He's going to kill us all, Elsie thought. It was a very simple way of thinking as if saying huh. Dumbly she stared at the Attack Titan charging viciously down the street. His wide feet cracked the concrete and bounced people across the sky like pebbles. Those ugly, muscled arms of his swung to drag buildings near him down. The once clear night now cried ash and stank of burning flesh.
Then she realized he was running straight for her. Elsie shouted for everyone to move and grabbed the person closest to her, diving for cover against a windowed bakery. Patrons smartly hid beneath the tables and behind the counter with the chef, who held a rolling pin in defense. Elsie smacked against the window, coughing through the dust swirling throughout the street. Willy Tyber groaned in pain beside her. His white suit turned grey and black against the brittle wind from Eren's stomps.
Eren's feet thundered past. Elsie flew upwards like she hadn't been buckled in a rollercoaster. Her back embraced the impact of hitting the window, this time with the help of superior winds. She gasped once she smacked back onto the ground, flopping to her stomach and grabbing at a painful spot in her spine. Willy said something from the left but her ears rang.
Flattened to the ground, she could easily see the effect of Eren's weight. He ran with ease, leaving tornadoes and craters in his wake. Silhouettes of people flew from either side of his path, flopping against surviving apartments. Elsie could barely see someone step into the street from between Eren's legs. Her lilac dress swayed and she braced her feet against the floor.
"What? No! Move, you idiot!" Elsie pushed to her feet, tripping on her dress. She raced towards the titan, desperate to reach Catharina. What could she do? She left her ODM gear at the Tybur Manor. She found herself utterly useless, the one thing she'd tried to avoid.
"Get back, Elisabeth!" Willy streaked to catch her. He wrapped his arms around her waist, surprisingly strong enough to leave her out of breath, and began to drag her in the opposite direction. Elsie dragged her feet in the crumbled cement. She couldn't leave Catharina!
Heat burst from behind. Willy and Elsie rolled forward. She could barely tell what was right when a chalky piece of drywall came to sweep her. Elsie rolled forward, screaming in shock as more material rained from the sky. With the fear of being stabbed in the eye, she kept her head down and squatted as broken wall trampled against her back. From the horrendous scream coming out of Eren's mouth, the ground shaking uncontrollably, she could only assume Priestess Catharina had turned into a titan as well.
Screams of all assortment filled the street. Above were pterodactyl screeches as two monsters ravaged each other. The floor was covered with scattered body parts and crumbling, landslide buildings that could fall at any moment. Just ahead was a clear night sky with a horizon of flashing lights. If she could get there, she could be safe... She found her footing and lurched forward. Frazzled white hair popped from behind a boulder at her movement. Willy managed to stay alive?
She yanked him from behind the boulder, taking her revenge in savagely hauling him to safety. They tripped over rocks and limbs, blood painting the street and decorating the once joyous occasion. Go back, the voice of evil reasoned. Elsie unknowingly dug her nails into Willy's skin until he pulled his arm free. He sputtered to a stop, gasping and squeezing his side. They were nowhere near the end of the street.
"What the fuck?" Elsie bellowed, pushing her hair back to catch a sight of the white behemoth fighting Eren for the first time. Priestess Catharina had morphed into a pure white titan, her face covered with hardening material and a deadly spear aimed for Eren's chest.
She filled the street with her sweeping spear. Eren ducked and bent, elbowing a building into a V and blindly swinging a wild, unaimed punch fueled with anger. His knuckles loudly dragged across her spear, which she quickly used to block. Fuck if Elsie knew when to count her losses.
Once more wind and ash covered the street. Elsie grabbed her hair, "Fuck, fuck, what the fuck do I do?" She couldn't reach her ODM gear in time. Catharina would either defeat Eren and he'd be arrested by Marley Police or Eren could eat Catharina. The only way out was the street. Buildings crumbled and shook their windows free from the earth-shaking movements.
