Armin is my hero. After all the times I saved his butt (or tried to) when he was being bullied when we were growing up, I knew he was a good friend to me. I knew that he had my back. But I just didn't realize quite how devoted he was to me, and not only that, but how smart.

Armin's brain just works in a different way than mine. When I have a problem, it's like I get it in my sight, and I want to charge forward bullheadedly battering away at it until it goes away. That's how I deal with issues.

Armin, on the other hand, looks at things from every angle. He realizes that when you look at it head-on, and when you look at it from the side, a problem looks very different. Then, he starts to strategize. And it's like all the pieces just slot together, into one perfect hole.

You can tell when Armin has the right plan in mind. He gets a light that goes on in his eyes, and his lip trembles, and he hesitates to tell you because he's still worried he's not right. He doesn't want to take the responsibility of it being his plan - but trust me, I'd put my life behind his plans any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Mikasa, on the other hand, is my strength. She's always there with me, supporting me. Even though sometimes she clings a little too close, suffocates me with her devotion, I would never be able to do this without her.

We made it to Mali. Mikasa managed to sweet-talk someone into lending her a car for a week, and then off we were on our way to Timbuktu, a place one hears about only in fairy tales.

I know that they're probably watching us - after all, we stick out like sore thumbs. So, Armin insists that we go sightseeing. He talks loudly about how it's always been his dream to see this place, and he's so excited. Mikasa wears her head scarf without complaint, doing her best not to upset the local culture.

We go to visit the famous mosque, that reminds me of a sandcastle. We go to the market, and Mikasa purchases a few scarves to look more like a tourist, and to give back a little to the local economy. This place is so poor, it's like nothing I've ever seen before.

And it's blistering hot. Well into the 40s, sweat runs through our clothes, and the worst of it is that we have to keep fully covered or the sun will crisp our skin even through the sunscreen.

What a place for Levi to end up, I think to myself.

Finally I'm chomping at the bit, and we retire to our hotel for the late afternoon. We can't move officially until after nightfall, when we plan to go into the prison.

Before going, however, Armin lays out his computer on the ground, and flips through pictures. "I've gathered all the data I could from the internet," he points out. "I know the layout of the fort. We'll be able to scale the walls. I even know where the prison cells are most likely located. What I don't know, and what will be our achilles heel most likely, is when the guards will be patrolling, and how many guards they'll have."

"I've procured weapons for us," Mikasa announces, unrolling a package she's been carrying around in a cloth for days that I hadn't bothered to look at.

"What are those?" I asked, but then I gasped when she unwrapped them and there lying were six gleaming machetes.

Mikasa smiled. "Gifts from the friend who lent us the car," she said with a smile.

I clapped Mikasa on the back. "Good work!"

I also had acquired some small knives, which I added to the pile. Along with some pepper spray that I'd managed to sneak in through customs.

Armin adds a large roll of duct tape to the pile.

"Duct tape?" I ask doubtfully.

Mikasa shakes her head. "Don't question it."

"Not a bad haul," Armin said with a smile.

After dark, we dress in black clothes, and cover our faces and hair with black scarves, looking like thieves in the night. Then we take off on has planned our hotel carefully, it is no more than a 15-minute walk from the military fort and prison. Timbuktu is a small place, after all.

The walls of the military fort are made of sandstone bricks, and several times taller than a person. But Armin has come prepared. We have mountain climbing gear, and he even managed to acquire a harpoon gun back in Bamako. So scaling the wall is an effort of less than 2 minutes, as he shoots the harpoon up, then we hoist ourselves up in the gear, and then carefully look around before lowering on the other side.

We run on silent feet to the nearest shadowy corner, and wait. There are groups of guards huddled about, smoking cigarettes, eating fruit, and talking amongst themselves. They don't seem particularly worried about guarding the place.

Armin motions for us to follow him, and he leads us down through a set of corridors. On the far side is a set of buildings, which he points to and nods, letting us know that's most likely where Levi is.

By the entrance to that building, there are two guards standing laughing with each other, holding machine guns.

We circle around the building, but the back side is similarly guarded with two guards.

I swear internally, but Armin motions us to a dark corner and whispers to us.

"I have an idea," he says.

I nod for him to go on.

