[Chapter One: The Forest of Giant Trees]

[Levi`s POV]

What the hell was that? I held my hands over my ears, trying to block out the deafening roar of the female titan. The monster shook with what I could only assume was fear and anger as I stood on her head. I shifted to keep my balance. The titan continued to scream, the noise causing the invisible hairs on the nape of my neck to stand on end. I looked over at Erwin for a clue as to what we should do next. With her ability to harden her skin, it was going to make getting to the nape of her neck a difficult challenge. The unholy racket the giant was making would be sure to draw unwanted attention as well. Shit. Erwin`s expression matched my thoughts almost exactly, and I frowned at him.

"Sir! Titans incoming, from all directions!"

"Damn it! Keep them away! We can`t afford to lose her now." Erwin`s eyes burned with intensity as he shouted the orders. I leapt off the titan`s head and took up a position in the defensive formation alongside the other soldiers. The thick foliage surrounding us made it more difficult to see incoming titans, but it was impossible to mistake their footsteps. Even the elephantine trees could not fully resist the impact of the larger monsters now coming for us. Their branches trembled under our feet; leaves were shaken free and fell in green streamers to the distant forest floor nearly fifty meters below. Although my attention was sharply focused on the task at hand, I spared a thought for Eren and my special operations squad. The titans closing in on my position would likely be drawn past their location, and I hoped that they would be able to make the right choices to keep each other alive. I trusted their judgment. What I didn`t trust was the rest of the world. A shout from my left drew my peripheral vision for a brief moment. A seven meter tall enemy had appeared running towards us. I still can`t get over the fact that these savages all look like retards. I left the closer soldiers to deal with that one; I would stay close to Commander Smith and watch his back. He was an excellent warrior, and I admired his intelligence. Maybe we wouldn`t lose so many soldiers if the military corps had more men like him.

In moments our forces were being swarmed by the giants. I leapt in to the fray, my blades flashing in my trademark style. I fought with my right blade in a reversed grip spinning and slicing through flesh with little lost momentum. As a cadet, I`d been told that holding my weapons this way was wrong. The man who had told me that was long since dead, one of many humans who had been devoured. Hot blood stained both instruments and ran down to my hands. Getting the stains out of my jacket later might be problematic. I flicked my wrists and flung some of the scarlet fluid off as it steamed with heat. My own blood pounded though my veins, thundering as my pulse sped up with the exertion of battling this seemingly endless wave of foes. I landed on another branch as the titan who`s nape I had just lopped a hunk of flesh from tumbled to the ground with an enormous crash. All around me a sea of green cloaks boiled, metal glinted and flashed wickedly. The brutes were tearing in to the female titan; I was somewhat surprised. The bitch was prepared to die before she gave up the secret of her identity. In a way, I respected her for her determination. She would at least die fighting. But what was her motive? How did she come to be? Unfortunately we wouldn`t be able to pry those answers out of her now. I heard a scream from behind me and whipped around, launching in to the air with my 3DM device out of reflex. None too soon did I react; as a great hand smashed through the space where I had just been standing. I repressed my horror at seeing the lower half of one of the other scouts dangling from the monster`s maw. My grappling claw lashed out from the 3DM gear and embedded itself in the creature`s shoulder. My momentum carried me in a wide arc around the bastard`s head and I flung myself towards the nape of its neck, my blades whistling through the air. All around me men were being torn apart, pulped, and eaten. It was a bloodbath.

"Retreat! Fall back to the Karanese District!" Erwin`s shout came from somewhere to my right, and I moved towards it. I thought; Then again, the odds are never in our favor. There are just too many of them… Adrenaline fuelled my maneuvers, but I did not panic. I wasn`t allowed to do so. As much as I hated that others saw me as a leader, I had to look out for them. A blonde beacon of hair became visible through the thick steam ahead of me. I bent my knees and raised my arms in time to catch the branch the Commander was standing on. I swung myself around it and up to the other side, then flipped in midair and landed lightly next to him.

"Erwin , I need to go find my squad and make sure Eren`s secure."

"Go." He replied, and took off in another direction.

"Try not to die." I muttered to his back as the distance between us increased. I took a running start and leapt off the end of the limb, flinging my body towards where I knew my special operations group had been heading. The roars of titans and the screams of the recon squad echoed in my ears as I left.

Every one of the monsters I passed I wanted to engage and destroy, but the cold, logical side of my brain won that battle. My first priority was to find my team and Eren. Humanity `s best chance at survival might rest on that little shit`s shoulders, or, more appropriately in his genes. As I hurried towards my destination I kept my eyes open for anyone from my squad in case one or more of them had been separated from the rest. Then a familiar bellow reached my ears. Somewhere in the forest ahead of me, Eren had changed in to his titan form. He was only allowed to do that when he was threatened, and we had just barely stopped him from doing so earlier when the female titan was pursuing us. That he had changed could only mean one thing: We`re in deep shit. I got my ass moving, pushing harder than before and bursting through the leaves to literally fly in to a shit storm. Somehow, impossibly the person inside the female titan had escaped and been able to shape shift again. I was shocked to see Eren fighting her. The two gigantic humanoids were snapping the huge trees like matches as they struggled. I saw Oluo`s mangled corpse slung over a branch; the impact alone had probably killed him. Rage and sorrow tightened my fists on my swords, turning my knuckles white. Petra screamed as she dodged the female`s flailing fist. Eren in titan form had just kicked the enormous woman`s midsection, sending her flying in to the trunk of an eighty meter tall sequoia. The wood creaked in protest, snapping little by little. Directly in the path of the falling tree was Eld, who`s 3D device seemed to be malfunctioning, and who`s leg was visibly broken. Without hesitation I dropped from my temporary perch and anchored my 3DMG so that I could swing down and give the blonde man a hand.

