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Year 829, Training Corps
He was the very incarnate of stealthiness - a lithe shadow darting within the darkness, silent as a phantom slicing through the veils of reality. The pinnacle of elegance, nimbly and gracefully, he glided through-
creak
Levi gritted his teeth and suppressed a wince as the hulking brute behind him, who had likely never done anything even remotely quiet in his whole life, took another step with all the grace and stealth of a rampaging ten-meter-titan, the poor floorboards groaning and creaking under his weight like a full symphony orchestra.
At this point, Levi was starting to darkly suspect he'd never so much as heard of the word subtle either.
Not everything, he wanted to scream, has to be done so loud that anyone within a fucking five mile radius can hear you, you stupid eyebrow idiot.
Of course, since screaming would definitely wake the others up - provided they hadn't already, thank you so much Erwin - Levi settled for glaring silently and screaming internally as Erwin proudly swerved to avoid a creaking floorboard to slam face-first into an open cupboard door.
And as if the universe thought they hadn't already made enough noise, the pile of pots stacked neatly inside decided it was high time to confirm that, yes, his decision to let Erwin follow him had been a Bad DecisionTM and literally start raining pots and pans.
Levi honestly wouldn't mind if Erwin got caught if it wasn't for the sad, sad fact that if so he, by extension, would be discovered as well. So resignedly, he darted forward, catching and balancing the falling monstrosities one-handed with barely a glance, partly because he was just amazing like that, but mostly just to prove his superiority over the idiot who was looking as if he had just seen his life flash in front of his eyes.
"Honestly," he scoffed, one hand effortlessly balancing the tall stack of disturbed kitchenware, "What are you even doing, training for the fucking titan circus?"
Unfortunately, while the metaphor was quite apt - obviously Erwin must have some secret titan genes, the tall freak (he pointedly ignored a voice that sounded suspiciously like Isabella whispering or maybe you're just a short midget) - he'd forgotten about the other person who had also decided to follow him.
Seriously, so maybe he'd stolen really expensive goods a few times and beat up a lot of rich snooty assholes a lot of times - but surely he hadn't done quite enough to earn himself this much suffering.
"Did I just hear someoNE SAY TITA-mmpffh"
With barely a pause, Levi whirled, grabbing up a nearby sponge with his other hand and shoving it into Hange's mouth before she could wake up half the corps with her enthusiastic blabber on why Titans were a gift from god.
"No." He said quickly, "Nope, you definitely heard wrong, nothing here, shut the fuck up and-"
He froze as he heard footsteps, heading towards the kitchen.
Which probably didn't bode well, since, you know, they were in the kitchen.
It didn't sound like the footsteps of the patrol guards though - since they always stomped along like it was their life's ambition to start an earthquake. It sounded a lot more like someone trying to be sneaky but-well, that sounds like they just tripped over a chair again.
He set the kitchenware on a table and ducked behind it, the other two immediately following suit.
The footsteps neared, their owner obviously trying to be quiet, and Levi might be biased but he's pretty sure that with how the soles of their shoes are slapping loudly against the floorboard and the very audible weird sniffing noises coming from that direction, it's fair to say that whoever it is is failing rather miserably.
The person has now started a continuous stream of curses under their breath, having stubbed their toe on a table leg - which, considering that they are making even more of a racket than Erwin did (a miracle, really), is certainly not helping their stealth any.Levi figures though, that once you've sunk to that level there's really not much lower you can get than that, so you might as well."Congrats, Erwin," he muttered out the side of his mouth, "I think we might have found someone actually worse than you.""That hurts me, Levi, really, it does.""Heh, can't face the truth? You suck so bad it's probably your eyebrows weighing you down.""Wha-" Erwin spluttered silently, raising one horrifying eyebrow in what he probably though was an affronted look but mostly just made him look constipated. "What do my eyebrows even have to do with this? What do you have against them?""Nothing. Just keep those monstrosities away from me.""Ah, I see. You're jealous of my eyebrows because you have none, is that it?""Why yo-" As if he'd ever want mutant caterpillars growing on his forehead."Guys," Hange interrupted in a hiss from where she was crouched between them watching their verbal ping-pong match, "Shush." A pause, then. "Though I have to concur that this guy is definitely worse than even Erwin.""What do you mean even Erwin?"Anything they were going to say got cut off as the mysterious person proved both Levi and Hange right when they managed to step right onto the sponge - which, after having made it's acquaintance with Hange's mouth, lay limply and rather defeatedly on the floor - then topple forward to crash into a table that, in a large-scale version of dominos, knocked over a chair that knocked over a broom that knocked over a vase that rolled happily all the way across the kitchen counter and right into the mountain of pots and pans that Levi had left stacked there.
