AN: I despise the formatting on this site. Despise it. I might just quit this site altogether. But first: AOT fanfic, take 2.
AN EDIT: Oh whoops, it seems that a part of the first section was just deleted whilst I was trying to copy paste the story lol. Ah well. I've fixed it~
Three months after Wall Maria fell, Eren Jaeger, Mikasa Ackerman, and Armin Arlert were just straight up annoyed at having to work the fields from dawn till dusk.
Of course, it was to be expected, given that they were 'dirty refugees' that 'should have died during the breach', but it was still deeply annoying.
Especially when they considered that all the food they were growing was being given away, and given to stalls, where they'd have to buy back the food that they grew.
So yes.
Deeply annoying.
At least… It was deeply annoying, until Armin pulled out his little black book, cleared his throat delicately, and effectively waltzed himself and his friends out of the fields on the four month mark.
When asked why, Armin Arlert, with great dramatics, said–
"Oh, I just couldn't take it anymore! The sun! The heat! The pain! I am not made for such hard labor!"
In the background, Eren Jaeger would snicker, and Mikasa Ackerman's eyes would smile. No one commented on it, of course.
Well.
No one commented on it after the first three who did disappeared.
O~O
"We should come up with a gang name!" Armin announced.
Mikasa stared at him blankly. "But… why?"
Eren merely smiled and laughed as a tiny plant monstrosity he created from two stray leaves and a twig danced in his palm.
Armin shrugged and grinned. "Just an idea."Three months after Wall Maria fell, Eren Jaeger, Mikasa Ackerman, and Armin Arlert were just straight up annoyed at having to work the fields from dawn till dusk.
Of course, it was to be expected, given that they were 'dirty refugees' that 'should have died during the breach', but it was still deeply annoying.
Especially when they considered that all the food they were growing was being given away, and given to stalls, where they'd have to buy back the food that they grew.
So yes.
Deeply annoying.
Mikasa glanced at Eren, who was actually quite invested in the little jig Bob (the two stray leaves and a twig) was dancing. She turned back to Armin and shrugged. "Okay."
Armin grinned.
It was decided, then.
O~O
The Gardeners were a gang that everyone feared.
Why?
Well.
That was a good question.
It might've been in part due to their uncanny monopoly on the versatility of the drug trade (Armin), or the fact that they had a literal demon (Mikasa) in their ranks, or even that they left a dubious trail of flowers and random greenery in their path in places where there generally wasn't greenery (Eren).
Well.
Either way, it was a wise decision to fear them.
O~O
The first (and only) place to come under their (dubious) protection was a brothel run by a Madame named Idira. She had a pretty name, pretty face, and fairly reasonable ethics to boot. She cared for her girls, but often found herself helpless in the face of money.
So, she'd often found herself in the unfortunate circumstance of having to kill babies as soon as they were born, being entirely unable to afford abortive medicines.
What a good place to start!
"So." Armin's eyes flashed a bright, sinister blue, and the Madame shivered. "Do we have a deal, Madame?"
The Madame glanced behind Armin and tried to meet the eyes of the brown haired boy behind him. This was the one who would supply her with the abortive medicines, birth control medicines, and other things her girls needed.
She at least needed to acknowledge him directly–
Ah.
The brown-haired boy's eyes were a viridian shade with odd flecks of gold around the iris, and the longer she looked at them, the more she believed that they were glowing–
"Madame." Armin cut in sharply.
Idira shook her head and faced Armin. "Call me Idira." she murmured. "And yes. We have a deal."
Their medicines in exchange for whatever money, food, and board Idira and her girls could spare.
It was a fair trade.
Armin shook her hand and left, the brown-haired boy in tow.
O~O
They ended up living at that brothel–the Fruit of Passion–for the entirety of the three years they spent before their military training.
Over such a course of time, Armin amassed a small fortune, Eren accidentally started a new religion in which he was the God, and Mikasa became the high priestess of said religion.
Oh yeah, and apparently Eren is also part Titan too. Go figure.
O~O
"Why do I keep getting all the weird stuff?" Eren whined as Mikasa yanked him out of the nape of a steaming Titan carcass.
"I don't know." Armin hummed and looked at Eren calculatingly. "Maybe you're a magnet?"
Eren shivered.
O~O
Eren was weird, Madame Idira decided, but he is a God, so I suppose that can be excused.
This, she thought while she was watching Mikasa preach a sermon about Eren's amazingness to her girls, all of whom were taking notes quite fervently. Meanwhile, Eren was atop a makeshift throne made out of blankets and pillows, and quite happily conversing with a potted plant.
