When I grow up I want to be determined.
Year 850.
The Survey Corps was almost ready to cross the Walls and go on a patrol. Some lowered their heads and respectfully greeted her as she passed, others complimented her on the rank she had achieved but she didn't feel so special at all. She just felt she had a lot of responsibility on her shoulders and hoped that the plan devised together with the Commander would not turn out to be a complete failure.
She was sure of her abilities but now she also had to answer for the lives of men who would fall with her ideas. Because she was sure that some life would be sacrificed in fighting the titans.
The last period had been one of the heaviest ever endured: between the news of her infertility, of which she had also had to talk about it with Levi, managing to sorry him, the plan to convince Erwin and her own promotion she felt only to want to launch herself headlong against a titan and cut as many nape heads as possible.
"Your first expedition as vice captain, are you excited?" Hange asked coming up behind her as she adjusted the bridle to her faithful horse. That animal had accompanied her since her entry into Levi's team and she was very fond of it.
"No." the blonde replied, forcing herself not to look at the soldiers who passed her. "They all look at me differently."
"They look at you as my vice, which is with respect as well as fear. Get used to it."
Levi also joined them, preparing to mount his horse to leave. There was less and less and everything was now ready. They just had to get on their horses and gallop to the gate.
"Remind me again how you convinced me to do this..."
"We didn't convince you, we forced you." Levi replied hiding a smirk of satisfaction. He had always been proud of the achievements she had achieved but he also knew that this would put them even more in difficulty as a couple, however he put her in first place and that title she deserved in every gesture she made for the team. With her arrival the dead had dropped by about ten percent, which might have seemed little but for them it was instead a great achievement; he saw ten percent more men saved thanks to her.
"Right..." she concluded before looking at Levi one last time, still with that strange sensation in her body, and then climbing on her horse to get into position. Erwin led them all, at the top of the column, with Levi, and now Elizabeth too, following him along with Hange.
"They're here! It's the main force of the Survey Corps!" murmured someone in the crowd. Maybe it was really the first time that the blonde stopped to listen their encouragements. She had never noticed it, too busy thinking about getting out of there and doing her job to look at how many people supported their division. Which brought her even more tension now.
"Commander Erwin! Kick their titan asses for me!"
"Look! There's Captain Levi! They say in battle he's strong as a whole brigade!"
The screams about them were then joined by those about her, who with the new promotion had now become even more influential. They already talked enough about her, calling her 'reckless' as they usually do, but now that chatter had turned into admiration and respect for a simple title that had been given to her. That hypocrisy bothered her, she was valid even without being the vice captain, and if she had accepted it was only for her team.
"Shut up already..." Levi murmured, voicing her thoughts and making her smile.
"I bet they wouldn't worship you so much if they knew what an obsessive clean freak you are!" Hange added, barely watching him as they continued their parade through the crowd. What shocked the squad leader, and the captain, was how they failed to provoke any sarcastic jokes in Elizabeth, who just stared stiffly ahead.
The gates were about to rise and Hange was barely worried for her friend, exchanging a knowing glance with Levi who thought the same thing. Yet he knew what disturbed his woman so much and he understood her; she didn't think she was made for leadership, she didn't feel worthy; perhaps that mission would have been enough for her to understand what it was worth, as he had understood it. "The titans are out there! I wonder what kind of titans I'll see this time. I'd really live to see some abnormal ones!"
"I can see an abnormal already." the Captain answered seeing her then look around as if she were really looking for a titan. Still inside the walls.
"Really? Where?"
Hange didn't immediately catch what, from Levi's part, was a joke, unlike Elizabeth's, and he was forced to get her attention to answer her, grabbing her by the tail to force her to look at him. That gesture had left him disheartened, how could she really be so obsessed with those beasts?
"I mean you."
"Forward!"
The start scream officially gave the order to all the soldiers involved that they should install a foothold outside the walls. The elite of mankind still did not know what was about to happen in the meantime in the Trost District.
A soldier was captured and then thrown into the jaws of a titan, screaming and crying for salvation. Salvation that it was Levi himself who granted him, although he was still seriously injured on the ground.
