Summary: A few months after the battle to try to capture Annie within the walls, the scouts have managed to capture a new female type titan shifter. Though what started out as a surprisingly easy mission leads to a series of rather difficult events, but what else could be new for the Scouts. But what does the woman from Erwin's past have to do with all of it? Will the scouts be able to gain the information they are looking for to save the human race or will they only fall into their own destruction a lot faster?
Author's note: Just as fair warning if you haven't read the manga or seen the anime, this story may contain some spoilers in any future chapters.
He couldn't believe it, they had actually managed to capture another shifter alive and with little to almost no complications. It was something that was rare if all but unheard of in the scouting corps, and perhaps he should have been a bit more suspicious of the entire thing, but still Commander Erwin Smith couldn't help but find himself shifting proudly in his saddle at his troops job well done. Captain Hanji Zoe rode up excitedly beside him, a rather large smile on her face as the excitement of a new test subject filled her mind with endless possibilities. Her eyes scanned over the still lying form of the female type titan who was currently being restrained to the ground. In a way she almost resembled a good mix between Eren and Annie's titans with a wide-set mouth that revealed rows of teeth and long dark brown hair that flowed well past the length of her shoulders with bangs that covered the top half of her face shielding the Titan's eyes from view. The body itself was completely like Annie's as it didn't seem to have any skin but rather the muscles visible like the colossal and Annie both.
"Oh I can't believe we did it, she was so fast, but oh those ropes were bound to get one sooner or later," laughed Hanji as she dismounted from her ride. Erwin had to hold back a smirk as he watched the captain eagerly make her way over to the female type before his eyes scanned the rest of his troops to check conditions. To his right was Levi's squad filled with the recruits who all seemed to look rather relieved that they weren't facing a similar situation to what had happened before when the Scouts had tried to capture Annie the first time. Though that was a day and a plan that Erwin didn't care to linger on, having secretly kicked himself mentally many times at all the flaws he should have considered and all the lives he sent to their deaths that day. Few other squads seemed to join Levi's as most of them remained to the commander's left side instead near the canons they'd used to fire at the titan.
When he looked ahead he noted that Eren Jaeger was still in his spot, having been the bait once again for this trap, only this time he'd been made more aware of the plan. Given the order not to move, the boy had seemed anxious when the female type had first broken through the trees. Her speed was nearly impossible for even the horses to maintain close range with. A feat that normally wasn't possible for titans as big as she was. Eren had braced himself for the worst and was prepared to fight if need be to avoid being captured again, not wanting to be the reason behind the mission failing in some way. Though to his and even the squad's surprise the female slowed and even came to a complete stop once she'd reached Eren's position. She had kneeled to the ground in front of him and leaned inwards causing Eren to flinch as she seemed to inhale deeply through her nose as if smelling him, right before raising her head and sniffing the air around them. When she at last moved to get up that's when Erwin gave the order to fire trapping the titan down.
That of course had all happened at least several minutes ago, they had waited this time to see if the female would panic and try to call other titans to her as Annie had. They wanted to figure how much time they had to get the person inside her out. Though curiously and worryingly enough the titan hadn't made a single sound since coming upon Eren in fact she'd been completely silent and still. Even now as Hanji approached her and Levi and a few others of the Senior members approached with swords drawn she remained completely still.
Hanji was the first to reach her, approaching the titan's face she met Eren's gaze and nodded to let him know he could leave his position. He moved quickly around her glancing at the female type once a serious look of questioning in his eyes, a feeling deeply shared by the captain herself. She reached out a hand watching the head with sharp eyes for any sudden movements that could mean death if she misjudged and slowly began to brush away the hair curious for a look at the Titan's eyes. She had noted that the shifters eyes all seemed to be very different from what were considered normal titans. Most titans had somewhat 'normal' or humanistic eyes, though sometimes they were really big or really small depending on the type and size. But shifter eyes, always managed to stand out among the rest. When she finally brushed away the bangs her hand froze and she stared at the face of the titan.
"Commander," she called, her tone was that of surprise gaining the attention of the other scouts as well. "There is something wrong with this titan's eyes." She said as Erwin approached having dismounted his own horse as well.
"What is it?" he asked curious about why Hanji's face looked mystified. "What's wrong with her eyes?"
"Well it's just... her eyes..." Hanji tried to grapple for the right words and thoughts, "Her eyes sir, well... she hasn't got any."
