"Yelena has been circulating wine tainted with Zeke's spinal fluid...." Jean replied quietly.
"And some of it got into Falco's mouth." Connie added, continuing with his rinsing. Leah's eyes widened in horror as she addressed the room, "Why hasn't he turned titan?"
"We assume that Zeke lied to us about the effects of his spinal fluid. Perhaps there's a second factor that we don't know about that needs to be in place before it happens..." Hange puzzled.
Leah turned to Onyankopon. "Did you know about this?" He shook his head hurriedly.
"And you?" Leah turned to Niccolo with a convicting glare. The blonde's face dropped, "Nobody told me, if that's what you want to hear!" He paused, heaving air into his lungs. "But... I had my suspicions."
Leah looked furious. Her face was a similar shade to her hair, as she looked between everyone gathered in the room, at a loss for words.
"Leah, there's no point in blaming anyone now. All we can do is get the boy cleaned up and hope for the best." Hange huffed before calling Jean over to help carry Falco through to the adjacent kitchen where they cleaned him up in a sink.
Leah paced the dining room, feeling the adrenaline rushing through her and heightening her senses. Every noise made her jump at fear of there being another unprovoked attack and even when her comrades around her began to calm and strike up conversations amongst themselves, the Captain remained alert and ready.
When the anticipation became too much, she spun on her heels and made for the corridor, out the archway entrance to the room. "I'm going to check on the others." She mumbled, striding into the hallway. As soon as she rounded the corner out of sight from the room Leah felt something press against her chest. Her head, which had been angled down and focused on her booted feet, snapped up to land on Floch. His mouth was curled into a sneer as he tilted his head condescendingly at his Captain, pressing the barrel of his gun more firmly against her torso.
"No, Captain. I don't think you will."
When her eyes gazed past Floch's head, she caught sight of a figure disappearing into the room Armin, Mikasa and Gabi resided in. Leah's heart sunk; it was Eren. Leah's body jerked to chase after him, but then became accutely aware of the threat of death pointed at her chest. Flanking Floch stood a collection of Jeagerists, some Scouts that Leah recognised with a pang of disappointment. Each of the soldiers following Floch was armed with a gun, poised and ready to fire at Leah if she made one wrong move.
Leah's lips twitched but Floch just lifted a finger to his lips before signalling for her to turn around. Slowly raising her hands, she rotated on the spot until Floch's pistol jabbed her lower back. "Back into the room."
The look on everyone's faces as she was marched back into the room by Floch and the Jeagerists made Leah avert her eyes in ashame. Her hands were held up by her head, and stayed there until Floch shoved her roughly forward. Leah stumbled to stand by her comrades, spinning to face the threat with a look of disgust on her face.
"Hange, we have visitors." Leah said through gritted teeth.
Picking up on the tense tone in Leah's voice, Hange abandoned bathing Falco and pushed through the swinging gate-door into the dining area. "Is something wrong?"
"There you are, Commander." Floch said in an overly sweet tone. Hange's body went rigid, "What's going on?"
"I'm glad you showed up," Floch changed his attention from Leah to the Commander, strolling over to them casually. "If anyone knows where Zeke's being held, it's you."
He lifted his pistol once more to hold the Commander in place. "You'll have to drop whatever it is you're doing and take us to him." Leah pursed her lips and her hands curled into a fist at her side to stop their innate trembling.
"Wait, we have no intention of fighting you. Didn't you get the military's proposal?" The Commander tried to defuse the situation, and yet the Jeagerists didn't lower their weapons.
"We did. And we promptly rejected it. We refuse to negotiate with your military."
"I see." Hange mumbled after a quick gasp of air. "And why is that?"
"The decision came from Eren. He knew that Commander Pyxis would never leave the fate of the island in our hands willingly. And I agree. I'm sure that Pyxis is frantically devising a plan to ambush Eren and steal the founder, even as we speak."
"You have quite the imagination. Or did this come from one of your sources in the Garrison regiment? You have comrades undercover there, don't you?"