"Cat, oh Cat," Willy moaned, stumbling and grabbing his face. Their shadows danced over their little bodies. A fire raged from a burnt food tent. "I never wanted this for her. She's so young-"
"Zeke? Did he bring him here?" How did Eren get here? Why weren't the Scouts raining from the sky in their ODM to assist? "I need Zeke and fuck, Maggath, he'll be involved." Elsie ran her hands down her soot-covered face, staring wide-eyed at the shit fuck in front of her.
The tall, sleek titan stumbled. She stumbled and Eren swept his feet at her ankles. The titan fell backward in slow motion. Elsie saw it all - Eren defeating her, Pieck, an impossible way out. Even if he did defeat his foes how would he get off the mainland? She wouldn't let him leave without her.
"Cat! No!" Willy jerked forward as if pulled by a string to Catharina. She fell to her back and Eren lurched onto her, his inhumane screams blocking all reasoning trying to get through to Elsie. "Leave her alone! Where the hell is Pieck? That's my sister, you monster!"
Elsie grabbed the man by his shoulders. She spun him to face her, ignoring the battling titans and desperate humans running past. Ignoring that Catharina was a Tybur. She held Willy between her palms and she met his petrified blue gaze. He was nothing but a child trying to control the world. Elsie knew her plans were far more superior than he could ever achieve. For those plans to work, she needed Eren and the Scouts without a deadly foe hiding at every turn.
She dropped her grip to his wrists and smiled, feeling the dirt crack between her cheeks. Their long hair whipped between their faces, Willy dire and trembling. He was a little bird between her tight grasp. His eyes rounded with trust and it broke her heart that once again she was condemned to this action.
She twisted his wrists over one another, spinning before he could get his wit, and with all her might pulled him over her body. He flipped over her shoulder, his heavyweight bothering her neck, but the sound of his thunk on the ground was more than satisfactory. Elsie slammed her foot onto his chest, ignoring his cry of pain from her heel burrowing into his skin. She leaned her weight onto the one leg and knelt, grabbing a shard of rock.
"Elisabeth! What!" Willy choked and spat, feebly clawing at her ankles. He tried to grab her shoulder and she spun his arm back. A loud pop filled their bubble of space and he screamed, tossing his head as his dislocated arm fell to the side. "No!"
She dug the rock into the side of his neck, gritting her teeth and wishing she could close her eyes. She pressed the sharpest angle into his vein until she felt her arm could stretch no more and blood dribbled from a puncture. Willy's blue eyes widened in horror - and for a split second it wasn't Willy laying beneath her but Reiner, cerulean eyes expressing the purest shock at being defeated - and Elsie sank her full weight into her arm as she dragged the rock across his neck.
Warm liquid waterfalled over her hands. The sticky residue leaked to the knees of her dress, between her knuckles and tracing the lines over her palms, the rock that fell to the side. She stared at his wide gaze, waiting to see if there was a reaction, yet he laid still. The vibration of the ground slowly sank into Elsie and she looked up, blinking stupidly upwards as the two titans collide further down the street.
Eren, try as he did, couldn't withstand all of Catharina's body running into him. He hunched forward to embrace the impact and fell backward. Straight towards where Elsie crouched. She launched off of Willy's body, streaking towards the end of the street with nowhere in mind except not beneath Eren's hundred-ton mass.
Smoke filled every crevice available. Elsie blocked her nose inside of her arm and tried to keep running but she couldn't see. She could hear more than enough. On either side survivors choked and coughed, stumbling just as blind as Elsie. How many innocents had been caught between them? Where was Pieck?
"This way! Further up, move it, move it!" A guttural voice boomed from ahead. "Let's go, let's go, hustle people! This is a titan attack!"
Suddenly marching feet sounded off and the smoke cleared to a dusty haze. She blinked and lowered her arm, gasping as soldiers with loaded guns stomped past her and other civilians. She'd barely reached the end of the street, desolate now as the people near Elsie had run at their chance. The soldiers ignored her in favor of squatting and getting into a firing position.
"Ma'am, ma'am," A hand touched her shoulder and Elsie jerked, glaring at the young man behind her. She didn't recognize him from Lakua, then again this had been a festival to celebrate soldiers. "You're covered in blood, are you okay? This way for medical help, you can meet with your family on the fifth street-"
Elsie pushed away from the soldier, grabbing the front of her dress and racing to the intersection ahead. She ignored the fighting titans against everything in her body telling her to run back.