So maybe leaving them there wasn't such a good idea after all. Oh, well. It's too late, anyways.
That was his last thought before a hail of metal rained down on them with vengeance, back to finish the job he had interrupted before....Levi had always known, ever since he had been born, that he was different.He was always faster, stronger, smarter. Things that others struggled with came naturally to him like he had been doing it his whole life. Instinct and tactics came together for him easily and his control over his body movements were always smooth and absolute.So dodging a couple dozen metal pots? He could do it even with his eyes closed, no problem.Erwin and Hange, though. They definitely had a problem."TAKE COVER!" Hange screeched, diving straight into Erwin and knocking them both over.She shrieked as a clean circular twelve-inch stainless steel pan with an aluminium bottom, silver polish and two easy-grip riveted handles bonked her hard on the side of her head.Erwin made a strangled noise that sounded somewhat like the squawk of a betrayed chicken when it found out that it's love of it's life had actually been a cat in disguise all along, when she managed to elbow him in the gut at the same time a bucket fell right onto his head from nowhere.Amidst the cheery and absolutely deafening clanging and banging, Levi, having leap out of the way onto a nearby counter, watched the proceedings calmly well out of the line of fire and tried hard to suppress a snicker.And as if it wasn't chaotic enough, the idiot that had started the whole turmoil decided to start hollering loudly about intruders in the kitchen and something about sentient eyebrow monsters.Levi's not really sure about the last bit, what with all the racket, but he figures it's probably Erwin's fault.He barely manages to dart away before Hange throws herself in his direction to ram a fist into the light switch - obviously not exactly happy with being clobbered by pans.The lights flicked on to reveal a flustered and guilty-looking looking blond guy armed with...was that a duster?He's doesn't recognise the guy, but he's pretty sure he's seen him before somewhere, probably in training or in the halls. And okay so remembering faces, or just people in general, isn't his strong suit, sue him.He doesn't seem very bright either, considering he'd grabbed a duster to wave at them, like it would look even remotely threatening instead of hilarious, and not, you know, one of the dozens of gleaming, lethal knives that could probably slice open flesh like butter lying around just waiting to be picked up. That isn't important either, though.What is important, is thinking up a plan to murder this idiot before the others get here and he starts blabbing.Unfortunately, Erwin recognises him before he can implement his foolproof two-step-murder-plan (1. Kill the guy 2. Dump him somewhere, absolutely foolproof, clearly Levi is a genius) - which isn't really all that surprising, since being good with people is practically a requirement for people with megalomanic complexes aiming for world-domination in the future (so, Erwin) - which means he'll likely disapprove of Levi getting all stab-happy on the guy. Damn shame."MIKE?" He hollers, like he's not satisfied with the sheer level of noise pollution caused by the recent pot avalanche. Either one of the pots had hit him in the head a tad too hard or he'd gone deaf from the noise - both theories seemed equally possible.Ah, and oh right, that's the guy's name. Mike. Sure. Whatever.Terrifyingly, though, whatever Erwin has seemed to be infectious, and causes the guy called Mike to yell back at roughly around twice as loud. "ERWIN?"And, oh, of course. He'd forgotten about the most troublesome person in the room yet again."MIIIIIIKE!" Hange screeched louder than both of them combined, "YOU IDIOT!"Well. If the others weren't awake before, they definitely were now.Of course, it's entirely possible that Hange is trying to ruin the higher ups sleep on purpose to fuck with them like the shit-stirrer she is or that she'd gone deaf with the noise too - Levi really wouldn't be surprised either way.She turns to him, grinning excitedly. "Levi, it's Mike!""Yeah." He drawled calmly, still silently judging the guy's choice of weapon and pretending he knew him all along. "I kind of noticed. Actually, at this point it'd be harder for me not to notice."Erwin saw through his pretense, though, because of course he did. He's pretty sure the two of them probably only exist for the sole purpose of making his life much harder than it ever needs to be. "Levi...you do remember Mike right?""Sure." He said, going for nonchalant. "He's...uh-" He frowned and tried, "-that guy in our class?"He must have gotten it wrong, because Erwin is now giving him his best Extremely Disappointed Dad face."Levi. Mike is not just in our class, you worked with him literally four hours ago.""Oh. I did, huh.""We sit with him in the cafeteria everyday, he sleeps in the bunk right next to yours, you literally see him all the time.""Ah. Um. I do?"Erwin's starting getting to get that look most people get when they have a (one-sided) conversation with him long enough and Mike's looking kinda hurt but mostly just really confused. Before any of them can say anything, though, the kitchen door slammed open with a BANG because that is how to properly conduct a Dramatic Entrance."INTRUDERS FREEZE!" Chorused a group of tired-looking soldiers pointing guns and various other rather lethal pointy items, which you usually don't want to see on people who look like they are a good few seconds away from falling asleep standing up, at the four "intruders".More footsteps sounded and the crowd of soldiers parted like the red sea had for Moses, as the one and only commander of the glorious Training Corps, Keith Shadis, made his Dramatic Entrance by striding in with a flourish, a gun, and two impressively heavy eye bags.Like, seriously. Those eye bags might even rival his own - and he had been carefully cultivating his for ages with the help of insomnia and forced social interaction."Soldiers," The commander began solemnly, pausing for Dramatic Effect and probably to try intimidate them into confessing through grave silence and trepidation.Unfortunately for him, it was almost literally impossible for Levi to give even less of a shit at this point. Mike was looking slightly guilty though, his nose twitching restlessly. Erwin somehow ended up having a silent staring contest with the commander, and Hange-Hange was- Well.
