This is My Last War (Attack on Titan // LeviHan) - Part 3

The Lost Generation

Laughter drifted up to him and shouts. The humans in the courtyard below were small, running around in circles like silly puppies with much too much energy.

They're just kids. Unprotected kids playing tag.

In an instance, Levi's day turned from bad to worse. The anger and hatred he had felt for everything in Marley for months vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving him feeling hollow. He sat down on the slanted roof, careful to stay in the shadow of the large chimney to reassess the situation.

He couldn't kill kids.

Even when his orders were clear: sabotage Marley's Titan program "at all cost" to buy Eldia time. It would be easy, humans were so pathetically weak, especially when only half grown: Swing down among them - they'd be too surprised to know what was going on - decapitate them with his blades, swing up again and hide, wait for the next chance to wreak havoc. It would be a great coup because of how long it would take the Marleyans to find new successors, they had intel about the grueling selection process from the Magath chick. How long did the current generation of Titans have to live? Some like Reiner: not long, two years maximum. Eldia had no clear data about the Cart, could only guess about the Jaw - but seeing the amount of children that were being prepped at the moment, it looked like a good number was needed as replacements shortly.

The Monkey is going to croak first and foremost.

Levi didn't consider that a good thing because he had plans for the motherfucker. Plans that involved lots and lots of torture and lots and lots of pain and if he just died because of that fucking Titan curse before he got to act them out...

Gritting his teeth to fight down the bitter taste of hatred, Levi shifted his weight. His ODM gear felt like a friend he hadn't met in too long, a familiar presence at his hips that made it possible for him to soar high and move fast. Being "forced" to get it out of its hiding place by their change in plans was the best thing that could have happened to him and he detested every day he had spent without it since putting foot on this damned continent. Whose stupid idea had it been to "take things slow"? He hated slow. Hated it.

But being enabled by his gear in this way didn't help him. To be a soldier who killed in order not to get killed was great. But this...

"Fuck," he whispered. Everything was so fucking pointless. He would have given a lot to go back to the time they had had no clue about anything.

Buy time for what, he had asked in a meeting once, but who was he but a lowly soldier, he didn't know anything about grand plans for the future like the top brass did. Hanji believed they would be able to find a scientific way to save Eldia, which made her the biggest idiot among them, but even just the mention of "Titan science" turned her into a raving lunatic.

Buy time for her to get access to the knowledge she craved? Yes, but how long would it take until she got enough? Buy time for Eldia to acquire arms, ships, flying boats from Hizuru? Yes, but how many arms, ships, and flying boats were enough to survive? Buy time to die another day? Yes. But how much additional time was enough? He had never had hopes for the future. He didn't know how.

Do it all for the next generation? He had once believed in their ability to change the world, but now?

They were lost, all of them.

"Me and Eren," Armin had said not too long ago, "we should just eat all the other Titans."

It could be done. Capture one of them, weaken them so much they couldn't transform, feed them to Armin or Eren. Repeat. Finding out who the Warhammer was couldn't be too hard. Else, eat the entire family, good riddance. It wouldn't exactly solve the Titan problem, far from it, but it would at least give them an advantage.