The carriage barely pulled to a stop before Elsie shoved the door open. She bolted up the stairs, slamming the double doors in her haste. They banged angrily against the walls, alerting the servants of her arrival if the heavy taps of her shoes weren't affirmation enough.
"Sif! Where's Sif?" Elsie bellowed from her open bedroom. She swiftly kicked her bloodied gown to the corner, ignoring the sight of red on her hands when she opened her wardrobe. "Sif, get in here!"
A clatter of steps and then Gustavo, the butler, coughed his entry. Elsie spun, clothed in her underwear and bra, and he flustered easily. The older man's cheeks turned red and he hastily turned his back.
"My Lady!" He said in aghast, fixing the collar of his uniform. "Sif left with you and Master Tybur to the festival. Why are you back so early? Did you spill on your dress?" He bent to retrieve the gown.
Oh, yes. Sif had been there. Elsie stopped, frozen in buttoning her black pants. Had Sif survived? Surely she would've run at the sight of danger. Had she been near Catharina during her transformation? She shook her head and pulled on a long sleeve, covering her body from Gustavo.
She pulled her frazzled hair from beneath her collar and grabbed the dress out of Gustavo's hands, tossing it onto her bed. Out of sight, out of mind. Good enough to last the next twenty-four hours.
"There was a terrible attack, I want all of the servants to stay within the manor for the night. No one should enter the city," Elsie ordered. She tied her hair into a ponytail and headed out of her room, skipping the stairs by two in her hurry to reach the ODM gear. "What time is it?"
"Nearing nine in the night. An attack? From who?" Gustavo stayed in the shadows, watching as she hastily moved throughout the hallways to reach her cloaked machine.
Elsie didn't have the heart to speak about it. She kept her back to him and latched the tiny version against her thigh, sliding the controls onto her palm and wrapping her wrist guards tightly. She flexed her fingers before sliding gloves on to protect from further scraping against the floor. It would be a rough night.
"Lady Seer, where is the Lord? Is everyone okay?" Gustavo stopped her before she could leave her workshop.
Elsie hovered on the line of sugar-coating something he would find out in the morning or being brutally honest. The middle of Liberio had turned into a warzone, dangerously close to the internment camp. She knew most of the staff grew up in the Internment zone and would want to return home to see if their families were alive.
Yet, Elsie took in her workshop. The tight space felt meddled with. She eyed the wooden countertops, spread with wires and tweezers from her latest brain burst. Taryn Saherin had many great ideas. So sad that old age got him before he could accomplish them all. A box laid on its side, exposing stained cloth from oil spills. She most definitely did not leave it like that. Her procrastination to going to bed was maintaining this ten by fifteen room.
She eyed Gustavo, "Has anyone visited since we left?"
"Yes, actually. Mister Yeager returned with his crew-"
Elsie pushed out of the room, looking before daring to dart out into the hallway. She tried to be as silent as possible as she made her way through the lower right wing. Four rooms down from her workshop were found empty and she considered having stopped to listen to the rest of Gustavo's sentence. Surely Zeke would want to see Eren's mass display of destruction.
The dining room doors parted to give warm light into the dark foyer. Elsie halted at the fork of the manor, eyeing the stairs she'd previously run up and down. So far gone in her panic she hadn't taken note of the fire blazing. She inhaled, preparing for whatever the fuck Zeke said. She couldn't fathom the story he spewed to get Eren to go berserk on a nation.
She inhaled a brave breath of air, imagining tangled sheets and Levi as her encouragement, and crossed the marbled foyer. Without hesitation, Elsie entered the dining room.
"Lady Seer," Zeke grinned from Willy's seat at the table. He leaned back, glasses glinting from the candlelit at the center of a hastily prepped meal. "You made quite the ruckus coming in. Is there something wrong?"
Elsie suddenly experienced the worst cause of cottonmouth. She faltered, brain spazzing, synapses popping, the whole shebang. She fucking died. Standing in the dining room of Tybur Manor was her entire reason for fighting.