Elizabeth was so nervous she didn't want to listen to anyone.
"I'm the only one who's seeing titans?" she exclaimed to two soldiers who had leaned on the roof of a building to seek a small shelter from a specimen that walked around them, looking for them but without seeing them.
"No miss."
"And are you going to do something about it?" she asked impatiently and with nerves on edge. Erwin was nearby, carefully studying her in every movement she now made fully aware of her new position. Levi had not given her any order, leaving her carte blanche according to the directives that she herself had agreed with the Commander. He trusted her blindly and she wouldn't betray that trust.
The two soldiers immediately felt intimidated by her, now even more so, and they moved their heads to answer.
"Yes miss!"
"I can't believe it." Elizabeth concluded putting a hand to her head, shaking it upset, as she threw herself on the head of the titan closest to them who had noticed them at that moment. Not even the time for that creature to reach out to her as his head was already partially detached from his body, now on the ground helpless.
Some soldiers were on the ground, wounded or already dead, but she couldn't stop for them. And it always made her stomach tight. She never felt like laughing during a mission, precisely in memory of her comrades who lost their lives.
"Don't worry I'm not gonna hurt you."
Elizabeth heard Hange scream excited as usual as she saw red that day. She couldn't explain why but she had a strange feeling. A feeling that, as Erwin also pointed out, should not be ignored. When she had a bad feeling it always turned out to be true. ""Not quite. It's my turn... See? It didn't hurt, did it?"
"What a lovely bunch."
Levi's voice was decidedly calmer, as she saw him walking on a roof in the directions of two specimens who seemed to have noticed him, watching him carefully. "You all have such interesting faces. Stay still, otherwise I'll never get a clean cut of your flesh."
Elizabeth stopped looking at the Captain long enough to take care of a specimen that was running towards her, jumping only when he was close enough to harpoon his forehead with the 3DMG and throw a straight blade to cut his hand. It was an anomalous, strangely agile, but with the severed hand it could not catch her. With a lightning gesture she drew another blade to him and jumped on the back of his neck, tearing it with one precise blow. When she returned to the roof, Levi was no longer killing but cleaning his blades.
"Tch, disgusting." he murmured, then raising his voice in her direction and looking at her. "Have you finished?"
"Yes, I'm going to help the others." Elizabeth answered shaking her hand to remove the titan's remains from her hand and nodding.
"Try to get back in one piece, I still need you."
"It's an order?" she asked feeling a little lighter. Despite everything between them nothing had ever changed and had to continue to be like this. Even if they should have kept their relationship a secret for life.
"Yes."
Elizabeth jumped from the roof, using the gas to reach as quickly as possible a companion trapped between the fingers of a specimen; before he could put the screaming man in his mouth, Elizabeth reached them, cutting off his hand and knocking her companion to the ground.
"Are you okay?"
"No miss. I can't move my legs."
The blonde looked at him a few moments before jumping on the titan's arm and using it as a way to reach the back of his head and end his life. When she came down the soldier thanked her crying, but could no longer walk. And Elizabeth wished it hadn't happened.
The vice captain held out a hand, helping him pull himself up by the torso before calling another soldier nearby.
"Help him. He might be wounded but I will not leave him here to become food for those beasts."
"Yes miss!" answered a young soldier, perhaps a looking peer of her age, who immediately did as he was told without batting an eye.
"Elizabeth!" the Commander on horseback yelled at her, also with the foresight to bring hers out of kindness.
The animal rushed to meet her and she grabbed its reins, looking at Erwin with her brow furrowed in a silent request for an explanation.
Was she doing something wrong?
"Retreat, call those men back!"
"But..." she began then clicking her tongue on the palate. "Yes."
"Retreat!" she shouted to a group not far away, thus also helping the Commander in recalling all the survivors in that mission still in progress.
Elizabeth understood the reason for her strange sensation, she felt that something was wrong and she had also talked about it both with Erwin and Levi, and they themselves had taken care to keep their senses alert; if she had a bad feeling, in the end, it always proved right. Yet this time, with the look the Commander had on his face as he called for retreat, she wished she was wrong.
