*Another desperate, pain filled scream echoes through the thick smoke filled air. Red sparkles from the slowly burning barracks fill the air, a body of a titan lying in the flames, still grunting. The air is filled with the scent of burning flesh and charcoaled wood, of blood and dirt mixing under the feet of hungry giants flocking towards the flame from all sides of the town. It was the most elaborate trap that had caught the Survey Corps off guard and now swallowed them up one by one.

Yet another scream breaks through the heavy footsteps and mighty roars. Was that the fourth one being caught? Or maybe it was the sixth? It’s hard to tell as the maneuvering gear carries them through the narrow streets, monsters crawling out from houses just below them, their hands reaching up and grabbing whoever isn’t high enough. Maybe it was the ninth that disappeared in a gluttonous mouth of a distorted face? By this point Levi had genuinely lost the count.

“Keep moving!” he yells out and falls back himself, plowing through a freak sauntering this way from a nearby street. The arm that reaches out to grab him is blended into pieces from wrist up until Levi is one leap away from the nape. It’s a perfect cut - a chunk of flesh falling on the ground and the odd shaped giant following right after. The huge body tumbles on the floor revealing a handful of freaks coming after the survivors.

“They are blocking us!” Levi hears a yell behind him and one glance back reveals a wall of twisted faces and crooked bodies awaiting the squad right in front - cutting off the only possible way out of the town. The only objective from the moment flames began to swallow the barracks up and the first abominations appeared from the early dusk was to escape. The squad moved out while Eren stayed back to earn precious minutes for them.

Righ. Eren. He was out there somewhere.

Levi moves to the closest building and looks for the tall frame somewhere between the homes and smoke, that gets only thicker as fire starts jumping from a building to a building. The titan is few blocks away, surrounded by hungry abnormals barely reaching the height of his legs and ill-faced giants up to his height. He’s keeping up well, but his strength and stamina has limits. He had to get out of there before he no longer could sustain the giant body.

The sound of the maneuvering gear splitting the air echoes around with clinging blades and monsters hitting the floor. But it’s not enough. There’s not enough soldiers to take on the amount of titans coming after them. Even Levi couldn’t take on all of them as he had to be in two places at the same time. He had to clear the path for the squad and he had to get Eren out of the mess he was in once again, but he couldn’t be in two places at the same time. Choosing one meant dooming the other.

“The bag! Where is my bag?!” Hange’s scream suddenly shakes the air and makes a couple of the tall freaks go to her as she rushes back to the fully ablaze barracks. Right, that bag was the reason why they were here in the first place, or more precisely the dozen of syringes filled with odd colored slime that carried the secret of shifters within them. It was the same matter that turned Eren’s life upside down, it was the same thing that was the cause of all this menace and destruction. Yet retrieving it threw them in the pits of hell with monsters - a collection of disgusting ghouls - waiting to devour them.

“Stay back! I will get it!” comes an order from Levi as he plows through a nasty 5m creature that had already reached out for Hange.

“They were my responsibility. I wanted to get them and now…” her glasses are foggy and she is breathing heavy, hands shaking as she clenches tighter onto her blades.

“And your safety is my responsibility now. Go back. Now,” there is no point in arguing and it’s more than clear. Unwillingly Hange turns back to the group that tries to break through the blockade of titans. She is just few meters away from them when a pot-bellied abnormal rushes right out of a side street and slams into the building she was using to move forward. Her body goes flying through the air and Levi launches forward when a painful roar from the far back stops him for a second.

The captain continues rushing towards the unconscious Hange laying on a chiny two houses on the right, his eyes searching for Eren, yet he is nowhere to be seen. A flock of disgusting titans starts to gather in one spot and it gets clear. They managed to push him to the ground. It’s a miniscule chance he will shake them off.

“There’s more!” Levi vaguely recognizes Jean’s voice and looks forward, a large abnormal slowly making it’s way towards the squad, that desperately tries to keep a line and stop any of the attacks from the front. There’s more of them behind Levi and feels like the whole town has turned into these monsters and crave nothing more but human flesh now, when they have lost their own humanity.

“,” he utters and finally reaches Hange. He doesn’t even wait or evaluate the situation before he grabs her and moves towards the front line. His head is in four places at the same time - the soldiers at the front, the missing bag, the abominations at the back and Eren struggling somewhere in the narrow streets. His blood is boiling in his veins and for once he is near panic, his eyes looking around for a way out of this catastrophic mess.

