Bang. BAng. BANG.

Between the dreams, Kenny can't quite tell what the sound is. It's gunshots in the Underground. Whores' headboards banging into molded, rotting walls. The footsteps of Uri Reiss' Titan, even if he'd never heard them himself. Thunder shaking down the pillars of the universe, making an end. Hell, it might even be Kuchel pounding her hands on the bars of his dungeon cell the first time he'd ever been caught by the Military Police, telling him that she'd find him again once he got out. He tries to look at it, to touch it. Really, he does. But in his mind's eye, it mutates in his hand. Might as well be all of them and nothing.

Then someone comes into his cell here in the present and kicks one of the iron bedframe's legs.

BANG.

Oh, so that's what it is. "Wake up, Ackerman."

He flies out of sleep, fists raised at just the right angle to readily throw a punch or throw up his guard if need be. More than a few dumb bastards had tried to take him out while he slept. You came to expect that in the Underground as much as you did getting your clothes dirty. The wrong person notices you have the right pair of boots on . . . into a nameless alleway you go, never to see the light of day again. Not that you ever did, growing up down there.

Either way, it doesn't matter much. He forgot he only has one eye left. And his hands are cuffed. And they've got muskets on him. It's about as far from breakfast in bed as a wakeup-call could get. Kenny almost wishes Levi had left him to die. The faint orange glow from the torches makes his head hurt, but on the plus side, it'll only be half a migraine. One eye and all. Gramps taught him to fight blind, too, now that he thinks about it. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

Another kick to his bed. The honey-haired young woman's face is twisted in disdain and– BANG. One more kick.

"Well butter my biscuit," he chuckles. The MP unicorn is emblazoned on the right breast pocket of her dress oranges. "They sent my old chums from the Military Police to break me out." A cream-skinned hand darts out and clocks Kenny on the jaw harder than it looked like she had the strength for. Enough to make him wince. Huh. He is really losing his touch, isn't he?

"Hardly," Hitch Dreyse says coldly. "I used to think the MPs couldn't get any lower than flagrant corruption or posturing and preening about 'the King's peace' and all that. Then they had to go and pick you up for that APC-Squad. Needless to say, my friend here," the offending hand, still red and smarting, points to the open gate of the cell, where a tall young man with snakelike eyes and a black bowl cut stands. He holds the musket trained on Kenny like he was born with it. It's a shame the other twelve MPs with him look so skittish with theirs. "Doesn't care too much for you and yours bringing down the rep of his beloved Regiment. Can't believe the words are coming outta my mouth, but I don't think I enjoy that too much either."

"Some reception I've got, comin' back to my old stomping grounds," he laughs. "Judgin' from the quality of this here iron and the gaggle of you over there, I'm gonna guess I've been smuggled away to the capital." Hitch stiffens.

"That is none of your concern," barks Marlowe Freudenberg.

"Well then, what here's the special occasion?"

"Today's the day we find out if you live or die, Ripper. Today's your trial." They aren't Marlowe's words, or Hitch's, but a smoother, older voice that'd come from the bunched-up, strapped MPs. A haggard-looking man parts their mass, ragged beard and mustached clinging to his jaw like a cancer on bone. He's dressed the same as everyone else present, ODM belts and dress oranges and all, except for the gleaming red stone looped around his neck.

This guy, Kenny knows. A face irritatingly young, staring down at him from a pool of his own blood. He remembers.

"Trial, y'say?"

"Well, that word may be generous," Nile Dawk answers. His face might as well have been sheared off of a mountain for all of its emoting. "If there's any justice in this world at all, this'll be little more than a short bit of theater. A formality before we get on to the main event everyone thinks you deserve." He turns to Hitch, producing a rough, black ring of keys. "Quartermaster's. Unlock him, Dreyse. Soldiers, keep your muzzles trained on him at all times, but show no fear. We're dealing with nothing more than an old, broken attack dog." The cuffs clank off of his wrists, and Kenny winces as feeling he didn't know was gone floods back into his hands.

"If I ever get free, I'll tear out your eyeballs myself, kid," he chuckles. "Right after I chop your fuckin' tongue off. Remember that, why don't'cha."

"No, you won't," deadpans Commander Dawk. Thirteen dark holes stare Kenny in the face, death waiting for him in the shadow of their insides. 'Course, it's waiting for him wherever they're taking him, too. As if the military would pass up a chance to finally end the Ripper's reign of terror.

