Conquest: Attack on Titan 1.5 (ch. 5)

“They're calling it the Great War,” Willy Tybur said, setting down his newspaper while a servant placed a cup of tea before him. Emblazoned on the front page was the news in bold headlines: Marley on the defensive! Fighting on all fronts! “The war to end all wars.” 

“A rather naive hope, but an understandable one,” Theo Magath replied, seated across from him. The man was a military commander, one overseeing the Mid-East front. “I'm sure they said the same after the Titan War a century ago. But war is a part of human nature, and the only time that will change is when there is nothing left to fight over… or no humans left to fight.” 

Willy offered a thin smile at that -- it wasn't a joke. Theo was a rather dour man to begin with, by all accounts. However, over the past three years, he had more reasons to be dour than he knew what to do with. Picking up his tea, Willy looked at his reflection and found that he barely recognized himself -- when did he become a fully grown man who held the fate of hundreds of millions in his hands? 

“Perhaps,” Willy admitted, looking away from the reflection of a man he no longer recognized. Instead, he cast his gaze over the balcony at the city of Liberio. The very last city liberated from the Eldians in a sham of a war caused by one man's cowardice and bravery. “But we can deny our nature if given sufficient cause.” 

“You would know better than I, Lord Tybur,” Theo replied. “Diplomacy is your battlefield. Not mine.” 

That did get a chuckle out of Willy, looking back at the dower man. His eyes were hard and sharp, looking at him like he was taking his measure even as he decided which angle to cut his throat at. It made him perfect for Willy's plans. The man was respected; he had a position of prestige in training the Warrior Candidates, and he was a vocal proponent of ‘modernizing’ the military. Some saw him overseeing the mission that saw them lose six of the seven Titans Marley possessed as a mark against him… 

But those who did often forgot that it was a mission given to him. 

“Indeed, but that is precisely why I asked for you to meet me,” Willy admitted. “Tell me, what is your opinion of our position?” 

“We're losing,” Theo answered readily, as if he had just been waiting for someone to ask him that question. It actually caught Willy off guard a bit, how readily he answered. He'd expected that he would have to offer assurances or coax the truth out of him due to fear of being seen as unpatriotic. “The papers have it right for the first time. We’re losing on every single front, but the Mid-East Alliance is driving a dagger in our stomach, and if they’re not stopped, they won’t stop until they hit our heart.”

An accurate summary of the situation, Willy reflected. For the first time in history, the Marleyan Empire was ceding territory. The military bases and ports they had on the smaller islands around Hizuru, which allowed them to project a military presence over the island to leverage favorable trade deals that weren’t borderline extortionate -- they were outright extortion. 

At the onset of war with the Mid-East Alliance, Hizuru, in an uncharacteristically bold move, launched a series of surprise attacks on those islands and cut off all diplomatic ties with Marley. It was a painful and expensive loss but hardly a mortal blow, as the colonies in the western hemisphere could cover the loss. This, however, emboldened Acirema -- their colonies in the New World -- to a startling degree. They agreed to provide aid in exchange for what amounted to independence. Not entirely, not yet, but Willy expected that they would be within his lifetime. 

Aidni, unwilling to go to war with Marley, did exactly as Theo said. They used the Mid-East as a testing bed to develop anti-Titan weapons, offering funding and volunteering their population of Eldians to fight on behalf of the Mid-East Alliance. 

“This war, in the past three years, has claimed twenty million lives. Of those twenty million, twelve are ours,” Willy noted, setting down his tea. 

“Ten of which are Eldians,” Theo answered, and there wasn’t a shred of mercy in his voice. Theo didn’t hate the Eldians as some did. He wasn't the type to spit on them when he saw an armband. However, he did view them as lesser. Their lives were simply worth less to him than the life of a Marleyan. It was why he could send brigades of Eldians against fortified positions as a distraction or callously abandon them in a position to retreat. 

“And of the eight million losses for the Mid-East Alliance, six are also Eldians,” Willy continued. The knowledge sat in his stomach like a stone. Sixteen million Eldians dead over three years. Nearly twice that number were wounded, most of whom were maimed. All because they possessed the same lineage that ran through his own veins, but unlike them he had been lucky enough to be born into the right family. 

The number shouldn’t have been a fraction of what it was. However, the generals and commanders were all too willing to spend Eldian lives for progress.

“That number will increase,” Theo stated without hesitation. “Expanded conscription in the Internment Zones has been approved. Children as young as eight will serve as soldiers in a limited capacity. In theory,” he amended because, just like him, Willy didn’t believe for a second that the stated duties of ferrying ammunition and doing simple maintenance would be adhered to. “But you didn’t need me to tell you that. Or that we’re losing this war.”

“... I did not,” Willy admitted. “Throughout my life, I have cultivated countless diplomatic ties across the world. Relationships that I have fostered since I was a child, all in anticipation of this war. The day when human ingenuity eclipsed the might of the Titans. It had been my hope that when the time came, I could use those relationships to curtail the war. To make the peace easier to swallow.” 

He swirled his tea before taking a sip and met the gaze of Theo. “Now that the time has come, I find myself… opposed.” There wasn’t any other way he could describe it. “Friends I've hadsince childhood have been assassinated. Diplomats I’ve enjoyed long standing relationships with have been removed from office. There has been a sharp rise in anti-Marleyan sentiment across the globe. What’s more, people are acting against what should be their own self-interest, even on the assumption that Marley loses this war and the peace on the table is accepted.”

The peace terms that the Mid-East Alliance was demanding were ruinous. The complete relinquishing of their territories in Southern Marley, reparations that would take centuries to pay off, and the surrendering of three of the Nine once they were found or reclaimed. That, in addition to a demilitarized zone one hundred and fifty miles long on what would be the new border and the surrendering of a dozen military ports across the world. 

It would bring Marley to its knees, and they would never stand again if the rest of the world had anything to say about it. 

“Opposed by who?” Theo questioned, his tone sharp before he found his answer. His lips pressed into a frown, and he answered his own question. “The Devils of Paradis?”

“We lost six of the Nine on the island, and in the past three years, not a single ship has returned from scouting expeditions there,” Willy noted. Paradis had finally become active again after a century of slumbering. A change that chilled Willy’s blood, as he was one of the few who knew the truth. And because of it, he feared. 

He feared that in their attempts to reclaim the Founding Titan, Marley had awoken something terrible. 

“Tell me,” Willy continued, “what do you know of King Fritz?” He asked, taking a long sip of his tea. Theo sensed something about the conversation, but he had no idea what. He couldn’t. The truth was so unthinkable that he would have never considered the possibility. 

“Only what everyone else knows, I suspect,” Theo replied, sensing that he would be learning that there was more to the story. And that’s why Willy chose him. He was… malleable. Open to ideas and other interpretations to what he saw as the Truth. 

“King Fritz lied to the world,” Willy began. “The threat of the Rumbling was always an empty one, since the very beginning. King Fritz was a good and kind man, you see, and none were more horrified by the actions of the Eldian Empire than he. It is why, upon ascending to the position of King, he concocted the greatest lie that had ever been told -- he, along with my ancestor, would fabricate a story of how the evil Eldians were vanquished and exiled to their island.”

Theo’s lips parted, and little by little, with every word Willy confessed, his jaw dropped. Yet, Willy wasn’t done. “King Fritz then enforced a vow of pacifism upon his descendants. One that cannot be broken so long as one with royal blood possesses the Founding Titan. This vow would ensure that when the rest of the world finally came for the Eldians of Paradis, they would accept the punishment for our sins and the world's hatred. The threat of the Rumbling was merely a pretence to allow them a time of peace before that time came.”

Slowly, Theo closed his mouth and clenched his jaw. He swallowed down his evident surprise and focused not on the revelations of the story, but why he was telling it. “Then you suspect that the royal family has lost the Founding Titan.”

“It is the most likely explanation,” Willy confirmed. They couldn’t confirm it. The only thing that they knew for certain was that the Titan Shifters hadn’t returned, and neither had their scout ships. But given that for the past century Marley had chosen to punish Eldian criminals by turning them into Pure Titans and setting them to roam the island, and had done so without reprisal… something had clearly changed, and that terrified Willy more than words could ever convey. 

“Which means that the threat of the Rumbling may no longer be empty,” Theo continued, reaching for his own tea, and he fought the smallest tremor in his hand to take a sip. He composed himself excellently, however. “Is that why you recalled me?” 

“Yes,” Willy answered shortly. “In your mind, what is our best course of action? How do we deal with this emerging threat?” 

“We can't share this information with the rest of the world, though it concerns them,” Theo answered, setting down his tea. “They'll think we're desperate and making the entire thing up. Surrendering then revealing the information will seem like an excuse to remilitarize. Instead… we must act.” 

Theo straightened in his seat and continued to speak in a voice devoid of warmth. “We consolidate our forces. No Eldians, except for the Warrior Candidates -- they may be tempted into joining their Devil brethren. It's no secret that resistance groups have been on the rise.” 

