END GAME

Chapter 7: The Burning

"Fall back, fall back
The giants approach us now
Hold tight, hold fast
We'll find a way somehow.
This world, cruel and beautiful
So damning in our despair
Which fills our hearts to the brim
So haunting as we prepare.
Fight now, no turning back
Pledge your heart to humanity
Our fate is not to be the prey
As we face this cruel reality!"

Eren hummed along to the song streaming through his earbud as he slid a couple of copies of A Game of Thrones into the eyelevel shelves. Jean was thankfully absent from the bookstore, out managing a domestic violence incident in the Shiganshina District of Maria. After the semi-disastrous meeting at the coffee shop earlier that morning his day had seemed to go downhill at a startling rate. He sighed and hit his head against the wooden shelf gently, the soft thumps masked by Marco's voice as he carried on a conversation with a customer about some of Shakespeare's plays, which was barely audible over the music Eren was playing at a low level.

He didn't bother listening in; there was too much to think about already in his head. Levi's cryptic words, the kidnappings, the whole case in general. It was all so fucked up. Eren had no clue where he should even begin to start trying to unravel it all. He sighed and pulled a copy of The Warrior Heir out from the stack of books and slid it into place. Maybe when I get back to the apartment I'll do a little more research on those cases… There was also the hope that he could manage to gleam something more.

Eren set the stack of books on the edge of a shelf, holding them in place with one hand so he could check the time; 4:45. Fifteen more minutes and his shift would be over for the day since Marco had decided to close early for personal reasons. Both Eren and Hannah knew that 'personal reasons' was typically code for Jean, as both of Marco's parents had died while he was in college. Eren slid the IPod back into his pocket and heaved the stack of books back up. The quicker I get done, the more I can find out.

The search began with finding the cases, double checking that there were no cases that Levi had failed to find across the global databases. Eren expanded from there, searching for things that could link them other than blood type. After a half hour of scanning for more connections and coming up empty, he turned to looking into why these kids had been kidnapped.

Nearly an hour had passed him by before he stumbled across a site that looked somewhat promising. The article heading screamed out at him and Eren glanced at the subtext beneath the title before clicking on it, a little dubious about the article and site in general. The link directed him to a website with a black background and a white block in the center, where the article had been centered, with pictures scattered throughout the article.

EXPERIMENTS ON CHILDREN LEAD TO DOCTOR BEING IMPRISONED:

Last Friday, police authorities discovered that Dr. Gilbert M. Meridew, a former scientist for the Nazi Party, had been experimenting on children ranging from newborns to children of up to ten years of age. The experiments were uncovered when authorities received an anonymous tip concerning the disappearance of six year-old Alec Adler, who had been abducted two days prior.

Upon receiving this tip, the authorities obtained a search warrant and proceeded to search the Doctor's house. Nothing was found on the first two floors, but one of the authorities, Lieutenant Vince Eisenberg, reported to have heard the sound of a child crying for help from the basement. The authorities broke the basement door down and went in.

There they uncovered a lab-like setup, where three children were tied down to surgery tables, connected to several IV drips. Two of the children, Annika Faber and Johann Maurer, were pronounced deceased at the scene. The third child was Alec Adler, who later died in the hospital while during emergency surgery.

Evidence acquired at the scene led authorities to believe that Meridew had been performing experiments on numerous children. A record book and a storage unit filled with vials of a clear liquid were kept within the basement. Meridew had recorded his findings in the book and where he hid the bodies of the victims he had kidnapped and murdered. The authorities then secured Meridew, the evidence, and the three bodies and placed each under a double watch.

The next morning, the guards were found to be unconscious, with Meridew murdered in his cell, the evidence gone, and the bodies burned within the morgue. All tapes were found to have been destroyed. The police have no new leads on who might have carried out these actions.

Tips can be left at XXX-XXX-XXXX.

Eren scratched his chin as he finished reading the article before he scrolled back up and looked at the doctor's photograph. It showed a gaunt and haggard looking man with a thin patch of white hair adoring his wrinkled head. He had thick circular glasses, which made his eyes look slightly enlarged. He didn't really look like the kidnapping and murdering type, but then again, not many people do.

Eren opened up another tab and accessed one of the German databases, which was probably illegal in seven different ways that he could list off the top of his head. He worked his way through till he arrived at the 1950's archives. He filtered the birth and death records until he came up with the certificates of the three children found in Meridew's basement.

