While bobbing in and out of consciousness, Levi found himself thinking of those he had lost. He could still see their faces clear as day: Commander Erwin, deep-set and stern, unfailingly committed to the cause. Zoe Hange, bubbly and brilliant even in the face of death. Petra, who's adoration lasted until the moment she died. They all swam around him as he struggled to regain hold of his mind. Were they trying to tell him something? It almost seemed as if they were getting closer; their mouths working in silent fervor. So many years he sent fighting the end, but now he was losing his battle; he could feel it. Darkness crept farther and farther into his head, consuming him. He was tired, and the war was over. Maybe it was time to rest.

Wait… he could hear them now, whispering to him. What were they saying? It seemed too far away.

Their voices suddenly rang piercingly in his mind, all screaming the same thing:

This is not over! FIGHT!

Consciousness rushed back to him all at once, and Levi let out a loud wheezing cough that sent blood splattering onto the floor in front of him. His head was hung low over his chest, ropes wound tightly around his arms and weaved through the back of the chair he sat on. His legs and chest were also tied, leaving his head the only free-moving part of his body. He tried to breath as slowly and evenly as he could, forcing himself to focus. What was the damage?

Nothing too severe, as far as he could feel. Cuts, bruises, abrasions; nothing broken except maybe a rib. The blood he had coughed up seemed to come from a missing tooth in his mouth, not any kind of internal injuries. Not the worst he's had, by any means.

Levi spat on the ground again, trying to get the metallic taste of blood off his tongue. With a great deal of effort, he managed to lift his head up and open his eyes. There wasn't much to see at any rate, even lacking full vision. A small stone room devoid of anything other than the chair he sat on and a minuscule window that told him it was late afternoon on the other side of the wall. It was difficult to tell how long he had been wherever he was, though judging by the stiffness in his joints it had to have been a couple days at least.

His breath evened out, and his mind began to work at top speed.

It was the Marlyean Extremists who had taken him, of course. Onyankopon had mentioned their affinity for that disgusting hairy beast, so it was only a matter of time before they came to exact revenge on the lucky son of a bitch who had the pleasure of killing him. His lips pulled back into a vicious grin at the memory.

Not knowing where he was certainly limited his prospects, though he imagined he wasn't too far off from Cardend given how little they travelled before arriving wherever they were. They air inside the room was cold; small streams of steam issuing out of his nose as he breathed more deeply. The mountains? That would surely give them a decent place to hide out, and it would explain why it still felt like winter instead of early spring.

A memory of Gabi and Falco's scared faces as the travelled in the back of a covered wagon surfaced, and he let out a low growl. Reiner has been there to, he thought, but he was unconscious. Levi stared murderously at the small iron door he knew his captors were behind. It was one thing to take him but touching them was a grave mistake.

He tested the strength of the cords holding him to his chair. They were tight, but with enough force he may be able to snap them. In his current condition it would prove impossible, but in a couple of hours…

It didn't take long for the door he had be glaring at to open, revealing the face of his accuser. A large bald man with a thick beard entered the room and stood leering over him.

Myles Darcy. Levi thought. You didn't have to be a high-ranking official to recognize his hard and grim face; warrants listing his transgressions against the state littered the cities and towns of Marly. Him and his goonies had one particular goal in mind: persecuting Eldians in the name of Zeke Jaeger. More memories began to surface as he returned Darcy's hard look; memories that guaranteed this man's death.

"Comfortable, Ackerman?" He asked in a mocking voice. "Looks like that last punch I gave you knocked you out for a right old snooze." Rotten teeth poked out from behind an equally vile grin.

"Only thing missing was the feather pillow." Levi answered coolly.

Darcy laughed cruelly. "I will admit you're one hard shell to crack, Captain. Days of interrogation and nary a word spilled about your fellow "Heroes of Humanity"." He stood back up and crossed his arms. "Though I suppose we have our real prize, the rest are just a bonus." Reeling his arm back, he punched Levi in the gut, sending his head forward as he wheezed.

Darcy chuckled again. "Perhaps we try a different tactic, as personal pain seems too illicit no response. Maybe we try this again with one of your little friends."

Levi lifted his head and hissed loudly at him, anger vibrating every molecule of his being. Just a little longer. He thought. Just a little more time and I can break these binds and watch your guts spill out onto the floor.

