The Path Back to You | Levi x OC

Chapter 1 - The Rogue Rider

Levi

Levi's composure threatened to crumble as the poison of grief churned his stomach and wrapped like a vice around his heart. He grit his teeth and kept his eyes on the path ahead, doing his best to bury his pain, just as he always did. He was devastated; they all were. All those who were left, anyway. So many of the Scout Regiment had been lost in a mere two hours. The mission had been a complete failure, though Erwin seemed to think otherwise. Quite how he could think that, Levi had no idea. His squad, his friends, had been wiped out by one single damn Titan bitch. All of them were dead, except for Eren, who now lay unconscious in one of the wagons as they retreated to Wall Rose, battered and miserable. His squad... Eld, Gunther, Oluo and Petra... had died protecting the brat. Levi had had to leave them all so as to rendezvous with Erwin and try to extract whoever was piloting the Female Titan, and he simply hadn't made it back in time.
Perhaps if he had... Perhaps things would have been different.
He was already anticipating the fallout from everyone who doubted or even outright opposed the Scout Regiment. He was going to have to deal with all of the families of his squad, who had trusted him with their lives, and tell them that their sons, daughters, brothers and sisters weren't coming home. He cast his gaze to the wagon he rode alongside. His squad was in there, wrapped up amongst the rest of the corpses. He had hoped to be able to bring their bodies back, to give the families some small degree of closure, but as he glanced behind him, he knew that it was no longer a possibility. The Titans were gaining on them. No, he would instead have to tell those families that their loved ones had been devoured.
That there was nothing left.
"Dump the bodies," he told the two soldiers riding in the wagon.
"What?!"
"There are plenty of others whose bodies we couldn't retrieve. These are no more important than them," he lied.
He didn't wait around to watch as they began reluctantly tossing his comrades out into the path of the Titans as though they were pieces of discarded furniture. Instead he moved further up in the formation, losing himself in his thoughts for a moment.
He was angry that, despite the fact that so many had died, they still didn't know the identity of the Female Titan, and he couldn't shake the image of the thing lying slumped against a tree with tears rolling down its ugly face as he'd raced away with Mikasa and Eren.
Something else that troubled him was the fact that Petra's omni-directional mobility gear had been taken. By whom, and why, he couldn't fathom, unless it was the pilot of the Female Titan. However, they'd clearly already possessed ODM gear before they'd so brutally murdered his squad. He glanced behind him again to see if the wagon teams had managed to put more distance between themselves and the Titans. He did a double take, his lips parting in astonishment.
"Who is that?!"
A rider to his right had also turned to watch as a blood-soaked figure attacked the pursuing Titans, despite the lack of trees or tall buildings. It was suicide. Whoever it was wouldn't last long. He was about to race ahead to inform Erwin when he glanced a coal-black stallion cantering nearby to the rogue rider. It looked so similar to the one that he'd bought a few years ago that he blinked, hard, to make sure that he wasn't seeing things.
"Impossible," he muttered.
He twisted round in his saddle, ignoring the pain in his leg and ankle, and studied the person's fighting style. It was fast, maybe even faster than his own technique, and full of twists and turns that made them look more like a dancer than a highly skilled killer. His heart truly began to race when he heard them whistle. The black stallion went straight over to them, and as the slaughtered Titan began falling to the ground, the rider jumped from its shoulder and landed smoothly on the horse, before galloping away to kill the next monster. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to go after them, to discover their identity and shake them for being so stupid, but he knew that he couldn't break the formation. Knew that it couldn't be her.
"Whoever that is, they're saving us!" exclaimed another soldier.
"Tch!"
He clenched his teeth and bade his mount forward, going to speak to Erwin at last.
"There's a rogue soldier attacking the Titans behind us," he told him.
"Leave them to it. If they can't follow simple instructions, then-" began Erwin, before he cut him off.
"I think it's her."
Erwin turned to look at him with wide, icy-blue eyes.
"It can't be. It's been half a year, Levi. There's no way she could have survived for so long out in Titan country."
He daren't reply. Instead, he dropped to the back of the formation again, looking for the mysterious figure. They had disappeared from his range of view, but he saw Titan after Titan fall in the distance, allowing the entire regiment to get away safely.