"Now move."


He's smiling.

Even now, he's fucking smiling.

Here in a hall full of his betters, where he's more than likely going to be sentenced to death, Kenny's face is still drawn back in that same shiteating grin he'd worn at the end of a dozen bar fights or drunken knife games. He values nothing, believes in nothing, takes nothing seriously. When the assembled military attaches see him, gasping, the old man just grins bigger, his eye roving over the room's dappled wallpaper, the wood stands, the Regiment sigils gleaming with shellac. Levi suspects he's just trying to drink in what he thinks is one of the last sights he'll ever see. It's the most luxurious space Kenny's ever been in, he's sure, and that's counting an enormous cavern made of pure, glittering Titan-meat. No wonder he's oogling it so much.

A whole squad of MPs see Kenny to the plinth in the center of the huge room, Nile, Hitch and Marlowe among them. Muskets bristle out like a bouquet in Kenny's direction as they cuff him around the steel pillar, one by one retracting as the soldiers depart back through the door they entered by. Nile wends his way through the aisles until he finds the MP grouping and takes a seat. Pixis and the mass of Garrison soldiers aren't far away, another sort of bouquet with their rose-and-thorn icons. Their presence here is a mystery; the most Pixis had been involved with their recent tizzy with the Royal Government was supporting the coup here, in Mitras. The battles with the Control Squad, Kenny, the cavern, all of it . . . until Rod Reiss' overgrown sack of a Titan had shown up, the Garrison hadn't been part of the fight at all, and now Reiss was dead. It couldn't be more than a formality. Another set of witnesses for the justice about to be levelled.

Pixis stares about-face, a wrinkled hand fiddling with the stopper on his flask. His adjutants do the same.

On the raised stage of the central stands, Premier Zackly and Historia sit no more than twenty feet apart, both looking starkly regal in entirely different ways. For the sniveling, and then obnoxiously snarky, brat that'd been under Levi's command until she'd crashed into royalty, the crown seems to suit her, though he has to wonder how she isn't sweating to death under the heavy, pauldron-fastened cloak on her shoulders. Zackly just stares, a lot like Pixis does, in the way old men do sometimes, however sharp they are.

It's a pity Kenny's eye refuses to dull in that way.

"Red carpet and all," the Ackerman calls through the still space. "Hell, honor's all mine, Your Majesty. I'm just glad to see you nutted up and did somethin' that wasn't for your daddy."

"Hey, you shut your mouth, murderer!" That's Connie. Levi's so busy biting his own nails over this that he'd forgotten Levi Squad been placed in the row directly beneath him. It's nothing short of a shock when Eren, yes, that Eren, reaches over, tugs on Connie's dress oranges and begs him to be quiet. The rest of them keep their heads down. Armin and Jean most of all, probably feeling not much better than murderers anyway, given the things the last few weeks had made them do.

"You Scouts need to get a handle on your ankle-bit–" Historia stands up, eyes on fire.

"There will be no more interruptions from anyone in this courtroom," she commands. "Captain Levi, please control your squad." It echoes as much as an edict from a Queen probably should.

Well, she's really adjusting to her new authority well. Connie looks up at him from the lower row, new and abject terror in his eyes.

"Face-holes shut, brats," he barks.

A strange look crosses Historia's face, an oscillation between anger and a sudden demurity that gradually evens out into impassive nothing as she eases back into her chair. Maybe it's not coming so naturally to her after all but there's little doubt in Levi's mind that it'll come with time. If the mousy girl who'd joined the Scout Regiment those months ago could turn into a monarch-slaying dynamo in as much time, then Historia's got nothing to worry about.

"Premier Zackly, if you would," she says. The great bear of a man coughs into his hand and stands up.

"Of course, Your Highness," he rumbles. "Soldiers, Commanders, all agents of the press, we are gathered here, in the offices of the highest echelons of military power, to decide the fate of one Kenny Ackerman, also known as Kenny the Ripper, recovered from the fighting surrounding our recent regime change and the emergence of the Reiss Titan. As has no doubt made the rounds leading up to this trial, Mr. Ackerman's criminal history is legendary, to put it bluntly. The argument has been put forth that his fighting prowess will be a valuable asset to the Scout Regiment considering those lost to the Control Squad, doubly so with the mission to reclaim Wall Maria approaching. Let it be known that my judgement is the most ironclad in all of our armed forces and is superseded only by that of Her Highness the Queen. The court calls forth Captain Levi, of the Scouts, in recognition of his advocacy on Mr. Ackerman's behalf." Kenny chuckles at the legendary bit, a low, oily, damning laugh. But beyond that, it's quiet. As still and rustling as a paper tomb. Levi steps forward without an ounce of pomp.

