The 5th Ackermann

57- The Latest Hope

Written: 2/28/21

Published: 4/5/21

Thank you all soooooo much for indirectly giving me $20!!!!!! You all are the best! Don't forget to comment.

(I wanted to name this A New Hope, but then I realized Star Wars. Now the name sounds awful. Oh well.)

      Hanji and almost all the soldiers of the scouts were in a room. Hanji had mysterious, long, metal sticks laying on the table.

     "This iron rod is our new weapon?" Eren asked.

     Hanji picked one up. "Could you at least call it a spear?" Hanji grinned. "I placed the order, and the engineers delivered once they had access to the tech the interior MPs had kept hidden. What I asked for was a weapon we could use to fight the Armored Titan."

     "The Armored Titan?!" Armin exclaimed surprisedly.

     "Our blades were useless against it." Hanji reminded. "Since our enemy never showed an opening in his hardened armor, all we could do was sit there and watch as Eren fought against him."

    "You're right..." Jean muttered. "We couldn't stop him even as he ran off with Eren and Y/n."

    "If the commander hadn't brought a horde of titans along with him that day, then..." Connie didn't even want to finish the sentence. The thought of Y/n being taken from them... taken to enemy territory alone... They knew she was strong, but still. Unarmed as Captain Y/n was at the time, it would be impossible to kill several people alone stranded. Eren was with her of course, but he's an idiot.

     "As it is..." Hanji continued. "In his titan form, Eren's hooks and joint locks have been effective against the armored titan. We can expect great things from the hardened punch Eren acquired in last month's experiments. However, it would be difficult to carry out this mission with those weapons alone. Plugging the hole in the wall is important. But most of all, we have to kill the two responsible for breaching it. Reiner and Bertholdt."

     Y/n flinched. She inwardly shook her head. Maybe I can save them somehow... paying for their discretions would be necessary.

   "So..." Mikasa spoke up. "You're saying we're going to stab the Armored Titan with that spear?"

    Hanji took a thumb and pointed to the window. "Why don't I just show you? Let's go outside."

    The soldiers moved outside. There were trees surrounding the area. Everyone had crowded around Hanji. She put an arm out. "Stand quite a ways away." She instructed. Everyone did so as Hanji held up the ODM device. She pulled a trigger and the 'spear' went shooting towards one of the trees. The scientist threw her arm in the sky and dove behind a large wooden shield. An extremely thin string came loose. A loud ringing erupted from the object. The spear then exploded, destroying the tree.

      "The effect, as you can see..." Hanji said. "...is like a bolt of lightning. That's why I call it the thunder spear."

     "It sounds more like an explosive, flying stick if you ask me." Y/n commented.

     "Precisely!" Hanji grinned. "Of course, can it really pierce that armor? We won't know for sure until we try. While it works well on slow, dull titans, it has a weakness. For this to get through armor... we need to do something special first."

~~~~~

     Two months had passed. The survey corps continued to have Eren experiment and play with his hardening abilities. Everyone had matured a bit as well as their hair grown. Y/n and Levi cut each others' hair. They liked their hair length as it was. Erwin had accustomed to having only a single arm. The orphanages and refuges run by the queen were filled and running extremely well.