Freedom Fighters League of the Exiled

Ilsa Langnar

The portal closed behind us and I looked around the room adjusting my eyes to the light difference. Our base wasn't the brightest but compared to a pitch-black forest it's a big difference. I saw Jean in the corner. He looked like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, but he was dripping in worry. I looked to Eren who was mentally beating himself up for letting his emotions overwhelm him in front of the team. Pixis was coming over and I felt Eren's body tense up more than it already was.

"You guys were gone for a while, did everything go okay?" Pixis asked.

"There is a camp there," Eren said before having Ymir hand over her notes.

Pixis skimmed through them all, "Ilsa Langnar," he mumbled to himself, letting an emotion slip, sadness, but it was only there for a split second before he shoved it down. Usually, it's hard for me to feel his emotions, but that one came through clear as day. It hit me strong and made my eyes water before disappearing.

"Levi, at any point did you have to step in and make an order over Eren's." I could feel Eren's shame as he asked.

"No. Eren did everything perfectly and kept a level head through the whole mission," I said with a straight face. Eren had to stop himself from blurting out that I was lying. I was afraid someone else might speak up, Ymir and Armin probably won't but Berthold and Erwin might. I waited but it stayed silent behind me.

"Good to hear," Pixis nodded he seemed impressed, "Alright, we are going to take these notes and figure out what we need to do before we raid the camp. You all did amazing and you should get some rest," he said before turning to leave. When he left Jean walked up to us with a smile.

"You did it," he sounded shocked almost like he didn't expect us to come back.

"Glad you had so much faith in us," I rolled my eyes.

"Well, hearing that the last group got captured, and then having this guy lead you I was sure you would be screwed," he teased before leaning in and whispering into Eren's ear, "I had faith in you, but I was sure they would get you caught, I mean could you blame me you were on a team with Erwin."

"I can hear you punk," Erwin folded his arms. Jean gave him an awkward smile.

"Well, goodnight," he said awkwardly before running back to his room tail between his legs.

Eren turned to me and just stared at me, "why did you lie."

"Because your reaction was reasonable. Someone we know is in there, I was tempted to storm right into that camp with you," I smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I was more confused that none of you guys ratted me out for lying," I asked, mostly looking towards Erwin.

"Hey, we were ready to go in there and break her out as much as you guys were." Ymir shrugged.

"Yeah, as much as I hate lying to Pixis, in this case, it's necessary since we were all ready to run into that camp head first, myself included," Erwin agreed.

"We all let our emotions get the better of us, so it's unfair to single out Eren even if he is the team leader," Berthold said, giving Eren pat on the back.

"Besides, Eren was able to realize that he was making the wrong call, but most of us wouldn't have. I mean I was ready to go in there even after Eren told us to fall back." Armin said. His response shocked me the most. He wasn't usually the one to make reckless decisions. Actually, scratch that, yes he is, he's just more quiet about his reckless decisions. Sometimes I forget that this is the same person who jumped off the cliff. Well, fell off the cliff but same shit.

We all headed back to our rooms to get some sleep for the rest of the night. After getting out of our costumes and getting ready for bed I checked in with Eren to see how he was doing. "Are you okay?"