"...and such forth is Eren a harbinger of freedom–" Mikasa's intense voice reached Madame Idira's ears, and she suddenly realized that her own notebook wasn't out.
O~O
Legends spread about them, about the niche drugs they sold that, somehow, only they sold. No other drug could replicate the effect that Armin marketed.
Of course, little did they know, that was all thanks to Eren.
Apparently, in addition to being able to grow plants instantaneously, he could also blend plants together and make an entirely new baby plant from scratch.
Eren really was a plant God.
O~O
The Daybringer, they whispered, was the brain of The Gardeners. He was smart, cunning, and they said he had a little black book that, if anyone were to find themselves unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of, would cause people to wish for death.
The Demon, they mused, was the body of The Gardeners. She was powerful–a pale, silent, beautiful shadow in the darkness, in the corner of your vision. You'd blink, and if you were unfortunate enough to have caught her or her God's eye, you would be gone. Not dead. Gone.
(Her strength featured in many peoples' nightmares.)
The Garden God, they shivered, was the heart of The Gardeners. Little was known about him beyond the shadow of antlers, the echo of gnashing teeth, and glowing viridian eyes. And perhaps it was that–the threat of the unknown that deterred people.
(That, and the corpses with lovely, twining red flowers growing out of their chests. Plants that grew where plants don't normally grow. This was the mark of the Garden God.)
O~O
One fine morning, on the mark of the eighteenth month since Wall Maria's fall, Eren walked out of his room at the Fruit of Passion, and was met with an odd statuette of a person that looked vaguely like him in Titan form with a deer-skull mask over its face and antlers twining out of its head. And wings. Can't forget the wings. Or the candles. Or… Or the food and scented incense sticks he made for the girls at the base of the shrine (was it a shrine?).
"Um…"
Eren turned to gaze at the little girl (of one of the brothel girls) pulling at his shirt on his left. She shuffled around on her feet and blushed hotly. Before Eren could ask anything, she shoved a… delicious-smelling pastry into his face and said something about thanking him for gracing the Earth or whatever and then left.
Eren looked at her dumbly, and unwrapped the pastry. He took a bite.
It tasted delicious.
O~O
The brothel kept getting customers, and customers kept leaving food at the base of the shrine (shrine? It was definitely a shrine) and Eren kept eating and growing fat on (devotion) sugar.
Eventually, Mikasa and Armin had to pull him aside to persuade him to share the (his) goodies, because apparently his behavior was somewhat concerning. (What was wrong with bestowing goodwill and favor upon his loyal followers?)
Grudgingly, though, Eren shared his food.
For the rest of the time before they enlisted into the military, they never starved, and Eren's cult grew.
O~O
"Eren." Mikasa beckoned, and Eren obligingly strolled over. His shadow on the ground had long twining horns and wings, it languished in power, and laughed in strength. Eren sat down before his High Priestess.
"Yes, Mikasa?"
"You know how sometimes when you get angry and want to smite someone, your form manifests?" she questioned.
Eren nodded slowly.
Next to her, Armin buzzed with delight. "I think," he blurted out, "That there's more to your form than you've been able to unlock so far. Sort of like your Titan form."
Eren's face wrinkled in mild disgust. Ugh. His Titan form. Why'd he have to get a form of one of the things he hates most in this world? But that wasn't the point. "You're saying there's more?" he questioned.
Armin nodded. "Yes!"
Eren tilted his head pensively. "But how do I unlock it?"
Armin hummed. "Remember when your powers first manifested?"
Eren thought back to that day–that day they were tending the fields. It was a famine, and he was starving. Hungry. Hungry beyond hungry. Thirsty beyond thirsty. He was so hungry. And angry. Angry enough to piss off a passing MP. A woman–most likely one native to Trost–yelled at him for a reason he forgot, and he yelled back.
He believed he was justified.
But in the end, he was a dirty refugee.
And the MP shot him.
As he lay, bleeding, chest down to the Earth, where his heart was exposed and stuttering, something ugly crawled out. It was sort of like a centipede, only it had spines on its back, and it didn't really have a face, but it wasn't like Eren could observe more, given that, well, he was slowly dying.
Then, he felt it burrow into his chest.
At first, he thought, Disgusting.
Then, he noticed his flesh knit itself back together with vines and petals. Something warm in his chest pulsed. Eren Jaeger sat up.
And where his blood dripped to the ground, angry vines grew, thorns prominent, burning in its rage, in its hunger.
Eren ripped his mind away from the sensation. His heart thumped. "Yes. I remember."
"Try to replicate that feeling." Armin advised. "We might reach a breakthrough."
Eren hummed.
He didn't want to starve again.
