Everything Comes at a Price
All hell had broken loose: there was a gaping hole in the wall, the titans were everywhere, and people were scrambling in a hopeless attempt to not be devoured.
And in the midst of it all stood the armored titan.
The new Special Ops Squad had just been sent in, consisting of Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman, Armin Arlert, Jean Kirkstein. and Lance Corporal Levi Ackerman.
As the five whipped themselves across the battlefield with their 3D Maneuver Gear, Armin yelled, "Eren! Mikasa! Try to see if you can find a weak point on his body! Jean and I will distract him!" The 2 obediently split away from the group.
"Why do I have to be part of the distraction?" Jean complained.
"Because if Eren, Mikasa, or Captain Levi is injured or dies, we're practically fucked!" Armin responded.
Jean shut himself up after that, accepting the painful truth.
"Who said YOU could give the orders, you little shit?" Levi thought to himself.
Despite his frustration over his lack of authority, Levi trailed Eren and Mikasa, making sure that the little brats didn't screw anything up.
He landed on a rooftop, glaring at the monstrosity before him.
"It's only natural that you came for the colossal brat, you piece of shit" he murmured.
In the week prior to the armored titan's appearance, the Recon Corps had miraculously captured Bertoldt, but was unable to get any sort of answers from him. So it became necessary to capture Reiner as well, him being the last one with the capability of breaking through the walls.
To Levi, capturing (or eliminating, if it came to that) the armored titan seemed like an almost impossible task.
Almost.
After all, he DID subdue the female titan, a feat that not even four elite titan hunters and the rogue titan could accomplish.
He saw Armin and Jean, taunting the walking fortress as Eren and Mikasa surveyed the terrain of the titan's body.
What happened next was something that even Levi found horrifying.
The armored titan had swung its entire upper torso around at an impossible speed for its size and a bone-chilling CRACK echoed towards Wall Sina.
Yes, the Special Operations Squad was defending the gates of Wall Sina, Humanity's last stronghold for survival, and the backbone of the squad's success had just been snapped in two.
"EREN!" Mikasa yelled in despair at her fallen adoptive brother.
There was no sign of life coming from Eren's direction.
She began to change her course toward the area where he had crashed.
Suddenly, Levi grabbed her arm and dragged her to the farthest rooftop.
Once their feet were firmly placed on the structure, Mikasa asked with a fury that could only be matched by Eren himself, "What the HELL do you think you're doing?!"
"Preventing a needless death," Levi answered in a calming tone.
"Don't give me that shit, shortstack," Mikasa growled, "My brother is seriously hurt, and I don't need assholes like you holding me back from beating the living hell out of the one who is responsible for his pain."
"I understand that you're flipping your shit over the kid. Here's the thing, though: he's most likely dead."
The possibility hit her like a cannonball, and she cringed at the thought of it.
"And if you don't get your head together, there are going to be a LOT more people that are going to-"
"No," the girl with the red scarf mumbled.
"What was that?"
"No, he's NOT dead."
Levi grabbed her by her collar.
"Look, I don't know what sort of demented fantasy YOU'RE seeing, but snap the hell out of it! Eren's GONE, and you know it!"
There was a brief period of silence after that.
Then there was a sob, and soon, Mikasa found herself bawling her eyes out.
"WHYYYY? WHY HIM? WHY NOT ME?" she screamed at the heavens.
Levi quickly clapped his hand over the girl's mouth.
"Do you want us BOTH to die?" he scolded.
Slowly, Mikasa shook her head, and he let go.
"Ok," Levi said, "if you don't want Eren to have died for nothing, then help me take this bastard down."
He drew his swords and jumped off the rooftop.
As calmly as she could, Mikasa got a hold of her emotions and followed her superior.
...
The two slowly approached the titan, who was getting ready to charge through yet another wall.
When they got close enough, they latched onto the back of its shoulder blades and performed a synchronized spinning move that merely annoyed the giant. Once they had its attention, they saw Armin flee with Jean limply hanging onto his shoulders.
Levi turned his attention back to the titan and both Ackermans launched another spinning maneuver, this time butchering the giant's arms.
However, the titan launched its counterattack by grabbing onto their wires and hurling them across the city.
Luckily, the two had managed to launch their second wires onto the titan's legs, where they obliterated its Achilles' tendons.
The armored titan fell onto one knee, but it still looked like it could still fight.
After their close encounter with being flung helplessly into the air, Levi took a quick rest to strategize on how to bring the monster down for good.
Mikasa had other ideas.
She recklessly threw herself back towards the titan, blades at the ready.
Levi sighed in disappointment and followed her.
But then he felt something digging into his leg.
He turned around and glared into the face of an airborne titan.
"Tch, careless..."
Out of pure desperation and for the sake of the mission, he raised his sword and chopped off the now useless appendage. After taking a second to adjust to his lighter, yet more painful, condition, he clung onto the titan's neck and sliced the nape.
As soon as he followed through with the cut, he hopped off with his good leg and continued towards the armored titan.
With his new injury, though, he became clumsy and was unable to control his movements, and he tumbled onto the ground, stopping only to go head-first into the wall of a house.
Dazed and weakened, he raised himself up and latched onto the side of the armored titan's neck.
He used all the gas that he could to accelerate him towards the beast, and was able to cut into it just as it reached for a defeated and unconscious Mikasa.
Levi looked back, and saw a deep incision in the back of the titan's neck, where Reiner Braun was now exposed.
The raven-haired man grinned as a giant hand slammed him into another building.
Levi, former champion of humanity, now lay broken beneath a pile of rubble. He stared up at the dark sky and whispered, "Gunter, Eld, Auruo... Petra... I can finally see you all again..."
With the last of his strength, he gave a crooked salute, and closed his eyes as he heard a familiar roar in the distance...