All three had AB- blood, the same as the children who had gone missing in 1989 and the same as the Benedict girl. The autopsy reports revealed that all three children had died of similar causes; their vital organs appeared to have ruptured from unknown circumstances and it looked like all three had suffered from heart attacks. Needless to say, that was highly unusual, probably even unheard of, in relatively healthy children under the age of ten. Eren ran his fingers through his hair and let out an exasperated sigh.

Damn it! Nothing is connecting! Okay, things are connecting somewhat, but not in the way that we need them! Its times like these that I wish I could simply step into the past and figure out what the hell happened. But no, that would be too damn convenient, wouldn't it be? The main question is whether or not there's a connection between Meridew, the missing children of '89 and the new missing children.

The vibrating of his phone against his laptop and the top of the coffee table jerked him from his frustrated thoughts. Call from: Armin Arlert. Eren tapped a button and raised the phone to his ear as he leaned back, stretching his stiff back, "'Ello."

"Hey Eren," Armin sounded cheery, which would certainly be a welcome distraction from the infuriating dead end that Eren had slammed into, head-first.

"What's up Armin? No, let me guess, you just won the lottery. You'll share right?"

Armin's laughter echoed over the phone and Eren smirked as his friend's soft laughter subsided before he spoke. "No, but I suppose you could say the news I have is related to that. I finally got the cables to deploy and retract without something else coming apart! So long as I can replicate it into another, I think everything will be good to go!"

Eren grinned at his friend's enthusiasm. "That's great Armin, I'm glad you finally got it working. It took you long enough," he teased, which produced a false snort of irritation from Armin. Eren could envision the eye roll that the blonde was probably making on the other end, his eyes practically in the back of his head. "Who knows, maybe the Red Cross or someone will start using it in rescue operations. It would certainly be more convenient than helicopters."

Armin hummed in agreement. "I just have to develop a waterproofed version of this before then, but they're already talking about using it to both help the disabled, assist in future war efforts, and use it during earthquakes and whatnot. Personally, I think that's going to be a little expensive to produce, especially how much they've already been talking about buying, but if they're effective and they save lives, I really don't care."

Eren smiled and nodded to himself. It was so like Armin to put other people ahead of his own desires and goals to travel the world and see the places his grandfather had spoken of which such affection. "You are planning on testing them out first, right?"

"Of course," Armin said. His voice was humored but indignant at Eren's jokingly implied suggestion. "The 3DGM is going to be tested intensely in all kinds of environments for at least before I'm allowed to put it up for sale."

Eren hummed in response as he shifted his mouse, pulling it out of its screen saver. He clicked through the tabs, printing each one as he listened to Armin talk. The printer in his room began to rumble and squeak quietly as the assorted parts moved into place. Eren left the papers in the printer and stretched himself out on the couch, the phone still pressed to his ear with his shoulder as he listened to Armin carry on, scratching idly at his left wrist, which was barren of marks, even scars.

By Wednesday, October 2nd, they had uncovered no new leads that might point them in the direction of the kidnapper. By that time, two more children had also been taken; Diego Santiago and Jenny Tripp. Nothing new was revealed at either home; just more paint and mysterious circumstances of how or why the children had gone missing in the first place. Eren had shown Levi the article, which he had deemed a possibility. There were too many possibilities of where the children could be. There was too great a chance that they would only find the charred skeletons of the children instead of living, breathing versions of them. There was nothing to go on. It was another dead-end case, just like Marion's case.

Levi threw the latest missing persons file onto his desk, a frustrated and fierce glare fixed upon his face. Eren was only mildly surprised that the desk didn't start melting beneath the heat of the black-haired man's gaze. A new missing person had been reported that morning, a three-year old boy by the name of Samuel Weiss who had been abducted in the middle of the afternoon, when he was home sick from school.

Levi slammed his head onto the desk, startling Eren for a moment. "This can't keep going on!" his voice was a growl of frustration and his forehead was creased with concentration. "No tapes, no prints, not even a damn stray hair for us to go on! Fuck, we don't even know if these three cases are related at all. All we've got is a barrel of useless hunches to go off of."

Levi raked his fingers through his hair and turned his glare on Eren. He took one look one looked at Eren and pinched the bridge of his nose and took several deep, calming breaths. "We've got nothing new to go on either. Each of these kids was taken from a different part of Eden, so we have no way of knowing who will be next, and it's not like we can post an officer at every house that has a child that fits the criteria. That's just flat out impossible." Levi sighed and dropped his hands. "I haven't had a case like this in a while, but at least that one had some hope of being solved."

"Which case was that one?" Levi looked up at Eren. The gray-eyed man looked tired and irritated.

"It was a string of murders back in '05. You'd probably remember it as what the tabloids called 'Hooked Hangings.'"

