Morning everyone!

Glad to see yall survived the holidays and are in seemingly good spirits :) The last few weeks of the year certainly aren't without some last minute hustle and bustle, and on my end, I'd like to think that it was a happy holiday season! At the very least, my kid seemed to eat their weight in candy canes (kid's an old soul for sure haha) and I don't think it can really get much better than that.

We're gearing up to celebrate the new year and hoping to kick of the first strong. Hope yall have had an awesome 2019? If not, there's only a few days left to trudge through, so we're almost there! As always, yall enjoy the chapter!

…

…

"What do you think it's going to be?" Petra asked as they sat out in the training grounds, enjoying the gentle breeze and the sunlight warm on her face. She looked to her squad and bit back a yawn, the perfect weather of the afternoon all but lulling her to sleep in a much-needed calm contentment.

As promised, Petra had returned her folders and data back to the Captain that same Saturday evening and gone to bed without protest. Sunday had been long and difficult, because it was an entire day that she previously would have used for research, had the Captain not ordered the project to come to a forceful and unsuccessful end. It was with a heavy heart that she returned the data to him, but she had kept her protests to herself as she tried to force herself to take comfort in that she had perhaps given it as best an effort as she could. Granted, it was hard to feel 'proud' of herself when she had literally accomplished nothing that she had set out to do, but how she felt about it be it good or bad simply didn't matter. Emotions left aside; she hadn't produced results. Simple as that.

As though sensing her lack of immediate purpose, Levi had found her shortly after breakfast and confirmed that if she had free time, he had a lot of desk work with her name on it. She had chuckled, confirming that that was a rather strange way of saying 'Petra will you please help me' but admittedly was more than grateful for the distraction, glad to have something productive to do so she wouldn't feel completely useless. It had only happened once, but Levi asked with a sincere, curious expression how she was doing. She responded as honestly as possible – that having something to do was helping, but she still felt like a complete failure, that she was overwhelmed with guilt and shame, and that she was struggling to come to terms with the fact that she just couldn't pull it off in the end. It was like Levi had said before, some part of her truly seemed to believe that if she just tried hard enough, then it would work out. How foolish she had been.

As she explained her thoughts – finally able to talk about it without breaking down into tears – Levi had listened patiently and finally gave his final thoughts on the matter as well. They had a good, final conversation about it, and that had been that. They spent the rest of the day together, getting some of the more in-depth reports updated and prepared for next month's audit – and while it hadn't been easy as her mind kept retreating back to her research, some part of her still refusing to give up come the changes that would take place the following morning - she had gotten through the day just fine, with the help of Levi's watchful gaze and intentional busy work.

As for this morning, she was feeling…perhaps a little wistful, because she knew that somewhere out there were multiple teams that had been told they weren't training with gas today, or any time in the near future – and why it was actually a good thing, no less, because they were going to be the first Scouts to specialize in a combat style that didn't revolve around the 3DM gear.

As much as she wanted to turn a blind eye and avoid seeing the direct aftermath of her lacking results, Levi had insisted thatthe two of them go for a walk so she could see some of these teams with her own eyes – he had even issued an intentional late start for the squad for that one singular purpose because it wasn't a suggestion. At first she had thought he was intentionally being cruel, making her grow thicker skin and looking at her doomed comrades firsthand as some sort of exercise to 'teach her what being a Commanding Officer was all about', but it seemed Levi had something else in mind.

To Petra's surprise, when they had arrived at the other end of the training grounds where the impacted members had been organized for the day's training - there were many members of the Garrison that had arrived to dole out special, intensive training that they found to be most effective when keeping the Titan's from destroying or damaging the outer wall while keeping a safe distance. Levi explained that Erwin had managed to work out a deal with Pixis in order to get his best men to train their Scouts on practical and effective ways to fight Titan's without using the 3DM gear. In truth, it did actually make her feel a little better – made her question Erwin less – because if these people were actually being intentionally trained, now suited for a different style of combat completely that accommodated their lack of mobility, then they weren't as defenseless as she would have thought.