He pulls a bottle out of a pocket on his cargo pants, and at my raised eyebrows, he says, "Chloroform. We don't want them shooting at us, since that will alert all the guards, and then we'll lose our only chance at this. This needs to be perfect, and you two are the fastest, so it'll have to be you."

Armin soaks his handkerchief in the chloroform, and hands it to me, then takes Mikasa's and does the same.

"You'll have to sneak up behind them on either side, and pounce at the same time. It'll need to be perfect."

I nod and clap him on the shoulder, then gesture to Mikasa. She nods her ready.

Mikasa and I set off in opposite directions, circling around and sticking to the shadows. When we're in position, I signal her. 1, 2, 3, go!

We sprint at the guards, and land on their backs, covering their mouth and nose with the chloroform. My guard is a feisty bugger and tries to buck me off a few times before he slumps beneath me. By the time I'm done, Mikasa is standing there twirling her hankie as though saying, "What took you so long?"

Armin and I drag my guard out to the back, relieve him of his machine gun, and tie him up using the duct tape. Mikasa follows, carrying her guard all by herself. Show off.

I move to pick up the gun to take it with me, but Mikasa stops me. "Do you know how to use that thing?" she hisses.

I look down, then shake my head. "I've seen it done in movies?" I say blandly.

Armin glares at me. "Leave the gun. You're more likely to shoot yourself in the foot than any of them."

Pouting, I put the gun away. I do see their point.

Once we get inside, we run into two more guards blocking the way to the cells, and Mikasa and I manage to dispatch them with a similar strategy, except that we can't circle around so we have to head-on charge them from as close as we can get. We make it, but not before one of them we have them down, we all stand there for at least a minute, practically pissing in our boots because we're worried someone's going to come after us now.

Finally Armin shrugs. "All clear?"

We drag these guys out into an unused storeroom and close them in, tying them up as well. I salute Armin for his foresight in bringing the duct tape, and he giggles silently.

Finally we're in the cells. There are so many of them, and the figures that are huddled in the corner of each cell are indistinguishable. Will I even recognize Levi if I find him?

I decide I have to risk it, so I start calling out his name, in a harsh whisper. "Levi? Levi! Levi!" I stop at each cell, and wait to see each person's face, and each person that turns out not to be him is another part of my heart that hardens.

I can't have come all this way for nothing. He needs to be here. He has to.

Finally, I reach a cell where the inhabitant stirs at his name. I don't recognize Levi himself, but rather the clothes that have been neatly folded in the corner. No one would fold their clothes like that in jail but him.

"Levi," I call out again.

He peeks out from under this thin blanket, and I see one delicate shoulder, and his hollow eyes. He's lost weight - a lot of weight. He looks like a child.

"It's him," I call out to Armin.

"Let me," Mikasa says, then unrolls a lock picking kit from inside her jacket. I goggle at her, and she rolls her eyes and says, "I've been practicing. I won't let you down, Eren."

Mikasa gets to work on the lock, but it's old and big and stubborn, and seems to be taking ages. I'm scanning my eyes up and down the hall, when I hear Armin say, "I don't think this is going to work."

My mind goes on overdrive. There has to be a guard in here with a set of keys. One of the guards that we'd knocked out already? I didn't remember seeing keys on them.

I sneak around the corner, and I see a guard patrolling down the hallway. He is one big fuck, and trailing behind him is a tiny little guy, shorter even than Levi. The big guy, though, on him I can hear the jangling of the keys. He's the one I need.

"Mikasa," I hiss.

"What?" She couldn't be more annoyed.

"Come here."

When she arrives next to me, I point around the corner. "You take the little one, I'll take the big one."

"Why not let me take the big one?"

"Because the shrimp looks like I screamer," I hissed, "He needs to be taken down fast, and you're faster than me. Can you do it, or not?"

Mikasa tosses her hair. "Of course."

"Fine. On three. One, two, three!"

Mikasa is fast, I'll give her that. She is out across that hallway in no time, then suddenly flying feet first through the air, catching the little guy in the throat with her boot. I have enough time to watch her clamp her mouth over the little guy's mouth and fish out the chloroform rag before I'm on the big guy.

