𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄 ❖ LEVI ACKERMAN

THE BEGINNING

Insane, reckless and over-confident were some words that were used to described Coraline Volker. Although, she'd rather be called Cora, it made her seem more real and less regal. Now, back to topic, those three words wouldn't be how she would describe herself.

For starters, Cora was taller than Levi. And with that extra half inch, she would take it and run into the sunset with it. With both her parents already being short, there wasn't much hope for the poor girl, but she was taller then the 'Strongest Solider' or whatever the papers called him these days.

And that was just about it. Taller than Levi, then insane, reckless, and so on. Maybe she would add a few nice things in there if she was feeling generous, but she had to keep herself humble, for the haters are always watching. And so were the people. For some reason, a lot of the inner cities people loved to try and spot the flaws in the survey corps and belittle them down to her breaking point.
Of course, there had been some stories about Cora, but these were the same people whom she's never met, so why listen to them.

And again, of course, there was the people that had to tell Cora to listen to them. Erwin, Levi...and the list just ends there.
Hange was in the same boat as Cora, but neither of the two women cared. It was probably a reason on how they were able to stay so close to each other through-out all these years. Ever since childhood, it has been Cora and Hange.

Hange had always been the one to ask all the questions, and Cora had answered them, no matter if she knew the answer or not. And as time grew on, Cora knew the answers to less and less questions -and the questions themselves kept on getting out of hand.
Many people couldn't stand Hange, but that was why Cora loved her. She wasn't many people. She wasn't the titan hating loon with too big of dreams to contain. She was the titan loving loon instead.

However...and this is a pretty big however, to be taken with great consideration, but also lightly...there were...times that Hange could be a little...

"Hange!" The sound of the ODM gear zipping through the forest were not the loudest things in Cora's ears. "Hange, move!"

But instead, Hange was literally drooling as she thought the titan in front of her wanted to hold hands. And she was too blind to see the titan coming in contact behind her.
Aiming her ODM gear, Cora tried to get a spot right in front of Hange so she would snap out of it.

Honestly, the amount of times that Cora had to save Hange's ass and she got money for it, she would easily be able to retire by now. But no, Hange had her out here doing overtime.
Usually, someone would be on Hange's ass by now, yelling at her to fall back in line. We were leaving now, Erwin had already ridden off on his horse.

With her ODM gear hitting the spine of the tree right in front of Hange, it barely took Hange a second to catch on to what was happening. Hange wasn't stupid...she was just dumb. Jumping and zipping out of there, Hange called out to Cora, yelling a half-assed apology.

Rolling her eyes, Cora only looked away for a few seconds -she didn't even mean to, her eyes were just following Hange.
But the line of her ODM gear had been grabbed by a titan and her entire velocity had just shifted.

Gasping from the shock, Cora widened her eye and quickly locked in. She whipped her head back to the front and reached for her swords to arm herself wit-
...As Cora slammed right into the side of the face of a titan, she thought of how Hange might react to this. Usually titans have a pretty quick reaction time...but Cora was just lying out all over this things face.

Upon the impact, one of her blades cut into her hand and she dropped it accidentally. However, it would not be in vain, and Cora pushed herself off the titans face and started going for it's neck. After an awkward moment more, the titan started falling to the ground, steam rising from what it used to be.

Cora fell with it, rolling along the ground as she tried to use her ODM gear. However, she had to tuck and roll into a bush, as the damage done to her ODM gear had left it busted, and it was unable to zip back into it's slot. It was broken.

"Shit." Cora breathed out sharpely, trying to fix it right then and there, as if that would help anything. "Shit, no no...oh shit."
Cora scoffed in shock as she looked up and again.

The mission was already prolonged, and Cora had taken the extra time to go back and get Hange. It was sunset. The sun was setting and Cora was out here, alone, with broken gear, and surrounded by titan territory.

Ditching the broken ODM gear, Cora took nothing but the bade with her as she started to run and make her way back to where the horses and carriages where. And as well as Cora knows the rules, that people will be left behind if they don't get back in time, she still had that stupid sliver of hope.
She was already cutting it when she went back to get Hange. She didn't have to do that -she needed to do it, but there was no written rule saying she had to.

It was a harsh but necessary part of the job. If you don't make it back then, you don't make it back at all.
But, without the extra speed of the ODM gear, Cora was slow. Too slow.

With her huffing breath, she ran to a stop as she looked at the tracks that the horses and carriages left in the dirt. There was also a good few titan footprints on the ground, meaning they were likely chased and didn't have time to do a head count.

Cora threw both hands to her hair, breathing out harshly before dragging her hands along her face and covering her mouth. "Oh shit..."
Today was full of shits.

She wasn't dead yet though. Ever since Wall Maria fell three years ago, and the titans took over the land, barely anyone has ever ventured inside. But Cora was here now, and there was no way she was going to end up as titan mush.
She first climbed a tree. A high one at that, one that was so tall, it had no business being that tall.

Hange was the last of the soldiers to come through the door before they closed. She was at the back of her group, staring at the mane of her horse and grappling herself with what just had happened. After making it through the crowd and making it through the outer wall districts, she rode on her horse towards were Captain Levi and Commander Erwin were talking.

At first, Levi rolled his eyes at her presence, but Hange had more pressing matters to focus on.
With her uncharacteristic tone of voice, Hange swallowed her guilt. "I thought she was right behind me."