When I grow up I want to be resilient.
Year 847- October.
That revelation came as a complete shock to Elizabeth.
She was silent for two whole months about it with Frank and Marie, deciding not to tell them anything so as not to worry them.
She just told him that everything was fine, that they hadn't discovered her and that she was stuck at a blind spot.
However, when her shift was over and the owner was too drunk to pay attention to her, she would return to that laboratory, after making sure that it was empty.
Each time she studied everything she found inside.
Sometimes the vials were in different places, other times she found particular substances, syringes filled with liquids or powders on top of pieces of glass to be studied.
Drug trafficking, as Erwin had said, was controlled precisely by the military police, whose soldiers came down there every day interlude a week to check the work and take the samples they were entitled to.
However Elizabeth had no physical evidence on her hands and could not take anything out of there without being discovered: it had always been fine for them and being discovered just when she had arrived was extremely suspicious.
But one day a particular man entered that place.
Many began to whisper among themselves, others could not find the courage to say a word or even just to look at him; some rumors considered him dead, while others were about him just ran away from there.
Instead he was alive and with two military policemen in tow.
"That's Kenny." a man whispered, swallowing hard in fear.
"Why is he back?"
"What is he doing here? And with the military police to boot."
"He who killed so many of them..."
Kenny turned away making them completely shut up and then pointing his gaze on Elizabeth as he passed and causing particular shivers down her body.
Chills of terror.
Kenny looked satisfied at the two children in front of him, with a sadistic smile on his face.
The boy seemed to want to keep a strong facade, perhaps to show his father that he was a strong and brave child, but his knees were shaking and droplets of sweat caused by fear fell from his forehead.
A man behind them kept begging him not to touch his two children, tied to the chair by his wrists and ankles, but he had decided not to gag him just because his begging amused him.
Kenny had always been somewhat sadistic; the suffering of others amused him and seeing a father pleading helpless in front of his children, losing his dignity, caused him a strange joy.
But he wanted neither the son nor the father.
In the child's arms was a blond brat still in swaddling clothes that gave off a strong smell of milk.
The little girl must have been born a few days ago because she was extremely small.
But what struck the criminal were her eyes.
The fact that she had those special eyes and that he had found her was a sign of fate for Kenny. She could have been the one and if she hadn't been then it didn't matter, he would have kept trying.
"The girl with the two-colored eyes. I want her."
The father let out a scream louder than the others, starting to beg even louder to spare his baby and take him in her place.
He begged him to let them go, that he would do whatever he wanted, but Kenny wasn't interested in him.
"Lay a single finger on her and I..."
"You what, brat? You kill me?" Kenny laughed at the audacity of the blond boy.
Max had instantly understood that they now wanted the little girl, but he had just seen her born, he couldn't lose her without even having known her.
That was his little sister and he already loved her.
Kenny had been blackmailing his dad for too long, using his relationship skills to get all the materials he needed, never asking questions about it.
He had taken the sleep and courage of his father, he could not take her too, which for them represented the hope of starting over.
"Get the brat." Kenny ordered a man next to him, who immediately nodded seriously and took the infant from his brother's arms.
"No, please. Take me."
Max tried to resist but he was too small and inexperienced to compete with an experienced and trained soldier and in the end he found himself with a piece of the blanket, which wrapped the baby, in his hands.
A lonely tear escaped from the control of the child, who had promised himself not to cry in front of his father to make him proud of him, but the truth was that he felt he had let him down.
He was allowing Kenny to inject a pinkish liquid into his newborn sister's neck making her cry.
The child had remained strangely quiet until then; despite her father's screams and her brother's fear, she had remained silent until she was snatched from her brother's arms, as if being removed from him made her aware of the danger.
The baby's crying began to echo in the room as the soldier was forced to pin Max to the ground with one foot, to keep him from running towards his boss.
As it all began, it ended for the children.
Kenny quickly returned the baby to his brother, not even making sure he was holding her tight and not letting her fall. Her crying was upsetting him a lot but she wasn't dead yet and, apart from crying, she seemed to be fine, so for him it was a success.