No, it wasn't. Millions of Eldians had perished in the war and most for little gain. When the consequence for obedience was the same as disobedience… Many were finding that they'd rather fight Marley than their fellow Eldians forced to fight on the opposing side. 

“You would have us attack Paradis? Would that not risk the Rumbling?” Willy questioned sharply, interlocking his fingers and leaning forward. 

“It's possible,” Theo admitted. “However, by taking the initiative, we can prepare for that possibility. We commit our air force to dealing with the possibility of the Colossal Titans within the Walls -- our war games indicate that they can travel at thirty miles an hour. As such, it will take the Titans two days to fully leave their island. In this scenario, we can greatly thin their numbers and reduce the effectiveness of the Rumbling.” 

A hundred years had passed since King Fritz made that empty threat, and in that time, the greatest military minds in the world had poured over what they could do to prevent the Rumbling. There were countless answers that had arisen and evolved as the military progressed, creating new and better anti-Titan weapons every year. It would seem that Theo had his own. 

“That will be difficult to arrange given the logistics necessary during a losing war,” Willy noted, probing for a reaction. 

“Which is why the objective of the operation shall be presented as regaining our lost Titans,” Theo answered. “As it stands, our military is too dependent on them. We cannot function at optimal ability without the Nine Titans, too many of our strategies are reliant on their power. Worse, we do not have the time or capacity to change tracks in the middle of this war. So, we present the war on Paradis as a reclamation of our lost military might so we may then go on to win the war that truly matters, and in doing so, we can claim Paradis’ vast resources.” 

Perfect. That… that was exactly what he wanted to hear, as utterly wretched as it was. 

King Fritz was a truly incredible man, Willy reflected. He could gaze upon his people, love them with the whole of his heart, but still condemn them to the consequences of their actions. It was something that Willy found himself jealous of -- the strength of character and conviction necessary to do such a thing… he was incapable of it. Willy wished that he wasn't, but he didn't have the strength of will. 

He loved Marley. He wasn't blind to its considerable faults. Nor the bitter irony that they were guilty of everything they accused the Eldian Empire of. But it was his home. His nation. His children were born and raised inside its borders, and should it fall… what would happen to them? The Tybur family was beloved because of a lie, and there was no promise that their standing wouldn't fall alongside Marley's. 

The thought of his children being condemned to the camps alongside the rest of the Eldians… if not worse… 

“What do you need?” Willy asked, damning himself and countless others. 

“The Warhammer Titan,” Theo answered, just as Willy suspected. “Your family swore an oath of nonviolence, but these are the Devils of Paradis. Your family will be viewed as merely finishing what your ancestors Helos began. All the more so if the Devils truly do resort to the Rumbling.” 

Willy closed his eyes but even before he answered, they both knew what he would say. 

…

“Gabi! Calm down!” Falco cried out, grabbing the back of her uniform as she nearly went overboard, discontent with the pace of the fleet. The very moment that Paradis had emerged over the horizon, Gabi became fretful. Eager. She'd swim the rest of the way if she had to, just for the glory of being the first on its shores to exterminate the Devils. “You're going to fall!” 

“How can I be calm?!” Gabi shouted back at him, gripping her rifle that was as large as she was in her hands with white knuckles. “They're right there! After a hundred years, we're finally going to kill the Devils and show everyone what good Eldians look like!” This was her chance to prove it once and for all! 

She, Falco, Zofia, and Udo were the only Eldians permitted on this mission. The only ones deemed loyal enough to exterminate the Devils. Their mission was to reclaim the Titans from the Devils, and it was their theft of them that allowed the war to begin in the first place. It was because of them that Eldians were dying in the millions. 

“We're not even fighting on the front lines this time!” Falco argued, pulling her back fully so her feet were touching the deck of the ship they were on once more. Gabi tsked at the reminder before she glared up at the sky, which was filled with a distant hum. 

There were thousands of airplanes flying above them. Cargo planes and the fighter planes that guarded them -- some of the cargo planes carried those chosen to parachute into Paradis, but most carried explosives to firebomb the Devil's cities. Likewise, the planes above guarded the grand fleet consisting of the three fleets of Marley, with each fleet containing twenty-one battleships, the entire remaining navy of Marley. 

For six months, they had heard rumors about a great offensive. It was hard to hide the level of military build up, with Marleyans also being conscripted. But Gabi never dreamed that the great attack would be on the Island Devils. Even now, at the helm of the greatest invasion in history, it didn't feel real.

“I wonder if the Warhammer Titan is on one of those ships? Do you think we'll get to see her?” Udo asked, sounding awed by the mere thought, and he should be. For the first time in a century, they would would see the power that drove back the evil Eldians. 

“Of course we will!” Gabi answered readily, a wide grin on her face. “She'll fight the evil Titans so we can eat them.” She remembered her briefing, word for word. The Colossal Titan was the top priority. If possible, it should go to Udo. Following that was the Armored Titan, which she should receive. Either that, or the Female Titan. The rest were desired, but not the highest priority. 

However, because they were looking up at the planes above, they saw as they slowly began to react to something. Slowly, their gazes shifted towards Paradis, puzzled over what could have provoked such a response. And it was then they saw it. 

“It's them,” Gabi hissed, baring her teeth. If it wasn't a waste of a bullet that could be used to kill a Devil, she'd start shooting at the things that emerged from the island, which left a trail of smoke in their wake. 

“They're planes,” Zofia said, leaning on the railing next to her. They were a little too far to see easily, but she was right. They were planes -- Gabi could tell that much, but they looked funny. They only had a pair of wings jutting out the side and their bodies looked to be made out of metal instead of wood and fabric. Their general shape looked like an upside down V. “And they're… really fast…” Zofia continued, and Gabi realized she was right. 

They had been sailing for a day because of the air fleet, and it was estimated that they wouldn't reach Paradis for another five hours. But the Devil planes were quickly approaching. Really, really, really quickly. 

“I… think we should take cover,” Falco muttered next to them, a note of fear creeping up in his voice.

“T-theres no need to be a scaredy cat, Falco,” Gabi said, swallowing a lump in her throat. “We outnumber them a hundred to one. T-this is just… a desperate gamble to save themselves.” She'd deny it if anyone ever asked, but fear was pooling in her stomach as she looked at the planes that were racing towards them. There were a hundred of them, if that, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen. 

And then something did. 

The Devil planes arrived within minutes, and it was only when they got close that Gabi fully realized how fast they were going. As they approached, they shot something forward that was attached underneath their plane wings, and it shot forward directly at the airships. The airships couldn't even begin to evade before they were struck and the sky became filled with fire. 

“No way,” Gabi breathed, her eyes wide as dozens of airships ignited and exploded above them, the weapons meant to be used on the Devils instead exploding on board. The biplanes overhead attempted to intercede, but it was too late. There was a loud boom over them as the Devils raced by faster than anything Gabi had ever seen. A second later, she felt a blast of wind on her face. “Noo… no way…” 

She ran to the other railing towards the back of the ship to see that the Devils were shooting more of those missiles, and without fail, they all struck airships as biplanes scrambled to react in time. Then, once they reached the end of their formation, the planes flew up before twisting. The sight struck an indescribable terror into Gabi’s heart, watching as the remains of the airships began to fall, some hitting the biplanes that scrambled beneath them, before taking them down with them into the ocean- 

“Gabi!” Falco shouted, grabbing her and tackling her to the side. She barely felt it and had no idea why he did it until something slammed into the top deck. Something wet hit her face and she went to wipe it away. Her fingertips came back red, and it was then the sight before her clicked into place. 

A man had fallen from the airship above. His body was scorched and still burning, with his blood splattered on the deck from the impact. But only for a moment ,as the rest of the airship fell into the ocean nearby, sending up a huge splash of water that crashed down on them. The water hit Gabi like a fist, instantly soaking her to the bone. Falco had picked himself up by the time the body had been washed away. 

“Hey… Falco…” Gabi breathed, her voice nearly lost in the sounds of screaming and chaos. “Where did Zofia and Udo go?” She asked, making Falco jump to his feet as he rushed to the railing. That was no good. She was the top candidate to become a Warrior. She couldn't let Falco show her up like this. And despite being a veteran of a hundred battles, Gabi found that her legs were made out of jelly for all the support they offered. 

“Gabi! The life preserver! They went overboard!” He shouted at her, and that got her body in working order. It felt like lightning raced down her spine, but it shocked her out of her stupor. Grabbing the life ring, she raced to the railing to see Zofia and Udo trailing behind as they treaded water. Hurling it at them, they managed to grab onto it before they were out of range. 

“Help me pull them up!” Gabi shouted and Falco obeyed, grabbing the rope and heaving with all of their strength. All around them was chaos. The deck of the ship came alive as the anti-air guns fired at the Devil planes that tore through their formation. More airships seemed to be falling out of the sky all around them, along with parts of biplanes. Gabi only caught a glimpse of how. 

The planes had run out of missiles, so they fired guns instead. Four at the front, but underneath the plane were round protrusions with gun barrels that moved and fired in every single direction as they passed through the sky. There was a flash of heat on her face as an airship crashed onto the battleship next to them in the formation, but she ignored it to pull her friends back over the railing where they flopped over, already shivering from the cold water. 