Myles Darcy regarded this with satisfaction. "Yes, I think that will do nicely. Allow me one moment and I shall bring your friends to you, so you can watch." As he went to the door and opened it, a man dressed in their armed guard attire stood on the other side.

"Sir, there's a problem with the other inmates that you must see to immediately." The guard said urgently. Darcy frowned and moved as though he planned to pass him, but then came up short. "What kind of problem?"

The guard paused for a moment. "I think it's something you really need to see, sir." Staring long and hard at the guard's face, Darcy's expression changed from concern to suspicion.

"I'm sorry young man, but I'm having a hard time remembering your name."

Behind him, Levi took one look at the guard standing in front of Darcy and silently began to laugh. Jean looked ridiculous in that get up.

Right as Myles Darcy opened his mouth to shout, a huge explosion rang out on the other side of the compound.

Arya, Jean and Connie had found the complex easily enough. As Onyankopon had said, it was nestled in between two small peeks on the edge of the mountain range that bordered Veritas, just a few hours south of Cardend. The air was colder up here, and they all shivered slightly as the climbed up an outcropping around the back side of the complex to get a better view.

The compound was composed of only a few buildings along with a couple smaller utility sheds along the edges. They had counted around 10 armed guards outside and allowed for a rough estimate of another 10 inside the main building.

"A few more than we originally suspected, but still not nearly as many as our escape from Mitras." Jean said quietly to them as they studied the guards' movements to try and pinpoint a weak spot in their rotations. There were plenty of them, since they didn't suspect any of the men or women in the area were trained soldiers, only self-taught and inexperienced mercenaries. The trio was more than capable of dealing with a couple handfuls of civilians.

The tricky part was being able to get inside and locate the hostages before they were spotted; otherwise, their captors might just kill them all once the realize they've been had.

They kept a close watch for over an hour. Soon the sun was reaching towards the edge of the mountain, bringing them closer to an early dusk.

"We need to move soon, while the sun is still shining." Jean said. "The main building is in a great position for us to swing down when it's too bright for them to see."

"But we still don't know where the captain and they others are being held." Connie reminded him, looking around frantically for any indicator to their location. As he searched, he noticed the open back end of a cart of the north side of the main building. He watched as a man stepped outside and pulled out some sort of garment from a box in the back and put it on. It was the security guard uniform.

"Hey!" He whispered excitedly, pointing to the caravan. "That guy just pulled out one of their outfits from the back of that cart!" He grinned widely at Arya, who looked back at him, confused for a moment. "How about we take a page out of your book, Arry?"

Jean lit up as he considered this. "If we can pass for guards just long enough to find out where they are, that could work!"

"Probably, but do you see how many women are down there? The only ones I saw were patrolling the utility sheds; none of them even got close to the main building. I'm sure I'd be caught too quickly. Unless…" It was Arya's turn to grin at Connie. "You see those small wooden crates they are keeping on the far edge of the compound? Those are explosives. I'm thinking you boys could use a distraction."

Even Jean smiled in response.

Having snuck around the edge of the cart, grabbed an assorted mixture of uniform pieces and donned their get ups, Jean and Connie strolled as confidently into the main complex building as they could muster. Their rough estimate of the number of people inside was pretty close: they saw about six armed security guards and a couple high-ranking members as they made their way down several sets of low hallways. When the hall split off into two directions Jean took the right and Connie the left. As Connie approached the end of the hall, another guard stepped out of a door to his right, offering a quick glimpse inside. The little he saw was enough.

Running the rest of the way up to the guard, he stopped as the man rounded on him. "Sir! You're needed at the main doors, it's urgent! I can take over watch from here!"

The guard furrowed his brow for a moment, then shrugged. "It better be about more meal rations; I'm starving." And with that, he lumbered down the hall and out of sight. They had been right: these people were not soldiers.

Connie ducked quickly inside and closed the door behind him. Turning to face the room, he let out a low sight of relief.

"Connie?" Reiner's face was bloody, a long gash trailing across his cheek that oozed painfully as he smiled up at him in amazement. Gabi and Falco were tied up beside him, looking not so worse for wear. Both of them wearing similar looks of incredulousness.