"Don't worry. You'll keep the brat. But I'll keep an eye on you. Raise her and make her a strong, independent woman."
That day was the last that Max Blossom saw his father. Only three days later the boy decided he would raise the baby, but not for Kenny; he would raise her to hide her from him and make her strong enough not to be afraid of him.
He would do it just for her.
Elizabeth couldn't explain why but a lonely tear escaped the control of her green eye.
Levi walked into Erwin's office, closing the door behind him and leaning on it for a few moments.
The Commander was busy reading some documents but he put down each sheet as soon as he saw the figure of the Survey Corps' Captain.
"Levi, what can I do for you?" Erwin asked, already knowing the answer perfectly.
"You already know. I want news about Elizabeth's mission."
The blond stared at him for a moment, pondering what to say. In the end he settled for the truth, lying to him made no sense, especially after knowing how he felt about the girl.
At least he owed that to him.
"She's fine, I suppose."
Levi blinked a little, holding back the urge to scream at his companion's tranquility or punch him for his sentence.
"Do you suppose?" the Captain asked, leaning against his desk with both hands. "Are you fucking kidding me?!"
Levi was evidently angry, despite his seemingly impassive expression. Erwin hadn't missed the twinkle in his eyes whenever she was present or the way they lit up when he heard what he had just said.
"I don't even know if she's alive or dead and you can just tell me 'I suppose'?!"
Erwin put his fingers under his chin, looking for the quietest way to tell him, but with the Captain like that it wasn't easy. Levi remained a dangerous man, not for nothing was he the strongest soldier of the entire humanity, and when it came to the safety of the people he cared about then it was impossible to talk to him.
He had opposed that mission from the start and he was going to give him reason for doing it.
"Listen Levi." Erwin began to respond looking at him from the bottom of his sitting posture, he seemed to be begging him to assure him that she was okay. "I know you're worried about her and no one knows how bad that place sucks better than you two, but you have to trust her."
"I trust her."
Levi's response forced the Commander to widen his eyes in amazement. He had never admitted something so intimate with an open heart and with such ease. He must have been much more concerned about what he was showing. "I don't trust everything else."
"She survived down there for twenty years."
Levi raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest. "And should that be enough for me?"
"The mission is secret for a reason and you know it very well. She certainly can't send me letters every day to tell me how she's doing."
Perhaps undermining Levi's intelligence had not been a good move for the Commander, who realized it too late, when the damage had already been done. Not even the time to finish the sentence that he had already regretted it.
"So you're telling me you haven't thought about this? Did you let her go there without first finding a sure way to keep her under control and make sure she's alive or not?"
Levi's voice rose a pitch and, although Erwin kept his facade free of fear, he fully understood his emotions and felt a sense of guilt that he had felt only years ago when the titans had taken away his only two friends.
"I don't want her to die either, she's not just an army asset but I can't give you information that I don't have."
The knock on the door and the voice of the one who had made that gesture that was announced, pushed Levi to freeze, just as he was about to answer, snorting and rolling his eyes.
The Commander gave Hange permission to enter and the team leader immediately closed the door behind her. A quick glance was enough for her to realize that she had arrived at the right time: they were talking about Elizabeth.
"I don't have the patience to have to deal with you too now." Levi warned her when he saw her too excited to know the topic of conversation.
She too tried to get some information but at the moment Erwin could only assure them that the mission was going on. He couldn't even tell them how.
Hange noted that the Captain, however, was different from usual. There was not only concern in her eyes and voice, but something much deeper that she only saw when the two of them had confronted on the day of Elizabeth's departure.
"There's something strange about you. I have obvious reasons for being so worried about her, she's the best friend I've ever had, but what about you Levi?"
Levi decided that he could no longer bear anything, everything only undermined his already very thin patience and that was the drop that made him explode.
"We are in a relationship."
Silence rose in the room, nothing was more audible but their breaths.
Hange and Erwin looked at each other in shock for a few moments, not only at the kind of revelation but also at the ease and the way he had admitted it.