"What?" he asked his voice full of speculation as he finally reached her side before freezing, his gaze locked on the face of the female type. Sure enough, it was like Hanji said, where there should have been eyes of even sockets there was nothing. "It's a blind titan."
Two months, it'd been two damn months and they still hadn't managed a word from the female titan shifter, thought Levi as he walked behind Hanji on their way out of the dungeon. He glanced behind him at the cell where a young woman sat, her long dark hair hanging down in front of her face as she bowed her head towards the floor. She'd been that way since he'd managed to cut her out of her Titan's neck. Not a word to anyone, and much like her titan she didn't look at anyone either, her eyes were clouded over completely, she was blind. A curious treasure for Hanji of course, because it only increased the things she could experiment with on the girl,but in a way it was annoying for him. Not so much because the woman couldn't see but because he constantly had to hear about it from everyone for the last two freaking months. To make matters worse Erwin had given him the order to aid Hanji in getting information from the girl and to help in any experiments the female captain might be able to coax their captive into doing.
Levi frowned, not an uncommon thing for him to do but he'd been doing it a lot more lately as he closed the door to the dungeon level behind him. "Well what now four eyes," he asked as he fell in step beside Hanji and the pair began to make their way down the hall. "We can't get her to talk. We've tried playing nice, bribery, taking things away, you've even begged and I've threatened. I'm pretty sure we've exhausted everything but torture at this point." Hanji laughed lightly then patting his shoulder as she turned her head to look at the Corporal.
"I'm not giving up yet, I still have some ideas, an experiment that I think might just do the trick," she said gleefully clapping her hands as the Corporal eyed her warily. She tended to have a way of taking things to far sometimes and if he were honest there were more than a few times her ideas had honestly creeped him out or disgusted him greatly. Something that took a great deal to do when it concerned a man who'd faced Titan's on a near day-to-day basis and the horrible deaths they tended to inflict on the human race.
"What are you thinking mad four eyes, Erwin's already pissed about the last experiment you did on Eren, don't give him a reason to punish us with more paper work," Levi said his tone scolding as the pair reached their parting way. Hanji to head back to her quarters to fill out some research and him to the training yards, he had personally set up a training session for his squad today as their last battle had left him rather irritated with the skills or lack thereof that most of them still seemed to possess in certain situations. Hanji simply waved a dismissive hand at him and smiled devilishly.
"Oh now how was I supposed to know it would blow up, I mean you try a little chemical experiment on titan flesh..." she shook her head, "It's nothing like last time, don't worry." She continued to laugh manically then as she happily turned on her heel nearly skipping with glee back to her quarters.
"Psychotic four eyes," muttered Levi beneath his breath as he turned to head out to the training yards. He found the recruits in disarray outside, arguing over where they were supposed to be lined up. Pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration the Corporal made his way over to them dreading the already long day he knew was in store. "Line up you miserable brats." he yelled gaining the attention and frightened looks of the recruits who quickly scampered into place. He eyed each of them in turn taking a bit of pleasure in the sight of their attempts to keep from shaking under his intense gaze when he noticed two missing. "Where are Ackerman and Jaeger?" he growled the recruits gulped and eyed the space in the middle of the line where the foster siblings tended to stand. "Well?" Armin gulped worried about what the Corporal would do to his friends as he felt Levi's gaze land on him.
"Well Arlert, where are they? You're always hanging around with them quiet the disgusting little trio really. So where are they?" Levi asked standing directly in front of the blonde boy his gaze seering into Armin. The boy shook in fright before looking towards the ground hoping his friends would forgive him.
"Sir, they're in the barracks." He managed to mutter out. Levi growled and turned around his back to the recruits. One hand pinching at the bridge of his nose again, "Begin combat practice, I will be back in a few minutes, and you better be working hard you filthy brats." He said.
"Yes Sir," the recruits said in unison as they saluted though Levi wasn't bothering to look as he stormed his way over to the barracks.
"Come on Mikasa, we're going to get in trouble if Captain Levi notices we aren't at practice," Eren said his eyes flitting over to the window that over looked the practice field as Mikasa continued to wrap a bandage around his head from where he'd been injured by Hanji's last experiment. Mikasa frowned.
"That midget can just wait, you're hurt Eren, you need to be taken care of first," she said as she finished securing the bandage.
"Ackerman, Jaeger," growled Levi as he burst through the door. Eren jumped from his seat on the edge of his bed quickly scrambling to his feet to salute while Mikasa slowly rose up from her position not really in a rush to greet her superior.
