Chapter Text
The two days that the Commander had granted the doctors weren’t enough. Y/n holds tightly onto her horse’s reins as she rode alongside Petra. Her horse whined in complaint and Y/n loosened her grip, rubbing the horse's cheek to apologize.
Out of all the squads in the Survey Corps, she had been placed in Levi’s squad. It was like some sort of joke that Erwin had played on them. The rest of the formation was scattered away in front of them and their goal was simply to patrol just outside Wall Rose and loop around once they reached Krolva.
“Dr. Y/n,” Petra called out. “Are you alright?”
Before Y/n could respond, she spotted Levi glaring at her in front of her. Y/n only nodded, turning to face ahead as her horse galloped on alongside the wall. Their squad was on the left side of the formation, and moving north towards Krolva from Trost, they were more likely to meet with any titans first even though the Garrison at Trost had told them there had been rarer sightings of titans near Wall Rose as of recent.
The day was almost midday when Y/n spotted red smoke rising in front of them. “Captain,” she called out, but Levi was already motioning for them to speed up in the direction of the red smoke.
Titans, Y/n thought as she sped up her horse. Her breath was suddenly loud in her head, her heart pounding in her chest. Her fingers were suddenly sticky with sweat and the reins became uncomfortable in her grip.
“Y/n,” Levi turned around to glare at her. A tree whizzed right past her, the leaves brushing her face and startling her back into reality.
Levi was standing on his horse, crouched so that the shifting of the horse didn’t topple him over. He was staring at her, locking her gaze as she looked up at him from her horse beside his. She looked around herself, where the others’ horses had been stranded as the squad shifted into ODM gear.
“Keep up,” Levi growled at her before turning and launching off his horse, as she scrambled to grab her blades.
“Fuck,” Y/n whispered to herself, a little imbalanced as she switched to the ODM gear using the trees around her. She followed Levi’s faint figure as he sped around in front of her, but found it hard because of the dust around her.
And in the dust, out of nowhere, a huge hand grabbed the air right in front of her, missing her by a whisker. A huge, bulky chunk of flesh, shaped like a hand. It slammed down on the ground as it missed her, and Y/n pulled back, rapidly pulling back the grapple hook she had just attached to pull away from the titan emerging from the dust cloud right in front of her.
Its face was ugly, fleshy and more human than she would have liked. The eyes of the titan bulged out from its eye sockets, its head turning to look at her with a slow gaze as she pulled into a nearby tree. For a moment, she stood panting on a branch just watching the creature. The titan slowly stood up from where it was crouching to its full height and it towered over her and the tree she stood on, only its legs visible at her eye level. The size and terrifying nature of the titan made her stare in awe, and she only moved to another when the titan tried to swing at her tree.
She used her grapple hooks to try to see if she could get onto the titan. Levi had been right. One of her flaws in any kind of interaction with a titan on her first expedition was that she had never seen a titan before. But that also led her to have little fear of the titan in front of her now. She had no idea what they could do, and the only way to know was to experience it.
Y/n managed to land on the titan's shoulder after some tries. It was just hard to grapple on while titan wobbled around. It swatted at her, but she held her ground and ran towards the nape. The titan swayed as it walked and she had to attached her grapple hooks again and again as she made her way over, for the titan moved so much it made her lose her balance several times. When she finally got to the nape, she didn’t have enough momentum nor the running ground to slice through like she had practiced so she simply dug her blades into the nape of the titan’s neck as hard as she could. It took more strength than she had imagined, but she pushed in, hot steam rising from the titan’s flesh as she yelled in exertion.
“Fuck you,” Y/n whispered crouching and holding onto her blades that were still grounded in the nape as the titan fell. The titan wasn’t big, probably a 4m, but Y/n’s legs shook to support her as the titan landed face first into the dirt.
The dirt flew up around her, making her throat itchy and dry as she tried to remove her blades from the titan’s nape. Through the cloud of dust, Hange’s voice called out to her.
“Oi! Break the blades off!”
“What?” Y/n yelled back.
From nowhere, Levi landed behind her on the titan’s back. “Break your blades off, brat. You’ve dulled them out.”
Before Y/n could move, Levi’s arm snuck around her waist to move her arm for her. Though she didn’t move a muscle on her own, his strength enough to snap both blades at once.
“Wow you’ve really outdone yourself now!” Hange screamed from below. “Y/n, you killed your first titan!”
Levi wrapped his arm around her waist as he lowered both of them down to the ground using his ODM gear. Hange was the first of many to clap Y/n so hard on her back she almost fell over.
“Good job.” Erwin and some others in Levi’s squad seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Steam blew off the enormous body behind her, the flesh disintegrating in the sun. Only Levi, who was still standing next to her with a solemn face, seemed to be unimpressed. Y/n didn’t know if he was just upset about their confrontation in Erwin’s office days ago or he was just being a little bitch. Probably both.
The expedition moved on. Levi’s squad sped up in front of her, maybe they were hoping they could attack first in case any titans encountered them again, instead of her seeing them and freezing up like she did last time. Y/n still cursed at herself for that even as the sun approached the horizon and touched the sky a bright orange. She knew she had done well, she had killed a titan on her first expedition. But for some reason, seeing Levi’s reaction, his unhappy face, didn’t make it feel like it was anything special. It was almost as if Y/n craved the captain’s approval. She cursed at herself for that too.
They stopped alongside the walls once they were close to Krolva. Their whole expedition met with the Garrison patrol there to replenish water and rest their horses. It was then that Hange met her again, smiling at her with her usual smile of sunshine.
“How hardworking!” Hange laughed at her, wrapping an arm around Y/n shoulders. “You’re one of three people who killed a titan today.”
“Huh?” Y/n didn’t know that. She had only seen the one titan she killed, but assumed there were many others.
“There weren’t many,” Hange nodded. “Levi and Petra got the others. We honestly didn’t see the smaller one until Levi started scrambling to get to you.”
To get to me? Y/n mused.
“I’m glad you got that one on your own. I was worried of course, but it showed Levi up. He won't shut up about how you doctors might slow us down.”
“Tell me about it,” I grumbled, glancing over to where he was leaning against a tree.
“He’s just worried,” Hange sighed, sensing the tension.
The rest of the expedition was uneventful, unless we count Levi being sassy at Y/n for not keeping up with the rest of the squad an event. The moon was high in the sky when they finally reached their headquarters again, and Y/n collapsed into her bed, thankful for the rest days that Erwin had granted them for their successful return from their expedition.