Birdie (Levi x OC)

one

I visibly winced as I heard the raven-haired man's boot make contact with Eren Yeager's flesh.

Captain Levi of the Survey Corps.

Eren Yeager's tooth flew out of his mouth, the sound of it dropping across the floor echoing in the courtroom.

The air in the courtroom was thick with tension as I stood with the Garrison Regiment for Eren Yeager's trial. I kept my hands locked behind my back and deliberately moved toward the rear, hoping the crowd of soldiers would obscure me completely.

While I wasn't required to be present—a Garrison military engineer had no official role in the custody decision—Commander Pixis's welcome, and my own curiosity, had gotten the better of me. I'd heard the stories of a human who could transform, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight in the courtroom. The mysterious boy I'd imagined was replaced by a pitiful, chained figure secured to a stake in the floor. That wasn't the monster I had come to see.

With shaggy brown hair and fear shining in his green eyes, he looked like nothing more than a vulnerable young boy.

I grimaced and looked away as the Captain's foot slammed into the boy's stomach again, his face utterly expressionless.

The Captain yanked Eren up by the shoulders, using his knee to strike the boy's face before dropping him. Gasps and muffled confusion swept the courtroom. The guns aimed at Eren dipped in disorientation.

The brutal beating continued. As blood dripped from Eren's nose and mouth, he gasped for a breath, thinking he might finally catch a break. He thought wrong: Captain Levi's boot slammed down on his head, pinning his face between the leather and the stone floor.

"This is a personal opinion, but I believe pain to be the best way to train someone," the Captain hissed. "What you need is to be trained like a dog, not a man."

Captain Levi's sharp-grey eyes narrowed in on the boy slammed beneath his boot. "It's easier to kick you while you're kneeling too."

The Captain continued to brutally kick the boy while he knelt before him. I glanced around at the rest of the Survey Corps. The soldiers in my regiment, the Garrison, and the Military Police held expressions of pure shock, but the Survey Corps members appeared serious, stoic, and strangely focused.

The 13th Commander of the Survey Corps, Erwin Smith, was staring directly at Eren and Captain Levi. Erwin was tall and neat, his short blonde hair cropped in an undercut, framing icy blue eyes and thick brown eyebrows. His serious, calculating expression was fixed solely on Eren.

"Wait, Levi..." Nile Dawk, the Commander of the Military Police, spoke up, raising a hand as if trying to halt the beating.

"What is it?" The Captain raised his eyebrows, his foot still pressed into Eren's face.

"That's dangerous," Nile Dawk's tired eyes narrowed. "What if he gets angry and transforms?"

Captain Levi delivered one more kick before grabbing Eren's head by his hair. "What are you saying? Aren't you planning on dissecting him?" Nile Dawk's eyes widened. "When he last turned into a Titan, he killed twenty others before collapsing," Levi glared down at the boy bleeding below. "If he is an enemy, his intelligence makes him a formidable foe. Still no match for me, of course."

I stared at the Captain and the bloodied boy. He was probably right.

"But what about all of you? Can any of you kill him?" Levi looked straight into Nile Dawk's eyes.

Their conversation was interrupted by Commander Erwin Smith raising his hand.

"Sir, I have a proposal," he directed towards Commander-in-Chief Darius Zackly, the final authority in Eren's fate.