"Do I look like one of your eager lackeys who's going to answer any question that you ask? Get moving." To punctuate his words, Floch loaded the gun in his grasp. There was no mistaking it, he was ready to kill if provoked, so Leah remained rooted on the spot, thinking hard on a way out of this.
"I'm willing to prove that I don't answer to you, if it comes down to it, but I'm hoping that you'll just come along quietly."
Suddenly, Niccolo let out a gasp, his gaze falling on a white clad skin head sandwiched between two Jeagerist soldiers. "Greiz? Don't tell me you brought them? Did Yelena put you up to this??"
After Niccolo's friend all but admitted to betraying the Scout's location to Floch, Hange jumped in. "Floch, listen! We can't afford to waste time fighting amongst ourselves right now. Wine that's been tainted with Zeke's spinal fluid has been disseminated throughout the military. Zeke has us dancing in the palm of his hand. We have to stop him!"
"Actually... we don't. Sounds like those idiot MPs are gonna become even bigger idiots." Floch retorted, amusement dripping from his words. Leah froze. Hange hadn't said anything about it being MPs the wine was given to. Does that mean... "Now let's get moving." With Floch's words, his soldiers jolted to action and a set of hands restrained Leah's arms behind her back with a line of rope.
Leah's eyes darted to Hange, who shared the same look of realisation as Leah. How didn't they see this coming? Zeke had been working with Yelena and the Jeagerists all along. "I never said that the MPs drank it. You're kidding. You knew? You let them drink that poison?"
The manic grin on Floch's face as he turned back to glance at them over his shoulder haunted Leah to the bone. He lifted a finger to his mouth once more, as if a child sharing a secret with his friend, before continuing to the exit. "Keep it down, will ya? This is a family restaurant."
With a sharp tug, Leah was dragged from the room, her head craning this way and that to try and meet the eyes of her squad. She caught Jean's gaze, his eyes open with shock and his face pale.
Outside the building there were horse-drawn carts waiting for them. Leah and Jean were forced into the first empty one they reached and the door abruptly slammed behind them. There was a break of tranquility where the wooden cart was filled with silence, bar the pairs' anxious breathing, before the wheels began rolling and they were on the move again.
"What the hell." Jean repeated for the tenth time. Leah's gaze was fixed outside the window, trying to figure out where they were going. Her hands quivered in her lap as she folded and unfolded them habitually.
"Relax, Jean. We'll figure something out. Right now my most prominent idea is to shoot that smug bastard in the head, but that won't get us anywhere. I trust Hange will have thought of something by the time we get there." Leah reassured the young man before her, who returned her a grateful, half-hearted smile.
When the carts stopped once again and they were man-handled out, Leah realised they were back at the Military Base. "Take the rest of them to the holding cells downstairs. You four and Hange with me."
The hands grasping Leah attempted to move her, but she planted her feet and fought back. "Quit being difficult." The soldier snapped from behind her, kicking her in the calve. Her leg held strong, and she strained against this hands, trying to shrug him off.
Floch let out an exhasperated groan, "I knew you'd be trouble, Captain Leah. If only you were more like Erwin and knew when to accept defeat." He knew the effect his remarks about Erwin had on the woman, but today she wasn't in the mood. She set her jaw and threw her head back into the face of her captor. A satisfying crack filled the air, as the man yelped and let go of Leah's frame. The Captain charged forward to Floch, skidding to a stop before him just as his pistol met her temple. All the guns around them were trained on Leah.
"Another move, Captain, and all your friends here will get to see your brains decorating the cobbles."
Leah's breaths came in intense inhales through her gritted teeth as she seethed at the male, "Take me with you." His eyes narrowed, trying to figure out her use to him. "I know where Zeke is too. And I'll cooperate. I- I just want to know that Levi's okay." The last sentence slipped from her lips, a fleeting moment of weakness that caused Floch to smirk. The sincerity that twinkled in her eyes confirmed to Floch she was being honest.
He lowered his gun, tutting and shaking his head. "I always knew he'd end up being your weakness, Captain. It's a shame you didn't die in Erwin's place that day. He'd be far more useful." The two shared one final look, both of their eyes filled with loathing.
