Chapter Text
Chapter 1: How to be an Average Soldier.
Mina Carolina knew she was average. Not the kind of average that meant she was reliable or a "steady hand," but the kind that meant she blended into the background of every formation, a face in the crowd that instructors forgot to name until they checked their clipboards. She didn't have Eren's screaming ambition or Armin's frightening intellect. She just wanted a warm bed and a meal that didn't taste like sawdust. Being assigned to the squad led by Eren Yeager had felt like a stroke of luck at first; the group had a decent vibe, and for a few hours, she actually felt like she belonged somewhere. Then the world turned into a slaughterhouse.
It started with Thomas. He wasn't slow—he was just human. One second he was there, and the next, an Abnormal had lunged with a speed that defied everything they'd been taught in training. There was no heroic last stand, just a sickening crunch and the sudden, jarring realization that Thomas was no longer a soldier, but a snack. Mina remember the way her breath hitched, the sudden, oppressive silence of the rest of the squad as they watched him disappear into a maw of wet, grinding teeth.
Then the cohesion snapped. Eren didn't wait for orders; he didn't even look back. He just bolted, driven by some blind, frantic need to save someone, and Armin—ever the loyal shadow—followed him. They left the rest of them behind, stranded in the middle of a chaotic urban nightmare. Mina felt a surge of betrayal, but it was quickly drowned out by the sound of screaming. She was forced to watch the carnage in slow motion, the "average" soldier unable to do anything but witness her friends getting picked off one by one.
Nac Tias was the one she'd spent the last few months pretending not to notice. He was objectively too handsome for their own good, the kind of kind-faced boy who'd actually make a decent officer one day, and he'd managed to scrape into the top ten of their class. Mina was pretty sure he liked her back—there were those lingering glances and the way he'd save her a seat at dinner—and she'd spent a lot of sleepless nights actually liking him back. But the Titans didn't care about rankings or teenage crushes.
Nac didn't even have time to scream. Something massive, an Abnormal that had come crashing down from the rooftops, slammed into him with the force of a falling building. He didn't fly back; he just... vanished into a spray of red against the cobblestones. One second he was the boy she wanted to hold hands with, and the next, he was just a splatter on the pavement. Mina stared at the spot where he'd been, her mouth hanging open, her brain refusing to process why there was so much blood on the gray stone.
"Mina! Move! Get the hell out of there!"
The voice belonged to Mylius Zeramuski. He was gripping her shoulder so hard it bruised, his face pale and streaked with soot. Before Mina could even blink, he yanked her upward, the ODM gear hissing as they launched themselves toward the nearest rooftop. For a heartbeat, the wind whipped past her ears, and she thought they might actually make it. Then, a hand—massive, pale, and smelling of rotting meat—swung out from a narrow alleyway with a speed that didn't make sense for its size.
It didn't grab them; it just swatted. Mylius didn't even have time to scream. The blow caught him mid-air, sending him hurtling backward like a stone from a sling. Mina watched, suspended in the air, as he slammed head-first into a glass window. There was a sickening crack, a spray of shards and red, and then he was just... still. He didn't move. He didn't even twitch.
Mina felt a strange, cold dizziness wash over her. The world seemed to tilt. She tried to fire her grapples to stabilize herself, but her hands were shaking too much. She was drifting, floating in a void of shock, when a second Titan—a wide-eyed, slack-jawed thing—lunged forward. It didn't try to eat her; it just slapped the side of her gear with a lazy, heavy palm. The force ripped her right out of the harness.
She flew. It wasn't a graceful flight; it was a violent, tumbling trajectory that ended with her ribs colliding against a stone pillar of a nearby house. The impact knocked the wind out of her, leaving her sprawled on the cobblestones, gasping for air that wouldn't come. She lay there, staring up at the gray sky, feeling a weird, detached sense of peace. 'Huh' she thought, a small, tired smile touching her lips. 'I guess I'll get to see mama and papa soon.'
The thought didn't scare her. It felt like a relief. Trost was falling, and the cycle was just repeating itself. The same screams, the same blood, the same desperate flight. She closed her eyes for a second, imagining the smell of the soil back home, the kind of honest dirt that didn't smell like death.