“T-Thank you,” Udo chattered, grabbing hold of Zofia tightly. Another explosion rang out in the distance, and Gabi could hear people screaming -- screams of pain. Screams of fear. Screams of order trying to impose itself on the chaos. The air became filled with an oily black smoke that drifted up and hovered near the water. Grabbing hold of her friends, she and Falco brought them to the middle of the ship.

And it was then that they saw it. 

Gabi almost dismissed it as another explosion from a crashing airship, but the flash of light was completely different. She looked over in awe to witness the Warhammer Titan materializing from that golden light -- from her feet upwards, taking the form of a woman that was covered in a white armor with bars around her mouth and eyes. The ship that she stood on banked at the added weight, but it didn't sink. Leaving the Warhammer Titan free to create a crossbow that fit in one hand that she used to take aim at the impossibly fast planes.

It should have been a moment of triumph. A power not seen since the defeat of the Devil King. The power that brought the Eldian Empire low and put an end to the fighting. 

It wasn't. Gabi's hope soon turned into dread when the planes began to form up in groups, circling above the Warhammer, before black figures began to drop outside of the planes. Gabi watched them fall towards the Wahammer, who lashed out at them, only for the figures to prove to be human, even if they moved like anything but. Wires shot out of their sides, attaching to the Warhammer before they began to fall upon her. 

However, her attention was stolen when a shrill scream erupted from Zofia, and she looked over to see that more black figures were falling to the deck of their ship. They fell at such great speeds, moved so fast that they should have splattered like the man from the airship had when they hit the deck, but they landed lightly like falling hundreds of feet was no issue. 

Fear. Fear was the only thing that Gabi could feel as she beheld the Devils for the very first time. They were cloaked in a black uniform with metal armor over it, and strange equipment that they used to fly around. She couldn't see their faces as they were protected by a tinted glass helmet. The only way Gabi could tell them apart was because two of them were women, the other three men, with one of the women wearing a red scarf. 

For a split second, nothing seemed to happen as both the Devils and the Marleyans froze. Then one of her countrymen managed to react, screaming in fear as he leveled his rifle at the Devils. He fired the first shot, but not the last, a hail of bullets striking the Devils. And, despite everything that had happened, Gabi felt hope surge in her chest. 

But something was wrong. The Devils weren’t dying. The flattened bullets fell at their feet, plinking to the ground instead of tearing through their wretched hearts. 

The Devils lingered for a second more before they moved, and people started dying. Swords emerged from the cases attached to their legs, and they dove into the Marleyans. War cries became screams of terror as the swords effortlessly severed limbs and heads, carving through people like they were barely even there. Blood splashed over the deck of the ship, arcs of it getting sent up with every swing. 

“Falco,” Gabi breathed, realizing that she didn’t have her rifle. She didn’t even know when she dropped it. “We’re… here to save the world from the Devils, right?” She whispered, frozen to the spot, watching as people died in droves. The Devils were utterly outnumbered, but it felt like it was the other way around. “Justice is on our side. So… why are we… losing?”

Falco didn’t say anything, just gripping her hand with obvious terror as the world fell apart all around them. Gabi couldn’t look away from the sight before her, but she could see out of the corner of her eyes as the Warhammer Titan was struck by explosions and started falling backwards onto the ship it was on. The battleship wasn’t built to handle such weight in the first place, and almost like a toy, it seemed to snap in two. 

Her mind raced, trying to think of something to do, but she couldn’t think of anything. The Devils felt invincible. Nothing seemed to get through their armor. Their planes were too fast and powerful. The Warhammer Titan had already fallen, and it was sinking to the bottom of the ocean…

What could she even do? It wasn’t even a matter of will. Gabi was frozen because there was nothing that she could do to stop this slaughter. This… massacre. 

But then the Devils cut their way through the crew of the ship and all of the soldiers, arriving at them as the four of them were huddled together. The woman with the scarf had a blade raised high, already cutting through a man before them. She took a step forward, careless of the pool of blood that was dumped at her feet, and Gabi found that she could only stare at the woman, who seemed to freeze the moment her eyes landed on them. 

“...Children? They brought children to a battlefield?” The woman sounded scornful, lowering the sword before taking a step forward. Gabi’s legs jerked and she found herself falling on her butt, trembling with fear. The woman seemed to realize it, so she put the sword away and offered a bloodstained hand. “I know… I know what you’ve been told about us. That we’re devils. That we’re evil. I know that you’re scared right now, and I won’t ask you to trust me. But you can see that it’s not safe here, and you need to leave.”

It seemed nothing less than insane that someone could callously cut down what seemed like a hundred people in seconds, to gently extend a hand and speak so soothingly. Gabi was reminded of her mom, and that’s what sprang her into action. She couldn’t surrender. Her parents would be punished if she surrendered. She would lose any chance that she had of becoming a Warrior and an Honorary-Marleian. 

“A… AHHHH!” Gabi shouted, forcing her feet to move as she lunged with a fist. The woman moved and, at first, Gabi thought she had been cut down. Instead, she was redirected and put into a sleeper hold. She thrashed in the woman’s grip, the others only then springing into action, but they were similarly grabbed by devils in black. 

“I know it’ll be difficult to believe… but when you wake up, the world will be different. It’ll be a gentler and kinder place for Eldians. I promise,” Gabi heard, her vision going black. She tried to gurgle out a response, but it was nonsense to her own ears. 

Then, everything went black.

…

“Someone get rid of that armored train! It’s anti-Titan grade! It’ll punch right through our fortifications!” Colt Grice shouted at the top of his lungs, firing the last of his ammo down range at the approaching army. He was one of the last ones with ammo. The other Eldians in the trench alongside him had fired their last shots hours ago, and the only reason why he had any was because of his aim and the fact that he was a Warrior Candidate. 

Something that felt so useless and arbitrary in the face of such overwhelming might. The Mid-East Alliance was pressing their line hard, and they had been for months. Constant redirections of supplies had drained Fort Florence, and the loss of the navy had them completely cut off. The Eldian Legions had always gotten the short end of the stick when it came to resupplies, but for months it had felt damn near malicious. 

Colt would be willing to accept crates of sticks and stones at this point, because at least that would prove that Marley remembered them. 

“Incoming-” Colt heard a split second before the world became noise with a high-pitched ringing in his ears. His lungs felt like they were full of dust, and he could feel rubble plinking off his helmet. He was still alive. Still whole. Which was more than he could say for others when he looked over, seeing the devastation of the armored train. The weapon designed to kill Titans had reduced the men to his right into mist while causing the wall behind them to collapse, crushing more beneath a mountain of stone. 

Colt felt someone grab him, and he looked over to see Porco Galliard, another Warrior Candidate, screaming in his face. Porco looked as terrible as Colt felt, and he felt like warmed over shit. Days without sleep. Days without food. All to stave off an onslaught for just one more day. One more hour. One more second. All for territory that was already lost, as near the entirety of Southern Marley was lost. And without a navy, they couldn’t even leave. 

Then, with a woosh, sound returned to the world, “-arge! Brace!” Porco shouted, and Colt looked over to see what he was talking about. His stomach plummeted when he saw what he meant. The Mid-East Alliance were making a charge from their trench. Colt’s guts churned when he saw the armbands and the expressions they wore. 

Fear. Their expressions were filled with fear -- not because of the guns that were pointed at them from the front, but because of the ones that were pointed at their backs. There was nothing to be done about it, however. It was life and death for all of them. They would die trying to take the crumbling fort, while more of his people would die defending it. Simply because failure meant death for both sides. 

Colt leaned into what was left of the outer wall, counting his breaths as the tide of attackers rushed forward. They were out of ammo. The little that they would gain would come from the dead attackers who were lucky enough to be given some. The rest, they would fight without guns. Beating each other to death with stones, stabbing with knives… Not many would die in the attack itself, but disease killed with just a scratch. All the more so because the weapons were dipped in waste beforehand. 

They had repelled charges like this what felt like a thousand times in the last month. Colt didn’t know how many more he had left in him. How many the men around him had left in them. If life was hell, then death had to be paradise. The only thing that stopped him from giving up entirely was the thought of getting to go home. To see his family. 

His parents. His uncle. His cousins. Little Falco, who was so determined to fill shoes that were two sizes too big for him when he couldn’t even confess to the girl he liked.

So, as the tide surged, he roared alongside all of the others. 

Right up until the trench behind the attacking wave became filled with fire. Colt flinched at the sight, and a second later, a boom followed as some kind of aircraft flew overhead, flying down the line and bombarding it. However, Colt’s gaze fell to what flew over the battlefield. It looked like a little… He wasn’t sure what he was looking at. It had a slim body, but on the sides of it, were round spaces that had something like a fan blade rapidly spinning within.

And that became all the more clear when a man emerged from the floating thing. Yet, while he was translucent and colored with a blue hue, he grew to the size of a Titan. 

