Yoooo... the last time we had an honest to glob Levi POV chapter was fifty-nine. Holy shit that was an age ago.

Unrelated to ALYNA in almost every way: If you're at AAC in New Hampshire this weekend my ex is there and he's a totally rad dude and you should say hi and whatever. He's cosplaying as Aikuro Mikisugi from Kill la Kill and I'm not entirely sure how much / how little clothing he's going to be wearing at any given time. If there's more than one Mikisugi wandering around his other identifying characteristics are a jawline like Chris Evans and two Zelda tattoos. He goes by jmd so I guess you could also just yell that out.

Enjoy the chapter!

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Armin had been right when he said no accurate vector data existed for the palisades. Hanji had ended up working with Armin to create an informal map using satellite images and what little formal vector data could be found. In addition to the informal maps, Hanji had also grabbed maps of the underground drain and tunnel network from Trost's Department of Public Works. Overlaid together, they made a rough but serviceable map of the palisades that Levi was able to load onto his phone and hope that it was correct enough that he didn't end up in a dead end with someone chasing him. They had all agreed that the underground maps were vital and a likely place to search given that they hadn't received a signal from Eren's phone for an extended period only to have it be followed up by a brief but weak signal over a day later.

Levi wasn't particularly thrilled with his current situation. Given the delicacy of their search he was going to be spending however long it took to search the palisades entirely incognito; that meant no grapple gear, no protective uniform, no extra gadgets from Hanji. All he was left with was a knife, a lockpick set, his own better-than-average senses and strength, and a driving sense of guilt and concern.

Fucking somebody should have been with him or watching him or something. We got complacent because nobody had been near him in weeks and we hadn't heard much of anything useful either. Didn't think they'd be so fucking bold that they'd grab him in broad daylight though or that they'd take his friend with them. We fucked up badly.

He walked down the street, trying to stay as out of sight and innocuous as possible. It was another thing that he wasn't particularly thrilled about; he had been forced to leave his car at the outskirts of the palisades, a good mile away from the outer perimeter of the search area. He hadn't needed much convincing though given that while his car looked perfectly normal in Trost-proper, it would stick out like a sore thumb in the palisades. He'd gone for his usual incognito clothing of a hoodie pulled up over a baseball cap which had gotten him a few odd looks where he had parked his car, but which didn't draw a single glance once he was deep into the palisades. Anywhere else he might have looked out of place, but here it was perfectly normal; you either lived in the palisades (poor bastards) or you went to the palisades to do your dirty business anonymously (fucking bastards) and get out.

Levi could feel the raw dampness begin to seep into him as he walked along paved roads and informal alleyways. He tried to press down the disgust that welled up as he stepped around – but usually through – piles of trash and accumulated detritus. After spending almost an hour working his way through the search area criss-crossing between streets that weren't even on the informal maps he decided that it was finally time to head back towards the center of the search area and find a way to get down into the network of underground tunnels. Finding a way down into the tunnels wasn't a particularly difficult task, but it was difficult to get through one of the entrances without being noticed. He ended up choosing an access point that was somewhat concealed by a tangle of wood and wire in an alley. His lock pick set ended up being completely useless given how seized up the lock was. Given its rusted state, he tried to simply pull on it and hope that his own strength would break it. He gave it a tug but nothing happened.

Fucking hell. There'd better be something around here I can use as leverage to snap it. I guess I could hit it with something but if I hit the door that would be fucking loud and I'm not exactly in the mood to deal with any attention.

He rummaged around in the pile of wood next to the entrance and found a short piece of rebar thin enough that he could fit it in the gap where the padlock met the chain keeping the door closed. From there he gave the rebar a sudden pull and ripped the lock off, the chain clattering to the ground. He froze for a moment, flinching and waiting for someone to yell about the noise before remembering that not everyone had his same heightened sense of hearing. Levi let out a long breath and rubbed at his temples; the sharp sound had been painfully loud without his earplugs in but he couldn't afford to wear them when he needed to be on full alert.