Levi unfolded his arms, having been comfortable eyeing Zeke from the wall behind. Dressed like a Marley soldier, he wore tan pants and a green jacket, thick boots smacking across the wood floor. She knew other people were in the room, others that she missed on occasion when having to deal with socializing. But none as much as the dark-haired man with stern lips and hard-set eyes.
"Oh thank fuck," Elsie breathed, forcing her feet forward. She instantly melted into his chest, resting her cheek against his collarbone and listening to the way he breathed. Her worries drifted to the unknown and her shoulders eased from the tension. She wished she could smell him but she stank of smoke and dust. Her ponytail crunched beneath his hand, the familiar yet thrilling sensation of him cusping the back of her neck returning. "I couldn't do this another day."
Levi directed her to meet his gaze, purple under circles highlighting the structure of his cheeks. Sleep deprivation never looked so hot.
"What the hell did you get yourself into?" Levi asked with exasperation, his breath ghosting across her cheeks.
"They started worshipping me and I rolled with it," Elsie exclaimed. Her eyes widened at the disbelief of saying it out loud but what else had this all been? She gripped his forearm with both her hands, shaking her head. "You're the first sane person I've talked to. Please tell me you know about Er-"
"Ah, ah, ah," Zeke rose. His chair scraped across the floor. Elsie realized that more people existed, dressed as Marlian soldiers. Jean, Connie, Hange, Hibolt, and Erwin. They stood spread strategically throughout the room - window, doors, table decorated with could-be weapons. "Let's not spill all the exciting details first. Why don't we talk for a little bit? Aren't you the least bit curious as to how they got here, Lady Seer?"
"I can connect the dots," Elsie snapped, her grip tightening protectively on Levi. She slightly tugged him until he stood at her side. "You're not the greatest genius, Zeke. What the hell do you want with them? It wasn't out of the kindness of your heart that you brought refugees from Paradis."
He backed to the wine cart. He raised a bottle and saluted to Elsie, pouring two goblets. He stayed on his side of the table while placing the goblet in the center. He sipped his own before returning to his seat.
"I've been putting my pawns to work and you've been doing the same. Getting close with the soldiers and inciting a riot? Very sneaky of you," Zeke chuckled, nodding his head in approval. Elsie tethered herself to Levi, ignoring his obvious rise of the goblet, reminding herself that Eren battled fucking Priestess Catharina in the middle of the city. "Reminds me of something that Florence once did."
"We don't have time for this," Elsie began to lead Levi to the doors but he held his stance in the center of the room. Farthest from Zeke was the safest. Her skin itched at the thought of them being together for so long. How had they met? Did Zeke already hurt him? "Eren needs our help."
"Eren?" Jean spoke for the first time. This was definitely not how she expected their reunion to be. Hugs, for sure. Maybe some rough punches to the arm. Not a crash course hosted by Zeke fucking Yeager. "He's at the boat with the others-" Connie suddenly bumped into the taller man.
"No, she's right," Zeke agreed so casually that Jean blinked before frowning in understanding. Levi stiffened, veins flexing, feet spreading, and should she be so turned on right now? His hair appeared shorter, the fade going further up the back of his head, front strands gelled back. Jaw clenched in concern. "I'd be impressed if the kid was still standing. Ha, to go against Cat, can you imagine? Well, I guess not. You guys don't know who Cat is or what she looks-"
Levi grabbed something at his waist, that's all Elsie felt. Next thing she knew there was a blade protruding from Zeke's shoulder. She pulled her own Iceburst blade from her thigh strap, fingers wiggling anxiously over the handle as she watched Zeke stumble. He shook his head in disbelief, rattling his glasses, and heaved a great breath. He yanked the blade and let it fall to the table. He shook the blood from his hand, shaking his head.
Hange sighed, familiar ponytail high and looking awkward in tan, "He will never let me forget this."
Levi feared nothing and strolled forward, pulling another blade from his waistband, "I never liked you."
"Same to you, buddy," Zeke growled through clenched teeth, highlighted by the wildness of his beard. "I've been waiting for the day I could punch that smu-"
He never finished his sentence.