From where you were tied to the very back of the wagon, you couldn't twist yourself to see where you were going. It didn't matter, really. All that mattered was that you just knew where you were coming from, so that you could get back. For a brief instant, you wished that Isabel was by your side with her wide smile and impish gaze. You felt her constant absence like a hole in your chest, and you knew that you missed her. But she was safe, back in school, where the titans hadn't attacked. She wasn't caught up in all of this.
That alone made you feel better.
Since the titan leader was still in the wagon with you, watching you with barely concealed hunger, you spent most of your time in a constant dominance battle between your eyes. He blinked the most, to which you smirked cruelly as he snarled. Another titan ran up to the wagon's door, barely out of breath but very eager to relay his message.
"Humans are near!" He said, and you were disgusted at the drool that threatened to drip from his bloody mouth. "Boss, can we -?"
"No," the leader interrupted, taking his eyes off you to glare at the other titan. "There shouldn't be any humans within this area, which means that they are most likely the army - which means that they can fight."
From the way that he was talking, with derisiveness dripping from his tone, you knew that he was thinking about you and your own fighting skills. You had easily taken down two of his cronies in front of him, although that had called for a sacrifice. You sniffed snootily, trying to twist yourself around to lever your hands into a more comfortable position, but the leader immediately stood over you and grabbed you by the top of your head, his sharpened nails digging into your H/C hair. As his hands went past your eyes, you saw the scars that were decorating his flesh, and knew that this titan had been in many, many battles.
You didn't make a single sound of pain, although when he dragged your upwards by your hair, it really hurt. Your wrists, still bound at an awkward angle, let out a throb of pain that made you bite down to prevent a groan. But Scar - the name for the leader titan came to you easily - saw that easily with his hungry eyes, and laughed as he heaved you further away from the bar that you were bound to.
"Boss," the other titan stammered, looking away into the distance for a brief second before glancing back at Scar with a pining look. "It turns out that we don't have to go after the humans. They're following us."
Scar swore, and dropped you back down onto the ground harshly. You curled up immediately, focusing on your boot buckle. Thanks to him and his brutality, your ropes had come just a bit loose due to the direction in which he had pulled you. If you could just reach your boot buckle and snap off the bit of metal, it would only take a bit of time to make the metal bite into the rope so that you'd cut yourself loose.
"How many are there?"
"Not very many - only four. Boss, are you sure that we can't just meet them –"
"Did you see the damage that this one girl did?" Scar hissed, grabbing you again. He pulled you harshly away from your position so that you gouged a cut into your wrist instead of the rope, and raised the dagger that he'd taken from your weapon's belt. You flinched away from your own weapon, but he merely raised it and sliced through the rope that bound you to the front of the wagon. But he did it in such a way that your wrists were still tied together, but you could move now if you wished. "I'm not going to let four of them hack into our numbers."
He lifted you to your feet, and walked you to the back of the wagon so that you could see out of the slim window. Holding you there, Scar whistled through his pointed teeth in a high-pitched shriek to signal something to the rest of his small army, and the wagon shuddered to a halt. You nearly fell at the sudden stop, but Scar held you firmly with one hand gripping your hair and the other grasping your elbow. "Don't try anything funny," he rasped into your ear, and you shuddered at his warm breath chasing its way down your exposed neck.
You took the chance to look at where you were - not that there were many giveaways. There was just endless grass and sky, with trees bordering the horizon and a few clouds signalling that a storm was coming towards you. You narrowed your eyes, trying to find where the other people were, but apparently you were still facing the wrong direction.
Scar growled a few instructions to the driver of the wagon, and neatly hopped out of it with you in tow. You fought with him the moment that your feet touched the ground, the moment that you had a possibility of escape, But he merely laughed and another titan took charge of your other side, and all three of you traipsed your way to the front of the party. It was awful, with every titan looking hungrily at you with open mouths and glistening eyes. For a second, you were thankful that Scar was by you and had decided to spare you; if he weren't at your side, you most definitely wouldn't survive, especially since you had no weapon.
The titans in front of you parted, making you a path to the front. If you squinted, you could indeed see four people on horses approaching, hesitantly. They obviously didn't know what to do - and who would, when surrounded by one hundred titans with only a party of four?
As you got as close as Scar would allow you to the other humans, Scar kicked the back of your right knee with brutal simplicity. The movement made you fall down to the ground, your knees hitting the rocks beneath your feet. But both titans still gripped your arms, so you merely fell to your knees whilst snarling, but they held firm. There was no way you could get out of this. As you watched the four people who could do nothing but run, their horses came to a steady halt. Then one of them approached slowly, carefully, as though the titans were nothing to worry about.