"Someone grab her. She's coming with us too."
Through the main doors, they were guided up multiple flights of stairs until the came out onto a balcony where Commandant Shadis was addressing their current training corps. The youngsters lined before them had eyes that sparkled with hope and faces untouched by the lines of stress. Leah envied them in that moment, but knew that soon they'd be faced with the hardest choice of their life: helping the Jeagerists, or following their Commander.
What Leah experienced next made nausea swell in her body and chills run through her simultaneously. Floch made an attempt to recruit the trainees to the Jeagerists, and those who accepted were tasked with conveying their loyalty through the beating of the Commandant. Leah bit her tongue as the trainees listened like mindless puppets, kicking the older man as he writhed on the ground in pain. She squeezed her eyes shut, not able to bear the sight any longer. Floch's patience with her was running thin as it was. She couldn't risk intervening.
"Now then, if it isn't too inconvenient. Guide us to where Zeke's being held."
The Captain and Commander had no choice but to cooperate. Now on horseback, surrounded on all sides by Jeagerists, Floch instructed them to lead the way to the forest of giant trees where Zeke was being held captive by Levi. An indecipherable worry bubbled within Leah the closer they drew to their destination. By the time there were even remotely close, the heavens opened and a downpour of rain soaked them to their skin. Leah drew the hood on her cloak irritably.
A distant rumble caused them to pause by a river. The sound was drowned by the roar of the torrents of water gushing past them, but to the trained ear it was unmistakable: a thunderspear blast. That meant Levi, or one of the Scouts was nearby. Leah's lips parted to utter a choked gasp at the promise of seeing her Co-Captain and her horse shifted forward beneath her until she tugged it to a stop.
"What was that?" Floch demanded.
"Thunder, maybe?" One of his soldiers responded.
Leah and Hange's eyes remained focused on the spot in the distance where the sound resonated from. An unsure glance at each other was enough to confirm their suspicions. They were both thinking the same thing. But why would any of the Scouts have required a thunderspear? Unless... Zeke had transformed?
"Let's head in that direction." Floch dictated.
Leah didn't need any convincing and her horse had trotted forward before the words could even leave Floch's mouth. The closer they drew in, the more tension grew in the air. Every few hundred meters Floch would bark at Leah to slow her horse or be shot, and the woman reluctantly tugged on the reins. The worry inside her began mixing with adrenaline as she stressed about what she'd lay eyes on.
Before long, steam caught their eyes in the grass up-ahead. The corpse of a horse. The remains of a wagon. A steaming titan body. And a body sprawled amongst it all. Dark, raven hair was drenched to the figure's unmoving head. Even from this distance, Leah and Hange could tell it was him; and he was not in good shape.
Leah kicked her horse forward, but Floch matched her pace and reached over to snag her reins. The horse beneath her whinnied and snorted in anger at the rough movements, but Leah couldn't take her eyes of the figure ahead.
"Don't test my patience, Captain Leah."
But she wasn't listening. With one flying glance back at Hange, Leah swung herself from her horse and began sprinting through the muddy ground towards the mess of splintered wood and steam. "Leah, get back here!" A gunshot whizzed past her head, and another barely missed her foot and instead embedded in the malleable ground beneath her.
Leah felt like she was watching in third person as she fell to her knees beside the body of Levi Ackerman. A suffocated cry left her lips as she extended her trembling hands to scoop him up. Blood covered almost every inch of his exposed skin, staining Leah's hands too, with one uninterrupted gash running in a diagonal line down from the left to the right of his face. Multiple shards of shrapnel were sticking out from his wounds.
Leah hugged him close, covering him with her body as a sob wracked her chest.
This isn't happening. It couldn't. Levi can't die.
The grass rustled next to her as Hange crouched down and reached a hesitant hand towards Levi. Leah leaned back slightly, tears mingling with the rain streaming down her face, as Hange surreptitiously pressed two fingers to his pulse. If there was one there, or not, Hange didn't let it on.