*As if someone higher power has heard his messy thoughts an answer presents itself to him. Hange’s bag stuck on a drain on the opposite side of the street. It could be the answer to this situation and give humanity an advantage the maker of this trap couldn’t imagine.

“Look after her,” Levi instructs shortly, not being sure anyone heard him and is about to move back when Armin’s voice stops him.

“Captain, do you have a plan?” the blond haired boy looks at Levi and it’s as if he understands what will happen the very moment Levi replies, ominous feeling creeping up Armin’s spine.

“This mission will be a success. We will get what we came for and we all will get away from her,” the captain replies and moves to the other side of the street where the bag is. He grabs the simple brown fabric sack, an approaching titan's hand being sliced in the process, and moves few rooftops further before grabbing for the content of the bag. Syringes cling against each other as Levi grabs one out of the bag. For a long time, near 20 years, he hasn’t seen his hands shaking but they were now - vibrating and barely being able to hold onto the glass containers.

His ears are pierced by the screams of his fellow soldiers, by Eren’s roars as he tries to shake off the pyranha like humanoids that have flocked to him. His lungs fill with the smoke and ash of the slowly burning town and his eyes fog, long lectures about how this serum works being pushed somewhere back in his head as he makes a final decision. He pushes his left sleeve up and pierces the needle straight into his pulsating veins that carry adrenaline filled blood through him. The liquid enters his system, he can feel something new rushing through him, but nothing happens. For the longest scream and despair filled minute of his life nothing happens.

“Come on, work!” he utters and with full force sinks his teeth into his palm in the same fashion he has seen Eren do it for already countless times, hoping it would trigger the shift. “Come on!” he near yells and bites down harder, his own blood flowing over his hand and the metallic taste filling his mouth. “Why won’t you work?” he now sinks his teeth into his other palm yet with no results still. “Why…” he looks at his bloody hands, most vivid memory of Eren appearing before his eyes.

Those teary teal eyes, framed by a face still young an innocent, looking at him from the darkness of the well, his mouth stained with his own blood, his hands covered in deep bite marks and bleeding. That was the one time Eren tried to impress Levi, to impress Hange with all he had and that was the one time his power was faulty, when it refused to work. Could Levi face the same fate today with much more at stake?

“Mikasa!” Armin’s voice calls Levi out of the trance he had fallen in. He glances back and sees Mikasa getting up from a rooftop further away where the newly arrived titan had flung her. He looks to the other side where Eren is desperately trying to get up, but with no success. Hange is still unconscious, the same titan that knocked her out nearing the back of the squad and there is no possible way to salvage this situation. Not that there was any before, apart from the one hidden in the satchel in front of Levi.

He grabs another syringe from the bag, blood dripping from the wounds he made himself, making the glass container slippery, but he grasps he as tightly as he can and almost yanks it into his arm again, yet stops few millimeters away. “Please, work,” he utters and sinks the needle into his vein again. For a second there’s nothing, just like before, but the moment Levi tries to stand up everything before his eyes sway and a bright light surrounds him. He loses consciousness yet stays strangely aware on his body burns, how his skin tingles and how something large and powerful swallows him up, capsuling him in red darkness and giving his limbs the strength to save his troops, to save humanity's hope, to become the absolute weapon.