She knew their chances of survival would still be significantly better if they could use the 3DM gear, but all in all, Petra had quietly accepted that Levi had been right all along – Erwin was cunning, and a complete visionary. Even though he doubted himself, his original plan wasn't all that bad, especially now that the Garrison was involved. It was decisive – blood thirsty to make such an aggressive move – but considering someone had to make such a call, she was glad that they had someone like Erwin around.

"Feel better?" Levi asked flatly as Petra observed the teams with a slight wonder, having had no idea that Erwin had a sort of failsafe at the ready (because of course he did) and she gave a simple nod.

After they had walked back, the day began as though nothing out of the ordinary had transpired within the past month. They had trained like normal, did their traditional warm up routine, and then it was right back to the grind of sorting out kinks within the Omega formation. Once lunch break had come and gone however, Levi had lined them up and stated they were going to be doing something different for the rest of the day, and would be back soon to go over the details. He left after that, giving them no indication of where he was going, when he would be back, or what they should expect for the remainder of the day.

Since then, they had moved to one of the grassy areas of the training grounds and were patiently lounging across the grass while they waited for the Captain to return.

Eld was laying down fully across his back, and he cracked one eye open as he craned his neck upward to look toward Petra. He shrugged before letting his head fall back against the ground, "Who knows what he's planning, he didn't say anything to me if that's what you're wondering. But I say anything is better than the Omega formation, so whatever it is, I'm ready for it. With any luck, it might even take a few hours before we have to get back to the grind."

"Agreed." Oluo stated as he sat up from the ground, "It's been months of the same old thing every day. I can do that formation in my sleep now; I really wish the Captain would shake it up or something."

Petra laughed, nodding her head in agreement before letting her head fall back slightly so she could get a better feel of the sun against her face.

Aside from the bumps in the road of Levi's meetings, the times he had given Command to Eld for whatever reason, it had been months of the same thing over and over again. Even after countless attempts, literally over the hundreds at this point, if not thousands, they still had not found the 'ultimate formation' that Levi was seeking – though stubborn as ever, he insisted that they keep working at it because they were seeing progress and just had to keep making adjustments until they got it right.

For the most part, the squad was rather used to it by now and had come to terms with the fact that they would likely be doing this same formation all day, every day, for the rest of their miserable and redundant lives – but the fact that Levi had stated they were doing something different for a change, that had certainly perked their interest.

"The fuck is this?" came a low voice, "I leave for twenty minutes and you are all lounged in the dirt, taking a fucking nap? Up, all of you up. Now."

At the familiar and subsequently angry voice, they all snapped up from the ground as though they had been told it was a bed of poison ivy, each surprised by the sudden return of the Captain and somewhat regretting how lax they had fallen in the short time he had been gone.

Petra stood up and nervously dusted herself off, which only caused Levi to roll his eyes as he walked closer to his squad, "Oh yeah Petra, just smear the dirt into your pants like that so they are officially stained beyond repair. Real nice."

She cleared her throat in embarrassment and looked into the ground, not daring to make eye contact with him, "Right, sorry Captain."

He stood in front of his team and scowled, arms crossed over his chest as he observed them narrowly, "You're lucky that we have something to do today, otherwise I'd be making you all run laps and undergo body conditioning until you collapsed right back into the dirt you're so fucking fond of. As it so happens however, we do have something to get done so you're off the hook for now. Let's all move over to one of the tables and I'll explain what we'll be doing."

They walked in silence until Levi unfolded a large paper across the surface of one of the nearby tables and leaned over it, looking up toward his team expectantly, "This is a defensive form of surveying that we'll be troubleshooting today – it's intended to be used in dense forests where we are more capable with the 3DM gear, but have a lot more resulting blind spots due to the surrounding foliage. Erwin and Hanji have been working on this for a few weeks now and want us to test it out in a controlled environment like this."