Hell had come down to earth and this time it would see many more people die than she could imagine.
"Levi! We're going back." Erwin exclaimed again, this time to Levi, along with Petra and a man who must have just died, according to Elizabeth's watchful eye. Another fallen in battle.
When was all this going to end?
The blonde had gathered the whole group on her side and immediately went with the Commander on horseback.
"Back? We haven't reached our limit yet. Did my men die in vain?" Levi replied, outraged by that order. Elizabeth, who had already been informed of what had happened, looked at him as if begging him to listen to them, and it was precisely that look that eased Levi's anger.
Many men were already dead and she understood very well that he hated deaths, especially if they were useless, but this time he also took into account his feelings for Elizabeth and the sorrow he felt in knowing about all those who had fallen into another of her plans.
Levi studied her for a moment, finding the glassy look she had every time they returned from a mission laden with dead. The smell of blood and corpse began to dawn in the air, pinching the noses of the soldiers still alive.
All men who did not have time to take away, other people who would never bring home.
"The titans have all started heading north towards the city. It's just like five years ago. Something's happened in the city. They might've even broken through the wall." Erwin explained letting the Captain mount his horse and decide to follow them.
Levi surrendered, climbing onto the animal to head for the focus of the fight.
A man had arrived in a hurry on horseback, reporting the news to them with a haste and a fear that could not but alarm the Commander.
However, he wondered how Elizabeth would react to seeing it with her own eyes. She wasn't there when it first happened, she'd joined up shortly after and could only have heard of them, maybe she'd just seen them parade back with a bewildered look, in silent prayer for the fallen.
"Elizabeth." he called her, asking her to approach on horseback while Levi and Hange were still busy ordering the scattered soldiers to retreat to kill the remaining titans.
"Sir." she replied taking a breath. She felt wrong. She had just heard that a tragedy was unfolding and yet the only thing she could think about was finding the best way to get out of it without too many victims, an intelligent and safe way for at least the multitude.
And she knew that was precisely why Erwin had chosen her.
The ride on horseback was rather quiet, there were no soldiers screaming or pawing at the idea of killing the titans, on the contrary many were frightened trying not to show it especially to a particularly bad-tempered Levi.
The blonde had approached Erwin on horseback and the two talked without raising their voices too much, not to avoid being heard, because it would all become public knowledge before reaching Trost, but only to recover their fortitude.
Elizabeth listened intently to everything that had been reported from that event, nodding from time to time and sharing the Commander's thoughts.
"Are we so short of soldiers that we have cadets to fight?" she asked rhetorically, getting only a glance in response. "What an initiation..."
Hange grunted in agreement, agreeing with her but still listening to what might be the best move.
"We don't have much time to come up with a good plan, we have to do it now and arrive prepared." Erwin stated, looking forward, with the wind ruffling his blond hair as the horses ran constantly, spurred on.
"Wait, in the report there was also the fact that a boy has turned into a titan." she asked, looking then at Hange, and her gaze illuminated at that perspective, out of the corner of her eye.
"Apparently yes. Chances are they'll kill him with cannons."
"Not if Pixis arrives before us and prevents it." Elizabeth muttered to herself but aloud so she could be heard. "We could join with the engineers of the Military Police."
Erwin looked at her satisfied. It was easy to work with her, he always agreed with what she said and never found big, unsolvable gaps in the plans she studied.
At that moment he realized that the dull look on her face wasn't fear or frustration, it was determination. She was tired of seeing people die and she finally realized that, with that title she was given, she could actually do something about it.
The blonde took a while but she finally got it. And she silently thanked him with a small smile.
"We will never make it on our own, especially if the reach is as large as that described by Erwin." she continued seriously. "But there are enough men left to stop the titans while they shoot the titans with their cannons. They could never catch them all, they are continuous and difficult to predict but a good part should have fallen. Let's use it to our advantage."