 

~~~

 

*A bright beam of light illuminates the area in a sudden flash and a loud bang - a mix of thunder and a collapsing building - and it’s an automatic reflex to look at the source of it. There’s white smoke rising from where the light came from, covering the area in thick fog and something ominous hangs in the air. There’s something so dangerous in the air even the titans have stopped advancing. Slowly a figure raises from the cloud of smoke, steam rising from its lipless mouth followed by a loud and agonising roar.

“A shifter? Another one?” Jean falls back on the roof, his blades still his hands and others look at the rising frame with yes wide and mouth open. The figure raises in its full height, probably towering even over Eren by good 2 meters, making it a 17 meter total. The titan’s physique is astonishing - each muscle bulging and pulsating in perfectly carved, anatomically precise forms while covered with skin in the same manner as Eren’s but a tone paler. *The face of the new titan is similar triangle shaped, but with a sharper jawline. The eyes are narrow and gleaming bright blue, the flesh and bone around them are sunken in almost reminding of dark circles a human would have. The lipless mouth angles up in a straight line revealing teeth over ¾ of the cheek. The ears - long and pointed - are slouching down a bit, peeking through a pitch black mane that reaches right to the nape at the back and parts into two perfect arches over the forehead.

“Captain Levi....” Armin whispers and all of the squad turns to him before looking at the still steaming menace before him. His eyes poisonous blue and bright, steam even coming out his nose as he looks around.

The titan let’s out another roar - loud and frightening - before he jumps over a block of building with unusual grace and speed, launching himself straight at the abnormals holding Eren down. He grabs the first few by their heads, twisting them off their necks, before tossing the bodies and the severed heads in different directions. His teeth tear open the neck of a couple of larger ones, blood of the titans dripping down his chin before he goes after the biggest in the bunch. His knee has direct impact on the titan's stomach with such force it almost tears through it, giving him the perfect angle to tear out the nape of the titans neck with bare hands.

Eren finally is able to stand up, holding his balance on a nearby building. All he can do is observe the rampaging titan before him as he tears through a pack of abnormals and then jumps over series of homes, sprinting towards the location of the squad. He body slams the huge titan that arrived last, the latter hitting the floor, and jumps on top of him. His fist lands on the already distorted face with such strength the face caves in and he pulls the titans head off by the spine, grabbing it through the whole where one a face was.

The mindless bunch of average sized ones start gathering around him, not even realizing their own doom. The tower tops on two building catch his attention and he moves towards them rapidly, knocking 3 and 4 meter ones down and stepping on their heads, loud sounds of cracking bone now being the dominant sound in the air.

With ease he breaks off the the tower tops and with another roar he launches back at the bunch still holding off the exit of the town. He swings the metal rods with such force they turn into swords - cutting heads off with absolute ease. Slowly he moves past the stunned squad to the back where the last pack of titans has gathered near the burning part of the town. He drops the rods on the ground with a loud thud and launches forward with remarkable speed but almost with no sound. The first few in his way fly straight into flames, while others get their heads twisted of their bodies. Two 12 meter ones are first tackled to the ground. One get his neck bitten in half while the other tries to stand up, just to be knocked back down with a powerful kick. Two more kicks land on his head until there’s basically nothing left jaw-up.

The titan roars with all his might, covered in blood of those that seemed the be the trap that could have ended the fight for humanity for good. Now nothing but headless, burning and mutilated caarcases laid around the townstreets. But that wasn’t satisfying enough. His eyes find wall Rose in the distance and without a second thought he starts moving towards it. The solution for all this was not out there. It was somewhere inside the walls.

 

The stunned troops finally snap out of the trance, the massacre of titans that just happened before their eyes leaving them speechless. “Where… where is he going?” comes a logical question as they see the new shifter, who can’t be no one else but captain Levi, heading towards the sealed wall.

“You don’t think he’s going to… try and enter the city,” Cony speaks silently and all eyes are on him before looking at Levi nearing the wall pass the burning barracks and all the disintegrating titan corpses, reminding of a merciless grim reaper.

“Why would he? Maybe he senses more titans and wants to catch them before they reach us?” Jean voices out but it doesn’t look like anyone is buying that, especially not Armin who keep silent and still before speaking up directly at Jean.

*“Where did he rise from?” he asks and Jean points towards the direction Levi came from. Without a single word Armin heads toward the sport from where titan Levi emerged, Mikasa, Cony, Sasha and Jean following him. Thy reach the house the same moment Eren, still in his titan form, reaches it too.

“That’s what I thought,” Armin crouches down next to the empty syringes and inspects the content of the bag. “He used the serum, but because his blood was unresponsive at first he took a double dosage. He most probably has gone berserk and the titans he senses… are the ones in the walls,” Armin exclaims and wave of shock washes over the ones present.

“Eren,” the blond turns to him, “we need to stop him before he reaches the walls. We will back you up,” he instructs and Eren nods and instantly begins to run after Levi.

He catches up with him in a minute and now when the pain from injuries has dulled down, the regeneration process has kicked in and he can actually think straight, Eren finally fully grasps that his Captain, his Levi is now before him in one the most powerful shifter forms Eren had ever encountered. If Armin is right and he has indeed gone berserk, Eren had no chance against him in a battle, then again for someone who has went insane he looked and acted surprisingly calm. His actions before reminded more of an act of sudden power induced craze rather than the ones right now.

Eren roars loudly and Levi stops. The latter turns around - the intimidating blue gleam from his eyes gone - even his face as a titan being a expressionless as his human one. He spares Eren a glance before continuing to move forward. However Eren is fast to catch up again, but this time he grabs Levi’s shoulder, which turns out to a big mistake.

In split second his back hits the nearest building as Levi grabs his wrist and throws him over his shoulder with incredible ease. “Eren!” Mikasa's voice shakes the air and she launches forward with full strength using a building to catapult herself up, yet her attack on Levi is short lived. Instead of his neck, which she was aiming for, she is greeted by his face - the same piercing gaze he possessed as a human making blood in her veins to freeze. His giant hand comes between Mikasa and him and in split second she is enclosed in his palm so tightly she can’t move, but not tight enough to obliterate her. During the next second she is thrown back from where she came from and barely manages to catch herself from a fall.

“Don’t! Neither of us can take him on. No one but Eren can. We need to wait for a moment to cut both of them out,” Armin instructs as he and the others reach Mikasa and Eren, who is standing up from the destroyed building. “Eren! Hold him down!” Armin yells out, regretting it as Levi’s eyes meet his. He wasn’t a mindless abnormal. He understood everything as good as ever.

Eren launches forward again, but this time he runs pass Levi and stops in front of him. “Levi, please stop!” he pleads in his mind, yet only a roar come from his mouth. Levi stops for a second but then simply begins walking around him. “Stop!” Eren roars again and walks in front of Levi again, this time just to be pushed aside with enough force to send him flying, but not enough to seriously hurt him.

He stands up immediately and instead of simply blocking Levi’s way he moves forward. “Please, stop!” he near howls and presses his head against Levi’s chest and grabs onto his upper arms, digging his heels into the ground to keep other from moving. It seems to work for a minute, more because of Levi’s confusion rather than the tactic working and the latter begins to move again, pushing Eren forward.

“Levi, please! I beg you. If you will do whatever you have planned this all, this whole battle, this whole war will be pointless,” Eren feels his anxiety, stress and sudden helplessness rising even from inside his strongest form. If they won’t be able to stop him, not even knowing what he is planning to do, everything will be lost. “Please, stop!” he tries to roar but instead a whimper - that of a wounded animal - comes out and Levi actually stops. With no second thinking Eren wraps his arms around the taller titan in a tight lock, keeping his still confused self still, which is a perfect signal.

“Now!” Armin yells and launches forward. His aim is Eren while Mikasa goes for Levi. The moment she approaches his eyes meet hers again, but he doesn’t move. He looks back down at Eren holding him motionless and even though he could break out so easily he stays still. It’s not more than couple of minutes when both giants slouch down, steam rising from their necks and the squad that follow rushes in to pull the two shifters out.

“Where is Levi? Is he okay?” Eren asks the very moment Armin has barely separated him from the titan’s body. He himself is beat up, drained and on the verge of passing out yet his eyes search for Levi, who is being pulled out by Sasha and Cony, Mikasa standing on the side and observing even though she was the one to make the cut. The captain is definitely unconscious due to the strain of the first transformation and it’s a reaction Eren can’t help - to try and reach out for him, yet his own strength lets him down and he fall unconscious.

 