Eren blinked for a moment, his mind woefully blank in regards to what Levi was talking about before it all came back to him. The case, which had been all over the newspapers for several weeks, involved a woman by the name of Sandra Meriwether. Meriwether had gone on a murder spree, hanging men that she believed were sinful and in the wrong. She had cut nine men up and shoved a hook through their mouths before hoisting them up by the rope on the back of the hook, giving the victims the resemblance of fish caught on a line.

They had captured her after one of her victims-to-be had fought back against her, knocking her unconscious before taking her cellphone and called authorities. She had regained consciousness and fled the scene before the police could arrive, but they cornered her at her home on the outer edges of the Rose District. She had been sentenced to death by lethal injection. "You worked that?! I thought that Irvin and Mike had been working that case. At least, that's what I've heard from people."

Levi shrugged, "I prefer to keep my name and face out of the papers. It's safer that way." Eren frowned and raised an eyebrow at Levi's comment but he bit the questions back. Levi jerked up out of his seat and began to pace. Eren watched him walked back and forth on the threadbare gray carpet that covered the floors of the office area of the station.

To say it was gray was a slight mistake; more accurately, it was a faded gray stained with splotches of blue, black, and red ink, brown coffee stains, and dirt in some places that refused to come out, no matter how hard it was scrubbed. It was hard to imagine it being a deep, lush gray and unstained from years of use, just like it would have been strange to see the office without its mounds of paperwork and evidence collecting on every surface. It was times like these when Eren realized just how messy the station could get that led to Eren wondering how Levi, neurotic as he was about cleanliness, could stand to be within a five-mile radius of the place.

Levi came to a standstill and fished in the pocket of his dark blue jeans. "I need to smoke," he muttered before he whipped around and stormed out of the station, a look of pure irritation on his face. Eren watched Levi go, a vague sense of disappointment welling up in him. The sound of a throat being cleared made him tilt his head over the back of the chair.

Petra stood behind him, her hands on her hips and a grin on her face. "Eren, you should come with us tomorrow night to Club Tryst. After all, you have a night off from the bookstore tomorrow, don't you?"

Eren shrugged, "I do… but this case is still going on and I'm pretty sure Levi would kill me if he knew I was doing something other than helping figure out what the hell is going on with this case."

A disappointed look crept up onto Petra's face and she stuck her tongue out. "I'd tell you to live a little but now that you mention it, you probably wouldn't live much longer if Levi figured out you were slacking. You wouldn't be missing much though. It would have just consisted of Erd passing out at the bar, Gunther trying to start a politics-related debate with someone for some reason, and Oluo acting like a total ass. Oh wait, he always does that. No woman is going to like him if he keeps trying to imitate someone other than himself." Petra sighed and rolled her eyes before fixing them on Eren. "He is just so irritating sometimes, you know?"

Eren rubbed a hand across his mouth, holding back a grin. Petra was so oblivious that it was unbelievable. Then again, a person really had to watch their interactions for a while before they realized that Oluo tried to emulate Levi all the time because he cared for Petra more than he let on. "I suppose you have a point. Maybe you should talk to him about it."

Petra shrugged and threw her hands into the air, exasperation evident on her face. "I've tried but that idiot always says something about how 'the strong and the brave are the ones who are remembered,' or some bullshit like that. Then he gives me this weird look before he changes the topic. Or he bites his tongue - it really depends on the situation." Her imitation of Oluo was almost spot-on, including her faking biting her tongue and flailing about as imaginary blood gushed from her mouth.

Eren sat up and began to laugh as he turned his chair around, shaking his head at the orange-haired girl. One of the emergency lines went off, the noise jarring in the silence of the office. Petra jumped up from her perch on the edge of the desk and snatched the phone from its cradle, holding it to her ear.

"This is 911, what is your emergency?" She listened for a moment before her head shot up and she clapped her hand over the mouth piece, "Eren, go get Levi. There's a fire by Adam's River near the edge of the Rose-Maria District, at the riverside warehouses. The caller reported that they saw Charlie Marion enter the building and leave a few minutes later, just before the fire began. They say he appeared to be dragging several small bags but that he left without them."

Eren jolted up and darted through the office, thankful that many of the officers were already on cases throughout the city. He ran into Levi at the door and knocked the man backwards a foot or two. The other man glared at him and opened his mouth to snap at him but Eren spoke before Levi could have a chance to. "There's a fire at Adam's River, by the Rose-Maria District edge, at the riverside warehouses. The witness sighted Marion." Levi's mouth snapped shut and he pushed past Eren.