"Is that Captain Levi?" Floch muttered in astonishment. Leah insinctually held him closer, her face hardening with a mixture of heartbreak, fear and rage, all of them hidden by her green Scout hood. "I don't know what happened, but we're lucky it did. The biggest threat we faced is now lying in a bloody heap."
"We should put one in his head just incase." Another Jeagerists commented. Leah's head turned to them, a feral look on her face. "Don't you dare go near him." She snarled.
"There's no need." Hange's voice quaked. "He was caught in a thunderspear explosion at point-blank range. It shredded his guts. Killed him instantly from what I can tell."
"Then give him to me." Floch's voice boomed. Leah's body acted before her brain could even comprehens what was happening. She impulsively threw herself and Levi off the riverbank and into the dangerous currents. If there was a chance he was still alive, she was taking it, she just hoped Hange acted fast enough to follow. Gunshots echoed, muffled by the water they were suspended in. Leah's arms were locked around the male, shielding his frame from every rock and obstacle the river threw them up against as they were carried away in the rapid flow of water.
By the time the Jeagerists could remount their horses they'd be halfway down the river at the rate they were moving. Leah knew she'd have to resurface for air soon, as would Levi. The decision was made for her prematurely when the rapids thrashed her against a rock on the riverbed, forcing the air from her lungs.
She kicked off the ground blindly, only to resurfaced in a forest. The river there was much shallower, and the banks a steady incline to make it easy to climb out.
Luckily for them, the Jeagerists were too captivated by the rebirth of Zeke Jeager to entertain a futile pursuit. As Floch put it after sending two men after them: "They'll drown anyway."
Leah's feet scrambled towards the edge of the water, throwing Levi onto the bank with what little strength she had left. Her body and muscles burned with fatigue, lack of oxygen and the developing fractures and bruises all over her body. As soon as Levi was flat on the grass, Leah's head spun to search for Hange. A deep green mass beneath the surface of the water caught her gaze, and she dived for it, coming into contact with the Commander.
The two flung themselves out the water and lay beside Levi's body, coughing and spluttering. "Are you okay?" Hange managed through wheezes, pushing themselves to sit up in the grass. Leah covered her eyes with her arm and her coughs faded into uncontrollable sobs. Whether her tears were of sadness or relief that they'd survived, Hange wasn't sure, but still moved over to scoop up Levi into her arms.
"Leah, come. We need to get hidden in the trees."
Leah had recollected herself by the time they'd dragged themselves into the cover of the forest. They found a sheltered, dry patch and lay Levi peacefully amongst the leaves. As Leah stared down at him with an empty look in her eyes she couldn't help but notice just how much blood there was. So much blood. Her hands, arms and chest were smeared with it and even splodges decorated her face after she'd attempted to wipe away her tears and rain striken cheeks.
They couldn't hesitate. Levi needed medical attention immediately, and their only hope was the remains of the wagon they found Levi by. With no horse, and no hope for carrying him all the way back to the walls, Leah was forced to travel back towards the river. "I'm going to get supplies. If I don't come back..."
"You'll come back." Hange said shortly. Both of them were suffering, and their voices betrayed this wholly. Leah was an empty shell of her usual person as she stalked through the forest until she met the river again. She paused at the treeline. With the rain having ceased, it gave her a chance to catch the sound of approaching horse hooves.
Despite the fact her muscles felt like jelly, with a sense of urgency Leah hooked an arm around the closest tree branch and swung herself off the ground to perch in the canopy. Behind the cover of the dense greenery, she hid and waited.
When the horses drew close enough, she was going to throw herself at them. And that's exactly what she did. At this point, death wasn't an option that even crossed her mind. Levi's life was riding on her getting supplies, and so when the flash of the brown steed shone through the trees leaves, Leah flung herself from the tree.
She collided with one of the Jeagerists mounted atop, sending them both sprawling onto the dewy grass. With the ex-scout dazed and confused, Leah was quick to pin him down and send one, two, three merciless punches to the face until he stopped moving completely. Her movements were so quick, that by the time the second soldier clocked what was happening, Leah had torn the gun from the unconscious soldier and spun to aim at the remaining male.