"Eld!" I called his name and held out my hand as I approached on the downswing. As I had hoped he reached up and we clasped forearms. Still in motion I swung him with me so that we could land out of harm`s way. Saving Eld had cost me however. More titans had been drawn to the sounds of Eren`s roars and the battle. A few of them had wounds that were quickly closing as the gashes vented visible heat. One of them sported a flesh pairing blade embedded between its shoulder blades. The former owner`s arm was still attached although everything from that person`s elbow down was gone, presumably having been ripped off. Petra shrieked in pain from nearby. I caught a glimpse of her moving through the air towards Eld and I before the tip of an attacking titan`s finger collided with her left side. The slender brunette was sent forcefully in to the canopy and disappeared. Things were looking worse and worse with each passing second. The blonde titan was faster than Eren, and clearly possessed knowledge of fighting skills others of her kind did not. Eld and I barely managed to stay clear of yet another of the brutes, and watched in utter horror as she kicked through a tree branch and right through Eren`s head. Revealed suddenly was his human form, still partly embedded in the steaming inner tissue of his other form. The boy was defenseless like that. I didn`t have to tell Eld what I was thinking as I eased him down in the fork between two branches. My heart raced with barely repressed panic as I tore past the female titan looming over Yeager. I sliced through the muscles on one of her cheeks as I did so, both to distract her and to slow my falling momentum. Only did I barely free Eren and release some propulsion gas when a bone jarring collision threw me spinning blindly. My vision spotted and I fought for consciousness for a brief moment. I was able to arrest my fall, but now I had no idea where Eren was. The thing that had crashed in to me was a twelve meter mountain of moving flesh, bent on reaching the one Eren had been fighting and we had tried to capture. Again they were everywhere, closing in on me. As far as I knew I was the only one left alive. Even so, I would have to retrieve Eren`s body at all costs. Without it Hange would lose humanity`s only opportunity thus far to study an intelligent titan. Despair tightened my chest and exploded from my mouth in a terrifying shout of rage. Damn it! This can`t have all been for nothing! I refuse to have let all of their deaths be meaningless! I moved towards where I thought Yeager would have fallen and spotted him limply sprawled on a massive bough. I made a beeline for him, my swords whirling frantically as giant hands reached for me. I was almost there! And then I was trapped in an enormous meaty fist from behind. The female titan had grabbed me, and both of my arms were pinned painfully to my sides. I could barely breathe, let alone move to defend myself. I snarled silently; so this is the bitter end for me?

But it wasn`t, not quite. As my vision again blurred, fast becoming cloudy and dark around the edges, I felt myself suddenly falling. Gasping for a clean breath I pushed weakly at the man-sized digits confining me. They fell away in spite of my poor efforts. There was no time to use my 3DMG to stop my fall. But somehow I wasn`t falling now, instead my body rose past the faces of the monsters and their snapping jaws, towards the cloudy sky. It took me a moment to realize that someone had saved me. Thin, strong arms were wrapped around my waist from behind, cradling me in place against someone`s chest. It was obvious that person was a woman for anatomical reasons. I wondered hazily if it was Petra by some miracle and recalled that there was no way she would have been able to lift me with the injuries she had undoubtedly sustained. Is it Mikasa?! But no, I estimated this person was taller than Mikasa. The hair streaming past my face was long and silvery white in color. Who did I know with hair that color and length? I couldn`t think straight. Every one of my special operations squad was likely dead. Oluo certainly was. Gunther I hadn`t seen since I`d parted ways with him before. Petra and Eld had vanished, and Eren…Oh gods. I`ve failed!

"If you don`t stop squirming, I`m going to drop your scrawny ass!" Growled a low, feminine voice from somewhere in the vicinity of my right ear. I stopped squirming. Who the hell are you? I wanted to yell a caustic response, but my throat was too tight to speak at all. Whoever it was, we both continued to ascend rapidly. The clouds weren`t much farther overhead, and with a shock I realized my rescuer wasn`t tethered to one of the trees as I had originally thought. How were we still going up? What the- my silent inquiry was cut off as abruptly we were inside the clouds. It was like having a cold bucket of water dumped on my head from out of nowhere. An alien clicking sound came from above me, leading me to believe that somehow whatever my rescuer was attached to was being cranked up mechanically. I dared to raise my head and look up. I stared. Nothing in all of my life could have prepared me for what I saw above us just then. A massive ship, like one of those used in side the walled city was floating through the sky. Propellers rotated faster than I could see on the sides of the colossal construction. The edges of some vast balloon were just visible past the airship`s starboard and port. My jaw fell open in amazement. This can`t be real. I must be lying unconscious somewhere on the forest floor right now. Hopefully someone finds me before I get eaten. I`m never going to live this down. I marveled in disbelief at the insane illusion my mind had conjured up.