The air beyond the wall was thick with fog and silence. It clung to the trees like breath over glass, turning every branch into a question and every shadow into something that might bite back. It was the kind of morning that made even the most seasoned soldiers itch.
Beatrice stood at the edge of the formation, her cloak billowing behind her, goggles secured tight. The tint filtered the fog just enough, dimming the white haze, outlining movement with a clarity no one else had.
She wasn't squinting.
She wasn't guessing.
She was tracking.
"Visual confirmed," came Nanaba's voice over the channel. "At least three titans. Small to mid-size. Advancing west, directly in our path."
Levi's voice followed, low and surgical. "We hit first. Disrupt their direction. Keep the squad in staggered flanks. I'll clear left. Beatrice, you're with me."
A pause.
"Copy," she answered without hesitation.
Isabel gave a thumbs-up from another tree branch. "Go get 'em, goggles!"
They launched.
FwsSHHK!
The sound of gas hissing and cables slamming into bark split the silence. The trees whipped past in a blur, but Beatrice's vision didn't falter. Her goggles cut through the light scatter, turning fog and panic into something navigable. Something manageable. She stayed a breath behind Levi—just close enough to mirror him, just far enough not to crowd. And when the titans came into view, their shadows hulking through the white—
They moved.
Like a storm.
Levi struck first, diving low, hooking around a trunk, slicing through the nape of the first titan like it was paper. Beatrice came in right after, her lines tight, her body light, ducking the swing of a second titan's arm and launching up and over it. Her blade tore through its eye with surgical precision.
"Clear the third!" Levi barked.
She was already in motion—already anticipating the turn of its body, the mist curling just enough to reveal the weak point before anyone else could see it. She struck—
But something shifted.
A fourth titan appeared—hidden in the fog, moving fast. Too fast. It lunged toward Farlan.
Beatrice saw it first.
"FARLAN—!"
He didn't see it. No one else could see it.
She twisted mid-air, yanking her gear line and blasting forward, blade already in motion. The goggles made the motion feel slowed, calculated, as if time had bent to give her one second more. Her blade hit the nape just as it reached him.
Titan down.
Farlan stumbled back, stunned, gasping—but alive. She landed hard, steam hissing from her pack, knees skidding in the dirt. Her goggles fogged from the heat, but she didn't take them off.
"Beatrice—!" Farlan's voice was shaky, but full of relief. "That thing—where the hell did it come from?"
"Fog blocked it," she said, breathing hard. "I saw the shift. It was faster than the others."
"She saved your ass," Isabel cut in, flipping onto the branch above. "Called it! Goggles girl's got predator eyes now."
Farlan turned toward Beatrice, still catching his breath. "I owe you."
"You don't," she said simply, adjusting her stance.
Levi dropped beside her a moment later, eyes scanning the field, calculating. Cold. Focused.
"You acted fast," he said.
"She was going to take it anyway," Isabel added cheerfully. "You should've seen her. Like schhk schhk fshhhh—BAM! Right in the neck."
Beatrice wiped blood off her blade. "I had the advantage."
Levi looked at her. Really looked. At the steady breath in her chest. The way her fingers didn't shake. The way the goggles gleamed, slightly fogged from heat and still perfectly aligned.
"No," he muttered. "You had control."
She blinked behind the lenses. "...Thank you."
"Don't thank me," he said, stepping closer. "Just stay alive."
Their eyes locked. And for a moment, they weren't cadets or squadmates.
They were weapons.
Sharpened on the same whetstone.
Refined by the same fire.
In the wild, in the silence, in the space where titans moved like monsters—they were worse.
They were better.
They were the things monsters feared.