The charge stopped and everyone could only gape at what they were seeing. 

“My name is Galick, King of Paradis,” the figure began and Colt felt his blood freeze in his veins. The Devils of Paradis? This was their king?

He seemed to be in his twenties. Handsome. Almost to the point of being irritating. His hair was slicked back in spikes, except for a lock of hair that fell to an eye on one side of his face. He was muscular, broad-shouldered, and he wore an odd outfit that displayed that fact without reservation, while around his waist were cloth folds. He looked like he could be a king, Colt guessed, but he didn’t know what kings looked like. 

“Here me now, Eldians. As of this moment, you are free from the tyranny that has oppressed you for generations,” he continued, and the world seemed to fall away around him. “No longer will your lives be discarded by those who have no care for them. No longer will you be forced to fight on behalf of your masters, who don’t even have the decency to give you weapons to fight with. No longer shall you hunger or thirst. No longer shall you fear the consequences of those who believed themselves your betters.”

What…?

“What is happening right now?” Porco breathed next to him, thinking the same thing he was. 

“I sense your doubts. Your confusion. And your fear,” Galick continued, speaking to the entire battlefield at once. “Allow me to put your concerns to rest.”

With that, the image of the Galick vanished, and Colt was staring into a new hell. The sea was on fire, and thick black smoke billowed up from dozens of warships. Debris from airships and biplanes floated in the dark waves, alongside the bodies of their crew and pilots. His breathing hitched when the image changed once more, and Colt found himself staring at the broken body of the Warhammer Titan. 

“Marley attempted to invade my kingdom in a pathetic attempt to stave off its inevitable end,” Galick said, his voice still coming out of the… Colt wasn’t even sure what it was. It was like looking into a window, only instead of the outside, it was something that was happening thousands of miles away. “For this, Marley shall fall to me. So shall it to you, who it has so ruthlessly oppressed. Your friends and family in the internment zones have already been liberated.” 

The window changed, and Colt’s eyes watered. He saw the same planes that had just raced over the battlefield flying over the city of Liberio. He saw soldiers clad in black securing the internment zone, his home, and crushing the soldiers that had been stationed within since the conscription began. Tears began to blur his vision, and he was just one of many others looking up with expressions of hope. 

“This has to be a trick,” Porco muttered, his voice tinged with disbelief. “He’s… they’re Devils. This isn’t a good thing, Colt.” He stressed in a low voice, but Colt wasn’t listening. 

“Cast off your chains of oppression and rise up as citizens of my empire!” Galick commanded, reappearing and thrusting out a hand towards what felt like directly at him. “I hereby declare this war… OVER!”

Colt looked down at the rifle in his hands, and he could feel the eyes on him. Measuring him. Looking at him like he had any idea what just happened or what they should do. 

His lips thinned as he looked down at the rifle, the weight of his own ignorance crushing him. This could be a trick. Or a lie. Or a test by Marley to see if they were really loyal. There were so many things that this could be other than what they said it was. 

Yet, numbly, the empty rifle slipped from his grasp, and it fell to the ground. Next to him, Porco hissed a low breath, but it was swiftly drowned out by the sounds of other weapons being dropped. Then the sounds of cheering. 

People just broke down, collapsing where they were, and started sobbing with relief. Others cheered as loudly as they could. Some even got out of the fort to wander down to the Mid-Easterners, who had been in the middle of their charge, to embrace them like they were long-lost brothers. 

Everyone was tired. Everyone was sick. No one understood what had happened or what was going on, and it didn’t matter in the slightest. 

Peace was declared… and so it was.

…

“Ten minutes!” Mikasa heard as she was seated upon one of the planes, the voice ringing out in her ear by a ‘radio’ built into her helmet. It wasn't unheard of technology to the broader world, but the equipment in the armor she wore was a highly advanced version of what they knew. With it, she could communicate with her squad effortlessly despite the chaos of combat. 

Looking up, she saw her team making their preparations -- Armin, Connie, Marco, and Sasha. They were members of the Survey Corp and Military Police, but the Relief Regiment was proving to have a unique ability to recruit, however temporarily, soldiers from other branches for missions. Mikasa wasn't certain how exactly it came about, but she suspected that it was due to Galick's influence, however unwittingly. 

They were the harem of the king, and all of them were recruited for their raw talent and skill. When several members of the Relief Regiment, herself included, expressed a desire to participate in the conflict, Galick had agreed. On the condition that no one pregnant with his child would join the fighting, and that was an easy condition to accept. With his backing, it became unofficial policy to give them whatever they wanted, and over the course of three months, that had resulted in the mix of divisions. 

“Briefing time!” Hange exclaimed, and unlike the rest of them, she was the only one not wearing a helmet or glove. She was accompanied by her Survey Corp team -- Moblit Berner, Nifa, Keiji, and Abel. “Listen closely! This mission is a little complicated, but it should be super easy to pull off!” 

In response, information began to appear within her helmet, a holographic projection within the crystal that protected her. Satellite images of a mountain range that was buzzing with activity. There were faces amongst the image -- military commanders who had managed to pull back or were away from the front when the invasion began. They were utilizing a cave network of natural caverns and former mines to mobilize throughout the area. 

“Over the past month, we've been securing Marley. As of now, all their military bases have been seized by our volunteer militia, and all major cities have been taken. Their front lines have completely collapsed, and with the failed attack on Paradis, they have nothing in reserve.” Hange outlined the situation, holding onto a railing as the plane hit a patch of turbulence. 

Unlike the jet fighters, this plane was much larger. Large enough to fit two teams with the supplies they would need to carry out their mission. It was, however, still quite fast.

“However,” Hange continued, her tone taking a serious edge even as she spoke with her usual excitement. “As Galick says -- the victor is only decided when the defeated view themselves as beaten. The remnants of Marley's command structure have retreated to Neimis mountain range, where they are attempting to organize a resistance.” 

More satellite images appeared on her HUD, marking entrances and exits, munition supplies, and all other relevant information for their mission. 

“Unbeknownst to them, we have allowed them to gather,” Hange continued. “For the past three weeks since the Battle of Paradis, we have watched them pick up the pieces of their former nation and search for support both in former Marley territory and abroad. King Galick now feels that we have enough information to act. We will be crushing their remaining military structure and removing the web of support that they’ve managed to gather over these three weeks.”

There was a grim silence that answered Hange when they received their mission. 

It seemed so… unfair, almost. 

She knew what Galick would say to that -- ‘There is no fairness in war.’ Or ‘If you aren’t cheating, then you aren’t trying hard enough.’ Still, it felt so excessive at times. Because of Galick, the enemy never had a hope of reaching her home. She didn’t pity those who came of course, except for the children who had been dragged along with the invasion. And she had been very happy to learn that those children had since been reunited with their families after the internment zones had been liberated. 

But with the technology he had given them, the entire war had felt so very… one-sided. 

Marley didn’t even know that satellites existed, much less how to defend themselves from them. Because of it, their every move was well documented, as well as who they met with. They knew exactly how many they numbered, how well equipped they were, the identities of their associates and allies, and what their plans were as soon as they made them. 

Across the nation, similar operations were taking place. Captain Levi and Captain Kenny were both spearheading similar operations against the other larger remnants of the collapsed army. The truth was, the war had been over by the end of the first week. The past two had just been cleaning up. 

“We are catching them on the eve of a major coordinated offensive, operating in conjunction with other resistance cells within their captured cities and in other nations,” Hange continued. “The Neimis Range contains eight thousand troops. Team One,” she said, looking to Mikasa, “Your objective is to plant explosives to collapse the tunnels. As such, you will be the tip of the spear.”

Mikasa nodded, knowing that much already. 

“My team is focused on containment and distraction,” Hange said, a certain kind of grimness in her voice. “We expect for them to pull inwards into the mines and caverns, so you’ll encounter resistance. A lot of it. So, speed is our ally here. Get in, plant the explosives at the designated points, and then get out. After that -- our part of the mission is done. The Militia will be swooping in to take care of the rest. Hopefully, the remnants will surrender, but if previous examples are any indication…”

“Three minutes!” The pilot of the ship warned, making Hange sigh. She looked out at all of them, their faces hidden behind their helmets, but she met their gazes all the same. She didn’t say anything more and just gave Mikasa a nod as they made their final preparations. The holograms on her HUD vanished, and she stood up, lining up at the door. 

She looked at her team, but her gaze lingered on Armin. Even with his face hidden, she knew her childhood friend too well to not see the nervous energy that possessed him. “Do you think… after this… it’ll finally be over?” 

No. Galick had told her as much when she asked the very same question after the Battle of Paradis. Even if he had said otherwise, she wouldn’t have believed him -- she’d witnessed firsthand the depths of the hatred the rest of the world had for them in the years leading up to the invasion. And he had spoken to her of his plans for what came after everything. 

“Yes,” Mikasa lied, sparing Armin from the truth, if only for a time. He should have doubted her, but the words put him at ease. She saw some of the tension bleed out of his body language, and he offered her a small nod. With that, after checking each other's gear, it was time for the mission to commence. 