He paused and pulled out a few colored pegs from his jacket, setting them across the paper that diagramed their training grounds, "In theory," he began and pointed to the map as he moved the color pieces across the paper to illustrate, "By rotating and weaving in a vastly spread out formation like this, each team covers more area than the traditional formation that's used right now in expeditions. Theoretically, this should make it where no one is taken by surprise by Titans in the forest; end goal being that we find a safer way to travel through Titan Territory when we are at a visual disadvantage - help combat the low visibility so to speak."

The squad nodded, and Levi diagramed where each of them would be stationed, how they would move from spot to spot, what rotating would look like as they traded positions, and where he expected to run into trouble, if any. He looked up from the paper again, "It's a little complicated, but I can see where they're coming from. We just need to run it a few times; I'll take your feedback plus my own and report back to Erwin and we'll be done for the day. Any questions?"

"No questions," Eld responded as he frowned in concern, standing up straight from the table and crossing his arms, "It's definitely different than what we do now so it would be a hell of a task to retrain all the ranks, and what's more, it requires a lot more movement from every individual. Aren't they worried about overusing gas? It's not exactly an infinite resource out there and we're already on a gas shortage as it is."

Levi stood up and folded the paper again, "That's up to Erwin to figure out. We are simply here to figure out if the formation is successful or not and report our findings – the rest is his damn problem."

Again the squad nodded, and Levi looked up toward the training ground's forest, "Alright if there are no more questions, let's get to it."

Petra followed after her team and propelled herself up into the forest as instructed. It took a while to actually get started once they were stationed in the treetops. Considering it was a brand-new formation and they each were stationed so far apart, Levi had to move from person to person individually, reviewing where he wanted them to start, as well as their next position before finally moving to where his spot in the formation was.

"Is everyone ready?" Levi called out to his squad, practically shouting to make up for the sheer distance between them. His voice was muffled and sounded muddy by the time it reached across the perimeter to where Petra was standing, though she knew roughly what he was saying and gave a thumbs up as a way of response.

Another sound echoed from him across the forest, and this time Petra couldn't quite make out what exactly was said, but was able to fill in the gaps when she saw her team start to move forward in response. She took a few steps until she was in the air and moving in time with her squad mates. She dodged and weaved through the trees, reminding herself to keep an appropriate distance between Oluo who was behind her, and Gunther who was stationed to her left.

Without a doubt this formation vastly differed from what everyone was used to, the changes not exactly subtle. While they normally traveled in a sort of block formation – two in front and three in the back – this was more of a diamond of sorts. Everyone was a considerable distance away from each other and as a result they undoubtedly covered more ground on a team basis – each seeing different segments of the land around them, and the weaving and routing that would come later would indeed make their combined vision virtually 360 degrees as they rotated and guarded each other's backs essentially.

Petra understood the theory behind it, and as she looked around and watched her teammates move as a spread out, but still singular unit, she knew that it was the start of a good idea – but as it was now the formation came with hefty stakes and further adjustments would have to be made before it was rolled out to the entire faction.

While it would ensure that land was scouted more effectively, in the event that a Titan did get past their sights, there was no immediate backup that a person could pull from. Whatever that individual's first move was would be critical, as their team would only be able to arrive a good ten or so seconds later to provide any assistance. If they weren't prepared to handle Titans on an individual basis, this form of surveying would cost more lives than it saved.

There was another sound that echoed across the grounds that grabbed her attention, it was something Levi said she realized, and it took a moment for Petra to figure out what needed to be done due to the distance. He had called the group to rotate to their next position she realized after a few moments of thought, and Petra looked around and watched both Eld and Gunther respond and adjust their positions before she moved, just to make sure she had deduced his order properly.

From a distance behind her, she heard Oluo call something out, she wasn't too sure just what – and when she shot her next wire, her eyes widened when he all but materialized right beside her. Her mouth dropped open in horror as she watched their wires both shoot forward at the same angle, "Oluo, no not that way!"

She wasn't sure what he was doing or why he had broken formation, but it didn't matter – his wire shot forward directly in front of hers, and as a result, her wires clanged against his with a sickening metallic sound. Instead of pulling her to the next tree, her wires hung in the air uselessly, wrapping around Oluo's taut wire, and without any specific pull to any one direction, she was no longer stable in the air - no, she was falling.

