So, I guess you're all tutting and saying, 'a week late! I wonder what her excuse will be this time?'

Tbh, I don't have much of an excuse apart from that I was busy, tired, demotivated, and had writer's block. My life is going through a big change at the mo so me is busy busy busy!

Anywho, I have this week's and last week's chapter for you today, so dw!

The Captain rode in front, with Eren slightly behind on one side and I on the other. At the sound of thumping footsteps that shook the ground, we all turned around. A titan with not skin, only muscle, was running towards us. And… It was… A FEMALE. It had piercing blue eyes and blonde hair, and was coming at us fast.

'What the hell is that?' Eld gasped.

'Captain, what do we do?' Petra asked anxiously as scouts swung in to attack her. She barely glanced at them, just grabbed them swiftly out of thin air and crushed them like ants. One by one, every scout that approached her died.

We were going to have issues.

Suddenly there was a thunderous vibration, and we all jolted on our horses. She was so close to us.

Oluo gasped. 'Captain, she's going to catch us!'

He said nothing.

'Captain!' Petra screamed.

No answer. She was but a few metres behind us.

'CAPTIAN!'

'CAPTAIN, YOUR ORDERS!'

'Please, we'll kill her here!'

I observed how, despite their fear for their lives, they did not act without Levi ordering them to do something. They completely and utterly trusted him with their lives.

And I did too. I trusted his judgement completely.

The titan's looming body blocked out the sun, and the Captain finally spoke, telling us, 'Cover your ears.' I clamped my hands over my ears unhesitatingly, as did the others. He raised a flare gun in the air and pulled the trigger. A sonic boom erupted from it, making me wince despite me protecting my ears. Levi's shoulders hunched, and from the slight side angle I had of his face, I saw him grimace at the sound.

As Eren desperately watched her speed towards us, she crushed scout after scout like insects in her palm.

Our sole purpose was to protect Eren at this point in time, and the nifty woman-titan was only interested in us. And catching up with us fast. Eren became more and more disturbed.

'THEY'RE DYING! THERE GOES ANOTHER!' He yelled hysterically, tears springing to his eyes. The boy wasn't ready for this kind of thing, I can only hope he doesn't end up screwed up like some of us. He looked conflicted, and gritted his teeth. Raising his hand, he went to bite it.

'Eren no!' Petra cut in. 'You must not use it unless your life is in danger! You promised us!'

He looked torn.

'You aren't wrong.' Levi said quietly from in front of us. 'I've never known which one is right. To trust your comrades, or go out on your own. No one can foretell the outcome of their decisions; the only thing we're allowed to do is believe we won't regret the choices we make. So choose.' I was mesmerised by his words. How wise. Eren listened intently, and glanced over his shoulder again to see yet another scout be crushed to smithereens against a tree. He grimaced.

'Trust us Eren, please…' Petra begged. His gaze switched from Petra, to Oluo, to Eld, to Gunther, to the back of Levi's head, and finally to me. His emerald eyes bore into me, silently pleading for help.

'Eren, we can do it,' I assured him. He wavered.

'EREN, YOU'RE TAKING TOO LONG! DECIDE ALREADY!' Levi yelled at him over the titan's booming footsteps.

'I'll go forward!' Eren blurted.

Petra smiled.

'Thank you Eren, we won't let you down!'

We continued to ride, I looked up. Oh my god. There she was. I was practically under her chin.

'Captain, we'll never outrun her!' Oluo panicked.

'Captain please, can't we kill her now?!' Gunther pleaded.

'Captain…' I said quietly to him. I too was starting to think we should be doing something round about now.

He continued to look ahead, not saying a word. Suddenly, we passed a group of scouts with some apparatus at the side of the road. The titan skidded to a halt. As we all looked back in shock, Erwin's voice rang out from high in a tree.

'FIRE!'

Hundreds of hooks were fired at her, creating deafening bangs as they were shot out of their cannons and lodged in the titan's body. She hunched over, protecting her nape desperately. She's way too intelligent for a titan. She must be one of us, a human, like Eren.

I watched in amazement as we rode away from the scene. Simply brilliant. Erwin never fails to impress.

I waited with the squad deep in the forest for Levi to return. They were having an argument about the Captain's trust towards us -not something I was particularly interested in discussing. Suddenly an ear-piercing, shrill roar was heard from afar. It could only have been from a titan.

'That doesn't sound good,' I commented.

'It's that titan, I bet!' Eld grumbled. 'Hopefully everything's OK.'

Petra wavered. Perhaps we should go and see if they need help…'

'No, our duty is to protect Eren.'

'But… What about… Just one of us? The Captain's on his own out there…' She hung her head to hide her blush. I raised an eyebrow.

'I think he's more than capable of looking after himself,' Gunther said, folding his arms.