"What are you doing here?! How did you find us?!" Gabi almost squealed in excitement.

"Shh, it's a long story; give me your hands." He said, rushing over to them and drawing a small pocketknife out of his jacket. Before long they were all free of their binds, and Connie peeked his head into the hallway. It was still clear.

"Come on, we can go out this door at the end of the hall and make a break for it once we hear the signal."

"What signal?" Falco asked in a hushed voice, trying to peer around Connie's head and into the hallway.

"We have to get Levi first!" Gabi's eyes were huge as she pleaded with him.

"Don't worry, Jean's got him. My priority is getting you three out while the guards are distracted."

As if he had said the magic words, a thunderous blast sounded from somewhere in the distance.

"GO!" Connie yelled, and they all made a break for the door closest to them, busting it open and running off into the cold outside air. They had been right to wait for sunset to pull this off: The light spilling over the edge of the mountain caused an immense glare from the direction the guards had to travel in to investigate the source of the explosion. As they made their way towards the small gap between peaks that was their escape route, Gobi turned her head and let out an audible gasp.

Arya was airborne, using her momentum to launch herself high into the sky above the complex. Backed by the ferocity of the setting sun it looked like she herself was on fire, one of the wooden boxes of gunpowder held tightly under her arm.

Letting out a cry that nearly shook the ground with her intensity, she launched the box at a group of guards that had backed themselves against the front wall of the main building, tucked behind a makeshift barricade. Just as the wooden crate was about to slam into them, she pulled out both of her guns and aimed.

The resounding shock wave that blasted the side of the building nearly sent her spinning out of control, but at the last moment Arya extended her cables to one of the utility sheds and slid to a stop at the edge of the small roof. A giant hole had appeared on the side of the building: she had waited just a fraction of a second too long. Most of the guards were still struggling to their feet as they rounded on her and raised their guns.

The blast that had destroyed the right wall of their room had sent Levi flying backwards and onto his side halfway across the room. He was once again teetering on the edge of consciousness and the force of the explosion had left his ears ringing. Jean and Myles Darcy had fought ruthlessly after the initial bang had sounded, but now they both laid crumpled on the far wall. Jean seemed to be still awake, though even through his blurry half vision Levi could tell he had been wounded in some way. Gunfire could be heard outside, along with the distinct whoosh and clang of ODM gear in use. He shifted his head to look out his now much larger window and into the fire-red sky.

At first there was nothing but the muted sound of gunfire. But then the painted sky became but a backdrop to the true spectacle going on outside. A woman appeared, almost floating in midair directly in front of the broken wall of Levi's room. Rivers of long hair swirled gracefully around her, lit aflame by the glorious setting sun as she aimed her guns toward the ground and fired. Her face was aglow with a look of utter fierceness that seemed to have nothing to do with the battle that raged on below her. It was alight with something else entirely: protectiveness. She wasn't fighting to kill; she was fighting to protect.

For a moment Levi wondered if the blast had killed him, for there was no one in the world that looked like this. No one whose whole body radiated such divine goodness in the face of death. He had seen every emotion that exists on the faces of the doomed. Righteousness, fear, courage, even peace. Goodness and death never shared the same space, and yet here it was.

Other sounds were beginning to make their way to him now as she faded from view and the popping of gunfire ceased. The rumbling of feet on the ground, shouts and commands by parties unknown.

There was a crunch as two steel cables embedded themselves into the top of the open wall, followed by the whirring of retraction. Suddenly she was there, propelling up and over the wall until she came to a smooth stop a few feet in front of him. He wanted to see her face again, to see the look she wore more closely, but he found that he could no longer shift his head in any direction.

"Jean, are you okay?"

Her voice was honey-smooth and melodic, low and sweet, if only a touch frantic. It rang like bells in his head, louder and clearer than the sound of the explosion.

Levi didn't know if Jean had answered her, but soon she was kneeling in front of him, a soft hand extending out to touch his shoulder. Her touch seemed to erase the pain where her hand lay, and it sent currents of energy pulsing through his collapsed body. He tried to look up at her, but he couldn't see her face any higher than the gentle curve of her lips.

If this is the last thing I feel in this wretched life, so be it.

Then he faded into darkness.