And fast.

She heard her name called out in alarm, she wasn't sure if it was Oluo or the Captain or someone else that was aware of the situation, but she couldn't focus on that. She tried to adjust her body in the air and pull her wires back to the canister so she could reshoot them, but in an instant she slammed down hard against a tree branch, knocking her head and scraping her body against it before tumbling down all the same, pain wracking through her in waves from the blunt force.

She blinked tears out of her eyes, trying desperately to get her bearings and stop her descent to the ground as quickly as possible. She knew she was high enough in the trees that if she didn't find some way to stop her fall, she could very well die from the impact. Again she slammed roughly onto another tree branch, being flipped in the air slightly and she could feel her skin rip and tear as she slid down the branch's surface with aggressive speed that just kept building the longer she was falling.

She bit her lip and again adjusted her 3DM gear, using the adrenaline coursing through her to her advantage and forcing herself to think clearly past the pain and confusion. She clicked the lever again, trying to force the mechanism to pull in the tangled wire as a last-ditch effort to break her fall. She looked down to the ground nervously, wondering if there even was going to be enough time, before finally hearing a metallic zip and clang as the wires finally retracted into her gear. She looked down to her harness, noting with wide eyes that only one wire had returned. The other was still tangled or knotted against Oluo's, and considering how much line was still left in her canister, Petra knew it wouldn't be pulling taught any time soon. Petra let out a determined exhale, knowing she would have to make it work somehow.

She looked around decisively and shot the lone wire into a wide tree she could make out in her hurried descent. Knowing there was no other wire to even out the pull, she braced herself for impact as the one wire drug her by one side and slammed her roughly into the base of the tree, earning yet again another cry of pain, before she fell down to the ground limply. While it hadn't been pleasant, the push of her momentum into the tree had taken away a large majority of her speed, and she knew the remaining fall wouldn't be fatal.

As she hit the ground with a loud and hard thump; she heard a sort of snap and everything went black.

…

…

Levi called out the next rotation over his shoulder as loudly as he could, knowing that at this point he was at the head of the formation and his squad was a considerable distance behind him.

He supposed that so far everything had gone well enough. The formation was unique and Levi could see where it had its certain advantages, but on the whole, he felt everyone was just too spread out. He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination or perhaps a result of his bad attitude after being forced to be mere guinea pigs, but everyone seemed sluggish to his orders; the formation sloppy and difficult to facilitate; even more difficult to lead.

As he prepared to rotate, there was a panicked and sharp "Oluo, not that way!" from Petra that grabbed his attention, and a strange metallic clang echoed across the forest a split second later.

Something was wrong.

In an instant, Levi reshot his wires to a different direction that would pull him out of the formation to survey what was happening behind him. As he turned in the air with a narrowed critical gaze to see the source of the sudden commotion, time seemed to slow as he watched Petra's intended wire that should have launched her to her next position, fall uselessly through the air without an anchoring point; it's intended trajectory thwarted by a wire that clipped hers perfectly. Worse still, her wire appeared to be grossly tangled with - his eyes followed the straight and taught wire back to Oluo's 3DM gear - who wore an expression of pure alarm from where he was standing on the tree.

If before time seemed to slow as he watched the scene unfold, when Petra began falling, it was as though time actually sped up.

Levi cursed under his breath and adjusted his wires once again, springing into action and leaping down off the tree with an aggressive running jump, shooting both wires down toward the forest floor in hopes to intercept her.

Petra was falling to the ground, hitting various branches with great force as she tumbled down to the forest floor, guarding her face with crossed arms in a weak attempt to protect herself. She struggled to get her bearings as she plummeted downward, and try as he may as he weaved through branches and moved toward her as fast as he possibly could, he knew that with her increasing speed and the impossible distance still between them, she would hit the ground before he ever reached her.