"He's approaching us," the titan on your left told Scar with a simper. "Who would be that stupid?"
Scar hissed at him to be quiet, evidently at a loss for words, and so all sound fell flat as the person neared to a hundred meters away and stopped. The dark horse was holding its head high, the sun making its ebony body shine, with the person atop of it looking over the entire titan party as though they were nothing but the dirt on his boots. As his eyes met the sight of you, bloodied and kneeling in the mud, he stopped.
His lips formed your name with a look of deadly fury, and you smiled at him despite the pain aching from your knees. A weight was lifted from your chest as you beheld the raven hair, the frown lines on his forehead, the irritated quirk of his eyebrows.
"Levi."
***
"Stop right there," Scar snarled, although Levi had already stopped. He dug his nails into your scalp, tugging your head back so that he could hear your words. "What did you call him?"
"Nothing," you smiled, knowing that it would irritate him. There was no way you were going to repeat Levi's name - names had power. You weren't going to wield that power yet, not now. "I said nothing."
Scar growled and threw your head forward, doing nothing but making your neck throb and burn. You saw Levi tense, his feet starting to run towards you, but Scar laughed cruelly. "I said to stop. You wouldn't want this girl to lose her head, would you?"
Levi chuckled dryly. "Why haven't you monsters eaten her already?"
Scar tensed, and he stepped closer to you in a protective kind of stance. You knew it wasn't out of kindness for you - it was so that the rest of the titans knew that you were his property and that you were not to be touched. "Don't you know? Humans that are alive keep better. The dead rot quickly."
You could sense the lies, but you doubted that the other titans could. They'd just believe him blindly, thinking that the promise of meat was near. Levi snorted, throwing his head back to look at Scar with derisive arrogance. "What's one girl to you? There's an entire city of people at your backs."
"We know," Scar gloated, his eyes sparkling with deadly craziness as he verbally sparred with Levi, "and now the wall has fallen. We can get back any time that we want. Now," he said briskly, raising his hand. "We're going to go. If you try and stop us, we'll take her life first. But one girl's hardly enough to feed an army of over one hundred - four more people would be greatly appreciated. Understand?"
He lifted you over his shoulder, meaning that you could only watch as Scar walked back to the wagon, leaving Levi standing motionless at the head of the party.
But then Levi started laughing, a cruel chuckle that sent chills down your spine. Scar stopped, throwing you down into the dirt, and turned to look at the soldier who stood at the head of the titans. "And what about your death is so funny, human?"
"You're scared," Levi sniggered, watching as Scar straightened up. "You've seen what that one girl can do, and how many she can take down. And now you're scared of me, because I'm better than her." You looked up at the leader titan for a moment, knowing the difficult situation that he was in - walk away, and be looked on as a coward, and probably be overthrown by his followers... Or to fight Levi now and risk his numbers in a skilled fight.
He didn't have time to come to a decision as your dagger swiped through his neck, slicing through skin and muscle with brutal efficiency.
His mistake had been letting you go, throwing you down to the ground with no one seizing you. He had given you your own freedom on a silver platter, and from there it had been easy. Your dagger had still hung from his belt, and so you had stolen that as he'd been distracted with Levi's laughter. Then, it had been so deliciously easy to swing it towards his head in an angry punch, slicing right through his cloak and neck.
The cloak may have masked his features, but it didn't mask the blood flying from his gaping wound, nor did it mask the terrified gurgle of his last breath. His body crumpled at your feet, his neck at a disturbing angle, and you looked up for a second. You saw Levi's head tilt, and the titan's gaze find their leader's body on the ground.
Then you ran.
Not towards Levi, but towards the wagon. You swiped through the reins and bounds on the horse that had been drawing the wagon all of this way, dodging the stunned titans with blurring ease. Jumping onto the horse and kicking its sides with your ankles, you let the animal sprint away, the bodies of titans shrieking and leaping out of its way. You needed to get away, away - because you knew Levi. You knew his ideas and the way that he thought.
There was no way that Levi would actually leave his team behind to go and speak to the titans on his own. He had told them to do something, something that would at least distract the titans in order for them to get away. If you had stayed, you'd only be getting in the way of that plan.
So you let the horse run away, as far as you could.
It didn't stop you looking back and seeing a cloud of misty green swarm the area where all of the titans had been. You smiled, understanding what Levi's team had been doing as Levi served as the distraction - setting up gas chambers all around in the nearby trees and bushes. Hopefully it was poison, although you would have liked to vent your anger a little on the entire army.
