MANGA SPOILERS! (not many. Just to get the story started. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Green Flare

Green flares are the first flare option. They are mostly used to tell others that the threat has been eliminated.

Regroup

All Clear

Red Flare

Red flares are the second flare, and they are the most used. They generally signify someone needs aid.

Jumper

Abnormal

Punk

Titan Eren is in trouble

Need an escort to a Reload Station

Black Flare

Black flares are the third option, and generally, means something EXTREMELY dangerous is approaching.

Crawler

Female Titan

Yellow Flare

Finished Game

Taunt

Other miscellaneous uses

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Intro. . .

I enjoyed being a squad leader. Only the best could be one, and I was lucky enough to be one along side of Hanji, Mike, Ness, and Erwin, and under Commander Shadis' command. He was a good leader, but he just sent Erwin and Mike on a dangerous mission in the Underground. They were sent to capture three Underground criminals. It was a dangerous mission, but some had to do it and they were the men for the job.

***

Once they had gotten back from their mission, Erwin and Mike came to talk to me. I was sitting in my office finishing up paperwork when they arrived. It was who was with them that I didn't expect. There were three others; two males and a female. The female was short and had red hair with pigtails, one male was taller with blonde hair, and the other male was rather short with black hair. The black haired one glared at me while the others seemed skeptical.

"Captain (L/N), these are the criminals," Erwin stated. He turned to them and gave them directions, "introduce yourself and salute her." He was a little rough with them in my opinion, but I had no idea why there were here or who they were at all.

The girl and the tall male saluted me.

"Isabel, miss."

"I am Farlan."

The other male continued to glare. The one name Farlan nudged him with his elbow and told him to be 'social'. I didn't think that the unnamed one liked that idea. His friend struggled to get him to show any emotion and Erwin was getting frustrated with him.

I began to study them all. Two of them were fairly clean for being Underground, while the other was dirty. He seemed pissed off by the fact that he wasn't clean. My eyes squinted as they caught his and challenged him to staring contest. I was testing him, seeing if he'd give up. He didn't. I liked the determination that he had. Suddenly I broke the eye contact. I looked up at Erwin who was paying attention to the three. I then looked to Mike who was looking at me. We nodded at each other.

"So, why'd you bring them to my office? I'm curious." I playfully said to Erwin. I truly was, curious that is.

He cleared his throat and took his attention off the trio. "Well Captain, I wanted you to take Levi and train him. I know how thorough you are and that you can take control of the wildest of cadets. He may not look it, but he's more than a handful. Mike and I were going to take the other two. What do you say?"

I thought about it for a moment. Did I really want to train a handful? I never underestimated anyone, and I wasn't going to underestimate him. He didn't look like he was a hardened criminal or anything, but you can't always tell by looks. Sometimes you have to observe them for awhile to really know.

"Considering you're going to be the future Commander, I don't think that I'm in any position to deny your offer." He chuckled at me calling him 'Commander'. It was no secret that Keith picked him to be the next one. He was a better leader than the rest of us. Not that we all didn't try hard, he was just so natural at it. "I'll try my damn hardest to whip his ass into shape." He smiled at that. Mike only nodded again.

The blonde with the mustache looked at the remaining two. It seemed that he was deciding which he was going to pick. He walked between them and sniffed each. Would that help him determine who he wanted? Mike returned to where he was standing before. "I'd like the blonde one. He doesn't reek of mischief as much as the other." Mike moved his hands behind his back and took on his normal stance as Erwin looked at the girl, claiming her as his now.

"I don't want to be away from my big bro!" She complained.

Farlan looked at her and shook his head. "Isabel, don't fight it. There's nothing that we can do." I took note that Farlan must have been the brains of the two, Levi; leader, Isabel; the little sister. I had to admit that they seemed like a well fit team. I was curious as to how they all ended up together, but that was a story for another day. Now I had to be focused on making Levi obedient. I was going to treat him as if he were a mere dog to us humans. I was going to humiliate him to all hell.

