God of Hate 35

It was the day they would arrive at Krolva.

Levi, naturally, thought it best to ride ahead with his team, to make sure the people on the walls didn't try aiming a cannon at Grice.

"Let me get this straight, Captain," the local garrison commander said with a frown. "There is a giant monster that is going to climb up the wall. And you want us to spread the word to keep calm and NOT shoot at him?"

"To your soldiers, yes," Levi answered, glancing down at the district of Krolva. "He is only going to climb it if he has to. If something else gets within or on top of the walls."

The captain gave a withered breath. "I still have trouble believing all this about these creatures being our allies or humans turning into them, but if you're here, I suppose there is little doubt. Besides...."

Petra furrowed her brow at the man's uneasy look. "The sightings have gotten worse?"

"It's not just sightings anymore," he answered with a headshake. "Cattle and horses have gone missing, possibly even people."

"Are you sure the animals weren't stolen?" Gunther asked with a raised eyebrow.

"We suspected that as well, until we found them again," the man explained as he pointed outside of Wall Rose.

"Hmm?" Oulo squinted as they all looked and spied something red and gorey a small distance from the walls. "That...is a horse carcass."

"What's left of one," Eld said. "Have you-"

"We checked, it's one of ours. There are others around and further away, and even within the walls. One of the cows seems to have fallen off the top of the wall," the garrison leader explained.

"Something is grabbing snacks and dropping their leftovers," Levi remarked as he glanced up. "Have any of the sightings been in the day?"

"Only on the darkest days, when the clouds are thick and heavy," he answered, glancing up uneasily. "We've had more and more of those lately."

"Right," Levi said as he decided what to do. "Spread the word about our large friend. Remember, he can talk and can't fly. We'll bring him over and get him up to speed."

"I'll do my best, Captain," the garrison leader assured with a salute before leaving to do so.

"This doesn't bode well," Levi said as he pulled out his flare gun. "Something stinks about this."

"Literally, Captain, or...?" Petra asked curiously.

"We passed through one village a day at least getting here. On either side of the wall, we and Grice didn't see any corpses left around. So, what has our friend so focused on this place?"

"Maybe they just see this district as some kind of giant nest to plunder for food?" Gunther suggested.

"Maybe," Levi acknowledged without agreeing as he held up the gun and fired it.

It went up high into the air as the bang rang over the area.

And then.....

The Levi Squad and all of Korlva looked up in shock as they heard it.

Screeching. High pitch, bestial screeched from high above the clouds.

"Captain!" Oulo called out, hands on his blades with a nervous sweet on his brow. "That sounds like a lot more than one of them!"

It did. It definitely did.

Elsewhere, Grice looked up at the noise bellowing down from the skies like some unholy warcry.

And he felt wariness grow in him.

"I don't like the sound of that."

Neither did his beast by the feels of it.

"Maybe we should have brought Eren after all," Grice said before shaking his head and running to the wall.

He couldn't just leave Levi and the others on their own.

After all, Eldians had to look out for each other.

No one else was, that much was still true.

Meanwhile

Clouds churned and thunder cracked over Trost.

Eren looked up.

And within, so did something else.

{{{{....}}}}

"Eren?" Mikasa called from his leftmost head. "What is it?"

[[[Get off my head.]]]

[[You'll get hit by lightning.]]

[....]

"Mikasa!" Historia called out from down below, yelling over the wind. "Eren is worried about you getting hit by lightning, and so am I!"

"...Right," Mikasa said reluctantly as she jumped off his head, using her ODM gear to move lower to safety.

Eren still kept looking up.

He knew the Voice of the Storm was watching as well.

[[[[What is it?]]]]

{{{{....A challenge.}}}}

Meanwhile

The winds had begun to pick up by the time Grice scaled the wall. The top was much more busy with soldiers than in Trost, but he made sure to avoid knocking over the cannons. "Levi!" Grice called out as he scanned for the short scout.

"Here!" Petra called nearby.

Soldiers ducked under him, mindful of his legs and tail as he passed over them to join them. "Looks like we showed up just in time."

"Any idea what we're dealing with?!" Levi called up to the creature.

"Not yet," Grice answered, cocking his head up at the clouds. "Let me try something."

Inhaling deeply, Grice let out a great screech of his own, calling up into the sky.

The air grew eerily silent.

Something dropped out of the sky.

