The Missing Pieces
Snippets about
Squad Levi / Levi x Petra
By TheObsessory
Snippet Number One: Chosen
I perched against the side of a nearby tree, regaining some of my breath as I had been instructed to. My 3D maneuvering gear supported me as I crouched there, watching some of my fellow Scouts fly at the dummy titans, slashing at the fake soft flesh at the nape of the neck. Most met their mark but there were a few failures.
Six of us had been called from the the mess hall early this morning during breakfast. The six chosen, I had noted, had been part of the top ten Cadet Corps that had graduated from the 100th Eastern Division. And yesterday morning, the three that had graduated top of their class from the 100th Northern had been called away during the same hour.
"Why'd they have to call us out like that?" I heard Oluo complaining further up the tree to Mattias. We had been split into groups of three- Oskar, Siegar and Liesl and then Oluo, Mattias and myself. We three had gone first and waited for further instruction as the others went.
Many eyes watched us and now that I had a moments rest, I scanned them myself.
The newest Survey Corps Commander, Erwin Smith, stood silent and stone faced, watching Oskar, Siegar and Liesl as they worked. Well, "new". It had been roughly a year since the breach in Wall Maria and Instructor Shadis had retired and promoted him. He was a force in and of himself. We had all heard whispers during training last year of Erwin's accomplishments and of his quick rise in the ranks. It was partially the stories of him that had made me join the Survey Corps. Just in the last year the excursions outside the wall had yielded more and more success in our understanding of the titans and how to avoid them.
Next to him stood our previous Commander, Keith Shadis, who had been our instructor for the last three years of training. His eyes darted constantly in between the three of them, grimacing when a mistake was made.
The two people that accompanied them I did not recognize. One looked to be a woman with dark hair and thick rimmed glasses. Unlike her comrades, her emotions showed through at every instance. She "ooo"ed when Liesl's blade cut down to the wood of the fake Titan and waved her hands around when Oskar's hook missed its mark. It was very clear that the others around her were annoyed by her antics, but chose to ignore her as much as possible.
The last of the group of four was, well, short. He looked to be no older than myself, although I wouldn't be surprised if someone said he was in his late twenties. Although his complexion and height made him seem rather young, his use of a cravat and the circles under his dark eyes spoke volumes about him.
I quickly whipped my head around to follow my comrades in their training as his narrowed eyes found mine- Almost as if he had known I was looking! - and bored straight into them. I prayed for my hot cheeks to cool as I nervously fiddled with the hilt of one of my blades.
"Maybe they're looking for squad leaders?" Mattias ventured a guess.
"We're fresh from training, Matt." I clicked my tongue glancing out of the corner of my eye to see the same dark eyes still focused on me, "That's what they have senior members for."
"Maybe we're just good enough, Petra." He yelled back, green eyes as wild as always. I twisted around, back to the ground as I looked up past Oluo to give him a nice eye roll.
"Ral, Bozado, Voigt! Shut your mouths and get cutting!" Instructor Shadis' yell over took any snide remark I had for Mattias, and before he had even finished his sentence, the three of us were already off toward some unmarked titan dummies.
The three of us whizzed past trees and branches, our hooks finding tree bark and wooden titans as holds. We came up quickly on a particularly large dummy, Mattias and I taking a similar route left and upward toward the nape as Oluo went right. Although we had no idea what exactly we were showing off for, I knew that whatever it was was meant to be a competition. Which of us was the best? I knew I was nowhere near as skilled as Oluo when it came to combat, but I did know Mattias was slow in comparison to myself, and I prided myself in knowing I had that as leverage. I planned on getting there before him and knew I'd make my mark.
Oluo let out a loud grunt of surprise as we all realized the dummy titan had swung around in the opposite direction it had originally been going, heading straight for the airspace Mattias and I would be in momentarily. In my split moment of panic, I realized only one option would save me from collision. Making eye contact with Oluo confirmed that we were both on the same page.
Oluo had a hook secured to a tree on the right side of the target, his path sailing straight past the nape. Even with a gust of the gas powered mechanism sending him closer to the dummy, he wouldn't get the leverage he'd need to dig the blades deep enough. Had we not been instructed against using our hooks on the titan we were specifically after, this would be easily amended.