"None of you know him. There's not a man or woman alive, in this room, who knows Kenny Ackerman. But I do. I watched him and his Control Squad carve through all but the best of my squad in Trost. They took us to the cleaner's. The Scouts. The finest fighting force humanity has. Sure, most of that was the element of surprise, but even without that, the fight under the Reiss chapel was the fight of our lives. It was Kenny that spearheaded the whole engagement on the other side. Imagine the shitstorm we could have him unleash on the Titans. If they're still hanging around in Shiganshina, that is."

"And you think he'll just follow your orders? After the kind of life he's lived?" That's Pixis, gravelly and normally so reassuring. It's almost interesting to see him finally be the one wagging the finger, cursing the youthful idealism.

"After all of my men he's butchered?" There's Nile. Scratchy. Cigar-happy.

"If you felt so strongly about it, Nile," Levi growls. "You would've killed him in his cell and made it look like an accident. Though I suppose you don't have your Interior Squad to do that for you anymore." Gasps and gaping mouths circle the room.

"Hoo, boy," guffaws Kenny.

"Lev– Captain," and here comes Historia, face incensed again. "Remember your decorum."

"Right."

He pinches his nose. It's too fucking early for this. Too many people, too. Just how many does Zackly need to "bear witness" anyway? This could've been done with twelve people in a broom closet. "I think he'll dance to my tune like the Boy-Puppet himself, to be honest. Kenny's stood for one thing his whole life, and it's gone. Who knows what might fill the void once we slap the Wings of Freedom on his back? He's an empty cup that we can fill with whatever we goddamn choose."

"We are an army, Captain," interrupts Kitz Woermann from his spot in the row directly beneath Pixis. The man seems to have grown a spine since he tried to blow three kids to hell with cannonfire for no reason at all; even from the other side of the huge courtroom, he meets Levi's gaze pound-for-pound. For about ten seconds. "Not a retirement home, or some– some kind of midlife-crisis playground! Who cares what Mr. Ackerman is 'going through'?! The man is a murderer and can offer us nothing–" Pixis lays a hand on Woermann's shoulder and the younger man's arms, raised over his head in pure zeal, fall back to his sides. Rico Bryzenska just huffs and rolls her eyes behind sun-tinted glasses.

"I imagine that thought is a common one, Captain Levi." Zackly's voice washes over the masses, not soothing, necessarily, but definitely subduing. "Before me, I see a battered, broken, one-eyed old man. Not quite my age, but you understand my point. What is it that Mr. Ackerman can offer the Scout Regiment that would offset all of the blood he's spilt over the years?"

"Why not insult my mother while you're at it, why don't'cha?" Kenny says, with a blackguard's gleam in his eye that he aims with deadly accuracy at Historia. She stiffens, but does not rise again.

"Private Dreyse." Historia again. "Gag him." You could've seen Hitch's smirk from the moon. Maybe she ties the cloth around Kenny's head a little tighter than she needs to. Maybe.

"Captain?"

"Well, that's just it!"

Eren's jaw drops. Sasha and Armin tug at her sleeves. Hell, she even covers her own mouth as if she could catch words between her fingers that're already long gone into the air, into people's heads. But open her mouth Mikasa had. And every set of eyes falls on her, including Levi's own. What the hell is she doing?

"You have something to add, Ms. Ackerman?"

"Y-yes, sir," Mikasa answers. She salutes the Premier briefly before stepping out from the tight contingent of Levi Squad. Once the initial embarrassment of having spoken out of turn wears off, she's all stoicness and calm, succinct angles. It's probably the thing Levi admires the most about her; when duty calls and the world is falling to pieces, she's the quickest to shut the fuck up and get to work. "I spoke with the Captain recently concerning our captive, before we entered the cavern under the Reiss Chapel. I may share some blood relation with Kenny, and by extension Captain Levi may as well; obviously we have the same surname, but all of us have experienced a rush of power within us in our lives that afterwards made us into prodigious fighters. Captain Levi says it's probably a family thing. You want another of Humanity's Strongest or a Girl Worth A Hundred Soldiers, that's what you'll be getting." She brushes an inky lock out of her face. "You'll be getting another Ackerman. That means something."

