A/N: Thank you for your support and Advanced Merry Christmas, dears! I hope you guys like this relatively short chapter. :)
Comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome!
*this is where I shove Rivetra down your throats.
It doesn't surprise Mike that the new guys can handle themselves. He can't imagine what they went through - running from this place to that; looting and killing. It's no wonder that they can fight so well. Surviving outside made them tougher, quicker, and more equipped to combat the undead. So he places them with the Scouts - those who go beyond the wall to gather supplies and to try and contact other survivors.
But even if they excel in close combat, they are shit with guns.
The Commander instructs her to personally train them how to shoot. So she takes them to the training grounds and sets up a shooting range a few meters away from the kids and Mike.
"Once your bullet runs out, you're fucking dead. I don't see the point of you teaching us how to shoot." He tells her when she hands him a desert eagle.
"Commander's orders. His word is law here. Obey or leave. Your choice," She shrugs and walks off to reload her own gun.
It amazes him that she turns into an entirely different person when she's on command; her eyes become unreadable and merciless and her lips are set on a straight line. So different from the bright eyes that catches his and lips that almost always has a smile on them.
Two weeks of gun training and they find themselves out of the walls on their first scouting trip. Eld drives and Petra's on shotgun. Their group was tasked to look for medical supplies.
They drove for hours before finding a clinic. Isabel and Eld remained outside to keep watch and to siphon the gas from the broken pick-up truck.
Levi kicks down the door and dust came flying upwards. Petra covers her nose and moves past Levi and into one of the rooms, her pistol raised. Farlan goes to the left side of the clinic, checking the rooms for the undead. Levi walks over to the counter and rummages through a stack of boxes on top of it.
More boxes are behind the counter and he squats down to check if there's anything useful in them when he hears two shots, then a third, and a crash from the direction of where Petra went.
He is on his feet in an instant, knife out and running towards the noise – Farlan right at his heels. Two of them lie permanently dead on the floor, just beyond the door. They move in further and find Petra on her back, lying on the floor and desperately pushing an undead away from her. Levi goes in for the kill and drives his knife deep into its skull.
He helps Petra up and Farlan kills two more that stumbled into the room.
"You run out of bullets, you die." He tells her and hands him his knife.
"Thanks," she pants, "but I didn't run out of bullets. That thing slammed into me and I lost hold on my gun."
She picks up her gun and shows him the magazine, "See?"
"Doesn't matter. You should always carry a knife with you."
She nods, tucks her gun in its holster and tightens her grip on the knife.
After clearing the place of the undead and taking everything they deemed useful, they set the place to the torch and left.
Petra waits for him to pass by her house that night, recalling the events of the day. This hasn't been the first time she came close to death, but this the first time that someone was there to save her, usually it was just her struggling for survival.
She jogs up to him the moment she sees him, "Thanks again for saving me. Here. I cleaned it." She smiles and hands him back his knife.
He shakes his head, "It's yours now," he presses the knife to her hands, gentle and careful, so as not to cut her.
"Are you sure? I mean, I know you prefer fighting with knives and daggers and it's kinda not right taking this away from you." She mutters and ah, I'm blabbing again.
He stops walking and turns to face her, "You didn't take it. I gave it to you."
She gives him a grateful smile and he bids her goodnight.
Weeks pass and they have proven themselves to be a worthy addition to their community.
Aside from scouting and watching the walls, Isabel helps in the infirmary and Farlan assists Hanji and Moblit in the lab. Levi has shown himself as the strongest in the whole district – saving Mike and his other comrades in more than one occasion – and the Commander has given him the task of training the kids with Mike.
And he actually likes it; training the brats and teaching them combat skills. At least now he has a clearer purpose in life. He no longer survives for the sake of surviving; now he survives for the sake of keeping everyone within these walls safe.
She tells him that she likes him one night and he tells her that she doesn't know what she wants.
"But I know what I want," she whispers but he has already left.
What he didn't tell her, though, is that she's the last person he thinks of before drifting off to sleep.