Work Text
Chapter One
T
he door of the courtroom opened behind her, the steps of the person entering the room light and steady as they approached; the door closing noisily. He was there to bring her salvation or demise. Whatever he said would be taken wholeheartedly by the judge in front of her, and she would either be saved or killed for a crime she hadn’t meant to commit.
“This is the woman who claims to know you,” the judge said, looking at where the man stood behind her.
She was on her knees, hands shackled behind her back, her Scouts cape worn and tattered. She had spent six years outside of wall Maria, surviving and researching the titans; finding her own food; sustaining a small distiller for the crystal she had found to make the gas for her ODM gear. She had survived out there by herself, alone with no human company and no one that understood her besides her horse.
She
had done that, alone, and here they were ready to execute her for deserting her regiment, who had all been killed in front of her.
“Why does that concern me?” he said, voice cold and unfeeling, exactly how he had been when she had known him.
“She is a deserter of the Scouts,” the judge said.
“I am not!” she said resentfully. “I’ve already explained to you–”
“Silence!” the judge yelled, banging his gavel on the stone, face growing red.
There was no noise from behind her and she swallowed, afraid that they hadn’t brought the right person. She turned, looking for him. “Levi?”
He looked from the judge to her, not looking like he recognized her.
“I’m sorry-” she started softly before he let himself accept the fact that she was alive.
He grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, shaking her slightly. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t get back over the wall,” she said softly, relieved tears burning the backs of her eyes. “I just kept circling the wall hoping to find the Scouts.”
“You were out there?” he asked softly, eyes wide as he looked her over, “And you’re alive!”
She nodded, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. “It only took me what– six years?”
“How did you survive–?” he started, holding her by the shoulders now, kneeling with her on the floor of the courtroom.
“Captain Ackermann,” the judge said, “So it’s true you know her?”
Levi looked up, “Yes,” he said. “She was the captain of the regiment that was slaughtered that day- the one with no survivors,”
The judge looked at her again.
“Who?”
“Captain RaNoy,” Levi said, “Of the 93rd Training Corps,”
Five Years Later
“How many this time?” she asked softly, watching him pace around the room in a circle, almost like a fly around a bowl of rotting fruit.
“Too many,” he said softly.
She let out a breath, “Sorry.”
He was silent.
“Your tea’s going to get cold,” she said after a minute.
“Forget about the tea,” he said defeatedly, stopping in front of the window to look out at the rolling earth beyond it. “They should have let you go with us, then maybe we would have come back with everyone.”
“You’re more than capable–” she started but he interrupted her.
“That’s not the point!” He turned to look at her. “I’m still human, I can’t save them all by myself!”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, “You’re right.”
He let out a defeated sound and sank heavily into the chair that she had pushed away from the table for him. “We’re losing too many people because of the stupid ruling that the judge made.”
“There are consequences for deserting–” she started.
“You didn’t desert,” he said, “You survived, there’s a difference.”
She sat back in her chair with a heavy sigh, “Well good ol’ judge Frankmoore is dead now, maybe Premiery Zackly will grant me a pardon.”
“It’d be nice to have you back in the offensive line-up,” Levi said, taking a sip of his tea. “This is cold–”
“I
told
you!” Rochelle said, sitting forwards, the front feet of her chair thumping on the floor as she did. “Didn’t I! Didn’t
I?”
He took a breath but said nothing, letting it out again while looking away from her tiredly.
“It’ll be okay,” she said, redirecting their conversation, “We’re still learning about the outside– Hange’s working hard on figuring out the titan’s origin and weaknesses. We’ll survive this, even if we have to fight every titan on the face of this world.”
“We don’t have enough people to fight the titans,” he said numbly, “That’s the issue we’re running into.”
She tisked slightly, leaning back in her chair again. “Well, aren't you unusually optimistic today.”