CRUNCH
"Hange," Levi deadpanned "What the hell are you doing."As one, all eyes slid to the brunette cheerfully munching on a cookie, oblivious to the people staring at her.Shadis seemed to be losing his ability to speak coherently and also most of the color in his face ."Y-y-you...what-what are you...just. What."Hange blinked. "Huh?" She stopped her attack on the poor, doomed cookie in favour of staring confusedly at the commander."I was just feeling hungry, sir, so I decided to eat a cookie, sir."Among the crowd of soldiers, somewhere near the back, Moblit face-palmed himself hard enough to knock himself out, thankfully sparing himself from having to watch this whole clusterfuck play out.Honestly, Levi had no idea how a person's thought process could derail badly enough to reach that solution - he might be socially incompetent but even he has more common sense than that.On the other hand though, it's possible she's just doing it just for shits and giggles. Actually, yeah, that sounded like a Hange thing to do - fearless and actually sounding somewhat logical while devoid of any common sense whatsoever.Meanwhile, Shadis continued to splutter incoherently, obviously trying (and failing miserably) to wrap his (balding) head around the weird, and usually absolutely random, antics of Hange.Levi having long gotten used to them, mostly through long-term forced exposure, settled for observing calmly from where he stood, the rather fascinating and surprisingly wide range of humanly-impossible shades of color Shadis's face was turning, which looked to have defied at least several natural laws.
And of course, Hange, being Hange, had a knack for creating the most impossible (and hilarious, shut up Erwin) situations and then landing them in even deeper shit.
"Why is your face trying to imitate a tomato, sir?" She asked, tilting her head in confusion with a look of pure innocence. "Are you constipated, sir? You look constipated. Sir."Yeah, okay, that settled it. She was definitely doing it on purpose.
"Y...y...you...y..." Shadis managed to choke out intelligently, looking on the verge of a conniption.
Levi, being the wonderfully nice person he was (in heaven, angels started crying from the sheer shamelessness of the lie), decided to help the poor man.
"Give him a cookie, Hange," he commented helpfully. "It helps with the constipation."
Next to him, Erwin turned to give him his perfected "What the hell, Levi" look which he specially reserved for every time Levi did something ridiculous, like that time he turned on all the taps and flooded the entire headquarters - which was absolutely justified since the whole place was so filthy he'd obviously done them all a favour - that Levi pointedly ignored because Erwin was an uptight bastard with no sense of humour at all and also a fifteen metre titan pole up his ass.
Hanji turned around and peered into the cookie jar, then turned back to face the commander with a sad frown on her face. "There are no more cookies, sir," she reported with a pout.
Times like these were when he was reminded why he actually liked Hange - she was the only one who would play along with his bullshit, enjoy the heck out of it and gleefully traumatise everyone else along the way.
Very reluctantly, she broke off a small piece of the cookie, barely even a quarter, and held it out pitifully like she was parting with her life's treasure. "Here. You can have half, sir."
Shadis stared blankly at the cookie, slowly raised his head to look at Hange, then back down at the cookie.
There was a very long period of silence in which everyone fidgeted nervously, Shadis stared blankly like his soul had been forcibly ejected from his body and Levi wondered idly when he'd start convulsing and foaming at the mouth. Any second now.
Shadis stared, and then stared some more, for good measure.
Then he exploded.
"THAT'S NOT HALF, THATS BARELY EVEN A QUARTER YOU IDIOT!"
Present Time, Year 847, Training Corps
"Here, sir." Sasha Braus said, sadly holding out a tiny piece of potato to him like she was giving away her firstborn child. "You can have half, sir."Everyone stared at her.The other cadets fidgeted, equal parts horrified and impressed.There were murmurs of "That's suicidal, mate" and "How many head butts do you think she'll get?" in the background.Shadis himself stared, for a good, long while, before he found himself finally having a long-overdue conniption fit. Goddamn traumatic flashbacks and crazy brown-ponytailed gluttons.