You pulled the horse's mane, lifting her head so that she'd slow in her wild run. She obeyed; her entire body shook as you slipped off her back onto the grass. The animal merely let out a terrified whinny and took off again, running into the forest. You let her go without a fight - there wasn't any need for another horse. Wishing her well, you turned and grinned at the approaching black horse.
"Finished your paperwork so quickly?"
Levi climbed easily off of his horse and walked towards you with a glowering expression, his eyebrows pulled together. You shut your mouth, thinking that he was about to hit you for being stupid enough to get captured in the first place. But then his arms circled you and squeezed your frame, hugging you to his body as he pulled you closer. He hugged you as though he'd never let you go, and you buried your face into his shoulder as you gladly went into his embrace. You didn't realize that you were crying until his hands found their way to your hair, his fingers combing through the strands in a comforting and rhythmic gesture.
For the first time in a long while, you felt like you were okay.
In his arms, you felt safe.
It didn't take long for you to calm down, with Levi's fingers working on your hair and his heartbeat pounding a steady rhythm. You pulled away from his warmth, knowing that your cheeks were probably on fire, and smiled weakly at Levi as he looked down at you with a questioning gaze. He probably hadn't been expecting you to cry, but his face didn't show anything to hint that he was belittling you.
"How come you were there?" You asked, glad that your voice was calm and steady. If it cracked, you weren't sure you could handle the embarrassment.
"We heard about the wall and were told to come as fast as we could," Levi said, turning his sharp gaze towards the direction of the city. "We were just taking the fastest road, and saw the huge group of titans heading away from it... I couldn't just let them go."
"Oh!" You suddenly said as you remembered something. You punched Levi on the shoulder - only a light hit, because you had a feeling that your body couldn't handle a heavy one. He glared at you, which made you relax even further at the familiar gesture.
"And what was that for, brat?"
"You told Scar that you were better than me!" You fumed, and Levi's eyes twinkled with amusement. Luckily, he didn't question the name that you'd given the titan leader, but merely lead you to where his horse was waiting. He climbed onto the saddle and offered you a hand, his glare telling you not to refuse unless you really wanted to die.
"Technically, I am better than you," he said, smirking. "You've never beaten me in combat."
"I will, one day," you snarled, reluctantly taking his hand and climbing up behind Levi. "So don't go saying those things, or I'll make you eat your words."
"As much as I want to agree," Levi sarcastically answered, kicking the horse's sides so that the horse shot off, "I think that we need to call a truce for now. The city is in danger."
"A truce," you echoed as the horse leaped over a rock suddenly. Shrieking, you throw your arms around Levi's waist and cling onto him, hoping that you wouldn't be thrown off onto the ground again. Levi merely chuckled and urged the horse on, to meet with his team and to go rescue the people in danger.
"A truce."
***
The moment that you met with Levi's team, you wished you had just run off on your own. Oluo raised a suggestive eyebrow at your arms firmly around Levi's waist, and Eld and Gunther exchanged amused looks. "So," Oluo said, a smirk twisting his mouth, "how are you both?"
"Shut up, Oluo," Levi said, turning the horse around and beginning a canter in the city's direction. You poke out your tongue at Oluo, his horse easily keeping pace with Levi's. He merely grins again, and Eld decides to join the supposed fun.
"You were only away for two minutes, Heichou," he said, laughter stiffening his tone, "what could possibly be done in two minutes, I wonder –"
"I could easily cut out your eyeballs and shove them down your throat so that you could see me gut you from the inside - all within two minutes," Levi cut him off, and you rolled your eyes at his violence-laced voice. "Have you done with the smart-ass comments?"
"Depends," Gunther smiled, his voice rising above from the back. "I reckon it was actually closer to three minutes, Heichou –"
"I swear I will cut all of you into tiny pieces," Levi said, emotionless this time. You sniggered quietly, tightening your arms around his waist - only because of the speedy cantering of the horse, naturally. "This is serious."
"We know," Oluo said, sinking back into a seriousness that you'd never seen before. You gave yourself a chance to look his body over, to see his posture and gait. Something was bothering you, irking you from the depths of your mind.
"You - you're different! All of you are different," you said suddenly, causing Oluo to look at you with raised eyebrows. "When I fought you guys before, you were nowhere near this balanced! Nor did you have those skills with your swords! You are different."
"You forget, Y/N," Levi muttered, saving Oluo from replying, "that we are all official soldiers. We had to put a damper on our actual skills, to save ourselves from being found out. That includes Petra."