"And if it turns out he's not all hunky-doory with us," remarks Levi. "He and I'll be glued to each other by the hip. I surmise if I can be trusted to take down Yeagerbomb over here," he swipes a hand through Eren's hair, and the shifter scratches at his head wildly trying to tear out the sudden itch. "I can also be trusted to make an end of a 'one-eyed old man', as you put it, sir." Zackly just nods, giant face betraying nothing.

"Duly noted."

Historia stands up again, though this time with nothing but euthymia in her features. Levi gets the sense she's talking to him, even as her eyes sweep the room and lock onto no educated voice in particular.

"Has he been trained in the use of ODM gear?" she asks.

"Not ours, Your Highness," Armin pipes up. "At least, not that we know of. The Control Squad's gear is an entirely different beast compared to the military's standard loadout. Cables fire from the hands, gas canisters are attached to the shoulder blades; you've seen it. You can imagine how radically different the user experience is between that and the traditional ODM rig." Deep in thought, pointer finger tracing the milky dip of her jaw, she nods, and thinks.

"So," the Queen says at last. "Mr. Ackerman understands how to use the one weapon that was designed with Scout-killing in mind." She leans over and whispers in Zackly's ear, looking for all the world like a child when juxtaposed to his ponderous bulk. Ponderous bulk. That's not a duo of words Levi ever thought he'd come up with. Hange's got to stop throwing dictionaries at him. And not just those she wants him to read.

"It can't be Captain Levi who oversees him, then." Historia's hand flashes downward. "It needs to be him."

Eren looks down at his chest like she's pointing at someone else, like he's hoping she is even as the confused, and then stunned look on his face tells the crowd that rational thought is the last thing on his mind.

"WHAT?!" It's obvious by the coarse screech in Eren's vice that he's doing all he can not to scream. Levi understands the restraint; the last time he'd lost his cool in this particular chamber, it hadn't gone very well at all for him. Mikasa elbows him hard, an orange-covered torpedo punching into his ribs. That seems to get the gears in his brain unclogged, and he splutters out– "D– uh . . . sorry, His– Your Highness. But I have to ask, why me? I don't . . . I don't know a thing about Kenny. The Captain beat him in the cavern, he can do it again." Levi has to smirk at that. One look from Historia cows him pretty quickly.

"As well-trained as Captain Levi is, we have no way of knowing if that was a fluke," she explains. "Say that Mr. Ackerman decided to turn coat just when the Captain's at his most vulnerable. One well-placed attack, and we're out of deterrents. You've got the advantage of being able to generate a 15-meter-high body that Mr. Ackerman has no defense against." She firmly placed her tiny hand down on the stands' surface, curled into a fist of the moonstone. "He steps out of line, and you put him back in. As a puddle of blood, if you need to." Eren gulps, and Kenny's beady eye finds him in an instant. Sizing him up, deconstructing the young man in his mind to find any hint of a weak point. Just in case. That's just something you do down here, Levi. He said that a lot, about all sorts of things. It wasn't true all the time.

Zackly clears his throat. "There is also the Captain's personal connection to Mr. Ackerman to consider. The court calls forth Corporal Hoel, of the Scouts, in recognition of his after-action report detailing Mr. Ackerman's survival."

He'd seemed like a nobody to Levi that day, even to someone as methodical in their cataloguing of the people they serve with. Nothing about Hoel is remarkable. Not his hair, the dull brown eyes staring, not his pedestrian salute, not his skill with the ODM gear or his standard number of Titan kills, and certainly not his testimony. He rattles off the events of that forty-five-minute period like he's reading them out of a book, like he's on autopilot. Unfortunately, that means he's able to recount every word Levi said like he's reading them, too.

" . . . 'You used to never shut up about the last king'," Zackly repeats, once Hoel's vanished back into a sea of green-cloaked obscurity from which he's unlikely to return. "'You've been running from MPs your whole life' . . . Commander Erwin, some call Captain Levi your right-hand man. Shed some light on his relationship to Mr. Ackerman for the court, if you're able." The man in question stands, shoots a lifeless, inscrutable look his way. His salute comes slowly, almost like he's drawing it out on purpose. See, Erwin flaunts in a language invisible to everyone but him. I told you.

