Mikasa arrived at the scene, absolutely furious. She had seen Berthold attack Eren from behind and knock him out. At first she was absolutely mad, but also confused at the same time, so she reigned her anger in and decided to silently follow him, tranquil fury searing under the surface of calm focus.

She finally saw Bertholdt stop at a branch, Eren flung over his shoulder next to Reiner. So these two are in this together.

She landed far enough to avoid being seen, hiding behind a trunk, observing the situation. The two seemed to be talking with one another about something, Berthold appeared distressed. She saw patches of blood staining the bark of the branch they were standing on.

Her eyes trailed to the ground and her breath hitched with her eyes widening in shock. Below the tree was a body, sprawled with it´s face down with blood pooling under it. She recognized the small frame and black undercut. Mikasa gripped her swords hard and her narrowed eyes focusing back on the assailants.

Speed was essential now. She shot the grappling hook into the trunk above their heads and jumped, the spinning reel pulling her in as she expended more gas than necessary to close in on her enemies as fast as possible.

Reiner noticed her approaching before she could slam her blades into Bertholdt and parried her with his own blades covered in Levi´s blood.

"GIVE EREN BACK!" Mikasa screamed, retracting one of her blades and slashing at Reiner again. But instead of blocking the slash, Reiner let it connect with his thigh, slicing off a piece of flesh. Mikasa only realized her mistake when a triumphant smirk flashed across his face. Reiner used the pain to trigger the transformation.

The huge form of the Armored Titan erupted out of thin air. Tendons and muscle tissue enveloped the skeleton and all of that was covered by nigh impenetrable armor. Mikasa put her arms out to protect her face but that did her little good in protecting herself from the incoming foot slamming into her.

The breath was knocked out of her upon the impact and she felt her back crushing into a tree. She felt a few ribs crack. She fell on her knees on the ground, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps. She placed her hands on the ground, prepared to push her body off the ground and attack again.

What she saw made her breath hitch. Bertholdt was climbing into the Armored Titan´s palms with Eren strapped to him. Bertholdt looked at her one last time and said something to Reiner that she couldn´t discern. Next thing she knew, an ear splitting roar shook the air and sent trembles through the ground.

She recognized the sound. It was the same as when the Female Titan was surrounded by the Survey Corps on their last expedition. Soon enough this place would be swarmed by titans. She needed to act quickly.

She quickly tried to stand up but her left leg gave out under her. Steadying herself, she shot the grappling hooks out and .pulled herself up. Carefully aiming at the retreating back of the Armored Titan, she fired again, the hooks attaching themselves to the unprotected tissue, pulling herself in.

The Armored Titan suddenly stopped its retreat and turned to face Mikasa, yanking the hooks out of his flesh by the wire.

Shit, Mikasa thought. If the titan used the wires to slam her into a tree or to the ground, that would be the end for her, no matter how resilient she was. With a final outcry of anguish, she slashed for the wires, severing herself from Reiner´s hold.

By that, she also cut herself from the only chance she had at rescuing Eren now, because the Armored Titan took off running at a pace she had no hopes of achieving without her three dimensional maneuvering gear and with an injured leg.

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Erwin was feeling unsettled. He had seen the signal flare go off in the general direction where he knew Levi had gone to guard the perimeter. The fact that there weren´t any obvious signs of combat that would explain the warning signal was even more disturbing. If it really had been Levi who sent the flare, Erwin knew there weren´t many things that would cause Levi to do that.

He was on his way to check out the situation when a deafening roar echoed through the air. There was no mistake that this sound came out from a titan´s throat.

"Soldiers! Prepare to intercept any titans!" Erwin´s voice was rousing the soldiers from their slumber and soon there were soldiers standing in front of him, waiting for orders.

"You are coming with me," Erwin pointed to a group of soldiers, "we will investigate what happened. You," he pointed to another group of soldiers, "will act as our guard and will be the vanguard for the possible oncoming attack. The rest of you will be stationed at the borders of the camp and will fight off any titans that manage to get through. Dismissed!"

Loud ´yes, sir!´ sounded throughout the clearing as everyone rushed to defend the camp. All exhaustion was forgotten and replaced by adrenaline and anticipation.

Erwin and his appointed group ran to where the sound originated from. Horses would be of no use here, in the forest. The scene soon unfolded in front of them.

Titans of various sizes were already invading the forest, attracted by the roar. He couldn´t see the titan that let out the roar. Then he spotted the body on the ground.

Erwin silently cursed as he landed a bit too roughly next to the prone form, his eyes scanning for injuries. There was a crimson stain in the middle off the back and the limbs were mangled in a very unnatural way. Erwin was no field medic but anyone would see that these weren´t injuries one could walk away with.

The ground rumbled with heavy feet nearing them, but a soldier flew past the titan, slicing at it´s neck. The giant body fell to the ground few meters from them.