I was not in near enough range of any tree that could correct my path, so instead I angled my gas powered mechanism opposite of the titan, shooting myself closer toward its head. With a grunt to muster all the strength I could, I flipped sideways over its head, shoving my left hand grip into my belt as I glanced straight down, my face a mere foot and a half from the top of the titan.
In that moment, Mattias met his fate, unable to avoid the fast swinging dummy that knocked him down to the ground with a surprised roar. Having successfully avoided being hit, I was now travelling directly toward Oluo, one of his hands free of blades and held out to catch my own empty hand expectantly. I nearly missed his fingers, but we grasped our hands as I reached, Oluo now spitting out some gas to spin around in a circle and fling me right back toward the titan.
I twisted midair, correcting my path and grabbed my grip, placing a blade on it just in time to cut a large divette out of the fake pink flesh.
"Well done Ral, Bozado." Shadis congratulated us as I hooked to a tree and held myself against it, "Oluo, take Mattias to the medic. It seems he failed to correct his fall."
Sure enough, Mattias laid at the bottom of the titan's feet near the soldiers directing the dummy, a trickle of blood leaking from his nose and a bruise already forming on the side of his head where he collided with the wood.
"Ral, front and center."
With a gulp to hopefully alleviate the knot forming in my throat, I made my way over to the small group of people huddled on the platform mid way up the tree. I dropped before them, placed my right fist over my heart, left fist behind my back and stared straight ahead, avoiding a glance into anyone's eyes.
"That was impressive." Commander Erwin was the first to speak after a moment, "I believe Captain Levi here would like to ask you a few questions before we dismiss you for lunch."
"Thank you, sir. It would be a privilege, sir."
The three of us, Ervin, Levi and myself, were soon on the road back to the Survey Corps headquarters. We did not push our horses up to a gallop- in fact, the clip clop of the horses hooves against the stone path was quite slow and calm.
Once we were well away from where we had left Shadis and the woman behind, Captain Levi began to speak to Commander Erwin, seemingly aware, yet not caring, that I could hear every word.
"The agreement was you were doing the interviews, Erwin." His voice was powerful, and carried back even to where my horse trotted along quite a few feet behind the two. "You know I don't do this kind of-" He glanced over his shoulder and I busied myself with the river we rode by to avoid meeting his cold gaze once more, "-thing."
My cheeks once again burned in embarrassment, but I kept my lips clenched together in a straight line.
"Yes, that was before you were put in charge of gathering your own Special Ops group. I'm not going to be working closely with them, you are." Commander Erwin retorted, his blond head fixed forward, the headquarters within sight now.
"You know who can work with me." Captain Levi muttered slightly softer in return, clearly dreading having to have a conversation with me.
"Obviously not since everyone else I suggest you turn down." Venom was laced in his words. Apparently I was not the first.
Other than a sound of annoyance from Captain Levi, the rest of the short ride back was silent. Once we dismounted our horses, I followed closely behind the man barely taller than myself as he turned down hallway after hallway of assorted rooms- bedrooms, offices, lavatories, it was a maze. I tried memorizing each corridor in order to find my way out, so lost in my own mind I didn't realize the captain had stopped in front of a door.
The front of my head collided with the back of his in a resounding crack before I bounced backwards, eyes blurred in agony.
"Sorry, sir." I yearned to rub away the pain, but balled my fists over my heart and behind my back.
"Sorry, Captain." He corrected, completely unfazed as he unlocked the room and stepped inside, leaving me inwardly wincing and massaging my temple out in the corridor.
After a moment to breathe and mentally prepare myself for what I could only imagine would be the iciest interview possible, I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.
The room was small and modestly adorned with a bed, cabinet, drawers, desk and chair. Had I come in here of my own accord, I would have assumed it was void of any living life form. It was spotlessly clean, however. Not a speck of dust could be seen on the desk or floating through the air in front of the window where bright sunlight leaked through. The bed looked like it had been made months ago and hadn't been used since.
Captain Levi stood in the center of the room, the Wings of Freedom on the back of his cloak staring right back at me. He grunted and walked toward the chair, stopping as he glanced quickly around the room, in search of something. Apparently not finding what he was looking for, he took the small wooden chair and placed it opposite of the bed a few feet, sitting down and leaning leisurely back, one leg crossed over the other.
He motioned me to sit on the bed.
I quickly did so, chilled fingers curled in my lap. The bed was as tough as a rock and didn't give way when I sat down.