"Come on," Levi said as he darted through the office. He made his way to his desk where he crouched under the desk and pulled a small metal box out. He opened it up and pulled a gun out. Eren thought it might have been a Glock but it could also have been a pistol. He wasn't really one for guns, having never shot one, let alone held one. "Get Irvin," Levi snapped, "He'll need to come with us to cover for your inexperience. He'll get you a gun. Have you ever used a gun before, even if it's only once?"

Eren swallowed nervously; this was not what he had originally agreed on when he had decided to assist Irvin. This was far from the original plan. When exactly did it begin to deviate? Eren shook his head, "No, I've never shot one."

Levi let out a 'tsk' sound and began to pull several cartridges from the box, tossing several to the side while setting others onto the desk. They all looked the same to Eren more or less, with the same metal casing that was beaten into a rectangular shape. "Go get Irvin and get a pistol anyways. Just try not to shoot me."

Eren whirled around and tore the door open to Irvin's office. Irvin looked up, startled to be interrupted so suddenly. "Levi told me to get you. I think he wants you to come with us… and to get me a gun."

Irvin grimaced and stood, dropping his pen onto his desk where his now-discarded paperwork way lying. "Get the address from Petra and get a cruiser out front. We'll meet you out there. I'll drive once you get it out there. It's the car on the left, closest to the entrance." Irvin dug a set of keys out of his pockets and tossed it at Eren.

He snatched them from the air and spun back around, leaving the door open behind him and he darted over to Petra, who was scribbling down something on a piece of paper. She handed it to him without looking up, "Yes, authorities will be on the scene within a few minutes. I have already contacted the local fire departments and hospital." Eren dodged around Levi, who had shed his coat and was jerking a vest over his head, another lying on the desk beside the cartridges and the two guns that had joined the first black one.

The back lot of the police station was empty except for two cruisers. Eren rammed the key into the one closest to the entrance by the side of the police station and jerked the door open. This, while not being his first time in a cruiser, was his first time in the front. Thankfully, it was an automatic as opposed to a stick shift, which Eren cursed every time he had been forced to drive them, regardless of the situation. The engine roared to life and Eren quickly but carefully pulled it out through the space between the station and the building to the right of it, left open specifically for this purpose. He left the cruiser running in front of the station and got out.

Levi and Irvin opened the station doors a few moments later; both were wearing blue vests emblazoned with Eden Police over their hearts. Levi was carrying another vest and a gun, one that Eren assumed to be a pistol. "Get in and get this on. You'll be glad you did if we got shot at. Mike and Nanaba are the closest to the warehouses aside from us, so we'll have backup within a few minutes of arrival. Don't do anything stupid. Just stick by the two of us and you might not die."

Eren let Levi shove the vest and gun into his hands, along with a belt with a pouch that gave off a sound of clacking metal when it was jostled. He felt sick with anticipation and stiff with terror; what the hell was he even supposed to do when they got there, stand there and hope to hell he didn't get shot at? He opened the door and slid in, slamming it shut behind him. He barely had the door shut before Irvin was already pulling the cruiser out of its place, the sirens and lights coming on seconds later.

Levi turned around, "Most people would start putting the vest on now." Eren complied, numb fingers fumbling as he tugged the ammunition belt on around his waist. The vest itself was slightly small; where it was supposed to cover down to his hips, there was an inch of space above his hipbone to the bottom of the vest. "Sorry," Levi said, "I grabbed the first one I found. It was Petra's. Now," he held a gun up, turning it so Eren could see.

His thumb pulled a little lever-like extension from the back of the gun, behind the rectangular muzzle, which elicited a soft click from the gun. "That's the safety – pull it back to disengage. Doing that will allow you to shoot. Do that only when we tell you too, or if there's a chance you might shoot or get shot at. Don't shoot from the hip like they do in the movies – that rarely ever works, and even then, it's pure luck more often than not unless you have an automatic, but last time I checked, we don't. Lastly, try not to hit us." Eren nodded, running over the instructions in his panicked mind. Mikasa's going to have a fit when she finds out what I'm doing. Fuck, the authorities won't even be able to find a body once she's done with me.

The fire had spread from warehouse 12A when they arrived, with thick columns of dark gray and black smoke pouring into the sky. Orange and red flames burned with a passion, their light and deadly grace reflected on the surface of the slow-moving river. Levi opened the door and rose, the gun gripped loosely but firmly in one hand. Firefighters were already on the scene, fighting to quench the flames that licking up along the warehouses. He could see Irvin in his peripheral, pressing a Bluetooth into his ear. "Levi, another tip just came in concerning Marion. They spotted him by Warehouse 22B" Thankfully he was still on their side of the river, but the bridge was only two more rows down from 26B.

