Maria, looking out at the expanse of land that had been reclaimed. Any day now, Marley will send its Warrior Unit to attack Paradis for the Founding Titan. But the Survey Corps will be ready for them when they do show up. A handful of thirty-meter Titans that can still move fast enough are better than some fifty-meter ones that may only have their size going for them. And each corps member has been verified and vouched for by the higher-ups. The Jaeger Titan Corps is an adequate counterforce to the Warrior Unit.

Still, Grausam, like any other human, could have the lingering doubts of his work to improve the manpower of these people to the point where fear of defeat could be within possibility. And while he did fear the possibility of defeat, he had to remind himself that there were other factors on the side of the Survey and Jaeger Titan Corps that were not on the Warrior Unit's side. All the Titans that been wandering around Paradis for decades had been either killed or captured, and Paradis was expecting only four Titan Shifters from Marley, not a whole army, which meant that the power of both quantity and quality was on the island's side. In addition to these factors, Grausam had made backups to the Jaeger Serum the Survey Corps used; he took advantage of his regenerative abilities to stockpile his enhanced blood to be able to make a new batch of the serum from scratch as soon as possible if something went wrong and the current batch was destroyed or compromised.

The one thing that probably needed to stay the same, though…was the nice view of the scenery from this high up. Even if you ignored the fact that one wrong step and you were facing the final seconds of your life to flash before your eyes, the view of the world from atop the Walls was still beautiful. Just as it was with the ocean, Grausam found these views to be worth what he was doing for the Survey Corps. As strange as it became over time, even though he was living on borrowed time to save his soul, he had grown to care about these simple pleasures that he once disregarded because he was so dead set on escaping his confinement in the past.

"I can't believe I had forgotten about these sights," he tells himself. "They're so…heh-heh…"

-x-

Oh, how Grisha couldn't believe that Dina was alive and human again. Not only was it a fact, but it was disturbing to know that this was all because of a man that worked with the Survey Corps because of his methods that made them a great success in claiming territory outside the Walls and rounding up the Titan horde and keeping them contained…and he didn't see any of this happening at all. This meant that either the power of the Attack Titan being able to see bits of the future weren't as transcending as he was led to believe…or this was the work of forces beyond the power of the Titans. He was inclined to believe in the latter if the former was true. But Dina, because of the situation Paradis was in with the Titans and the government, kept her cool when she learned how long it had been since the day they were brought to the island; if they both lived beyond what was coming, they would at least have more time to talk.

"We're preparing for a potential crisis with Marley," Dina had told him. "But once we handle it, I do want to talk about everything, Grisha. Everything."

Everything, he thought as he sat in his study, looking at an old picture of Dina and Zeke. I didn't know everything at the time. Nobody knows everything at anytime. If nobody knows everything, how can anyone know anything?

Still, what he did see yet to come was what worried him. The Titan that was controlled by Dina, punching the Titan with purple eyes in the underground cavern in front of these people that were witnesses to the would-be fight. The more he thought about it, the more he thought there was more to see. But because he was beginning to suspect that the Titan power that he possessed was not absolute in its ability to receive memories of events yet to transpire, he had to consider that the future could be altered in the past and present were not different from what was and what could've been to what now is. And he had two paintings, one of which was a reminder of what he was dreading as a potential future yet to transpire…unless he dared to defy it.

If the Titan was meant to go to Eren, then it's possible that those memories were his that I had seen…and he didn't show me everything because he didn't know everything. And if I give it to him before my time is up, I'd be signing his death warrant…and possibly those of every other person on this island and beyond. He's been angry ever since it was learned that the Survey Corps wasn't accepting new recruits for the time being…and they didn't say for how long, either. Possibly not going to, either. Dammit. Why didn't his memories show me everything that was going to happen before this all happened?

-x-

The coastal village of Erlösung, the closest village by where the wall stood, established once a Titan was found to be incapable of any degree of mobility that made it dangerous and contained within a year, with a population of at least eighty-three, not including the members of the Jaeger Titan Corps that were stationed there as sentries on the lookout for seafaring vessels making their way towards the island, had the everyday routine of seeing a Jaeger Titan walk around the coast for several hours at a time; when the villagers came to live outside the safety of the Walls and saw Titans under the authority of the Survey Corps helping to build the village, the fear of being eaten by these giants became a thing of the past. And then one of the Jaeger Titans, a recent member transferred from the Survey Corps, blessed with the ability of speech in Titan form, raised their voice.

"People of Erlösung," it utters in a male voice, "return to your homes, immediately! A ship is in the horizon!"

They had gone through practice drills of how to respond when faced with a potential threat, and this was not a drill, so the people complied and quickly returned to their homes.