The back of the ship slid down, revealing the mountain range below, and it was quite some distance down. A hand went to the scarf around her neck for just a moment before she took three quick steps and jumped out of the plane, free-falling straight down through the sparse clouds. Her team followed behind her, their helmets marking their destination. The sensation of free-falling never failed to cause butterflies to flutter in her stomach, especially when it felt like it went against her training to not look for something to hook into. 

The ground rapidly rose up to meet them, and at a thousand feet, Mikasa gave the signal. They flipped and pulled the trigger to their new ODM gear. The tanks were much smaller but also far more efficient, giving them an hour of continuous use. The gas slowed their momentum, while Hange continued to speed ahead until the two-hundred-foot mark. She dumped her gas, killing her momentum, and then Mikasa saw it. 

A flash of light like a ball of lightning formed, and from that light emerged the Armored Titan.

It wasn’t the one that had ruined the peace of her life so many years ago. It was distinctly feminine, with armor-like plates over her body and Hange’s mane of auburn brown hair. 

It had simply been too much for her to refuse, Mikasa recalled. The idea of becoming a Titan had been irresistible, so when the time came for Reiner to be executed and for the power of the Armored Titan to go to another… Hange had jumped at the opportunity and all but begged Galick to choose her.

Hange slammed into the ground near the entrance of the mountain base, letting out a fearsome roar that Mikasa knew was actually her yelling in excitement. She did it every time she transformed, and she transformed as often as she could. 

While Hange wasn’t Reiner, she was every bit as devastating as she swept an arm over the defensive line, smashing through the artillery positioned to defend the entrance to the mountains. Meanwhile, her team split up around her, both to hem the defenders into a certain direction and to make sure that Hange wasn’t killed with an anti-Titan weapon. 

Meanwhile, Mikasa and her team continued to fall the last few hundred feet to their destination -- an observation area near the top of the mountain. Despite falling hundreds of feet, Mikasa and her team landed lightly. The heat meter on her HUD jumped from 0% to 9%, but within five seconds, it had already dropped down to 8%. They secured the observation area, and in the corner of her vision she saw a small map of the tunnel system appear to guide them to their targets. 

Breaching the door just in time to see a squad racing up to it, Mikasa was on point. The Marleyan soldiers recoiled the moment they saw her, their eyes going wide. They hesitated. 

Mikasa didn’t. 

Her weapons didn’t have any recoil as she shot them both in the face, snapping their heads back as blood splashed on the cavern wall behind them. Just as Galick had said, those who hesitated in battle died. Not every fight needed to be to the death, but mercy was the luxury of the strong, so when you needed to kill it was best to do it fast, clean, and without mercy. 

They moved beyond the corpses, following Mikasa’s lead through the tunnels that were filled with the sounds of panic. Speed was their ally in every mission -- they were always outnumbered, often ten to one. Sometimes a hundred to one, like now. So they sprinted through the halls, using their ODM gear to hook down the length of a hallway and pull themselves forward, or to pivot sharply around a corner. 

They didn’t breach the base without running into anyone. Mikasa found that she had grown used to the act of killing, her pistols expertly punching through the foreheads of the sprinting garrison that rushed to get into defensive positions. 

When they encountered groups of soldiers, Mikasa switched her ammo types -- a tube at the base of the pistol and a trigger for the ODM gear, letting her send a fragmentation grenade down the hall to tear apart a dozen men. Screams of pain and fear echoed down the halls, but Mikasa paid them no mind, working in sync with her team, who covered their fast advance. 

It was less than a minute into the mission when they arrived at the first target point, and Armin planted the bomb. 

“It’s primed! Eight minutes!” Armin warned, giving them an extra two minutes for unexpected deviations from the plan. 

With no time to waste, they pressed on, and the cycle repeated itself four more times as they delved deeper into the mountain base. In the minutes that followed, the Marleyan resistance managed to muster up a defense, but it did little to deter them. Their bullets struck their armor, and every one that did managed to increase the heat sink .2% closer to needing to vent. Something that would take thirty seconds, and that was something that they couldn’t afford. 

She could barely feel the bullets impacting against her armor, Mikasa reflected, pushing through machine gun fire before shooting the gunner in the head, then firing off another fragmentation grenade. There was a slight pressure, as if she had been poked by someone trying to get her attention, but no more than that. So long as they kept an eye on their heat gauges, they would be fine.

Five minutes later, Armin pressed the last bomb into the crevice of the cavern ceiling. “Bombs are primed and delivered!” He called out on the radio, and Mikasa nodded. 

“Mission accomplished. We’re leaving,” Mikasa voiced, sending out a ping to Hange and her team as they followed the evac route out of the mountain. They didn’t bother shooting their way out, simply using their ODM gear to speed by the rough fortifications that were going up because the Marleyans had expected to fight for every hallway and room. 

By minute six, they were once more out of the mountain, using their ODM gear to freely maneuver through the trees as they converged on Hange’s location. The entrance to the mountain was almost unrecognizable in the few minutes that had passed. Smoke rose up in thick black pillars to the sky, the explosive munitions exploding either from fires that broke out or from Hange’s blows. 

They latched onto her, along with the rest of her team, and Hange broke out into a sprint away from the mountain. Mikasa kept her gaze forward, looking out at the rolling hills that led up to the mountain and it was there that she saw it -- the Eldian military. 

Those liberated from the warfronts and internment camps were allowed to volunteer to join the Eldian Militia, who operated equipment stolen from Marley or the Mid-East Alliance to become an army in earnest. And it was they who would be cleaning up the remnants that they left behind as-

Distantly, Mikasa heard an explosion behind them, and she looked over her shoulder to see that a landslide had triggered once the explosives went off in a chain reaction. The tunnels collapsed, killing all those within, while the mountain shuddered off thousands of tons of stone that rolled down it. 

The mission was accomplished perfectly, as one would expect of an elite team, but Mikasa found herself feeling… 

“I want to go home,” she whispered to herself, and only herself. She had just killed thousands, who only resisted them because of the hate that they had inherited and because they were invading their home. And, deep down, she knew that thousands more would perish before this war was over. 

For so much of her life, whenever she thought of home, she thought of that sleepy house with the Yeager family. Of Grisha and Carla Yeager, who both welcomed her into their home after she lost her parents. Of Eren, the one who saved her and gave her that home when she lost everything. 

But now, it was changing, ever so slightly. She thought not of the castle that she lived in now, but the people within. The family that only seemed to grow  with babies being born almost monthly. The small army of mothers who doted on their children. And the children themselves, who filled the halls with peals of laughter as they fought over everything and anything. 

She thought of Galick, who seemed to have endless room in his heart. He played endlessly with his children, always managing to make time for them despite his responsibilities and answering their ever-unreasonable demands. She thought of his dry amusement when the cooks openly wept at the amount of work they were being saddled with to feed the increasing number of Saiyans and how they complained about Sasha’s appetite.

The castle had the warmth of a home. 

And she wanted to feel that warmth again. 

…

“Not bad,” I muttered, looking at the hologram of Attack on Titan’s version of Earth, standing in my war room in the capital. Alongside me were Commander Erwin and Commander Pixis, both looking at the hologram with a sense of wonder that they still hadn’t shaken off, even if it had been around a year since I’d unveiled the technology to them. They also watched the shifting lines across Marley as points of contention vanished one after another. 

Satellite tech was pretty simple when you came right down to it. It was just shooting something off into space at the right speed to get a stable orbit. Once we got a power grid up, that opened the path to computers. And with computers came programs that I could use to do all the calculations for me. Because, as the Saiyan Empire suspected, I didn't have the aptitude or the willingness to learn all that myself. It was for ease of use. 

Iceburst crystal made for a fantastic propellant, to the point that even within the Attack Ball’s schematics I couldn’t find much better rocket fuel outside of outright anti-gravity tech. It didn’t take much to reach a stable orbit, and from there, we could toss up as many as we liked since it was technology that only we had at the moment. As such, we had a perfect view of the battlefield and beyond, complete with real-time viewing. 

War was about information as much as it was weapons or people. We knew everything about our enemies, and they knew nothing about us. We possessed weapons and armor that vastly outpaced their arms and armor. Our jets were the equivalent of 5th generation fighter jets from back in my old life only better, with ultrahard steel, crystal-based computers, and iceburst stone-based fuel. 

In essence, we were hitting them with 21st century military hardware while they were stuck with what amounted to pre-WWI technology. If not worse. While the electronic side of things was still in the early nineties in terms of processing power, I’d be willing to put one of my jets against a 5th gen jet fighter. 

“This is what your people consider war, is it?” Pixis muttered more to himself than to me, clutching the flask in his hand with a tight grip. 

“It’s what I call war,” I replied. Assassinations. Backroom deals. Four years of effort all for this moment, and I had to say, it was worth it. Our military utterly dominated Marley. The tech gap was just too huge. With the crystal armor alone we could have dominated them, the jets were frankly overkill. We didn’t even need to perform all this backdoor diplomacy, really. But if we hadn’t, then the takeover wouldn’t have been anywhere near this clean. 