"I'm sure you overheard Erwin and I on the road and have some idea of what it is we're going to be talking about today." His head tilted slightly to one side, his eyes seemingly looking straight through me.
"Yes, Captain."
"Good. I'm glad you were eavesdropping."
I bit the tip of my tongue, wanting nothing more to explain myself- Surely he wanted me to hear what he had to say, he was talking so loud! -but his gaze rendered me silent.
"I'm making a Special Operations Team under Commander Erwin's orders. My team is going to be comprised of brilliant and highly skilled soldiers who will listen to any request I have no matter how ass backwards it sounds. I need them to be able to communicate without one word. As far as I'm concerned, they're going to be one soldier in mind, even if there are five different bodies, understood?"
"Understood." I nodded, beads of sweat tickling at the nape of my neck. And I was being considered-?
"We will be humanity's last hope on the other side of that wall. We will be an unstoppable force against the titans." Here he paused. "Your technique is well rounded. Shadis has nothing but good things to say about you as a soldier. And from what I've seen, you don't lack the social skills I require of you." He drawled on, eyes flicking toward the window.
"Require of me, Captain?" I asked nervously.
"Yes. As of now you are the first one recruited to Squad Levi. Any questions?"
My mind raced at the suddenness of it all, fingers maddeningly cold despite being wrapped in my palms. Squad Levi. I didn't mind the sound of it, and there wasn't any possible way I could say no to a proposal such as this. This is what I had told my father I wanted, right?
"How can I sit around inside these walls, waiting for some boy to come along and sweep me off my feet so we can have children to sacrifice to those monsters?"
I remember the conversation so clearly, my father's old face flushed in anger. He didn't understand what I saw in leaving the walls to further our people. His letters since the fall of Wall Maria had been increasingly agitated during training, but I had made my choice, and although he was not happy, he knew there was no changing my mind.
"Just one, Captain." I managed to spit the words out, "Why me?"
His eyes slid back to mine, just as cold and calculating as before.
"As if you couldn't tell, I don't do interviews. In fact I don't do talking all that much to begin with. You will be my mouth. I have a list of soldiers I want interviewed and I want you to put them into a squad including you and myself. I don't care how much they talk. I don't particularly care if I like them all that much. You know what I want and you will make it for me. You may be recruited but the ultimate task after the group of you bond-" He spat the word as though it were sour. "-and learn to work as a single soldier will be an excursion out of Wall Rose just the five of us. I plan on surviving despite what the rest of you do, so I suggest you find people you know will work well and keep you alive."
He dismissed me then, and I lost myself in the maze of hallways just as my mind was lost, replaying each word he had said to me over and over. I eventually found myself back in my shared room, sitting alone at the only desk in the room that housed another seven female soldiers. To order my thoughts, I wrote a letter to my father.
Papa,
You'll never believe what's happened to me. Even I don't believe what's happened to me. I was just selected for a Special Operations Squad- no, before you ask, I don't know the specifics of what we're going to be doing. Why was I selected though? Surely of all the soldiers part of the Survey Corps there are better. Oluo is far better in combat than me- though honestly I can't see him and Squad Captain Levi getting together all that well. He's just so cold. He said he doesn't speak much, but what he said sounded alright. He spoke so smoothly I found myself listening to him even if he showed so little interest in me as a person. He chose me first, Papa. And now he expects me to select the rest of the members. The Gods know I can't say no, but how am I ever to do what he wants me to do? It's all so much to comprehend in so short a time. And it's rather clear I was selected to do the choosing for him- he was so reluctant to talk to just me.
I paused, dipping my quill into the inkwell a few dozen times in thought.
I plan to say yes (although he gave me no choice in the first place). I'll do my best for Captain Levi. This is why I came here, Papa. I'm finally going to be able to do the good in the world I so yearn to see from others.
-Petra
Just a series of snippets in between episodes/before Attack on Titan really begins. I, like so many other people, am so intrigued by this group of amazing characters we rarely get to know. I've always loved the aspect of a second family, the one you choose to be a part of, not one you're born into.
But yeah. If you're interested in perhaps reading more- I plan on eventually adding in the romance further down the line -please leave a comment. If there's any dynamic between two characters of the original Squad Levi you'd be interested in seeing, go ahead and let me know. Just anything.
Expect a lot of character exploration.
~TheObsessory
(Also... being posted to AO3 under "TheObsessory", so no need to worry, tis I.)