A shadow fell over her. She opened her eyes to see three Titans—each at least ten meters tall—lumbering toward her, their expressions vacant and hungry. Five more were closing in from the street corners, their heavy footfalls shaking the ground beneath her. She didn't try to get up; she didn't have the strength. She just looked at the nearest one and whispered, "See you later, mama. See you soon, papa."
Then, the air didn't just vibrate; it screamed.
A sound like a jet engine tearing through a library ripped through the street, and something massive, something made of green-painted steel and humming energy, slammed down from the sky. The impact was so violent it cracked the pavement and sent a shockwave that knocked the nearest Titan off its feet. Mina blinked, her vision blurring, as she looked up at a towering metal giant. It didn't have a face, just a single, glowing pink eye—a cyclopean lens that rolled toward her, staring down at her small, broken form for a heartbeat.
The giant didn't move for a second, its massive green bulk casting a shadow that swallowed Mina whole. The single, glowing pink lens shifted, rolling slowly toward her as if it were actually looking at her, assessing the broken girl on the pavement. Then, as quickly as it had noticed her, the machine ignored her. It pivoted with a heavy, metallic groan, swinging a weapon the size of a house into the air. The edge of the axe suddenly flared, igniting with a blinding, white-hot intensity that looked less like fire and more like a captured sun. With a sudden, violent downward arc, the blade cleaved through the nearest Titan, slicing through its neck and torso in one fluid motion. The creature didn't even have time to react before it was split in two, the cauterized flesh smoking in the air.
Mina could only stare, her breath coming in ragged hitches. The thing—the weird, steel monster—hissed, venting a thick cloud of white steam from its head that obscured the pink eye for a moment. Then, a voice erupted from the machine. It wasn't a robotic drone; it was a loud, cracking human voice, amplified by some unseen speakers to a deafening roar that echoed off the surrounding buildings.
"Holy crap, is this dimension X0-A1T?"
The voice didn't just boom; it rattled Mina's teeth in her skull. "Wait, everything looks... backward? Like, really backward," the voice continued, sounding less like a warrior and more like a confused tourist who had taken a very wrong turn. "Damn, they probably don't even have electricity here. What is this, the middle ages?"
A massive hiss of steam erupted from the machine's head, a loud, mechanical sigh that sounded almost human. Then, the tone shifted. The confusion vanished, replaced by a sudden, frantic energy. "Oh, well! Looks like the same old story—enemies everywhere!" The giant suddenly lurched, its heavy metal feet grinding into the cobblestones. "For the Principality of Zeon!"
The Zaku didn't just attack; it made a spectacle of it. The giant raised the glowing Heat Hawk high into the air, a blinding torch of white-hot energy that signaled every Titan in the vicinity. It was like a flare going off in a dark room. The machine's voice boomed again, sounding way too excited for someone fighting monsters. "For the future of all humanity! Hail Zeon!"
Then it charged.
The ground shuddered under the weight of the steel giant as it sprinted forward, the movement jerky but terrifyingly fast. The pilot was laughing—a loud, manic sound that bled through the speakers, sounding like a kid who had finally been given the keys to a toy store. The Zaku swung the axe in a wide, brutal arc, the blade slicing through the neck of the nearest Titan with a hiss of searing meat. It didn't stop there. It pivoted on one foot, the heavy metal heel crushing a cobblestone wall, and brought the axe down on a second Titan, splitting its skull clean open. The laughter continued, echoing through the street, mixing with the sound of crashing masonry and the screams of the dying.
Mina lay on the ground, her head leaning against the cold stone. Through the haze of her blurred vision, she saw movement on a nearby rooftop. There they were. Eren and Armin had stopped. They weren't running anymore; they were staring, frozen in a mixture of horror and awe at the green monster tearing through their enemies.
A sudden, sharp spike of anger flared in Mina's chest, cutting through the shock. They had left her. They had left everyone. They had bolted the second things got ugly, and now they were back just in time to watch someone else do the saving. A bitter, jagged laugh bubbled up in her throat. 'Fuck you, Armin' she thought, the words tasting like copper and dust. 'Fuck you, Eren. Fuck all of you.'
The adrenaline that had been keeping her conscious finally evaporated, leaving behind a void of exhaustion and agony. The laughter of the pilot and the crashing of the Zaku began to fade into a distant hum. As the world dissolved into black, Mina's last thought was a dull, satisfied feeling that she wouldn't have to be 'average' for a while.
She passed out.