"S..Sir, we're sorry we're late it's just.." Eren struggled to complete his sentence when Levi shot him a death glare and raised his hand as if to strike him. Eren flinched and Mikasa stepped in the way glaring down at the Corporal. Levi simply glared back and shrugged.
"Get to practice now you filthy brats, I'll be sure to assign you extra cleaning duties this week." He said before turning to leave. Eren following behind him quickly with a rather annoyed Mikasa right behind him.
The sound of metal on wood rang around the outside of the scouts head quarters as the figure watched the senior scouts and recruits a like par off with each other in the practice yard down below. Moving swiftly the figure lept from their position atop one of the look out points and swept inwards through the window. Clutching the green cloak closer and careful to keep the hood from falling the figure kept to the shadows as they searched out the dungeon finally reaching the right door. A hand slipped out from behind the cloak reaching for the handle when a door opened behind them the figure quickly moved to hide behind a pillar as the Commander, Hanji and Levi stepped out from the Levi's office.
"And you think that you actually have a chance to make the shifter talk?" asked the Erwin as the trio paused near the pillar behind which the figure was hiding.
"Well with the observations I made when we captured her sure, I mean it's no more than a hypothesis, but every hypothesis needs an experiment to test it out," said Hanji excitedly.
"What do you think Levi?" asked Erwin as he looked at the silent corporal. Levi shrugged.
"Crazy four eyes and I tried everything else aside from torture, if it works we can be finally done with questioning." His tone was rather bored.
"Right, the sooner we can get information the sooner I can get the capital off our backs, they've been watching us closely since word of the capture reached their ears, and it does get to be a pain to have to travel to the in wall all the time," said Erwin as the trio turned to head down the hall. The figure listened carefully to their departure only daring to peak out from hiding once it was sure the three had gone completely. With a grateful sigh the figure turned back around only to jump in surprise at the sudden appearance of Commander Erwin right in front of them. A hand holding a knife slashed out at the blonde male, though he quickly dodged it grabbing the arm of the assailant and pushing them back against the pillar. Hanji and Levi appeared around the pillar taking hold of the cloaked figure before Erwin let go disarming the knife from the figure's hand as he did.
"Who are you?" asked Erwin a rather irritated look on his face at the thought that someone actually had managed to sneak this far into HQ without someone noticing again. When the figure didn't answer the Commander simply looked at Levi and Hanji who nodded and shoved the figure back harder against the pillar their holds tightening.
"I believe the commander asked you a question," said Levi, "It'd be best to answer it."
"Let me go," spoke the figure at last, though the voice that trailed out from behind the hood was rather soft and feminine yet firm at the same time. Erwin frowned stepping closer as he reached up with one hand to yank the figure's hood back. The person quickly pressed their back against the pillar and using the hold Hanji and Levi had on them as leverage as they swung a leg up and out at the Commander who was unable to dodge the impact but was instead sent stumbling back on to the floor. However, the figure quickly found them self face down on the ground. With the foot of one Corporal Levi on their back.
"So disrespectful," commented Levi who looked to his Commander who only nodded as Hanji kneeled down and grabbed the back of the hood. Yanking it back quickly to show the assailant beneath it. The trio stared as a woman, was revealed. Her dark brown hair pulled back in a loose bun with a few loose strands framing her face as she looked up at them. Her light blue eyes shooting daggers at each in turn as her lips formed a rather nasty snarl.
"Now I'll ask again," said Erwin, as he composed himself standing up from the floor to tower over her figure, "Who are you? And what are you doing here?" The feeling of Levi's boot digging into her back caused the woman to grit her teeth in dismay.
"My name is Elizabeth," she said softly though her tone was laced with disgust, "And I'm afraid Commander, that you've captured my sister." Jerking backwards in a sudden fluid motion she managed to throw Levi's foot from her back rolling over she scrambled to her feet mindful to twist her arm from Hanji's hold. She spun on her feet to take off in a dead run down the hall making it halfway down the hall before being grabbed again and pinned to the wall feeling her head connecting with the hard wall. Feeling dizzy she looked up to see the irritated expression of the commander right before her vision went dark.
Author's note: Hey, I know I wasn't planning on starting a new story so soon when I am still trying to finish one of my other ones. However, I just wanted to get this up while I was still thinking about it. Please Read and Review. Tell me what you think so far and what you think I might need to work on for any future chapters.