He glared at her, “I lost good people today–”
“And you’ll lose more tomorrow and more the day after that, and after that, and on and on and on until we no longer exist as a species,” she said grimly. “They came willingly, unlike other people whose parents forced them here, or poverty did, or because they were being punished for some crime. They might have been good people this time, but they obviously weren’t good fighters, and that’s what this regiment needs.”
“You’re heartless, you know,” he said softly.
“I’m just stating facts,” she said, sitting forward again and tapping her fingers on the table top. “We need
really
good people–
determined
, resilient people. We don’t have those, not yet. We might never find a generation that’s willing to fight, they have no reason to. They don’t know what’s outside the walls, if they did, they’d never want to leave.”
“They already don’t want to leave,” he said sullenly.
“I meant the ones that do, if they saw what was out there– oh nevermind,” she finished lamely. “Point was; don’t get attached to the overly disposable people they send to die for you, because we both know they do it on purpose.”
“Still heartless,” he said again.
She sucked air through her teeth, standing.
“Geez
Levi, you really don’t make it easy.”
“You’re not very encouraging,” he said, swirling the tea in his cup.
“I’m not trying to be,” she said, “I’m telling it how it is,
shitty,
that’s how. Everything this government does is on purpose and all the training in the world wouldn’t have saved those people today,” she pointed in the direction of wall Maria and the way the Scouts had gone on the outside of the wall.
“Tell me something new,” he said, “I know this already.”
Rochelle sighed, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles. “This is exhausting.”
He rubbed his face with a hand, silent.
There was a knock on the meeting room door and they both paused, looking in its direction.
“Enter,” Levi said and the door opened, Commander Erwin Smith standing on the other side.
Both Levi and Rochelle saluted in unison as he entered the room, saluting in return before closing the door and standing in front of their table.
“I have a request,” Erwin said slowly, looking from Levi to Rochelle. “Premiery Zackly has requested Captain RaNoy’s reinstatement into the Survey Corps.”
Rochelle looked back at Levi, who looked at her, then they both looked at Erwin. “Why?”
“Because I asked him to,” Erwin said. “We don’t have enough people to keep sacrificing left and right, we
need
true fighters in the Scouts, and you’re one of the best.”
She was elated, excited even. “Does this mean I can have my gear back?”
“You’ll be getting new ODM gear, yes,” Erwin said but Rochelle was shaking her head.
“I want
my
gear,” she said, “I’ve seen the updated gear, I don’t like it.”
“Your gear isn’t up to the new safety code–” Erwin started.
“The only difference between both sets is the length of the cables and the gas canisters,” she said, “How hard would it be to make it to code?”
Erwin frowned at her slightly.
“Roch,” Levi said, “That is the Commander.”
“I’m aware,” she said, “I still want
my
gear.”
“How about this,” Erwin said, shifting slightly where he stood. “If you can complete the training course with your gear, in an acceptable time, we’ll see if we can get it made up to code.”
She took a breath, “Okay,” she let out the breath, “Thank you.”
“Shall we go?” he asked, turning and motioning to the door with a hand.
She nodded, walking to the door and opening it.
“Levi?” Erwin asked, “Are you coming?”
Rochelle looked back at him from the doorway, waiting.
He muttered something but stepped out from around the table and followed them from the room.
The training course, different from the one the actual cadets used, was located in a large wooded area behind wall Maria, right before the halfway point to wall Rose.
Rochelle had her ODM on, the feeling familiar and comforting. She ran her fingers along the grooves of the tally marks etched into the sides of her blade boxes, each mark getting more jagged as her blades grew duller. She had body–robbed all of the other soldiers for their gear and blades days after the assault on her company, she had still run out of blades by the end of the six-years, but she had perfected the art of keeping her blades sharp for two week periods. It was enough, but barely. Avoiding the Titans entirely kept her blades sharp the longest.