Erwin continued to stare in shock. It wasn´t the first time he saw Levi injured, but never this much. Levi was so strong that it was almost unimaginable. Erwin grimly chucked, but the sound was devoid of any humour. So death gets even the best of us.

Someone landed behind him. "Erwin, what´s going o- oh," Hange is stood behind him, also rigid with disbelief. "Not even the Humanity´s Strongest Soldier can survive a backstabbing bastard," she fell numbly to her knees to pay her last respects for her fallen comrade.

Then Levi took one shuddering, pained breath. Even in such a state, robbed of his senses, he continued to fight for his life, his heart erratically continuing to distribute blood around his body, his crushed lungs still struggling to inhale oxygen.

"Not yet," Erwin mentally berated himself for falling victim to grief where there was no place for emotion on battlefield. He wasted no time thinking or feeling relief. He would feel again when this was over. He reached for the pouch where he kept the syringe with the titan serum.

The impersonal part of his brain has already finished with the calculations. As heartless as it sounded, this was the perfect opportunity. Levi was a seasoned and devoted soldier, not to mention the best humanity could offer. He saw what someone without proper training like Eren could do with such a power, and if this power was bestowed upon someone like Levi, the outcome would be a major game changer and could perhaps even be a turning point in this drawn out, one sided war.

He noticed Hange observing him. Judging by the determined gleam in her eyes, she must´ve come to the same decision. Erwin plunged the syringe into Levi´s flesh and pressed. Clear liquid begun to fill Levi´s veins.

For a few infinite seconds, nothing was happening.

Then, Levi´s flesh begun bubbling and regenerating, the wounds closing in matter of seconds, the broken and twisted limbs repairing themselves with awful squelching sounds, steam rising from the whole body. Soon, bones begun to appear out of thin air, forming a titan skeleton which was soon enveloped by tissue and finally skin. Eyeballs, face features and hair appeared last.

The new titan stood in all it´s glory. It wasn´t as high as Eren´s titan and stood at about 10 meters, but it looked more sturdy. Well developed muscles covered its whole body. It had short, wild, black hair and a big mouth with pointed teeth.

Then its head turned sharply to stare at Erwin. Erwin´s breath hitched when he saw no spark of recognition in the grey orbs, only unbridled fury of a caged animal. Erwin held his breath as the titan in front of him examined him, making sure he didn´t move a muscle. Showing no sign of interest, the titan turned away.

Erwin allowed himself to breath out. Even the few times a titan had him in his grasp, before his comrades saved him, never he had experienced such a rage in titan´s eyes.

Suddenly, the titan let out a huge role, until the ground trembled and begun sprinting, moving incredibly fast at powerful strides. It payed no heed to the other titans around him, kicking into the three and four meter classes that were unfortunate enough to get under his feet.

A single 12 meter class stood in the way. The titan that was Levi didn´t even flinch as he bent forward and crashed into the taller titan, sending him flying with a stupidly surprised expression. Paying no heed, the Levi-titan stepped on it´s neck, crushing its nape and continued to run to point on the horizon that no-one else but him saw.

All the titans that invaded the area after the Armored titan lured them were dealt with, albeit with some casualties.

"Sir," a soldier came to report, saluting, "we received a report from Mikasa Ackerman, saying that Reiner Braun and Bertholdt Hoover are enemy spies and abducted our titan shifter, Eren Jaeger. Braun was observed shifting into a titan, the one that broke Wall Maria."

Shit, Erwin thought. That wasn´t good. Only now it occurred to him that he haven´t seen the boisterous teen throughout the battle. If it really happened, it not only meant that they lost their titan shifter for now, but also that the other new titan shifter they just got ran off to who knows where. He had to plan and he had to plan fast.

His brow puckered in deep thought. The two titan shifters were the highest priority right now, but the sun was up, which meant there would be titans wandering around, also, if they somehow managed to reach their targets, it would mean fighting the Armored Titan and his companion, which was something which could cause great losses for the Legion. The circumstances were against their favor.

Erwin finally reached his decision. "Get me together a squad of experienced soldiers and a matching number of spare horses we led here. We will lead a retrieval mission for Eren Jeager and Levi. Someone get me more details from Ackerman. We depart as soon as possible, time is of essence."

"Yes, sir!" the soldier saluted once more and went to carry out his orders.

Erwin sighed and begun to prepare plans for various scenarios for the upcoming mission. There was another long day ahead of them.

I will be leading more men to their deaths today.

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Fun fact: Marco´s birthday is 16th of June. Which is funny, because it´s exactly HALF of the year. Hehe. Get it? Someone please slap me.

Anyway, life caught up with me, I do homework, prepare for tests, play piano, learn japanese, do two different sports and do an AP course, so I have a real lot going on. Updates may not be very regular.

Shit finally hit the fan and after two descriptive chapters, we´re finally getting some action, please let me know what you think, reading reviews encourages me to write faster and update more often. I´m also getting a bit stuck with the plot, so I may need more time to plan it out.