Levi gave a quick look to either side of him to make sure nobody was watching before opening the door and going through. He had expected that the entrance would be in some amount of disrepair, but he hadn't expected it to be an almost straight drop down as soon as he stepped in the door.

At some point there had been a platform of metal grating that turned into stairs of the same material, but neglect and vandalism had resulted in the platform having mostly collapsed and the stairs having partially sheared away from the wall. He stood on the small amount of the platform that was left and calculated how badly things would end if he missed the jump to the rest of the stairs.

I could really do with my fucking grapple gear right now.

He kept his eyes straight ahead as he made the leap from the collapsing platform to the stairs that weren't entirely attached to the wall. His landing was far from graceful and he froze for a moment, not daring to move as the stairs let out a metallic groan and shifted slightly under him. Levi let a moment go by before he dared to move from the hunched up position that he had landed in. He moved carefully down the stairs, not wanting to risk the stairs giving out beneath him when he was still twenty feet above the floor. The sound of dripping water echoed through the stairwell, multiple sharp and rhythmic plopping sounds filled his hearing as he tried to listen for any other sounds or potential movements. There wasn't much else to catch by way of sound beyond the dripping and his own tentative steps.

It wasn't until Levi reached the base of the stairs that he realized that there was no way he was going back up the way he had come in. He'd been forced to jump slightly downwards to the stairs and he highly doubted the stairs would even be a stable enough structure to jump off of without them collapsing. He looked up at a grated panel far up on the wall and the dim light that was reaching where he was and sighed before pulling out a flashlight.

I guess I'm finding a way out of here later. They say to look before you leap but I guess you're supposed to look back too… and that really just isn't my style, is it?

He turned the flashlight on and investigated his surroundings. There was only one way out of the odd stairwell he was in right then and according to the map he would be walking down that one tunnel for a while before coming to a junction with two others. From there tunnels branched out and crossed one another. He paused to look at the two layers of the map, trying to find a place where things might coincide but he found nothing. Levi gave a slight growl as he slipped his phone back into his pocket and began walking with his flashlight on the dimmest setting possible, his footsteps echoed wetly and the shape of the tunnels distorted the sound to the point where he was considering putting his earplugs back in.

When he got to the juncture in the tunnels he went to one of the tunnels and knocked sharply on one of the pipes running down it. He closed his eyes and paused to listen before shaking his head and taking the other tunnel.

I haven't done this in a long time.

He passed through a few more small junctions until he came to one that was a four-way intersection with one tunnel heading on a very clear downward slope while the one he had come from and the other two seemed to stay relatively level. Levi paused and tried to relax. He had been moving a bit too quickly, trying to cover as much ground as possible but now it was catching up to him. Levi leaned back against one of the tunnel walls and tried to catch his breath in the cold and humid air.

Everything here is so fucking small and I just need to get the fuck out of here. But I can't just fucking leave. I've found out fuck all and I've been wandering around the palisades for over two hours now. We don't know shit other than that we got a signal from Eren's phone that wasn't strong enough to get more than a rough area to search and it's not exactly a fucking tiny area either. A little over one square mile of above-ground roads and alleyways and another system of underground tunnels. Easy as fucking pie to cover in one night if you're The Hawk, right? Levi brought his hands up to run them through his hair, pushing his hat and hood back and grasping roughly at his own hair. His hand tightened its grip on his hat and tried to cram it into his back pocket. He continued to stand, letting his head hang forward as he looked at the ground. This shouldn't have happened. He's just some dumb fucking kid who happens to be the son of some asshole they're interested in. Just sheer bad fucking luck.

There was no warning when his arm lashed out, slamming backwards into the tunnel wall he was leaning against. He felt the thing particles of dust on him and the echoing sound of his momentary frustration lingered in his ears.

He's just some dumb fucking kid.