That girl had done something to him and made him even more determined.
The first to recover was Erwin who smiled at him sympathetically and congratulated him, thus increasing the grip in his stomach to silence a similar detail that would relieve his soul in pain; shortly after it was Hange's turn and he began to smile enthusiastically.
"I want to know everything!"
"No." Levi answered with his usual expressionless face but now he was aware that he had stirred something in the Commander who just snorted, completely resigned.
"I paid a man to keep an eye on her and notify me on a regular basis. Elizabeth is alive."
Year 847- December.
Elizabeth was many things but not reckless.
She had calculated every little detail, every risk percentage and every movement of every single person around her.
So now she could not help but wonder how she had ended up tied to a chair, in the same laboratory in which she had studied undisturbed since she found it, with her hands and feet completely immobilized.
She had probably left her luck at home.
Kenny, who had come down there by surprise for some misunderstandings with the deliveries to the military police, had found himself a blonde in his laboratory daring around, too comfortable to be her first time there.
It took him a few seconds to recognize her, until he saw her eyes and everything returned to his memory: his most successful experiment; indeed, the only one who had succeeded.
Now he had proof that one of those substances had the right effects, she wasn't dead, now he just had to make sure she was strong enough to meet his requirements.
What Elizabeth did not expect was that the two military policemen who had trained with her would also be in front of her; especially the one who hated her so much for joining Levi's team.
And with her completely still he could take revenge.
The first thing he did was cut her hair, which had grown so much since she joined, now back to above shoulder length, with a clean cut.
He was hoping to somehow make her cry but that wasn't her weak point and he soon found out.
Not even the exposure of her own body bothered her, the fact that he had shortened the skirt of her costume, exposing her legs as well as her chest and belly, irritated him.
The companion tried to remind him that Kenny needed her alive and that he couldn't touch her in any way and he was looking for any way to make her cry. He would be happy to hear her beg too.
But she remained cold and expressionless, as if she had no feelings.
The two began to carry out the controls and reactive experiments on Elizabeth, never untying her from her chair.
Her hands and feet were starting to ache but at least they kept her alive by feeding her and giving her to drink when needed.
Every so often it happened that the red threw water on her, pushing her to feel the cold on her skin but she would not give in. They needed much more to make her break.
The two began to argue about performing a particular check without even realizing that Kenny was on the stairs watching them fight and Elizabeth was yawning bored.
"Do you share a quarter of a brain in two?" she asked sarcastically, tired of hearing their annoying voices.
"How dare you bitch?!" exclaimed the redhead, stopped instantly by Kenny's voice.
"I'm starting to ask myself this too..."
That was just the beginning of Kenny's more detailed experiments.
He began by breaking her finger, checking her reaction to see if the serum had some sort of regeneration among its effects. Then he speculated that he could activate it with a more extreme pain situation and broke first another and then a third finger.
The two military policemen gasped as they saw her still impassive. She didn't scream in pain, her face didn't contort, she didn't feel anything. She was completely apathetic.
Kenny, on the other hand, was losing patience because that serum, in addition to the fact that she was not dead, seemed almost useless.
He took her face in his hands, turning it hard towards him and stopping a few inches from her face with a furious look.
"You're ruining everything brat." he hissed menacingly as he realized that she was holding back any reaction. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her in pain.
"I'm glad of it."
Kenny slapped her hard in the face, causing her to turn away and then spit blood from the impact. The umpteenth of the day.
The lip began to swell and the corner of the mouth, in addition to the stale blood, showed some cuts as well as the cheekbone on which a black bruise had formed.
"Whether you like it or not you will be my diamond."
"No." she replied, directing her gaze into Kenny's emotionless one. Sometimes he reminded her of Levi, but her Captain was not like that: he had committed certain actions but never for the sake of doing them or to see others suffer.
There were similarities in the two but at the same time they were completely opposite. "I will be your worst nightmare."
"What do you mean?" laughed Kenny laying against the table with crossed arms.
"You already broke me three fingers so it's the same if I broke another one."
And then everything exploded for the men.