Levi raised the corner of his mouth slightly, seeing that light return to shine in the blonde's eyes and approaching just to be able to whisper so that it was only she who heard it.
"This is my Elizabeth."
Their goal came earlier than expected, at that speed. Smoke and cannon fire could be heard from there as the partly destroyed walls stood tall and majestic.
Some titans moved undisturbed to enter, soldiers above the structure trying to fight, corpses on the ground.
That was far beyond Elizabeth's imagination.
"Trost District..." she whispered as the horses stopped a few seconds, time for the Commander to give orders to everyone what to do. "My God."
"So what do we do Elizabeth?" asked Levi noticing how she could not take her eyes off that scene in front of her eyes.
The amazement that involved her for a few moments vanished instantly, while her gaze returned cold and calculating. Erwin joined them, ready to order the attack.
"Let's take Wall Rose back."
The soldiers of the Survey Corps began pouring through the streets of the Trost District, brandishing their blades and preparing for the attack with adrenaline in their bodies as the only thing they could perceive.
The streets had been cleared of civilians, except for corpses and men engaged in fighting.
Above the walls, gunfire continued to be heard as the titans who had made it through the entrance walked the streets looking for humans to eat, as their instincts told them to do.
Some soldiers had been injured from the first mission, some of them had a dislocated arm or a leg covered with bruises that hurt with every movement, and Elizabeth, despite being engaged in killing some specimens, could not miss them. She saw in their faces the sense of helplessness, they wanted to make themselves useful but they felt they were only a hindrance for those who had not been injured.
"Those idiots are hurt but they still want to fight." Levi murmured reaching the blonde to clean the blade still useful to be replaced already.
"They just want to be useful." Hange added in full run on the 3DMG, then screamed as she threw herself headlong onto a ten-meter nearby.
And it was precisely the passage of the squad leader that brought Elizabeth an idea that would allow them both to secure soldiers who could not fight to the best of their abilities and to make them useful.
"Hey you." the blonde screamed from the other side of her post, leaning just enough to be seen, as well as heard, by a group of six soldiers walking in search of something to do. She could see some cadets but decided not to care. "Take care of the capture of those two specimens. Alive."
The six soldiers seemed to light up at the prospect of being able to act and assert themselves and smiled with determination as they heard the order just given them.
"There are four and seven meters. Don't fight them. Just use the traps and keep your distance."
"Yes miss!"
With a full day of fighting, a total of 207 dead and 897 wounded, the battle ended with the first victory for mankind. But precisely the large number of fallen did not allow the soldiers to rejoice in their victory.
What immediately involved Elizabeth, who did not even have time to take off her uniform and take a relaxing shower, was the first report of that endless day.
Eren Jaeger had turned into a titan, closing the gap with that form and proving that he could maintain his intelligence despite the event.
However Hange was unable to get her hands on the boy because the Military Police immediately took custody of him, although Elizabeth also tried to dissuade them from doing so and leave the boy to them, who took care of the titans directly.
Erwin immediately supported her fully, then took her aside to tell both her and the other superiors in their division what his intention was.
They would get the kid.
"I think..." Elizabeth began staring straight ahead as the Commander watched her carefully so as not to miss a fragment of her attitude. "...that Eren isn't the only one who can do this."
Hange's eyes lit up at the thought that she could get her hands on some specimens and be able to carry out research on them, coming to more conclusions, while Erwin looked at her a little longer before resuming speaking.
"Why are you saying that?"
"Call it a feeling." she answered turning to the Commander and then leaning on Levi's shoulder, exhausted from that day. "What I saw is not normal."
"It won't be normal but it's something we have to live with now. Even if you're right, there is something wrong." Mike added, wrinkling his nose.
Elizabeth looked at him. The next step would be to get custody of Eren and then they could see what to do, but at that moment they could only retire each to their own rooms and rest to regain their strength. The last thing Elizabeth said in that meeting was more to herself than to the others but the Captain didn't miss the bewildered look the girl had, as if there was too much they still didn't know, and he couldn't blame her.
"So now we fight together with the titans..."