The Warriors of the Walls

The Ripper

LEVI

It never got old, the feeling of soaring above rooftops with the sun baring down upon you. Having been trapped in the underground for so long, any opportunity to fly under the sun was a welcome and a feeling I usually enjoyed but today the rush I would normally feel as I twisted and weaved over smoking chimneys and unsuspecting passers-by was marred by the bitter taste in my mouth at having left Aurora at the hands of those men.

I chose the mission over her...

A small part of me was thankful I hadn't seen her abuse with my own two eyes, for if I had the plan would have gone to shit. I would have damned us all just to break their fucking necks, however, at the same time because I hadn't seen what was being done to her, my mind was conjuring up all the vile things I could remember similar men inflicting upon my mother, the thought of which made me sick to my stomach. What kind of man leaves his woman to suffer as I had done, all for the sake of a mission, regardless of whether or not she was more than capable of handling herself? A worthless one.

This had all better be worth it because if this all turns about to be just another power grab by some greedy bastard trying to make himself more than what he is and I left her there to suffer then I'm going to lose my shit.

Swinging around the last house, I spotted a small cloaked figure hunched down upon a rooftop observing the street below and disengaging my gear, I landed by the chimney to their right.

"Captain." Nifa greeted as she turned her face towards me just as a ray of sunlight lit up the red in her hair that I had never noticed before, or maybe hadn't bothered to notice. I never really saw women or their faces anymore, not since Aurora, she was the only woman I ever paid attention to now, but looking at the red in Nifa's hair I had the oddest thought of Rian or rather what he had left behind. Aurora had been his sister, she was his past and his memories, but Nifa had been his future. As annoying as the lanky prick had been, he was a good brother, a good man and a good soldier and I have no doubt that Nifa would have happily married him and had a litter of redhaired brats to run around and cause trouble if their father and aunt were anything to go by. However what was most shocking to me was the fact that it was surprisingly not entirely an unpleasant image, one that oddly shifted from Rian and Nifa's brood to Aurora standing on a wooden porch, her hair long again and loose, greeting me with a broad smile on her face as she stood with a sleeping dark-haired infant snuggled into her side as she tried to prop him around her belly that swollen with child, my child.

What am I doing?! Imaging stupid things like that! Me a father?! Who the fuck am I kidding?! This fight will never be over. Not now. Not ever. I know this, so why did the thought of Aurora as a mother make me... happy...?

Coughing awkwardly, Nifa brought my attention back and realising I had been staring, I turned my head hastily away and clocked the wagon rolling through the street below as the festivities began to pick up, the wagon that secretly held Eren and Historia. 

"Well?" I asked, hoping to distract myself from my ridiculous thoughts and my still seething anger, the brats should have freed Aurora and the others by now, she would be here soon.

"The road is crowded, but I see nothing unusual. It's not far to Commander Pyxis from here so I think we're good." Nifa answered while gazing down at the wagon's progress as it came to a halt in the street before turning her big doe eyes to me with a slightly more anxious expression, "How goes the body double mission?"

She's worried about Aurora...

"A success", I muttered as I focused in on the wagon, refusing to let my mind jump back to those dark places it had been before I had arrived here, and noticed the distinct lack of MPs that should have been patrolling what would soon be the heart of the celebrations with a foreboding feeling.

Something isn't right...

"You don't seem very pleased about that." Nifa pressed, her voice lifting slightly towards the end showing how truly worried she was and she had a good right to be because as I scanned every inch of the scene below, I couldn't find a single uniform. Add that to the already shifty use of amateurs in kidnapping who they thought were Historia and Eren, then something really wasn't right. 

"I'm not." I gritted as the answer suddenly became crystal clear. This wasn't the military police, they are far too careful of their reputation to use amateurs who happily attack defenceless women to kidnap three people, two of whom are well known to the public, not when they could botch it and they would be implicated. No, this is more like they knew the wagon would be followed; that a support team wouldn't be far behind to protect it. That I would be the one planning this whole song and dance because I had experience with double switches back from my days in the underground, that a distraction would be my go-to plan.

This couldn't be him... could it...?

"The wagon is moving again", Nifa announced as she pushed herself up above the tiles to get a better look, but my mind was too preoccupied with the smiling man with the white-rimmed bowler hat from my memories, the man who had put a knife in my hand and showed me how to use it. 

Then fucked off and left me to fend for myself when I could barely tell my left from right. 

"Nifa," I murmured, still unable or perhaps unwilling to factor him into all of this, "You heard of Kenny the ripper?""

"That mass murderer in the capital? The one who slit the throats of over 100 MPs?" Nifa puzzled as she turned to look at me with confused eyes, "Of course, but I always thought he was just an urban legend."

Some fucking legend.

"The stories are all true, he's no legend." I spat, lips curling slightly in a snarl as the gnawing feeling that he was behind this grew and grew, "I lived with him, back when I was a kid."

Back when I had to take from others just to scratch out an exsistance...

"Yeah, very funny sir. This isn't really the time to be making jokes." Nifa scoffed, not believing me for a second though why she thought I would be joking at a time like this was beyond me for this was no laughing matter. Kenny the Ripper was a sick bastard, and he wouldn't care about using amateurs, he wouldn't care if they got killed in the crossfires or what they did to their captures. He would know how I thought because he made taught me everything I know, he all but made me what I am. So if this is really him, then I would assume he would have his team trail the wagon from both rear angles then choose a spot high up, somewhere with a clean line of sight-

NO!

"NIFA!" I cried out in warning as I heard the click of metal behind us, but I was too late, the shot fired and Nifa's blood painted the roof tiles red as her body slumped at an unnatural angle, her face blown off. 

SHIT!

Swinging around, so the Chimney gave me cover, I tore my ODM gear free ready to attack when another shot rang out followed quickly by a woman screaming below. Gritting my teeth together I watched Nifa's blood trickle down the tiles into the gutter as more screams added to the array below when a voice I had long since forgotten taunted from behind. 

"Long-time Levi! Still, runt or have you grown some?" the Ripper jeered before the tell-tale hiss of ODM gear and the reloading of a weapon sounded only to be followed by the sky suddenly filling with multiple attackers all rigged with ODM gear. 

SHIT SHIT SHIT!

Suddenly a shadow descended upon me, blocking out the sun, and looking up into the aged but haunting smile of Kenny the Ripper, my blood burned.

"Nope!" The Ripper smiled as he aimed what appeared to cylinders of gas at my head, and my rage finally boiled over, "Don't look like you've changed much at all boy!"

Ripping my blades from their sheaths to avenge the last part of Rian Sparhawke's future that he had blown away like she was nothing, my body shook with unbridled hatred as his name tore from my snarling lips.

"KEEENNNNNYYYY!"

(Art work created by the amazing youeggbastard on tumblr. Seriously check out their page, amazing art work)