'I'll go!' Eren exclaimed. 'I can take her down if there's a problem.'

The squad stared at him incredulously.

'What kind of idiot are you, brat?' Oluo chimed. 'We're here to keep you out of trouble, not send you off fighting! Tch…'

I stood up from my seat on a tree root and shot my hooks at a tree.

'Kamoku, where are you- '

'I agree with you, Petra, something's not right. I'll go and see what's happening,'

She nodded happily. 'O- OK!'

When I arrived, she was gone. Levi told me that it had failed and she had summoned hundreds of titans to devour her body so she wouldn't be caught. I helped them finish off the remaining titans when another, but deeper, titan roar came from the squad's direction.

Levi and I looked at one another and simultaneously leapt into the air, soaring towards the sound.

We flew low, checking the ground for any sign of carnage. Something caught my eye.

'Levi,' I said quietly. He stopped and followed my gaze.

Hanging in a tangle of ODM wires, was Gunther. Dead. I glanced at Levi. On first glance he looked as unimpressed as usual. But his eyes darkened considerably. That had hit him hard.

'Let's keep going.' He said in a hollow voice. I continued on, wishing I could be sad, upset, anything, for Gunther. But I was empty inside. Not long after seeing Gunther, a bombshell was dropped. Levi did not stop at the horrific sight, but slowed down considerably as he took in the path of destruction before him. I swallowed, hard.

Half of Eld.

Oluo's head smashed in.

And Petra… Her back was contorted and her body crumpled against a tree. Her soulless eyes stared at the treetops, void of life.

Shit.

They were all gone just like that.

I caught up with Levi and tried to speak to him, but he wouldn't respond. He didn't want to know. He wordlessly continued scouring the forest for Eren, and found his smoking titan body without it's nape. He ordered me to report to Erwin and wait for him there, and so I left him, feeling sick to my stomach at the mortification in his eyes. It really did make me queasy, the sight of him looking so stoic yet so grief-stricken. It pained me that he suppressed it all, and I wished there was SOMETHING to undo that. Something that would break down his walls, and prise his emotions from deep inside his head.

The procession stopped, once out of the forest, to wrap up the dead and prepare for the long ride home. I stood at one end of the long line of bodies in cloth, watching Levi kneel by Petra's. He unwrapped a bit of the cloth, and cut off the crest from her jacket. He then replaced the gauze, and curled his hand around the patch protectively. People don't notice the little things like this that show what Levi is really like. His compassion and empathy for others is sorely underestimated.

After we'd got going again, the sight of a red flare behind us alerted everyone. There were two titans, following two scouts, one with a body on his back.

Oh no.

Their horses frantically galloped away from two titans that were hastily catching up to us.

People began to shout and panic, and we were ordered to try and flee to the wall. More titans began to run at us.

'Captain,' I yelled over the noise, 'We can't outrun them.'

Levi cursed. The two from the forest were under attack by now. 'Dump the bodies.' Levi said to the men on the trailers.

'What?!' One of them gasped.

'Just do it, or they'll catch up with us. Many bodies were never recovered before, what makes these so special?'

My breath hitched when he said that. What makes these so special? They're your SQUAD Levi! How can you even make a decision like that? But he was right, in the grand scheme of things, they weren't any more special than anyone else's body.

The trailer man grimaced. 'I can't believe we're actually doing this!' And with that, he opened the hatch at the end of the trailer, and proceeded to throw the cloth bundles that were once people out of the trailer. I watched, catching a glimpse of Petra's hair in the sunlight from under the cloth. I glanced at Levi, who's shoulder's hunched, his eyes murky with grief. He forced himself to face forward again.

Once the titans were out of sight, we took another break, to check on everyone and sort ourselves out after the near miss. Dieter, one of the scouts who'd attracted the titans, and the only one left alive, was staring at the ground in shock. Levi approached him, and he gulped. The Captain looked up at him, and held out Petra's crest. 'This is proof that they once lived,' he told the dumbstruck scout, 'that's how I see it, anyway.' Dieter looked down at the crest.

'This was Ivan's.' Levi told him. Dieter stared down at it, and began weeping quietly.

'Captain…' He gasped, taking it with shaking hands. He sobbed quietly, holding the patch to him. Levi watched him as he broke down in gratitude, and then caught my eye. He wandered up to me – I was just staring at him, mesmerised, a few feet away.

If I'd been capable of tears, they would've flowed in that moment. I was so… touched. It warmed my long-broken heart to see my friend doing such a selfless thing.

'What are you looking at?' He grumbled.

'You,' I replied, stating the obvious.

'Tch.' He stalked past me.

'Levi.'

He stopped.

'I've never seen something so beautiful.'

'What?'

'That. What you just did for Dieter. That was amazing.'

He shrugged. 'It shut the brat up.'

I guessed that was Levi for 'it made him feel better'.