It had been a month since we’d revealed ourselves to the world in an overwhelming display of force. Realistically speaking, the battle had been won on the first day. Marley had dedicated substantial resources to the attack on Paradis. It was an all-or-nothing gamble -- they had neglected their other fronts, allocating resources that should have gone to them and leaving their slave legions on their own with orders to die for every inch of territory. If it had paid off, they’d have Six of the Nine once more. 

But it hadn’t paid off. Marley was done, even if it was in denial of that fact. If not from my forces then the Mid-East Alliance, who would happily drag them to the table kicking and screaming to give it to them dry. 

But I wasn’t one to leave an animal suffering. In the weeks since our first move, we had been mopping up Marley. The liberated Eldians were equipped with basic armor and weapons, and they became occupation forces for the cities since we didn’t have enough people. All the more so since squads of our soldiers were being sprinkled across the continent, teams of five being sent to military bases and slaughtering everyone there unless they found someone that had enough brain cells to surrender to a ‘Devil.’

Most didn’t. For the Marleyans, this was their worst nightmare made manifest. So many simply didn’t consider surrendering an option. 

“Then the plan remains unchanged,” Erwin noted, enraptured by the hologram. “Once Marley has been conquered, we aid the Eldian rebellions throughout the world. The estimated timeline is still correct?”

“Hm. We’re ahead of schedule,” I noted. We were watching the last traces of Marley resistance falling in the interior of the continent. And it only took a month because of the transports delivering the occupation forces and organizing the fractured nation. “Mikasa, Levi, and Kenny’s teams can start the flight over to the Mid-East Alliance. They’re already fracturing as it is.”

“It seems too easy,” Pixis noted, looking down into his flask. 

To that, I snorted. “If it wasn’t easy, then we’d have wasted four years.” This was the equivalent of spending four years getting jacked in the gym and taking MMA lessons to jump a baby with whooping cough. If it was anything other than a completely one-sided beatdown, then it meant we were idiots and wasting our time. 

But, with Marley’s fall, it was time to look elsewhere.

Hizuru was already ours because they were the AoT equivalent of North Korea in terms of diplomatic isolation, which made Mikasa their equivalent to a Kim Jong Un who had been lost to them for a century. While the whole plot point had been an outright ass pull in canon, I had to say, it was very useful for our plans. 

Promising them the territory that they lost over the past hundred years -- coastal islands and such, along with territory that had been on their wishlist, like this world's equivalent to Australia, Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and strategic control of territories in China… Well, it was the Not-Japanese Empire’s wet dream. 

The Americas, which were called Acirema in this world, were only just now being colonized. Flipping the equivalent of the thirteen colonies had been outrageously easy. They were already chafing under taxes without representation and all that. A little display of power that rendered the Titans useless, and thus their greatest fear of what would happen if they raised a rebellion? Easy and done. 

Meanwhile, the Mid-East Alliance was a feisty bunch that hated each other only a little bit less than they all hated Marley. Stuff some pockets, slit some throats, and the whole alliance would come undone. 

“In the next three weeks, the other nations will be destabilized and overthrown with friendly governments, with the exception of Hizuru, of course. In six months' time, the unrest will be quelled.” Meaning the trouble makers would be dead, and the rest will have found that living under my boot wasn’t so bad. With advanced technology, farming methods, and the like -- life was going to get a whole lot better for a lot of them. 

“In three years' time, the first line in our grand-scale projects will be completed,” I continued. Intercontinental railways. Large-scale urban development projects designed to guide the explosive growth that I knew the human race was sprinting full speed ahead at. In about a century, the population would jump from around two billion to eight billion. Likewise, projects like energy production, agricultural development, and more were going to be built to future-proof the planet. 

Meanwhile, the vast resources of the planet were going to be harnessed and exploited. All to build these large-scale projects, and to develop some others. 

“And after that, King Galick?” Erwin questioned, and I offered a thin smile. The man had stars in his eyes. There was a time where I had thought that learning what lay beyond the Walls would have broken the man. Or at the very least, made him lose his edge, the edge that made him sacrifice hundreds of recruits to distract the Beast Titan so Levi could get the job done. But it seemed that the goal post had only shifted for him. 

“I was sent to this system to restore the Saiyan Empire,” I began, making a gesture at the hologram to make it shift. “The Old Empire wasn’t worth much, but when it came to conquest, few knew their stuff better. They sent me to an out-of-the-way cluster at the very edge of the galaxy… and gave me as ideal a start as they could manage.”

The hologram of the planet zoomed out to show the local star system, much to Erwin’s amazement. The man carried himself with a quiet joy as he inspected the next and largest expansion to his world - the worlds that shared a star with his. There were six planets in the system, but due to the size of the yellow star only three of those planets were in the Goldilocks zone, with the others outside of it with a large asteroid belt dividing the six planets in half. 

“This planet is yours,” I said, highlighting the planet in the middle of the other two in the Goldilocks zone. “These other two, however-”

“They’re occupied?” Erwin interjected, and he only seemed aware of it after the words left his lips. “Ah, my apologies, King Galick.”

“Nothing to be sorry for -- you’re right. They’re occupied,” I confirmed. My Attack Ball had released that information the moment we put satellites in orbit, as well as details about the planets. “This planet was assigned a threat ranking of point one. The one closest to the sun was assigned a threat ranking of Null. The furthest received a threat ranking of one.” 

“And what exactly do these threat rankings mean?” Pixis questioned, eying the three planets. Four years was a long time to know someone, especially when you had as many meetings with each other as we did. I could tell he knew where this was going, and he was adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach before reacting. 

“Null essentially means that even if I gave the entire world an opportunity to hit me with everything that it had, it wouldn’t be able to so much as draw a drop of blood,” I answered. “A threat ranking of one, however, indicated that while a single Low-Class Saiyan like myself could conquer the planet, it would be a fight.” 

It was a testament to how far we had come when that information gave them a sense of distinct unease rather than interest at the thought of gaining a silver bullet to use against me. 

“The next three years are going to be crucial. Neither of these planets possesses any space flight technology, so as of this moment, they are not a direct threat against us. But just because they don’t doesn’t mean others won’t. For that reason, the space elevator, star fleet, and shipyard are all high priority.” I continued, looking between the men to see that their gazes took a hard edge. 

And that was why I had spent four years of my life committed to this method. It was one thing to force someone to follow you because you had a gun to their head. It was another to have them willingly follow you wherever you pointed. 

I had kept my word for four years. Everything that I’d warned of came to pass. And, because of the preparations that I began, not only had the Titans been eliminated but a greater threat that surely would have wiped them off the map before my arrival was dealt with without a single casualty. 

I had earned their trust. Their faith. And their loyalty. 

“Hm. Before we think of expanding to other planets, we should first secure our grip on this one,” Pixis noted, and I nodded. 

“Agreed. No point in looking next door if we have trouble in our own backyard,” I agreed. By my estimations, it would be about ten years before the planet really came to terms with becoming a space-faring civilization and for the old lines in the sand to fade from memory. Probably. Attack on Titan’s humanity sure knew how to hold a grudge. But time and distance would help deal with the issue. Likewise, adding more people to our empire would dilute the bad blood. 

By the end of the decade, I wanted to have this star system firmly in my grasp. All three habitable planets, bound together underneath my banner. I wanted to harvest the asteroid field. I wanted to begin terraforming the three uninhabited planets in the system. I wanted to terraform their moons. I wanted to build space colonies. I wanted to build space fortresses. 

Not all of it would be ready by the end of that decade. Honestly, that was the work of a couple decades. And that wasn’t an inconsiderable part of my life to stay in one small star system, especially one so weak. 

I had a solution to that… and I think it was finally time to put it in play. 

Adjourning the briefing, we parted ways and began to head to put the pieces in place. However, as I did so, I sensed a couple presences following me through the halls. A sly grin tugged at my lips as I pretended to not notice them, nor their giggles when they thought they were being sneaky and getting the better of me. 

Changing my route, I headed towards the gardens to give them plenty of space. They had learned to be patient, I realized with some pride, as I made a show of heading to a tree where I usually took a nap. That pride quickly turned into exasperated amusement when I heard a loud shout of, “SNEAK ATTACK- oof!”

Elery aimed a kick at the back of my head, and I pivoted on a heel, grabbing her leg. Her bright blue eyes were wide with shock, and her black hair was pulled back in a short braid, while she had a matching lock of hair falling towards one eye. With a swipe, I sent her body crashing into my eldest son, who had attempted to drop kick the back of my knees. 

Rako, my son born to me and Rico, had stark white hair and black eyes. Beyond that, he was almost a carbon copy of me, down to the hairstyle. His expression was one of resigned acceptance as I batted him away, Elery shouting all the while, before I slammed her into my second oldest child. 

Eshallot, a daughter born of Nanaba, who grunted as she shoved my fourth oldest and second son, Taron, born from Sasha, out of the way. Unlike his brother, he favored Sasha more than me with reddish brown hair and golden brown eyes. Eshallot however favored me more with my black hair and eyes, though her hairstyle was different than mine. 

