The expedition to reach Shiganshima was yet again a complete failure; they seemed to always be ambushed more or less at the same distance of the wall... And so here they were again, on the forest of the giant trees; though, not everything was well...

"Take it off of me!" a young brunette panicked; not far from the forest's brim a trunk had fallen on top of her leg, preventing her from moving.

"Stop yelling Sasha, we're trying!" a double colour haired boy growled, putting all of his strength to try and move the trunk away from his friend.

"Try harder!" she urged, putting all of her strength to try and help the 2 boys liberating her so the three could leave the site before a titan would arrive...

Luck did not seem to favor the cadets that day... A large figure towered over them... a 12m titan...

Terror filled the hearts of the young soldiers, they wouldn't be able to save Sasha, there were only two options: run and let a friend behind; or the three would die...

"Go...!" the girl said, swallowing down an extremely large lump on her throat.

Two sets of eyes turned to the injured soldier in shock. The boys froze in place; that was the last thing they expected to hear, and the last thing they wanted to hear at all...

"No way!" Jean growled, his fists tightened around the hilts of the blades as he positioned himself between the titan and his companions.

"We're not going to leave you!" Connie insisted, large beads of sweat sliding down his forehead as he gathered all his strength to try one more time to move the trunk.

With an inaudible 'tch', Sasha focused on helping Connie; the duo half-ignored Jean's presence, they trusted that he would be able to protect them and survive...

The titan moved forward, Jean launched his attack, a gigantic hand caught the wires of the 3DMG and the soldier was left dangling over an enormous mouth...

"JEAN!"

Connie launched his hooks and took off the ground, but then... an extremely loud thud as the titan body fell to the ground, headless... just, Jean appeared to have disappeared, no matter where they looked at, the taller boy was nowhere in sight; had he been eaten...? No, that couldn't be, they would've seen it happening...!

The echo of 3 footsteps reached the duo's ears. A couple meters away stood a young woman, much shorter than themselves, she had long brown hair, pale skin and bright brown orbs, she wore a strange tunic that looked to have been made out of a sack of potatoes and a pair of the all so familiar white training pants along with an extremely worn out cloak of no other than the Survey Corps; she was holding a confused Jean, much like one would hold and oversized teddy bear, hugging his chest from behind. Gently, she placed the dizzy soldier down and faced the others.

"Are you alright?" she asked; the cadets traded wary glances. "Apart from your friend's leg, I meant!" she clarified.

"Y-yeah..." Connie muttered, continuing to try and move the trunk.

"You'll get nowhere like that, let me help!" stated the brunette, already working on an improvised level created with the 3DMG wires in a way that the gas storaged in the bottles would pull the trunk up. The trick worked, in a couple of minutes, Sasha had been rescued and the presentations had been made...

"We can't go that way, titans are starting to hoard on the forest's brim!" argued Jean, who was currently carrying the injured female.

"I know..." Silvia muttered. "That's why I don't want you to come with me. You must go to the inner forest to find your superiors and colleagues, while I go to the outer forest to see if anyone else needs help."

"But going alone is suicidal!" Connie yelled.

"And I don't wanna go to the superiors! Corporal Levi will kill me if he sees me like this!" Sasha whined and flailed, nearly causing her teammate to loose balance.

"Cut it out, Commander Erwin and Squad Leaders Hanji and Mike wouldn't let him kill you!" Jean snapped back at the girl.

Brown eyes that had been covered by brown bangs widened in recognition of the spoken names and a lone tear made it's way down a pale cheek; in a swift movement, Silvia threw the green worn out hood over her head and turned her back to the youngsters...

"Your yells are also suicidal... Now do as I told you..." she muttered, suddenly taking off into the way that would lead her to leave the security provided by the trees and bushes.

"What's her problem?" growled the horse-boy.

"I don't know, but we should get going...!" Connie responded, taking off in the opposite direction of the woman.

Out of the teens' sight, she stopped momentarily on a high branch; as much as she tried to focus on the task ahead, she couldn't stop the spoken names from running through her head alongside the shared memories. A smile found its way to her lips; Mike had survived against all odds, had he finally managed to control his sense of smell and the way it affected his balance and precision; Erwin had escaped the grasp of death and made his way to the top, becoming commander; Hanji was most likely still the crazy woman she had always considered her bestfriend, not forgetting her huge curiosity and love for titans; Levi still scared the sh*t out of people, probably still independent and unruly and a clean freak, he got around of killing Erwin and raised to the rank of corporal, becoming his former target's right hand. She could barely contain all the happiness she felt inside. However, her gut held a feeling that refused to be shaken off; it was about Farlan and Isabel, their names hadn't been mentioned, had they died? Surely not, not with Levi at their side... ignoring the bothering sensation, she continued on her way.

"Squad Leader Hanji!"

Acknowledging the call, the woman turned around, coming face-to-face with a trio of beat up cadets. Connie appeared to have been through hell and back, Jean looked about to fall down and collapse, Sasha was on Jean's back with an extremely swollen leg.

"What the f*ck happened, brats?" a growl reached their ears, sending a shiver running down their spines, before the scientist could even utter a sound. Close behind Levi, Erwin and Mike approached.

"W-we were a-am-bushed, s-sir!" Connie stuttered, sloppily saluting his superior.

"Where?" silver eyes narrowed dangerously, surely those kids weren't stupid enough to come and find them while being tracked by a horde.

"Far from here, it was a-a 12m class abn-normal, S-Sasha was trapped un-der a t-tree trunk a-and we couldn't..." the bald boy continued.

"We were saved by a woman, she had the Scouting Legion cloak and uniform, though I had never seen her before!" Sasha finished, the two boys nodded in agreement.

"A woman?" the commander's voice echoed.

"Yeah..." Jean mused in a thoughtful manner. "She said her name was Silvia!"

Blue, silver, brown; four pairs of eyes widened largely.

"S-Silvia..." the call came as a whisper. Absently, Levi stepped closer to the stiff cadets, widened unblinking eyes half-covered by raven bangs stared right at the youngsters.

"Her surname... what was it?" the man's voice was barely above a whisper, it scared everyone in the area.

"Soares, that's what she told us!" Sasha cried out in a 'please-don't-kill-us' tone. At this, the man deemed to be the strongest of all fell down to his knees.

"It can't be..." Hanji muttered, covering her face with her hands as she started to cry.

Tears ran down pale cheeks and a lone tear bloomed into a full out uncontrolled crying.

"Where is she?" Mike asked the cadets, ignoring the overreaction of his friends.

"She said she was going to the forest's entrance to see if anyone else needed rescuing..." Sasha blurted out, clinging tightly to Jean in fear of their superiors (mainly the corporal).

Then, Erwin took the lead; he raised Levi by the collar, looked deeply into his eyes and warned:

"Levi, right now Silvia is going towards the outer forest to try and help the cornered soldiers. Unless you want to lose her again, pull yourself together and come."

"Show off... Who even is that after all?" Reiner sneered, observing as the unknown newcomer swiftly and successfully slashed at all the titans around the area.

"Don't know, I'm not recognising whoever." shrugged Ymir. "Try to ask someone older."

"I will!" he snapped. "Once we get down...!"

A large amount of soldiers abandoned the forest just in time to see, surprised, the last titan around falling headless to the ground. By the last corpse, a short but imponent figure stood, back to the forest.

Breaking the silence, Levi stepped forward and demanded:

"Identify yourself!"

Hands entwined behind her back, she smiled brightly and turned around, hood falling down.

"Hello, Levi!"