Oluo smirked and tipped his head back to laugh, his face twisted in humour. "You think you can beat me that easily, pipsqueak?"
You were about to come up with a smart comeback when Oluo's horse suddenly jolted over a ditch in the ground, causing his mouth to snap shut - right on his tongue. As he shrieked in pain, a dribble of blood coming from his mouth, you couldn't help but laugh with Eld and Gunther. "Serves you right, you big-headed swine!" Eld said, grinning at the brown-haired man with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Would I be able to beat you?" You asked, and Gunther sobered up quickly. He looked your body over, evaluating its strength and capabilities. Levi's body tensed, waiting for Gunther's answer, but Levi kept his face forward on the road that you were taking.
"I don't think so," he said, without a trace of arrogance or smugness. Pure honesty - that's what his answer was. "Maybe after two years of training. You're already very good." You nodded - you didn't agree with it, but you'd have plenty of time to settle the matter of strength in a fight later... Maybe when the city wasn't in jeopardy.
"Focus," Levi said quietly, but everyone immediately fell silent. You could almost sense their united focus, and you joined them as the walls came ever-closer. The giant hole was still there, which you could see with ease thanks to the smoke being long-gone. So much time had passed since it had been put there - five hours, maybe more. So much could have happened in that time; so many could have died. Suddenly, immense guilt pressed onto your gut. If you hadn't been captured, then you could have still fought and killed titans before they killed the civilians - although they should have already been evacuated into the inner walls.
"Y/N, you'll go and join your garrison group within the walls," Levi said, snapping you out of your musing. "We have a job to do outside the walls. The scouts will be joining the battle soon; they weren't too far behind us."
"What? You mean that I'm not fighting with you?" You asked, stupor clouding your mind. It seemed too silly, too ridiculous for you and Levi to split up now.
"You're not going to fight with me," Levi confirmed, and you opened your mouth to fight your case. "Don't argue with me," he cut you off, "because even if I have to tie you up and escort you back to the garrison, I'll do it."
"You'd have to catch me first," you scathingly said, but you didn't have time to fight and you both knew it. You finally - finally - reached the walls, and even though there were a few titans dotted about, Oluo and Gunther took them out using 3DMG without a second thought. You understood then - the way that they moved through the air, like fluid, was something that you wouldn't be able to do for a while. "Go, Y/N."
Levi pushed you from the saddle, but you were more than prepared for that and landed neatly on your feet. You looked up at him, marvelling at his cold and unfeeling face.
"I'll see you later?" Although you hated the way that your words were a question, you felt they were necessary. There could be a possibility that you and Levi could never see each other again. Levi seemingly guessed what you were thinking, and smiled slightly.
"You still owe me twenty four hours of your service, don't you?"
He threw heavy boxes at you – 3DMG – and with that he rode off to the left, ready to guard the walls from the outside. You turned, facing the hole in the wall. Even from the distance that you were at, you could hear screaming - screams of animalistic victory, screams of human terror - and knew that you were needed. You hurriedly dragged the boxes into place and drew your blades, the sound of the metal slicing through the air grounding you, giving you a sense of the calm before a storm.
And you got ready to draw blood.
***
You were flying through the streets, scanning desperately for someone other than a titan. You had no clue where anyone was, but as you dived down suddenly and sliced through the body of yet another cloaked titan, you decided that it didn't matter. As long as you cut the number of the titans down to zero, who cared whether you did it alone or with a team?
You landed on a tiled roof, your boots cracking the brown tiles. Leaning back to look at the darkening sky, you gave yourself a chance to get your breath back. Everywhere hurt, thanks to the 3DMG's straps cutting into your skin and the boxes hitting your hips every time you turned. There were also the several bruises that Scar had given to you, which you couldn't see but could feel blooming and spreading.
"Mikasa, stop! You're going to run out of gas!"
You froze, but only for a second - that was Armin's voice. Forgetting about your injuries, you whipped around and immediately saw a group of cadets about one hundred meters away, sprinting along a roof. One figure was racing ahead using their 3DMG, but even you could tell that the figure was using up way too much gas than what was needed.
You ran towards them, your breathing coming in short gasps. Slowly, the figures came closer and closer until you jumped across the final roof and joined them. Jean caught on first, instantly raising his swords in a defensive position in case you were an attacker. After a few seconds, he looked you over and saw underneath the blood and bruises on your face. "Y/N?!"