O~O
Eren's Garden God form was beautiful. It was a beast, black, green, white, and haunting in nature. Two sets of wings spouted from a vaguely hunched back, ridges going down the center of spine, one set of the wings were bat-like and the other, bird-like.
Long, twining antlers sprouted from the back of his head and curled beautifully. His ears were long and much like a doe's. The top half of his head was skull-like, and his eyes glowed in the empty sockets with an intensity that alternated between green and gold.
He had four arms, each of which ended in a long, deadly claw, and a long, twining tail, with webbing and feathers and spikes along it. His two legs were like the feet of a lizard. Beastly. Sharp. Clawed.
He was a beast.
An eighteen meter tall beast with skin as dark as night and viridian glowing lines running through it like rivers.
A beast.
But he was a beast with fire in his gut and the storm around his wings. He felt powerful.
Eren Jaeger felt like a God.
(A starving, aching God)
O~O
He hadn't transformed again since then. There was no point, and Eren was quite content with, y'know, not starving.
Besides–All the necessary powers he'd need were already at his beck and call.
He supposed he was neglecting his Titan side a bit, too, though, because in the back of his mind, he felt a whisper, the growl of a whiny Titan who wanted to be set free, and all of a sudden, he was dragged into his–
Everyone's–
The Pa–
Mind?
There was a sight he'd sworn he'd seen before.
Of a mass endless and rolling.
(The Ocean)
On the shore, a young girl who looked nothing her age, carried a pail and walked listlessly. She gathered wet sand, dry sand, and sculpted things that Eren couldn't comprehend, couldn't look at.
The girl, a blonde short woman with a certain air of tragedy around her, stopped in her work. She turned around slowly, and Eren could've sworn she met his eyes, and she mouthed–
' r'
And then Eren woke up to Armin shaking his shoulder, and the Titan in the back of his mind silent.
"Hey, Armin." he said dazedly. "I think I just saw the Ocean."
"You what?!"
O~O
It was a fervent plan of theirs, Armin, Mikasa, and Eren. They really did consider it. Leaving the Walls, using Eren's Garden God form to just survive outside of the Walls–alone…
Eren was all for it. Mikasa, too.
Armin shook his head in the end, though.
He claimed that doing that would only lead to ruin. They'd only be surviving. Not really living.
Eren couldn't find it in himself to disagree.
Mikasa pulled her scarf up and looked away.
O~O
"Hey Armin?"
"Yes, Eren?"
"I think my Titan is talking to me."
Armin put down his statistics–all steady graphs inclining either upwards or plateaued. Positive business? Ah, whatever. "Your Titan is what?"
"Talking to me." Eren repeated.
Mikasa put down her knife. "Eren." she said, stressing the syllables.
"What?"
"Eren."
"What was it saying?" Armin questioned, somewhat disturbed.
Eren shrugged. "I dunno. Something about freedom. About the future. It's actually a lot like a cat, the Titan. Only really active at 3 AM when I'm trying to sleep."
"Eren." Armin echoed Mikasa's earlier words, a look cross between 'oh my god what have we done' and 'well.' sitting on his face. "Eren."
O~O
The Attack Titan was less so of a Titan and more so of an entity. An amalgamation of intent, of its Maker's desire for it. It had but a singular form, the form it was born to have since the very beginning of its creation, the form Ymir bestowed upon him.
With a lipless maw, fifteen meters of strength, and pointed ears, the Attack Titan was made for a single person to drive to freedom, to act out the future, to free his Maker, as was his purpose.
But, with as much emotion as the memories of its previous holders and the fated, the intended holder, and Ymir allowed him, he felt hurt at the idea that he would never be used.
(He felt scared that he would never free Ymir. What purpose did he have otherwise?)
So then, for the first time ever, he spoke. He conveyed messages through intent, through dreams. He connected his fated user through to the Paths, tried to get him to see the plight of Ymir. But nothing changed.
The Attack Titan could never feel hopeless.
Never.
He was not made with such an emotion in mind.
He was everything Ymir wanted to be.
He was strong.
He was striving.
One way or another, Eren Jaeger would free Ymir, even if the Attack Titan himself had to take control and do it.
(But… only as a last resort. Only as a last resort)
O~O
Eren Jaeger, in the last six months before they all had the eligibility to enlist in the military, found himself dazed, in somewhere between wakefulness and dream, staring at a fifteen meter Titan with a lipless maw and pointed ears that felt like truth.
And it kneeled.
And power rippled beneath it.
None so much as what the Garden God form allowed him, but fearsome enough nonetheless. The Titan glared at him through glowing white eyes, and it opened its mouth to let steam filter through.
"TIME… IN… A MOMENT… SPEAK… FREE… YMIR."
Eren woke up.
"What the f–"