It descended like a comet before its wings unfurled and opened wide to stop its fall, landing on the surface as soldiers fled from where they might be crushed.

Levi narrowed his eyes as he took the creature in. It was only seven meters tall. Small to a titan, or to Grice for that matter. It was shaped like a bat but with scales and horns covering the head and part of the torso. Despite it being able to fly, the wings looked to be in rough shape. It snarled and sniffed at the air while looking in their general direction.

"Grice, what's the verdict?" Levi called up, getting silent. "Grice?"

"....I don't recognize this one," Grice said slowly.

"What do you mean, you don't recognize them?" Levi asked, gripping his blades tighter.

"I mean, this isn't one of my comrades," Grice answered uneasily. "I don't know what this is."

[LessersOfTheLesserStrom!]

But his beast did. It definitely recognized them.

He could see it, some faded memory.

A swarm of creatures flying forth from a storm.

....Heralding something that lurked within the clouds.

The creature screeched at them.

Grice instinctively roared back at the bat-beast and took a step forward.

"Can't you translate still?!" Olou yelled out.

"There's nothing to translate! That roar was just a roar!" Grice retorted as he stared down the creature.

The bat-beast cocked its head for a moment before it growled.

Levi had a very good idea that it was a growl of hunger. "Here it comes."

The creature lurched forward, screeching to attack them.

Levi held out his arm to stop his team.

Grice was also happy he didn't jump the gun as several cannons went off, the creature being struck by the cannonball, one tearing its side and wings with a painful scream. Grice took the opening and swung his tail, throwing the creature over the edge.

No one cheered, no one celebrated. Because they could still hear the sound from up above.

"Everyone! Point your cannons up!" Grice called out loudly. "Everyone! Stay inside, they'll pick you off the streets!"

Some hesitated to listen to the monster, but none could fault the logic of those orders.

"They were never designed to shoot upward like that," Petra said grimly as they all drew their weapons. 

"We'll have to make do," Levi said as he stared up at the sky. "What are they waiting for...?

[TheLesserStormIsComingWithBlacknessAndDeath! TheyAwaitCommand!]

Grice blinked as processed that. These things were smart enough to take commands? To wait to fill their stomachs?

The winds suddenly shifted harshly. So strong was it, that some soldiers nearly lost their footing.

And just like that, they descended as a swarm.

"....Fuck, that's a lot of them," Gunther whispered. There were dozens, at least two and maybe three.

Cannons fired, but most fell short of their marks or missed entirely. Soldiers were snatched from the walls and cannons were knocked aside as the creatures landed.

"Everyone, move! Find their weak points!" Levi ordered as they took off on their gear, he and his team already engaging two different ones while Grice's tongue shot out, dragging one by the neck down to him as he bit at the creature. It struggled until Grice finally broke the neck.

"They're going for the civilians!" Olou informed as he saw more of the creatures heading down into the city itself.

"Go down and help them! Get people hiding inside!" Grice called out as he swatted one away with his tail. "I'm a huge target up here and a meal to them!"

"He's right!" Levi called down as he landed on the chest of a creature, blades stabbing into the heart. The hide wasn't tough enough to stop his blades, the creature collapsing as Levi jumped off it. "You four head down and help the people. Grice and I will try to thin them out up here."

"Captain!" the others called out before descending away.

"And don't go for the neck, you'll just break our blades!" Levi called out at the last second.

Grice roared as one landed on his lower back, swirling around to tear it off. He bit off the wing before tossing the bat-beast outside the walls. The fall might not kill it, but it would keep them out of the fight for the moment.

He looked up and, for half a second, he marveled at Levi as he used his ODM gear to launch from bat to bat. They might as well be buildings and statues to the strongest soldier of the walls until he laid them low.

[BELOW!]

Grice's head snapped down and saw one flying up the side of the wall, trying to catch him by surprise.

And in its claws was someone, a soldier screaming in terror. "Please! Help me! I don't want to die!"

Grice growled to himself as he gripped the edge of the wall. It paid that his body was relatively light compared to his own strength. He leaped off, swinging from one side to grab the bat-beast with his tail, startling it. 

The bat bit at his tail, but Grice slammed it onto the wall, back-first. It snarled and screeched but did not release its prey.

Grice moved like a snake, his tail releasing his foe as he snapped around and latched his long maw onto the bat-beast's leg. With one arm on the creature's chest, he ripped the leg off with a geyser of blood spraying before the monster fell off the side of the wall.