Smiling weakly at Jean as he ran towards you, you felt your walls beginning to crumble again. Refusing to fall into tears, you merely threw yourself into Jean's arms and held him as tightly as he held you before Bertoldt and Reiner joined in, their arms clinging to you. "We saw them take you," Krista was crying next to you. Ymir kept one arm around her, trying to comfort the sobbing girl, but it didn't stop Krista's tears. "We thought you were dead!"
"I thought we'd never see you again," Jean said, and his voice broke – and for moment, you thought your own heart had as well. "I thought..." He let you go, turning abruptly and walking over to the edge of the roof, his face scrunched up. Reiner and Bertoldt looked a sickly pale, and Annie looked like she could faint.
"I was going to follow you," Annie said, not meeting your eyes, "but the officials held me back. They knocked me out for a while, but woke me up when they realized that they needed the numbers."
"I can handle myself," you reminded them, but you smiled widely so that they knew that you appreciated them. "What's wrong with Mikasa?"
"She knows about Eren... She doesn't care about anything anymore." Armin answered, offering a watery grin. "She's using up too much gas killing titans because she doesn't care if she lives or dies."
You nodded and started running after the black-haired girl, knowing that the rest of your friends would follow you. Mikasa never faltered in her movements as she ducked and weaved down the streets, killing all titans that she saw. You remembered what she had told you during your time with the scouts - that she owed Eren her life. You could only imagine what she was feeling right now - that she should have been there to protect Eren, to save him... But her guilt was from the fact that she hadn't been there.
"Mikasa!" You yelled, speeding up to try and reach her, but the girl stayed a firm distance away. "Eren wouldn't want this! He died so that you could live!"
"Don't," Armin said, catching up to you with difficulty. "Mikasa doesn't think like that." You turned to look at him in exasperation, wondering how such a smart boy could give up. The boy immediately picked up on your condescending look and snarled right back at you. "Don't say that I don't know her - Eren and Mikasa are my best friends, and they have been for years. Don't think that I'm just giving up on her; I'm just not about to push her anymore."
You averted your eyes, ashamed to think anything along those lines. Reiner lengthened his strides until he was matching yours, and so you two easily fell into the routine of discussing plans whilst on the move. "We're heading to the castle to refill our gas tanks before they run out. We're not allowed to go back until we see black smoke flares, and then we can retreat. Until then..."
"We fight," you finished. "But Mikasa is our priority."
"We won't be any help to her if our gas tanks run out," Reiner said, his breaths even and steady. "I'd say that we refill first."
"I won't take that risk of wasting too much time," you told him firmly. "Not when her life is on the line. I don't play around with other people's lives. If it were my life in danger, sure - but not someone else's." Reiner sighed but yielded, dropping back to run with Bertoldt and Annie in a surly silence.
Mikasa suddenly dropped down into a dead-ended street, and you knew from the abrupt dip that she hadn't meant to - she was finally out of gas. Your eyes darted to the side, where they met with Armin's stricken blue eyes. You ran harder, but a huge cloaked titan rounded the corner well ahead of the time that you would. You were terrified for Mikasa - could she fight for herself? The girl merely looked at the titan and fell backwards into an abandoned cart, holding her broken sword up to the sky. You understood - she was giving up. She didn't care.
As the titan neared, however, another titan whipped around the corner. This one was cloaked too, but you could have sworn that the legs that were peeked out from the openings of the cloak were - in fact - brown boots - the exact kind that everyone with the garrison were wearing.
You opened your mouth to say something, anything, but before you had a chance to make a sound, the second titan leaped forward and broke the other titan's neck by twisting his head the wrong way. You almost tripped, utter shock at a titan betraying another titan freezing you. Armin and Jean both actually tripped behind you, so you decided to freeze at the edge of the nearest roof to Mikasa and just watch.
The titan-but-not-titan stopped, looked around and ran off again, not paying any attention to Mikasa. You glanced to Reiner, who looked a sickly pale, and nodded. "Armin, Jean - help Mikasa and then join us. Everyone else, with me - we're going to follow him."
So you ran, following the cloaked titan on his way through the streets. There was something not right about it - why would a titan leave a human uneaten and alive? Why would a titan kill more of its friends?
Not-titan carved a bloody path for itself through the streets, with its fellow titans not expecting his hit until it was too late. He was efficient and brutal, which you saw with rising glee. But even he, with his bloody effectiveness, could not deceive them forever. A wave of titans came around the corner, and began swarming him. Even as you watched, you knew there was nothing you could do to help the not-titan with the number of titans surrounding him.
At least, that's what you thought until his cloak was tugged off and his face was revealed.
Eren.