And that's the problem. He needed someone there to protect him and we were all caught up in our own shit and everyone – us, his friends – got complacent. If I were a real masochist I'd blame this whole fucking mess on myself. Because maybe, maybe, him having done some actual self-defense lessons wouldn't have been a bad fucking idea. But no, I let that fucking slide and everything's shot to hell. Would be regardless. Whoever the fuck grabbed him knew what they were doing.

Levi groaned and rubbed at his face, tensing up and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until a supernova exploded behind them. His body suddenly went limp and he let his head hang a moment before picking up his phone and checking to see if he got any signal. He didn't have to wait long for Hanji to pick up.

"Levi? Did you find anything?"

"I've been wandering around – above and below ground – for over two hours now and I've got fuck-all."

"Hey now, are you okay?"

"I've been walking around a trash heap for two hours hoping to stumble across something and I haven't done a damn thing except get into a tunnel system and realize that I need to figure out a way to get out of here eventually."

"What the what now?"

"The way I came in I can't go back. Stairs are fucking partially collapsed."

"Shit, okay look at your map. I definitely marked some places."

"No, getting out is the easy part. I just don't really know what the hell I'm looking for. I've covered probably half of the aboveground area and the tunnels and shit are a fucking nightmare. They go on for ages and then the junctions are a mess and you can't get a sig–" Levi stopped speaking abruptly and he felt his heart speed up slightly.

"Hey, Levi are you okay?"

"Hanji, where's the nearest cell phone tower?"

"To you?"

"To the search area. What side is it closest to?"

"Hmm… looks like there's one that's sort of closer to the southern part of the search area. Why?"

"I'm in the southern part of the area now. I didn't have a signal at the other junctions northeast of here."

"You think Eren's close then."

"That gives me a little bit of hope. There are only two other junctions in the southern part and they're pretty close together."

"That would also be a less-inhabited area of the palisades. Meth labs and shit."

"Well hopefully we don't take so long to get their asses the fuck back here that they have cancer."

"Aw, you do care." Hanji inflected as much drama into their tone as they could. Normally it would have Levi at least slightly amused but right now…

"Who said I didn't? It's our fucking faults they're in this mess and even if that animal Smiles isn't around anymore we know what the Titans are capable of and they will not be kind just because they're kids."

"They aren't kids."

"I know."

They were both silent for a moment and Levi heard Hanji exhale loudly on the other end.

"It's after three in the morning. You need to pack it in if you don't find anything soon. We can get Eren's friends to help us scout out the area."

"I'm going to check out the other two junctions. I should be back in about an hour."

"I'll make sure there's a cup of tea and a tub of disinfectant ready for you when you get back."

"Very fucking funny. You wade through trash for multiple hours and tell me you don't want to scrub layers off your fucking skin."

"Fair point. See you soon then?"

"Yeah, later."

Levi didn't wait for Hanji to say good bye before he ended the call. He stood up again, feeling mildly energized after talking with Hanji and realizing that there were only two more places that he could check before he would have to call it a night. Part of him wanted to be angry at himself for refusing to look any more after those two junctions, but he also had a gut feeling that he was going to find something there.

We're going to find you two fuckers and you're both going home in one fucking piece.

The first "junction" ended up being a misrepresentation on the map; the "tunnels" that intersected on the map were actually just two water mains that crossed at that point. Continuing a bit more down the tunnel he found the second intersection and looked at the overlaid maps before allowing himself a small grin. He let his gaze pan across the three tunnels that diverged from that point. One of them was partially blocked and upon closer inspection it looked like part of the entrance had been pulled down by someone. Beyond the rubble he could see that the tunnel was dry and level just the same as the other two that spread out from the junction. He pulled out his phone again.

"Hanji, I've got some shit here. I'm not going to go any farther down these tunnels right now, I think we can figure it out from here. Maybe you and Mike come out here and rough up a couple people but I think we're in good shape.

"Awesome! I'll disinfect the quarantine zone for when you get back."

This time Hanji hung up on him.

Just don't fucking die before we get there.