Levi gently caressed the head of his brown mare and fed her a cube of sugar. She silently snorted and nuzzled his pocked with her nose for more. He gave her the rest of the three sugar cubes and the piece of carrot and then went for the saddle, as she happily munched on her treats.

The strapped the saddle and the bridle on and slowly led the horse outside to where he was supposed to meet up with his new squad. He would just turn around the corner and he would be at the designed meeting spot.

He saw his new squad, they were standing together, probably waiting for him. Jean and Eren were talking animatedly, with Armin and Mikasa flanking Eren and Reiner standing nearby, leaning on a fence. Their horses were tied to a pole, calmly waiting.

Armin noticed him approaching first and apparently warned others in a hushed voice, because Levi couldn´t make out the words, but Eren and Jean stopped whatever they were arguing about and now, he had 5 pairs of eyes on him.

He already met with most of them before, with Mikasa during recapturing Eren from the Female Titan and with Jean and Armin when they made the plan to substitute Eren with Jean for the trial. He never met Reiner in person, only seen him among the crowds. He was sort of hard to miss. If he was surprised with Levi´s lack of height from seeing him up close for the first time, it didn´t show on his face.

"Listen up brats," Levi said as he approached, "you were chosen for the Special Ops squad of the Survey Corps. I am not here to babysit you, so I hope you take care of yourself and not die one me, because I won´t always be there to save your ass. You´re soldiers, so act that way."

He looked at Armin while he said that. Armin gulped.

"Our prime objective is to protect Eren. But he´s also an important part in our plans, and it would do us no good if we just kept him away from the battlefield, therefore, we need to protect him from attacking titans until he´s done with whatever he´d be doing."

"We will be using the long-distance enemy scouting formation that Erwin devised. Our position will be on Line 5 – Center on Standby, same as last time. It is the safest position in the formation, but don´t let that lull you into a false sense of security. As other squads, we will still have to relay smoke signals, but as the Special Op squad, there is a possibility of being discharged to a situation that average soldiers cannot handle. Questions?"

"No, sir," they replied in unison.

"Fine. Go fill your gas tanks and anything else you need before the expedition, say goodbye to your parents, whatever you brats do. We depart behind the Walls in an hour. And cut out the sir."

Levi didn´t even wait for the ´Yes, s-´ they still said from habit, some of them correcting themselves with ´Yes, heichou´, he vaulted on his horse with practices ease and set out to finish his own preparations.

The sun was already low and Levi gave it half an hour top before it would set over the horizon, but it was hard to tell with the Walls obscuring any horizon he could see. They had to wait before darkness fell, because some titans were still able to move some time after sunset.

0000000000000

Everyone was set and ready to go. They were stocked on gas and blades, the supply wagons were filled and the horses were prepared and fed, calmly waiting for a command.

The civilians came to see them off as always, but their hostile stares and harsh not-silent-enough whispers were even worse than usually. After all, the losses after the last expedition beyond the walls were enormous without accomplishing anything and everyone still had the battle that destroyed their homes and killed their families between Eren and the Female titan in fresh memory.

´Look at them, acting all high and mighty again, going out to at the expense of our taxes to achieve nothing, while we struggle here with the damage they caused.´

´Fuckin´ bastards, are lives not sacred to them? My daughter died in the last expedition and they didn´t even have the decency to bring back at least a part of her.´

´Look at him, he´s so handsome.´

Levi turned to see two pubescent girls eying him. The girls noticed him looking at them at turned away blushing, giggling into their hands.

He snickered in disgust and decided to completely ignore them. Damn airheads.

Armin did his best to appear calm and collected, but inside he felt very tense. He noticed a small boy, barely eight years old, watching from a window in the street surrounding them. Seeing a soldier notice him, the small boy waved.

Armin raised his hand and shyly waved back, smiling slightly at the boy. A mother saw her son and shooed him away from the window and closed the curtains, but not before shooting Armin a hate-filled glare. Armin quickly retracted his hand and looked around him. He hoped they would set out soon. The sun has already set, but the sky still wasn´t entirely dark. He shifted in the saddle and glanced around.

Eren had his eyes pointed forward, but from the set jaw and his fingers clutching the reins so tightly he could see the whites of his knuckles, Armin could tell that Eren wasn´t handling himself much better than he himself did.

Jean had his gaze fixed somewhere on his horse´s mane. He tried his hardest to push away the insults and accusations flying in the air, but he couldn´t deny the truth in people´s words.

Mikasa didn´t look affected at all, at least not personally, though she was keeping close to Eren as she sensed his unease, trying to comfort him with her silent presence.

Reiner´s eyes were fixed on the horizon, tracing the last rays of the disappearing light. He looked lost in thought, as if he was rehearsing the procedures for the expedition.

"This is it, brats," Levi turned back to them from his horse. "We´re going to depart soon."

Just as he finished saying it, Erwin´s voice boomed from the front, from where he would command all the forces.

"Open the gate!"

Waves of murmurs rose and the horses clapped their hooves on the pavement in anticipation. The gate slowly rose, the thick spikes emerging from the ground with dirt falling from them, revealing a dark, vast plane, the grass now appearing as an ocean of rolling gray. No titans in sight.

"FORWARD!"

At the sound of the single word shouted into darkness, over a hundred of horses, both with soldiers and spare ones begun to gallop at full speed out of the gate, the thunder of hooves reverberating the entire street. The soldiers were shouting to give themselves a moral boost before they plunged into the night, their cloaks flying behind them, the lit lanterns dangling, fire in their eyes and their hearts.

It was a sight to behold. The citizens, even the ones previously badmouthing the Survey Corps stood in awe with chills running down their backs.

The running horses begun to spread after they left the gate, led by their riders to assume the formation.

"WE NOW BEGIN THE 58TH EXPEDITION!" Erwin was barely heard over the sounds of hundreds of horseshoes drumming into the ground and the over their own heartbeat pounding in their ears from the adrenaline. "ADVANCE!"

Goosebumps rose on their skin not only from the chilly night air blowing over their skin, but also from the fear of unknown as they were dashing into the darkness with uncertain future full of blood, death and suffering laying ahead.

And so began the 58th Expedition Beyond the Walls.

A/N: Sorry to those, who were expecting some action, but we´re slowly getting there. I like a story to be fully developed, not just jumping straight into action and then working your way towards the conclusion.

Thanks to all those who reviewed the last chapter.

Action is coming. Wait for it. I love battles.