Levi looked around perceptively, his mind racing as he tried to think of all his options. If he didn't reach her, she was as good as dead. With how high up they were, with the force she was falling with, there was no way she would survive. There was no fucking way. Maybe – maybe if he just moved a little faster, then maybe? If not that, then maybe if he adjusted his angle as he moved to the forest floor…?

He ducked below a tree branch and spun downward; mind focused on the singular task of retrieving Petra before she hit the ground. Hell, he could even shoot his wires into her directly if he just got close enough. It wouldn't be pleasant, but it was better than the alternative.

She couldn't die. Not like this. Not from fucking training. That was his wife; surely he could protect her from something like this! He growled and ground his teeth as he watched her hit another branch and give a pained, disoriented cry. His feet tapped down on a branch just long enough for him to redirect himself into an open clearing and leap forward again, diving downward nimbly and pushing himself to somehow maybe catch her in time but…fuck she was just too far away!

Levi watched as Petra intentionally adjusted her position in the air, a determination evident in her wild green eyes, and she shot her lone wire into an adjacent tree – he realized that she was intending to break her fall. He found himself exhaling in relief, because the mere action of pulling her momentum sideways instead of straight down might just be enough to keep her alive yet, but still, her potentially life-saving decision would not be without consequences.

The wire rocketed her toward a tree about twenty feet off the ground, but as luck would have it, there were no branches she could clutch onto, assuming she even had the mental awareness to grip onto any branches that would support her weight at this point. Her body slammed into the tree with a metallic zip and she turned to one side in anticipation of the impact, crying out from the force of the collision before limply falling to the ground with a sickening thud.

Levi wasn't far behind her now, reaching the forest floor a few seconds later. By the time his feet hit the ground he was already sprinting toward her, feeling his heart beating in his throat and drumming loudly in his ears as he raced toward her, still unable to move fast enough for his liking as his mind raced with questions.

She was laying on the forest floor in the exact position she had landed in; she wasn't moving.

Why wasn't she moving?

Her last-ditch effort to break the fall should have worked. It had to. It redirected her momentum and slowed her fall considerably to where it shouldn't have been a deadly impact with the ground, although…he wasn't certain of what injuries she had sustained before, during the fall.

What if…?

He kneeled down to the ground and placed his hand over her shoulder, tempted to pull her into his arms, but resisting the urge considering he didn't know the full extent of her injuries. His eyes widened as he looked her over critically, noting at once some of her injuries and the sheen of bright crimson that was already seeping through her white uniform and matted hair.

From behind him, he could hear his squad hit the ground, shouting her name and running toward them as the 3DM gear and gas canisters clanked and bellowed from their hurried running, but Levi's attention remained on the silent, unresponsive woman in front of him, paying the rest of his squad no mind as he looked her over with wide eyes in all consuming worry.

"Petra…?" he asked softly, leaning toward her crumpled form and placing a hand near her mouth. She didn't give even the slightest response to the sound of his voice and a pang of fear made his stomach churn tightly, but it was then that he felt a light wave of air waft over his palm.

He closed his eyes in a thankful, silent prayer.

She was alive.

…

End of Chapter

…

Alright yall, soo maybe this ending was the real reason this chapter didn't make a Christmas day appearance. Back in the day, the Christmas day extra chapter update would have fallen on a different chapter – any other chapter! – but as I made some adjustments, I think I added in a few chapters during the Levi out traveling sections, it made it so this would have been the given chapter that was posted on Christmas morning and that just felt…quite wrong.

But due to that and an admitted lack of things to do in the office, it gave me time to write up a small little ditty (that I think most of you have already stumble upon haha) for the holiday season, and I've got to say it was nice to write something new and a little more light hearted when compared to *looks at above section and frowns* Well, you get it.

But, fear not, because I promised that there would be that extra update in lieu of the holidays, and I have every intention of making good on that. So for all those keeping track, I will be updating around this time on Wednesday morning, for both this piece, as well as posting the last half of my holiday piece, Under the Mistletoe.

It's been a awesome year and a privilege to have such awesome readers! Hope yall had a great holiday in return, and I'll see yall on Wednesday!

~Midnight