Hybrids were weird, and there was no telling who would get what genes. It was a relief to see that at least all of them had a tail. And that even upon just being born, they were powerful. A power level of 5pl might not seem impressive by Saiyan standards, but considering that it was the same power level as a fully grown man armed with a shotgun? It was very impressive by human standards. And as they grew older, the bunch of them now three year old toddlers, their power levels had increased. 

They might not have the same explosive potential as Gohan, but they did have the same limitless potential that all Saiyans possessed. 

“Get him!” Bayne, my son with Hange, shouted as he fired off a weak ki blast from the bushes. Oh, they had learned about ranged support already? Batting away the blue ki, I sent one of my own back at him that struck him in the head. 

“Stop using me as a weapon!” Elery shouted, stomping on my wrist to escape my grasp as I hit Taron with a back swing. “You said only cowards use weapons! Real Saiyans kill their enemies with their fists!”

“I’ll save you, Elery- oof!” Paya, my daughter with Ymir, shouted before I threw Elery at her, knocking them both over. 

I’ll admit, using one child to bludgeon my other children wasn’t exactly the best look, but for Saiyans, it was the equivalent of wrasslin’ and horsing around. They were fine. And, to prove it, they were already on their feet with wide smiles. 

They threw themselves at me with a reckless abandon that only children were truly capable of. Just pint sized aggression unleashed upon a target that they knew that they couldn’t break. Not all of them had that Saiyan urge to fight as strong as others -- Elery was probably the most ‘Saiyan’ out of the hybrids. She wanted to fight every second of every day, and when she wasn’t fighting, then she wanted to eat. 

Paya, however, probably displayed that instinct the least. However, she was attached to Elery at the hip, so she was usually dragged into whatever ruckus Elery managed to create. 

‘It’s a nice moment,’ I thought to myself, gently sparring with all of my children. Well, at least the ones that were here -- the rest, I could sense, were where they were supposed to be at the moment. School.

The Relief Regiment had undergone some changes over the past few years. The birth of Elery had been something of a catalyst for it. The core idea of it was sound -- Saiyans, frankly, were overpowered. Even if all of humanity were Ackermans, fully equipped with the technology that I introduced, and even if they were enhanced with Titan Shifter powers… it was simply no contest. 

My children, at three years old, could lay waste to Paradis’ military. Meaning that, no matter what, having a lot of kids was in my empire’s interest. 

I just… stopped thinking with my dick. Or, rather, I thought less with my dick. The idea of the Relief Corp was still appealing -- an independent military force that answered directly to me, and were the mothers of my children, thus causes for loyalty. However, what changed was that I got more… picky. It wasn’t enough to have a pretty face and some skills in combat. 

The thought of bringing spies into my home hadn’t bothered me initially when it had just been me that they could take a shot at. My kids caused that perspective to breakdown rather harshly. 

The result was that the Relief Regiment had shrunk down significantly over the past couple of years, becoming a handful of core members. Some of them were a one-and-done, like Hange, who had Bayne, and rejoined the Survey Corp.. Others joined, had a child, then retired to inactive service or from the military itself at their promised barony. Likewise, the rate that I was having children slowed significantly after the initial… well… batch, I suppose you could call them. 

At the moment, in the four years since I had arrived on this planet, the Saiyan population had exploded from one Saiyan to twenty. 

That number would increase, of course. Especially as I scouted other potential partners to bring into the Relief Regiment. 

“What are you lot doing out here, hm? Class should still be in session,” I noted, blocking a high kick with my forearm while sweeping the feet of Rako when he went low. 

The question got a telling pause and a few guilty glances before Elery spoke up, “It got cancled. For… forever,” she blurted. She paused, as if she were examining the lie for any gaps, then nodded to herself in satisfaction, confirming that was, in fact, the story she was going with. 

“That so? Then if I ask your mothers about that, then they’ll say the same thing, would they?” That got bullets of sweat, but to their credit, they doubled down and stuck with the lie. “In that case…” I trailed off, looking over at three women that were entering the gardens, likely drawn in by the noise. 

I saw Pieck, Ymir, and Historia all approaching the gardens, drawn to the noise. 

Historia looked equal parts exasperated and fond as she watched us. “They’re meant to be studying, Galick,” she chided, wincing ever so slightly when I made Rako and Taron headbutt each other. 

“They ambushed me. Didn’t have a choice but to defend myself,” I replied, grinning as I grabbed Elery and gave her a noogie. The shout of rage she unleashed was worthy of a Super Saiyan. “But, you’re right. Sorry, but the day isn’t over for me.”

“Nooo! I don’t wanna study!” Elery cried out, and you’d think I was sentencing her to death based on that reaction. 

“What’s wrong with studying?” I asked, flicking her ear. “Daddy studies all the time.” I had to for what came next.

“That’s because you’re dumb and you need to. I’m smart!” Elery huffed, rubbing her ear and I just shook my head at her. 

“Off to finish conquering Marley?” Pieck questioned, her tone light for all the weight the words carried. She had settled in well, I think. I’d brought her dad from the interment zone, and by the time she saw what we were building… She had been fence-sitting up until that point, ready to betray either side. And that lasted right up until she realized that it was impossible for the rest of the world to win. 

“Something like that,” I deflected with a smile. I liked Pieck. I just knew better than to trust her, especially with the secret that I was about to put to rest. “I’ll be back later, kids. After second dinner- I promise,” I added upon seeing the immense disappointment on the kids' faces. But the promise mollified them, and I extracted myself from their tangled grips. Elery, Paya, and Lotus all went straight to their mothers in an attempt to convince them that they didn’t need to go to school. 

As they did, my gaze lingered on them before I turned away and flew off. 

Paradis Island was an island of secrets, even before King Fritz arrived. And I had been using it to keep a few of my own. Before it became where he and millions of others came to die, it was the personal pleasure palace of the Eldian kings before him. As one would expect, when someone possesses absolute power… they tend to be little shits. 

The rest of the world was stupid about it, but it couldn't be denied that the Eldians of yore had absolutely deserved every drop of hate and vitriol. Their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren though? Not so much. But, it couldn't be denied that the Eldians had been a bunch of sadistic bastards riding high on being at the top of the dog pile for about two thousand years. 

There were old castles and villas dotted around the island. They weren't in great condition after a century of neglect and wayward Titans getting curious and taking a peek inside. But they still stood, and it was one near the sea that I arrived at. I landed before the secret entrance and rolled the stone I had covering it over. 

Then, slowly, I reached up to my scouter. “Attack Ball. Arrive at my location with stealth mode still engaged,” I ordered, which would give me a few minutes before the Attack Ball arrived. Meanwhile I walked down the steps, with each footstep echoing down the stone halls that wound down and down for a good thirty feet. 

Arriving at a door, I pushed it open to reveal what had been an Eldian sex dungeon. It was a wide open room, and inside there were three people. The most notable of which was the one on my immediate left, who greeted me with a huff of breath that stirred the entire room. Looking over, I was greeted with a familiar smile. A dull, blank look, vacant eyes, yet a wide smile stretched across her cheeks. 

The Smiling Titan. 

Dina Fritz. 

I had told everyone that the Titans had been eliminated from the island, and that was true, except for the ones in the Walls and… her. The Titan that consumed Eren’s mother. The first wife of Grisha Yeager. A member of the royal family, with royal blood flowing through her veins. 

It was just her head that was down here. So long as the nape of the neck was intact, a Titan could regenerate. And that's what they used to do in this fucked up dungeon. Marley forgot that Eldians could be every bit as cruel to fellow Eldians as they could be to others. Some noble, or king, would turn someone into a Titan and carry the severed nape down here to put them in the spot she now occupied. A massive O-gag would be fit into the Titan’s mouth, and the vents would open to allow sunlight to reach the Titan so it would become active.

That had been a revelation and a half when I found this place.

“Any issues?” I asked, looking at the other two occupants in the room. One of them was myself. He sat in the air, balancing on the tip of his tail, as he meditated before a large crystal with a woman in it. 

Lara Tybur. Sister of Willy Tybur, and the Warhammer Titan. She was pulling the same trick Annie did in the show by encasing herself in crystal as she waited for the opportunity to escape. The reason why I had a Clone staying here with her was to make sure that she didn't. 

“You'd know if there were,” My clone remarked, holding out a hand, and I reabsorbed him, along with half of my ki. The memories settled, and I realized he- that I had stumbled onto an interesting idea for a new technique. Something to try later. 

Lara was in the center of the room, with an altered Healing Pod filling the right. It wasn't a normal one, as I had designed it with one particular purpose in mind. I double-checked to make sure that everything was ready to gonwhile my Attack Ball was descending. Every movement I took was slow and deliberate, done with the utmost care because, as much as I might plan and scheme, this was the moment that could make or break me. The fluid was alright, the machine was primed… all that was left was to just… do it.