~~~

 

*“Get out!” Eren hears Levi’s voice from the other side of the hall, followed by something being shattered against a wall. Being mindful of the two steaming tea mugs in his hands he walks to the source of the sound which is the door of Levi’s room. Unlike Eren, who was forced to recover in the lazarette, the second Levi was conscious he returned to his room and according to what Eren heard did not let anyone in.

It had been 3 days since the happening in the area between wall Maria and wall Rose. The injuries Eren had received healed slower than usual due to the strain on his body and only now he could leave bed without feeling weak. The first thought crossing his mind was not a surprise - is Levi okay? The closer he got to the door the more it was clear - he wasn’t.

“Levi, please, I need to take samples for analysis. I need to find out how your blood reacted to the serum and why did it react only after double dosage, why did it react at all,” Hange was speaking through a closed door, bits and pieces of a shattered mug covering the floor and wall behind her. Her arms was in a cast as was one of her legs, her asistans keeping her steady. “Most of all we need to know what caused you to go rogue and head towards the wall,” she ads and it sounds like something is being thrown or kicked around the room.

“Leave me alone!” comes an irritated response and for a second Eren thinks about turning around and walking away, but the second passes fast and instead he moves forward. He stops next to Hange and clears his throat before speaking.

“Capt… Levi, it’s me. Can I come in? I brought some tea,” Eren tries to sound confident and ignore the looks he’s getting for calling the captain on first name basis. For a minute there’s no response, but Levi finally replies.