So far we'd managed to go without killing anyone. I was kind of proud of that, in a way. But it wasn't a prerequisite for me. I was ready to do whatever it took to get Levi out of here.

I let go of my rage, and crashed into the big guy. I rained fists on his face, on his chest, in his gut, but the big guy just laughed at me.

"Oh ho, you must be a friend of the little guy, hmm?" he said in French.

I stopped with my hand poised for another punch. "What did you do to him?" I stopped to ask.

I shouldn't have asked. He said, "What didn't I do to him? I broke him, mon cher. He'll never be the same, I promise you that."

I saw red. I had never been so angry in all my life. It's like my strength doubled in the course of seconds. Whatever I was imagining in my head, I was sure the reality of it was worse. I pulled my fist back and I didn't punch his face - I punched through his face.

The sickening feeling of bone crunching beneath my hand, followed by meat hitting the wall, disconnected from my action. I didn't realize that I'd just caved his whole face in. I didn't feel my fist punching through soft tissue and ultimately, brain. I just punched him, and pulled back, and the dead meat that had been his body slumped to the ground.

Mikasa was staring at me, horror written on her face. My hand was dripping with blood and gore, and still clenched into a fist. She was looking down at it, then her eyes slowly made their way up to my face. She shook her head, like she could rewind past the last two minutes of her life.

"Mikasa, get the keys," I said quietly.

She stared at me for another thirty seconds, then finally nodded, and knelt with shaking hands to unclip the keys from the guy's belt. Halfway through the action, I saw her trembling stop, as she composed herself. She was all efficiency after that, disappearing back around the corner.

I paused to wipe my hand off on the dead guy's shirt, because I couldn't help but think Levi would cringe away from my filth.

As it turns out, I didn't have to worry about him cringing away from me because of me. What happened was he cringed away because of him.

"I'm dirty," Levi whispered hoarsely. "I can't put those clothes back on."

I crouched down in front of him, reaching for his hand. "It's okay, Levi. We'll get you new clothes. Right now, we just need to get you out of ?"

Levi nodded slowly, and I saw him start to come back into himself.

"Armin," I said quietly, "Go get the pants off the shrimp that's passed out in the hallway. They should fit Levi, and that'll be enough to get us back to the hotel."

Armin nodded and scampered off, returning a minute later with the beige cargo pants.

I coaxed Levi into the pants, though he shuddered in horror to put his legs into them. I knew he wanted clean clothes, but fuck Levi, now wasn't the time.

When we got Levi up, I had to hold his arm, he was so weak. He looked sick, I thought. I saw red again, wondering what these guys had done to him.

When we were moving too slowly, I convinced Levi to climb up on my back, and I piggybacked him out of there. We were hightailing it back the way we came, when I heard shouts from behind us.

An alarm bell started clanging. Levi was a dead weight against my back, it felt like he'd passed out. There was no way I'd get up the wall fast enough with him, and I didn't want to give the position of our gear away by heading straight for it.

"Mikasa!" I called out.

She jogged back to me. "What?"

"Take Levi. Get him out of here, please."

Mikasa looked torn. "I'm not leaving here without you."

I nodded. "I know, you're not. But we need to split up, or they'll find us in no time."

Armin nodded. "He's right. If we go three different ways, we scatter them, then meet up back here when we've lost them. That's the best way."

"You're stronger than me, Mikasa. Take him, please."

Mikasa still looked worried, but she took Levi on her back, nonetheless.

I unhooked the machetes from where they were hanging at my waist, and armed myself.

Then we all split up.

I actually had my own plan, that I hadn't confided in them. My plan was to effectively block the hole. They were all coming out of the prison building, so they'd all be coming out this same door. All I had to do was stand right there, and take out as many of them as I could.

I let go of my mind, and I just let my body take over. I gave in to all the years of martial arts training, and I pretended like the machetes in my hands were katanas, and I whirled and cut and hacked. I killed. I didn't regret it for even a second, as I chopped an arm off one, a head off another, stabbed a third in the heart, and kept going and going.

My arms were burning, my head was full of static, but I had become a raging monster. I was yelling, now, daring them to come near me. There were bullets raining in around me, but miraculously none of them touched me, and dead bodies littered the ground around.

Kill them all, I thought fiercely. Kill them all. KILL THEM ALL.