It still felt too soon when my ship arrived and I ventured back up to look at it once more. I hadn't seen it since my first day here, but it still looked the same. And when I looked through the window, I saw the original protagonist of the story. 

Eren Yeager. Still in his cadet uniform and still fifteen years old. The hibernation function of the ship put the body in such a deep sleep that you were functionally dead except for basic brain activity. You didn't age, you didn't grow. You just sat there, dead to the world, until the function ended. 

“Hello, sleeping beauty,” I remarked to Eren, double-checking his vitals to make sure that he was still alive. He was. Just… 

Not for much longer. 

“I am sorry about this,” I told him as the Attack Ball’s door opened with a hiss of pressurized air. Reaching in, I grabbed Eren by the shirt. “And I'm sorry for tossing you in there so haphazardly. I was on something of a power trip, you see. The world wasn't real to me yet. It was a fictional setting, you all were a bunch of characters, and you felt like a roadblock to my enjoyment. I mean it -- I'm sorry,” I told him as I dragged him down the stairs and back into the dungeon. 

“I have children now,” I continued to justify myself as I laid Eren on a table that was attached to the healing pod. “Friends. Lovers. I care about this world and what happens to it. The thought that there could be something out there that could just arrive on my planet, take the place over, kill my kids and me? That keeps me up at night.” I confessed to him, ripping off his jacket and shirt and placing him face down onto the table. 

A small sigh escaped me as Eren was injected with a drug to make sure he stayed unconscious. He couldn't hear me, but I continued all the same. “I'm doing this because I'm afraid,” I confessed to him. “I'm afraid that I won't be strong enough when the time comes. When we venture out into the stars and find something hostile, or something hostile finds us -- I'm afraid that I'll fail. I'm afraid people I love will die. I'm afraid that my children will die.” 

I swallowed a lump in my throat and breathed deeply. “There's something in your head that can make me stronger, Eren. So, I'm going to take it from you even if it means killing you. It doesn't change a damn thing for you, but I'm sorry. I'll make Mikasa happy. I'll make sure Armin sees things he's never imagined before. That's a promise from me. But… you're still going to die here.” Mikasa couldn't ever learn of this. Armin either. 

If this secret got out, I'd lose every shred of their trust and loyalty that I had earned up until this point. 

So, I wouldn't let it. 

Closing my eyes, I reached up and plucked a hair and imbued it with a portion of my ki. Just a sliver of it. The very lowest amount I had managed to create a Clone with was the equivalent of 5pl worth of ki. The one I created had a power level of 10pl, allowing him to split once. I spent four years mastering the Multiform technique for this day, and it had finally arrived.

My clones were me. Meaning that they were a valid target for the Founding Titan to latch onto. Likewise, by having it attached to a clone, I could mitigate the risks to myself. 

“Wish me luck,” my clone said, climbing into the healing pod and I began the sequence of filling it up. The clone was quickly submerged, and… there was only one thing left to do. 

I pressed the button to begin the operation. 

The table that Eren was on was enclosed before it too began to fill with healing fluid. The capsule around him was all clear crystal, both to let me see the operation and to prevent the little eldritch being hiding in Eren’s spine from escaping. Once the tank was full, Eren floated for a moment before a blade passed through his neck, severing his head. Blood erupted from the stump of his neck, and fast as a whip, I saw it. 

A silver white, faintly translucent worm with writhing stubby tendrils erupted from Eren’s neck in an attempt to reconnect with the head, only to be blocked by a wall that had acted as the blade. It fully emerged from him, and unlike its canon appearance, it was barely a foot long. It writhed in panic and fear, and it was at that moment that a port opened up on the side of the dome. 

The creature sensed my clone and sped through the port into the healing pod, and I watched as it attached itself to my clone's spine. The creature was a curious thing. I couldn't really sense it with ki. It was there, but its presence felt… fuzzy and weak. My scouter couldn't detect it all. I did feel, however, the jump in power that my clone had -- from 10pl to 125pl. I guess Saiyans were more compatible with it. 

“Sorry, Eren,” I told him again, because the procedure wasn't done. If it was just this, I could probably save his life. It took a bit for the brain to die, and with the healing fluid, I could put the head back in place, and the wound would heal up. I had no idea how I could explain his survival and disappearance, but there wasn't anything directly tying him to me beyond the fact that he disappeared when I arrived, but that was circumstantial and as far as anyone knew I didn't have any motive to kidnap him for four years, then return him. 

But, it wasn't just this. 

Eren had been able to maintain his Titan form even with the bulk of the creature severed. And, in the ending, there had been a montage of the decades or centuries that came after the events of Attack on Titan. The tree that Eren was buried under grew to be gigantic, and the spitting image of the tree that Ymir had stumbled across two thousand years ago. We didn't get to see it, but a boy and his dog found the tree with the theme of ‘the cycle continues.’ Meaning that there was still some of the creature left in Eren’s head. 

To get it out, his head and brain were destroyed. Sure enough, in the bloody fluid, I saw the head of the creature -- it was a featureless nub except for two antenna-looking things emerging from the top. The second the port opened to the healing pod, the head grew a body from nothing, slithering forward like a snake, before it rejoined with the rest of the body that was now residing in my clone’s spine. 

“Oh,” I remarked, sensing my clone’s power level jump to 500pl. I'm not entirely sure why as of yet but I would get answers in due time. The clone took a moment before he began the draining procedure, while I went about disposing of Eren’s body. Once the fluid was drained, my clone emerged from the pod. “Feel any different? Your power level spiked hard.” 

“Not really?” My Clone replied, his brow furrowing. “And there was nothing. No Ymir or the Paths.” 

I figured as much. “Well, you're connected to it now. Zeke called the thing a ‘mindless god.’ Ymir is the one who gave it a will. She didn't reveal herself to Eren when he ate his father, so she might not care unless you're interacting with royal blood.” I ventured, offering a small shrug before I turned my attention to Lara, who remained unflinching in the stone. Another sigh heaved out of me. 

I had hoped that I could use either Reiner or Bertholdt for this, but they were eaten years ago. 

Hange ate the Armored Titan, even knowing that it'd reduce her lifespan to a mere thirteen years. 

Bertholdt was eaten by Hannes, the Garrison drunk, who had turned his life around after Wall Maria fell. He was a trusted subordinate of Pixis, and he wanted him close back during the days when he was planning on killing me if he had to.

Ymir the second, Pieck, and Annie were out. I needed the Founding Titan, and the Attack Titan was a package deal with it. The Beast Titan was currently a four-year-old, and I wasn't callous enough to  to feed a kid to a Titan when there was one other option left, which was… Lara, the Warhammer Titan. The real kicker was that it had to be a Titan Shifter with royal blood. Otherwise, Eren wouldn’t have needed to jump through all those hoops with Zeke and touch Historia’s hand to begin the Rumbling. 

“Sorry about this, but I don't have better options,” I told her before I swung a fist at the crystal. It shattered under my fist as I tore through it, cutting Lara in half before me and my clone grabbed the two halves and rushed them to the Smiling Titan's head. 

Only the spinal fluid needed to be consumed. Eren proved that when he ate the Warhammer Titan. 

Sure enough, the Smiling Titan erupted in steam and I moved it forward. The moment that the spinal fluid hit her tongue, Dina began to emerge from the nape of the neck. She was a blonde woman, completely naked, and in her mid twenties, I think. Grabbing a blanket, I threw it over her and saw that she was starting to wake up already.

However, I took a step back and allowed my clone to approach. Passing it to him, I got out of sight to avoid confusion, and I heard him approach the waking Diana. “Wh… what? Where am…I?” She slurred, sounding like she had just woken up from a bender. Or a nightmare that had lasted about twenty years. 

“My name is King Galick of Paradis,” my clone told her, laying the blanket over her. “I'm sure that you have questions, and I promise, I'll answer all of them. Can you stand?” He asked her, standing up and offering a hand. 

“Y-Yes! Thank you-” Dina cut herself off before, all of a sudden, her breathing hitched. They had made contact. Royal blood with the power of a Titan Shifter, plus the Founding Titan. That was a straight ticket to the Paths. I expected something a bit more grand when they entered, or left, but all I heard was an “Oh? We're back?” 

Time meant nothing in the Paths where the past, present, and future were happening all at once. A second in real time could be centuries in the Paths. 

At that second, I revealed myself, and Dina didn't seem surprised to see me. Her brows furrowed a bit, but there was no reaction beyond that. Meanwhile, my gaze was affixed to my clone, who was looking back at me with a cocky smile. That was a promising sign. “So? How'd it go?” 

My clone's smile grew as he offered a hand, “Merge with me and find out.” He said, and the confidence that radiated off of him was compelling. With a shrug of my shoulders, I reached out and allowed my ki to flow into him as his body housed the ‘Source of All Living Matter.’ 

And then I saw everything.  

…

Kid list.

Historia - Elery - girl - 3

Rico - Rako - boy - 3

Nanaba - Eshallot - girl - 3

Sasha - Taron - boy - 3

Ymir - Paya - girl - 3

Hange- Bayne - boy - 3