A female Survey Corps member hanging from the right shoulder of the Titan looked out at the sea and saw the ship.

"Today's the day," she says.

"Yeah," the Titan responds. "Better send the word."

She raises her flare gun and releases the flare into the air, releasing purple smoke; with the Titan population under control, the emergency protocol for the use of purple flares had changed to be for when a ship out at sea has been spotted.

"Now it begins," she utters as the Titan retreats into the nearby woods for cover; if the situation became dangerous because someone decided to attack the village, the Jaeger Titans had the jurisdiction to defend the villagers with deadly force, but did have to try and take the ship that arrived to Paradis intact.

-x-

"…What do you mean, something's wrong?" A young girl with blond hair and a lame expression asks the adult man that dropped the ramp for her and three young men to disembark upon reaching the island's dockyard.

"Those buildings over there," the man says, pointing to what looked like a small village. "They weren't here the last time a shipment was dropped off."

One of the young men, a very muscular blond, looks over at the village and says, "Couldn't the motherland have built that sometime ago without us knowing?"

"There'd be no point to it. We come here, we drop off, and then we go. We don't stay longer than necessary to do what we need to do. It's illogical to build a village if it's going to get damaged or destroyed by you devils."

Suddenly, they saw something atop the wall. It was…a person.

"Hello over there!" They greeted. "It's nice to meet you!"

If only they knew that this was Hange Zoe, and she was usually always cheerful to meet new people in Titan-related situations, they wouldn't have thought twice about why she was greeting them at all.

"Would you care for tea?!" Hange asks them.

Bang! A shot was fired…and Hange fell over behind the wall; the man that ran the boat shot her.

"Eldian devils," he expresses.

FLASH-BOOM! A loud explosion was heard behind the wall…and it was followed by the ship being moved.

"What?!" The man demands, and the boat was raised up from the water. "Aah!"

It was raised into the air by…two Titans! They just came from underneath it and were now…carrying it over the ground, away from the wall.

From behind the wall, a third Titan was witnessed, looking like the woman that had been shot by the man, but each Titan had the same dark skin coloring, which was unusual to the people aboard the boat; most of the Titans they had encountered didn't have skin this dark. Most of the time, they had these sections that indicated some degree of bruising, but not full-body skin pigmentation where they were dark from head-to-toe.

"Quick!" The yelled to the four kids aboard. "Get off the ship and deal with these island devils!"

"We can't!" One of the boys, a tall one with ebony hair and a nervous expression. "If I change, the ship will be destroyed because of the close range!"

The third Titan came over and performed a hand gesture that was just as unusual: It waved at the people aboard the ship as it smiled.

"No way," the first boy, the blond, reacts, and the two Titans carrying the boat stopped and lowered it down. "Urgh!"

Placed atop some rocks, the boat was secured where it was, and the Titans stepped back from it.

"I don't like this," the third boy with brown hair expresses. Why aren't they attacking?

-x-

When he saw the purple smoke signal in the air, Grausam Zanki knew that this day had finally arrived…and as much as he knew it was unavoidable, he dreaded its arrival for some time. The day of reckoning, where all his work to prepare Paradis against the forces of Marley's Warrior Unit would either be for naught…or pay off. As he was sitting in the wagon behind a horse that would be pulling it for the Survey Corps, he looks at the soldiers he had to look at every other day for the last three years of his life here, and each one looked at him the same way; they all had their reasons for hoping this day would end in their favor with his aid. It was the day that define the line between victory and defeat, survival or oblivion, a future…and despair.

"Are you ready?" Erwin Smith asks Grausam as he sat across from him on the wagon. "I said…are you ready?"

"Let's get this over with," Grausam responds; whether he was ready or not, this was something he couldn't avoid, even if he wanted to, as he was also a Titan Shifter that stood apart from the Nine Titans that carried a thirteen-year death sentence, whereas the Jaeger Titans carried no such sentence and would be around for as long as the people that could turn or be turned into them continued to survive. May God forgive me for my past sins and allow me a small boon of light in the darkness that awaits me.

To be continued…

A/N: Two story chapters completed in the same day. As odd as it is, I really want to imagine a scenario in which Grausam Zanki, my original character from Hope from the Sky does obtain some redemption from the darkness that awaits his soul when this is all over. And as for Dina and Ymir in this story, Dina may be out of character to some of you, but she's a Jaeger Titan Shifter now, so she has a future ahead of her where there is the possibility for hope, including reconciliation with Grisha, and Ymir only has one job that is actually two jobs: Be Historia's friend and protector, but for those of you that like the pairing, there's hope for more than friendship because of deviation. So, please, review and express what you think about this all.