Their guns shot simultaneously. The Jeagerist's bullet made contact, but only just; clipping the woman's cloaked shoulder and causing an agonising heat to pool in the area. The second bullet, sent whizzing through the air by Leah, pierced directly between the Jeagerist's eyes.
His body slumped to the ground and Leah fell backwards against the body of the other soldier. She felt so weak. The pain blossoming in her left shoulder made the world spin around her and the ground seemed to tilt and rock under her. She let out a pathetic sob, realising she couldn't give up yet. She was so tired.
Quitting seemed so easy, so appealing. She wanted nothing more than to lie there next to the dead and unconscious Jeagerists and let herself slowly bleed to death. It would be a long and painful death, but nothing compared to what Levi was facing as she lay there.
She forced herself to sit up, blinking away the tears forming again. Her fingers worked to reload the rifle and without a second thought of empathy, shot the breathing soldier dead. She didn't allow her eyes to focus on his face, in fear of it being recognisable. Leah tore off the sleeve off his shirt and prepared to use it as a tourniquet on her arm.
She rolled onto her side on the grass, laying the white fabric on her arm before balling up some of her cloak and shoving it in her mouth to muffle her screams. Before she could pass out, Leah tried to tie the fabric around her wound with one arm. It felt like pressing a hot iron to her muscles as she tugged it tight and knotted it in place. The warm, sticky liquid trickled down her arm, further staining the white shirt she adorned.
Her pitiful whimpers and tormented cries were muted by the fabric in her mouth and as she finally spat it out, her eyes were pricked with tears. Everytime she moved her shoulder, she felt her head spin and the overwhelming pain threaten to knock her unconscious. But Levi was waiting, only just clinging to life.
Slinging one of the Jeagerists' guns over her good shoulder, and stowing the other in the saddle of one of the horses, Leah prepared to push forward. She tied one horse to a nearby branch, and swung herself onto the second, kicking on with such an unrelenting need for speed that by the time they'd ridden up river and come across the sight of the thunderspear explosion, both Leah and the horse were panting to get oxygen into their lungs.
The ginger slid off the horse with great difficultly, stumbling as her legs threatened to give out. She tumbled to her knees. As her head lolled forward, displacing all of her hair to land in front of her face, Leah dug her hands into the soil, the mud and grass oozing under her nails and combining with the blood soaked on her hands to create what she'd normally consider Levi's worse nightmare.
In this moment, the odor of petrichor that met her sinuses shocked a final kick of life into her and she swayed to stand back up. Leah staggered around the remains, feeling more feeble and more exhausted than she ever had in her life. Within five minutes of searching the wreckage, she came across the dented and battered metal box containing medical supplies that all military wagons were required to have. She hugged it to her chest and cast her eyes around for anything else of use.
By the time she scrambled back onto her horse the sun was setting in the sky, giving her one more thing she had to worry about: finding her way back to Levi and Hange. At this point, navigation was the least of her troubles. When she reached the marker of the restrained horse and dead bodies by the river, a shaky sigh escaped her.
Leah knew she had to clean up the mess. Two dead Jeagerists was practically a giant sign saying Scouts this way.
Stowing the bodies in a nearby bush taxed Leah to a point of no return. The men were massive compared to her, and at least double her weight, so it took all of her body and a lot of time spent slipping in the mud to finally shift them. When she took a step back and felt satisfied nobody walking by would immediately spot the corpses, the bile that had been welling in her throat finally spilt over.
Supporting herself on a tree, Leah threw up her guts in a nearby shrub, which only caused the pain in her body to swell and pulsate.
"Hange..." Leah choked out as she rode into the make-shift camp the Commander had set up. In the centre of their clearing they had a measly campfire started, which was smoking more than burning due to the wet wood, but nonetheless it was a start. Levi still hadn't moved from where Leah had left him. Levi hadn't moved period.
When Hange noticed Leah's gaze hanging on Levi they stood slowly and approached her. "He's definitely alive. The bastard is just too stubborn to die it seems."
(4180 words)