"T-thank you?" the soldier said uncertainly as he moved out of the twitching talons that held him.

"Just get out of here!" Grice yelled as more of the creature descended on him.

Three, four, seven, and it went on. Grice and LEvi fought them as best they could, to the point where the bat-beasts were mainly focusing on the pair. 

Grice began to get into the rhyme of it. Not just fighting, but fighting with Levi. Both tried to watch out for when their foes tried to outflank either of them. But Grice wasn't sure how long they could keep this up. He wasn't Eren. These bites and cuts were beginning to add up.

Then, suddenly, something shifted in the fight.

The bat-beasts collectively looked to the sky and something churned within the clouds.

"What now?" Levi muttered as he saw something behind the clouds. Something large and....glowing?

The battle across the entire city ceased as the sky was filled with light.

As if the Heavens answered a desperate prayer for salvation, the clouds parted with an intense wind that pushed them away and opened the skies once more. The swarm of creatures cried out in pain as the rays and the sun touched them. They instantly began to fly away, fast to escape the event and low to avoid coming near the mass of light and warmth.

"Is that....an angel?" Petra whispered in shock as every human looked up at the celestial light radiating down up Krolva as if promising them protection and safety.

More than a few soldiers dropped their weapons in awe, many people falling to their knees with hands clasped in prayer for what seemed like a divine act.

And Levi, standing atop the corpse of one of the bat-beasts, squinted his eyes at the new arrival. "Is that...a moth?"

"Holy shit, I thought I imagined the dreams with this giant bug," Grice murmured in shock as he picked himself off the ground, staring up at the lying giant uncertainty.

[SkyQueen. YourKindProtector. YouSafeWeSafe.]

Well, at least his beast was confident about that.

With another great flap of the wings, the enormous moth shed the great light from her wings, falling like pollen across the city.

With more grace than a giant bug had any right to have, the moth landed softly on the walls and waited.

Grice cautiously treaded along the wall back up, the moth already facing him. She wasn't that tall, just over three meters tall, much shorter than him or most titans.

But.....her wings.

He could only marvel at them, two blue spots that looked almost like eyes, bright against them mostly orange appendages. From tip to tip, they were as wide as the walls were tall! By that metric alone, she dwarfed him! 

And there was something....more about her, that he could not place.

She slowly raised her claw-like limbs, as if greeting him while letting out a genuinely beautiful call.

[Hello.]

Grice was stunned by the voice. He didn't recognize it, but...it sounded so kind, so soft, and as human as any of his comrades. "Who....are you?"

[I have many names. Protector of Humanity. His Great Ally. Mother of Light. But I prefer...Mothra.]

Mothra. That name seemed to mean something, deep down in his soul.

[Listen carefully. You must return. The Enemy of the Sun has come to give challenge for the title of Lord of the Storm.]

Grice shook his head. "I don't understand. Enemy of the Sun? Challenge who?"

Mothra spread her wings wide. [You know who. The One Who Is Many.]

Grice stiffened as the image of Eren flashed in his mind. But that name, that title.

The One Who Is Many.

Something within him felt fear at the very title and he did not know why.

[Tell him he has been challenged by the Lesser Storm. And the Golden Demise will respond, for that is his nature.]

"Wait, I don't-" Grice called out, only for Mothra to begin to flap her wings.

[I am sorry, Grice. I only have so much time.]

And with that, she took off, soaring up high to vanish into the clouds, every bit like the angel she seemed to be.

"Well, that just happened," Grice said slowly. "....How did she know my name?"

"You mind explaining for the rest of us?"

Grice turned around and saw Levi approaching him.

"We need to head back to Trost," Grice said suddenly. "Now."

"But what if those things attack again?" Levi pointed out with a frown.

"That's where they're going," Grice said pointedly. "They're hunting for our golden friend."

Levi started before nodding. "Wait here. I'll have my team stay behind, just in case."

Grice accepted that. "And I....need a snack after all that fighting. I am going to go over the wall and take a bite of these dead bastards quickly while you do that," he said before scaling down the wall to do just that.

Levi looked over the city of Krolva. It was damaged, but nothing like Trost had been. A few dozen people were dead or hurt, but compared to the worst-case scenario, this was fairly tame for casualties.

Now...he just had to figure out how to explain to Hange that a giant moth came down to save the day, looking like some kind of celestial angel?