"I am, sir," the Commander's voice echoes. "Captain Levi grew up in the Underground, and was Kenny the Ripper's ward until he became a teenager, at which point he abandoned the Captain to fend for himself. Levi was a prominent player in the Underground's crime world himself, and initially joined the Scouts for other-than-altruistic purposes. So, as can be seen, the Captain is not trustworthy on a matter this close to his heart. I attempted to make him aware of the perception the public would surely have of this move and the damage he would do to both our reputation and that of the military government as a whole. I was interrupted before I could drive the point home, however." Zackly's hand paws at his beard.

"Duly noted, Commander. Though I seem to remember you standing in this same room, almost in the same spot exactly and definitely in similar circumstances, swearing up and down that an unknown quantity could be a source of humankind's hope." All eyes fall on Eren again, who just hangs his head, quietly turning red.

"Kenny Ackerman is not an unknown quality, Premier," Erwin iterates. "He is a merciless killer who only days ago was throwing every ounce of his strength into butchering my soldiers, and if he had his way, would not hesitate to do so again. He cut the throat of the Queen's own mother, and would have killed Her Highness as well if Rod Reiss had not intervened. We knew nothing of Eren Yeager's allegiances when he was brought here. The same can't be said of Mr. Ackerman. I can't seem to understand why the Captain does not seem to understand that."

"Can't help but feel like I'm the one on trial here, Premier," Levi spits. Zackly's voice and gaze both cut past Levi without noticing his annoyance.

"Is that all, Commander?"

"It is."

"Well then, if there are no more testimonies to consider, the Queen and I–"

"No." Historia's up again, but this time she's not looking for anyone in the stands, no final piece of the puzzle that might show her the right course of action. No, the Queen's baby-blue eyes are fixed with a revenant's focus on Kenny himself. His head with its two-thirds mullet and one-third melted web of skin hangs low, hair shielding his eye. He's passed out, or resigned, or both . . . to everyone but Levi. He's seen this one before. Rest assured, Kenny's hanging on every word out of Historia's mouth. "There will be no deliberation. Private Dreyse, let our captive speak." She looks like the Queen's just asked her to cut off her own arm, but Hitch does as she's told. The rugburn she probably skids over Kenny's tongue with the speed at which she pulls the rag out of his mouth is her best attempt at some kind of revenge.

"That's better." Instantaneously, Kenny's alive again, aware and looking a little hungry for blood. "I was just itchin' to sing ya'll the Ballad of Kyklo." It's a terrible song, so, naturally, Kenny knows every word of it and launches into its first verse.

"Private Freudenberg," orders the Queen. "I want a musket against his temple. Now, please." With the press of the cold metal, the diddy dies in Kenny's throat, just like the smile on his face. Oxidizing in the air and leaving only the real man underneath behind. If you could call it that.

"Ya drive a hard bargain, Your Highness," he rasps.

"Answer a question for me," demands Historia. "Why did you kill my– Why did you kill my father's servant that night? Alma."

"Huh . . . oh, her. That wispy bitch with the drawn eyes." Gasps start up again, but Historia's hand slaps them down just as before. "Suppose it's 'cause your daddy told me to. I served your family for a long time, did all the backalley dark work they couldn't sully their hands with. Part of it was jus' the routine; day in, day out, with the name 'Reiss' on my mind like a fly on shit. But one thing I'll say . . . you royals sure made this world of mine interesting. Come ta think of it, that's why I cut her throat. It was . . . one more step on the road. The next leg o' the journey to whatever lofty scheme ol' Rod was cooking up. And Uri before him, and before, and before . . ." His tongue darts out and wets the chapped fringe on his lower lip. With a melancholy sagging of his shoulders, Kenny sighs.

" . . . 'Guess I killed her . . . because I wanted to see the end."

Historia takes off her crown, setting the massive edifice down on the stand. A few blonde strands tumble out from under its rim when it leaves her scalp and she gathers them as royally as she can back up into her bun.

"Well, guess what," she says, so softly that Levi can barely hear it even with his senses. "We're going to find the end. The Scouts are going to find it. They're going to ride out to Shiganshina, kill anyone or anything in their way, and bring back an answer to all of this loss and desperation and bloodshed we've been drowning in as long as we can remember. That thing you were looking for? It's all around you. It's right in front of you, Ripper. Are you going to reach out and grab hold of it, or are you going to fade away and hope nobody hates you for dying as much as they hated you for living?"

The room is still.

Kenny gives an answer.

The Queen makes a decision.