Your lie (Levi • Reader)

Do I deserve to live?

You swiftly toppled over to your tent, passing your other comrades, which's stares followed you in mild confusion mingled with surprise. One of them belonged to the dark-haired man, who minded his own business until now, when he noticed you returning from a dark spot outside of the reach of the camp's light.

He had just been in a conversation with Erwin and Armin. The General had asked Armin for a judgment, whereafter the latter had immediately become anxious, not knowing how to react.
Levi crossed his arms and analysed the teenager's behaviour, while carefully listening to Erwin's words directed towards the small blonde. The boy really needed some more confidence, he sure as hell deserved it.
In the end, Levi chose to speak up and reassure Armin with harsh words, which despite of that, contained a gentle meaning.
"Why are you worrying? Erwin's the one making decisions, so he takes the fall if you fuck up."

With that being said, Armin gulped and lowered his look again.
"Well...", the boy began.

In a short manner, they agreed on the fact, that risking the innocents lives of the citizens in the city through fighting the kidnappers on the streets would become a very probable scenario.
Armin stiffened visibly, but was able to keep his cool and continued with this theory, saying he thought those men had taken several more carriages with themselves.
So the chance of your team actually distinguishing the right one would most likely take its time. These people could also have brought a titan-shifter along, just in case it got too hot. All of this meant, that if your two teams did find the criminals, you had to be ready to fight against a huge titan, though also be prepared for both armoured titan as the opposition's attack, and Collosal as their back-up and escape plan.

The blonde explained how your possibility of retaking Eren minimised, after the kidnappers left the city with all the buildings, since they were the only constructions matching with the usage of your 3DMG equipment.

The image was frightening, because you weren't enough people to deal with so much danger at once. Though Armin had an idea. The only way to have a chance against them, was to free Eren and allow him to transform as well, while all the others fought the people inside of the carriage and defended Eren from the enemies.

In order to keep Eren save, the transformation of the opposing titan would take a while to fulfil, since these people never really tried to kill him in the previous missions.
So they'd hopefully intend to keep Eren alive again and wouldn't fulfil the transformation anywhere near him.

In conclusion, all you needed to do, was to not reveal you had already found the kidnappers and get as close as possible to as many of the targeted vehicles as you're able to.
At last, this was the issue in factuality. Finding the right wagon.

Therefore there was just the question left, of how you'd succeed in doing so. Armin came to the inference, that these trained soldiers hadn't continued traveling at night, since that would be first too obvious and second, could become a disadvantage for their own titan-shifter and their people in action as well. If they traveled at night, they'd risk getting caught, since there was no traffic in the city at all and all eyes would turn to the unusual traveling of carriages.
But to still make sure there was no motion in the city's alleys, Erwin send a few riders to check for noise and clarity. If there was danger, they'd instantaneously fire the smoke-pistols.

Although if that didn't happen, the kidnappers would most probably set their journey tomorrow in the early morning, meaning that Armin was right.

Levi stirred his tea, deciding he'd stay up all night by the fire place.
As mentioned, the early morning was taken as an aim and would be used to prepare the last plans and conversations between superiors and teams.

-

Levi placed his cup, along with the other utensils for making tea, inside of his bag and extinguished the last glowing pieces of coal.
The sun hadn't reached the horizon yet and the morning dew was clearly perceivable in the crisp air all around the dim location you had spend the evening in.