Kindred - Levi Ackerman Fanfic Book 1

12 | Expedition

𝔎𝔦𝔫𝔡𝔯𝔢𝔡

ℭ𝔥. 12

Elisa pov:

The expedition had begun well, and progressed well in the beginning. I was in the right wing of the long distance enemy scouting formation, between the teams of Armin in front and Jean behind. Our objective was to avoid fighting Titans as much as possible and taking detours when one was spotted on any side. Red flares had shot up into the sky from the front right flange quite soon after we had stepped out into the open and we had been guided away to avoid it and continue on.

Our plan to avoid confrontation didn't work on abnormal Titans though. Such Titans had to be killed before they caused a disruption in the formation.

Though we had hoped the formation and plan to keep charging ahead would be successful, things went downhill very soon, and most of the right flange ran into a hoard of Titans. We had no choice but to engage in battle but it was not easy because of the lack of trees or buildings that we could use to anchor to.

The battle was a nightmare. Nearly everyone was wiped out in the blink of an eye. I barely managed to kill one Titan before I was hit and thrown back against a tree that rendered most of my upper back bruised and stinging. It was a miracle that I avoided being smushed to death by another Titan before I made an escape on a nearby horse along with another scout. With the Titans busy eating the remnants of the scouts they had killed, we had managed to survive.

It was sickening to know that we had run away after leaving so many others to their deaths. But there was no other choice we had at the moment.

"Shit! It wasn't supposed to happen this way!" Kaspar cursed as he sped on his horse beside me.

Our formation was broken and there was no one to alert us on any Titan coming in from the right. We were vulnerable to attacks. We had to pass on the information to the other teams and receive further instruction from the commander.

It was barely a few moments later that a black flare was shot from just ahead of us. Another abnormal had appeared and it seemed too close to us to ignore. Besides, it was near Armin's group.

"Armin," I mumbled and tugged on the reigns of my horse to make him gallop faster.

"Oi, new recruit, what do you think you're doing? You have to stay in formation!" Kaspar shouted, also picking up speed so he was in pace with me. "We have to stay as a group!"

"The formation is gone! The entire right flange besides us is dead so we have to regroup with the others and notify the commander!"

"You're not the one who's giving orders here!" He sounded angry.

As much as I was a new recruit, I was knowledgeable in battle strategies. With at least a third of the formation missing, there was no sense in keeping our positions. We would only end up dying if we didn't find others to fight alongside them if we came across a Titan, let alone an abnormal one.