“Come in,” it’s simple and dry, but Eren didn’t expect nothing else. He walks in, maneuvering with the two mugs in his hands, and almost tripping over more shattered dishes when he walks in the room. Levi is sitting on the chair next to the bed, one of his feet resting on the the edge of the chair while other was on the floor. Atypically he was wearing clothes as casual as Eren - a simple cotton shirt and pants-, not the suit he opted for on other off-service occasions and it was almost disheartening.

“How are you feeling?” Eren tries to ask casually as he places the mugs on the nightstand and sits down on the bed in front of Levi. There’s a silence instead of an answer and the atmosphere seems heavy and unsettling, which was so odd when only the two of them were in the same room.

“I know how it feels,” Eren decides to speak and instead of his habit of looking away, he looks straight at Levi, who is the one looking away this time. “I’ve been there, remember? When I didn’t know what exactly I was, when I realized I am somewhat one of them. I know how it feels. However, it was not my own choice,” he tries to read Levi’s reaction as he continues but there’s none, so he doesn’t stop talking.

“I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have the guts to decide upon this myself. I would need a push, I would need someone else to put the needle in my arm. That’s admirable,” Eren continues and finally there is a reaction from Levi.

“There’s nothing admirable about what I did. Instead of finding a solution as a human I decided to become like them,” Levi finally looks at Eren. “With no authorization I took my power of a weapon to the level it never should have been,” his voice is deep and sad, and Eren wishes he would know better what to do. Even after all this time he felt clueless.

“That’s why you went rogue?” Eren blunts out and Levi looks away from him again.

“I was fully aware of what I was doing the entire time,” he admits and Eren wishes he could meet his eyes directly as he hears this.

“So when you were heading for the wall…”

“I was not heading for the titans in it. I was going after those hiding in the center of wall Sina, those who are behind this from the very start. I am not sure what I would have done once I reach them, but at that moment I was more driven by anger than anything else,” Levi explains and this time Eren’s eyes meet the floor.

“Yeah, I noticed,” he murmurs.

“I’m sorry,” comes a sudden apology and Eren looks up meeting Levi’s eyes, with that gentle look the youngest hadn’t seen for a while. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” Levi adds and in all honestly Eren hadn’t even thought about that. But now, knowing Levi was aware of his actions, did anything change in how Eren felt? The answer was simple - not at all.

“When I turned for the second time I hurt Mikasa. I don’t remember doing it, but it was very obvious at the court that I had done it,” Eren remembered the day of his trial very well. On a lighter conversation he would joke about still feeling Levi’s kick on his jaw, but today was not the case. “What I am trying to say is that it’s okay to lose control at first. It took me a while to understand how to use this power. You know that. You were the one helping me to learn more about it, about myself,” Eren’s eyes meet Levi’s and there’s a new layer of something hidden in those dull blue lakes.

“They will probably conduct an investigation, as my actions were not approved,” the older of two speaks still looking at Eren. “The outcome is unpredictable.”

“No, it’s not unpredictable. It was unsure with me, yes, because no one had ever considered having titan on humanity’s side. You convinced them I was controllable. If it will come to that, I will prove to them you are too,” Eren knows his voice has gotten louder and higher, but he doesn’t care. Being overwhelmed by the momentum he even stands up.

“You guided me and now I can guide you! You are no longer just the weapon they could utilize as they wish - you are now both a weapon and a hope. A hidden card no one - in wall Sina or outside these damned walls all together could have ever predicted! You are what the humanity needs! You are what I need to go through this till the!” Eren is sure the one’s still waiting outside probably could hear him too, but that didn’t matter a single bit. “You were what I need even before.”

Levi slowly stood up, facing Eren directly. “Do you mean it?” he asks and Eren is taken aback, not being sure what to answer. “It’s a simple question. Did you mean what you just said?” he rephrases the question and Eren is frozen just for a second.

“Yes. Every single word,” He finally replies with all the confidence he has. There’s a comfortable moment of silence between them - the same kind they used to share - before Levi reaches up and cups Eren’s face with his rough hands. It’s a silent signal, an agreement no words were needed for - their lips meeting shortly, but passionately, the awareness of people behind the door still there.

“When we all thought this couldn’t become a bigger mess than it already was,” Levi let’s out a breath and rests his forehead against Eren’s shoulder. The latter hesitates a little before wrapping his arms around the shorter male and pulling him even a bit closer. As hesitantly Levi’s arms go around Eren’s middle and the very second everything seems perfect, even if it’s just for a moment.

This was the indeed a whole new level of complicated, but it was also an advantage for humankind that no one could have ever imagined. An advantage that could mean a victory in this endless war.