"Got it," Levi said, pulling the safety back on his gun. He glanced back at Eren. The other man was pale and silent, his eyes stretched wide with fear. Eren honestly looked like he was about to collapse to the ground and start heaving up the contents of his stomach. This is not how I imagined this turning out… Now I've got an inexperienced idiot with me while on the trail of a murderer. This is fucking fantastic. "Irvin, you cover the bridge-side street. Shoot on sight. Eren, you come with me. Try not to put a bullet through my head, would you?" Eren jerked his head, his lips still clamped together in a thin, white line.

Levi turned and began to jog, careful of where his feet were going and sticking close to the right side of the street, away from the raging fire that was currently blazing. Levi turned into one of the alleyways between the warehouses. Eren's footsteps echoed behind him, a few feet behind. The shouts, roar of the fire, crash of heavy objects, and groan of buckling iron and wooden beams filled the air, blocking out almost every sound.

Dark gray smoke filled the air, burning Levi's unprotected throat and eyes even though they weren't in the fire. A wind carried stray bits of ash and embers, carrying a deadly load that could mean even more chaos than before. We need to find Marion, now! Levi whipped around the corner of the alleyway and jerked back. Fragments of stone and a cloud of dust burst into the air as a bullet slammed into the corner of the building, mere inches from Levi's head.

Levi glanced at Eren, who looked positively terrified but strangely determined and focused, his gold-green eyes glinting. Levi braved a glance around the corner once more; Marion was running away, towards the gap between 11C and 12C. "Come on," Levi said, breaking into a sprint after Marion. They reached the mouth of the alley and stopped, both of their guns pointed down at Marion, who had stopped halfway down the alley; Levi's gun was steady while Eren's was shaking ever so slightly in his hands.

Marion's gun was pointed down towards the ground, his shoulders hunched, his deranged and bloodshot eyes fixated on something just above them. His entire body was shaking like a junkie going through withdrawals, turning him into a skeletal-looking man covered with ratty clothing and gray-tinged clothing. Whatever he was hooked on, it must have been strong. "D-don't come any closer!" Marion screamed, whipping his head back and forth, his eyes stretched open as wide as they could go, "Monsters!" His gun came up faster than Levi thought it could have, especially considering the man's emaciated and fragile condition.

Levi leapt to the side and tucked into a roll, coming up on his knee and foot. He pulled the trigger twice. The first bullet slammed straight into Marion's chest, straight through his breastbone. The second caught Marion in his left shoulder, sending him spinning and sending his second shot ricocheting off the building, burying itself harmlessly somewhere in the ground. Levi stood slowly, his eyes fixed on Marion's body, which lay on the ground, slowly bleeding out into the filthy alley. "Remind me to get you some shooting practice kid," Levi said, turning his head towards Eren, who stood staring blankly forwards.

He watched as Eren looked down at his lower abdomen, where his hands were clamped over his waist, just above his left hip. Levi watched as blood began to trickle from between the cracks of Eren's fingers, rolling down the tanned skin before falling down to the ground. Eren looked at Levi, his face a mask of numb shock and confusion as he pulled a hand away, already stained and dripping with blood. Levi froze, rooted to the ground as he watched Eren's eyes roll back before he fell backwards onto the concrete, staining the dirt and oil covered stone crimson, a small red pool already beginning to form beneath his waist.

Chapter 7: End

I get the odd feeling some of you are going to be resisting the urge to strangle me. I wonder why? He's been shot for a reason. I've got all of this planned out, but from here-on-out it gets a little scifi-like. So yeah. I should probably say something to some of you lovely reviewers. But thank you all for reading and I hope you continue to enjoy!

layer14: I'm thinking you'll find out most of Eren's backstory within the next chap or so and Levi's will come in… sometime… but I honestly have no idea when. I'm typing what's on my mind with only the end goal being clear. Although, the kidnapper & motives won't be known to you guys for a while.
Ahomine: I'm a very self-conscious person, especially about my image and writing, even though I wanna become an author... It was hard for me to get the courage to even start uploading to be honest. But you guys are making me feel a little more confident about my writing and myself in general!
calleyrose: I have a wonderful scene concerning that later on.
blackirishawk: My only response is laughter.
sassychina: I'm fighting the urge to either laugh or blush, but thank you very much either way!
Animo32124: I'm glad that you've come to enjoy this and I hope you continue to do so!