There were more than two hundred marks on her ODM gear, two hundred titans she had killed in the six years she was trapped outside the walls. She had spent that time circling wall Maria again and again, trying to find a low part of the wall that she could scale, but there hadn't been one. She had stayed close to where she knew the Scouts would travel to if they decided to go out on an expedition, but they had never come, she had missed them by days or weeks every time.
She had learned to be silent, how to mask her scent, how to draw their attention elsewhere. When trying hard enough it was easy to survive the titans. Keep up vigilance but don’t over worry yourself, stay in one place for a week but no longer or you’d draw their attention, travel during the day because that was the easiest time to see them, only travel at night if you had no other options, never travel with a light on. She had found that if you hid within hollow trees or caves or behind waterfalls they were less likely to find you, and if you kept your horse five hundred feet away from your sleeping place your chances of survival multiplied by about three.
“Alright,” Erwin said, “RaNoy, the ideal speed for clearing this course by a cadet is a minute and a half to two minutes. For a soldier it's a minute, for Levi it’s forty-five seconds. You need to complete this in a minute to be good, forty-five seconds to keep your current gear.”
She stretched slightly, already having plotted her path of attack. “Hear.”
“Alright,” Erwin said, holding up his pocket clock, “Eight seconds.”
Seven.
She took a breath.
Six.
She let it out.
Five.
She took the control grips out of their holsters at her sides.
Four.
She checked the gas pressure coming from the turbine behind her.
Three.
She adjusted it.
Two.
She took one more breath and readied her stance.
One.
She blinked and took a step forward.
The cables shot forward and she was pulled into the air, zipping between the trees towards the wooden dummies of the titans, the back of their necks covered with rolls of fabric.
Pulling back she adjusted her trajectory, putting blades into the control grips and turning to slice cleaning through the first roll. There were ten fake titans in the woods, one was down and the others were all lined up in front of her. It was easier to kill titans when they were all in a row like ducks, not moving, not screaming, not doing
anything.
She sliced the necks of three other titans, pushing her gear harder than it had been pushed in years. She had been using it of course, without anyone from the Corps knowing, but this was the first time she had truly been free to use it as it was intended.
She finished five remaining titans in quick succession and stopped, landing and standing against the side of a tree, looking back at the perfect triangle slices taken out of each titan roll. She dropped, landing on the neck of the final titan, slicing it through. She stood back, putting her blades back into their boxes and used her gear to get back to where Erwin and Levi were standing waiting for her.
She landed in front of them, “Finished about eight seconds ago,” she said, “Counted twelves green flags, eight red ones, four were blue, and there was a purple one that was attempting to be hidden but not doing a very good job,” she recited, wiping the condensation from her gear with her hand, then wiping her hand on her leg.
“There were six blue flags,” Erwin said, “But I’m surprised you bothered to look for the flags at all.”
“Why?” Rochelle asked, looking up at him. “It’s part of my job,” she said, “I assume they were color coded for a reason, but still,” she shrugged slightly. “If I had been with anyone else they could have found the other two, so will you dox me for missing them?”
“Not hardly,” Commander Erwin said, looking down at his watch, “You completed that course faster than Levi ever does.”
“I tend not to try as hard,” Levi said evenly, “Don’t want to end up injured in case of a real battle.”
“Right~” Erwin and Rochelle said in unison.
“Anyway,” Commander Erwin continued, “After replacing your line and gas containers, your gear will be fine,” he said, nodding to her. “Welcome back, Captain RaNoy.”
Rochelle beamed at him, “It’s really good to be back.”
“We’ll start going over what your duties as a Captain are again,” Commander Erwin said, “Just not today.”
She nodded, “I understand.”
He nodded, walking away towards his horse.
Levi looked at her. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” she gushed, tracing her fingers along the etched tally marks in her gear again, “I’m glad to be able to do something again.”
“We’ve needed help for a while,” Levi said, both of them walking towards their horses, Commander Erwin having already left.
“I’ll do what I have to,” Rochelle assured him, “I don’t plan on losing a troop like I did, not again. Never again.”