6 months later. . .

"Why won't you get humiliated by anything I do to you?" I had pulled Levi off to the side and let my squad train on their own. Everything I called him or made him do, he acted like it had no effect on him. It was really getting on my nerve.

I had his my his collar. I finally got him to the point where he wouldn't attack me if I started pushing him around. It took him a while and a few attempted beatings from him and me punishing him with random duties to let me throw him around like that. But whenever I tried to get him to be embarrassed he ignored everything as if he used to it. My plan was failing and my plan had never failed in the past. I wasn't use to it. I was more humiliated than he probably was. Although being in the Underground he probably had to learn to hide his emotions, which he seemed pretty good at already.

Levi only stared at me until he felt that I dropped my guard. He, then, in turn, pushed me against the wall. I landed with am umph. A lot of my air escaped my lungs.

"I told you not to touch me, woman. You wrinkle my shirt when you do that." He started brushing at his shirt ass if trying to get rid of imaginary dust. Although he had been in my squad for half a year, he still puzzled me. The way he talked to me was always calm and patient, whereas when he had conversions with others he was rude and sharp-tongued. I have witnessed him making other cadets cry. He was blunt and told the truth. Not to mention he was a clean freak and yelled at people who didn't clean 'properly,' whatever that meant.

I stepped away from the wall and marched up to him. "Levi, I am your superior. I could get you for insubordination." I made sure to state it clearly.

He snickered. "What are you going to do? Kick me out so I can go back to doing crime in the Underground? Tch. Sometimes you're a idiot, (F/N)."

The day of Levi's first expedition. . .

All of us Squad Leaders sat down and decided who would go where in the formation. Erwin said that he'd take care of Levi, Isabel, and Farlan along with his squad. Mike, Hanji, Ness and I took our own sides. In the formation, Erwin was in the front, Hanji, and Mike on either side of him, and Ness and I following up the rear.

After the quick meeting, I talked to Erwin after. "Thank you for taking Levi and the crew. I thought it was nice that they finally get to be together. They deserve it." I smiled, thinking back to all of the progression that Levi had made. We kept the trio separated for training reasons, but when they had free time they could be together. I thought that deserved to fight together.

"Well, since you did such a fabulous job of training Levi, I thought that I'd give you a break. You need it after going through all that. I know that it's not much of a break since we're going on an expedition, but I thought that I'd make the offer." He rested his hand on my shoulder and squeezed a bit. I was happy that he did that. It was one less person that I had to worry about. Sometimes I needed that one less person so I could focus on the mission better, and it was easier to watch out for titans. But really we needed as many people as possible. Everyone we had needed to be outside the walls and fighting their asses off.

***

Outside the walls was beautiful. It always got me happy and exited for humans to defeat the titans; because once we did so, we could explore all of the unexplored land.

In a matter of minutes, titans started showing up all around us. I shot a red flare into the sky as I saw and abnormal starting to follow us. We were almost to the forest so I waited until then to attack it. I was using the trees to my advantage. With abnormals, we needed every advantage that we could get. When I saw an opportunity to take one, I always took it.

"ONCE WE'RE AT THE TREES, WE LAUNCH UP INTO THEM AND TAKE OUT THE ABNORMAL," I screamed to my team behind me.

Once we hit the trees, I launched my gear and my hooks planted themselves into a tree. I turned to face the titan. It ran with its arm in the air, swaying its hips back and forth, mouth wide open, and stomping like a madman. Its eyes locked with mine. It looked as if it wanted to murder me. They tracked me through the trees, never breaking eye contact. I had never faced a titan that tracked like that one did. It freaked me out and sent chills down my spine.

I launched my hooks again into the shoulder of the titan. As I flung towards it, I gained enough inertia to swing myself around and land a slice one the titan's neck. It was hardly large enough to kill it. I gave myself too much slack in my wires causing me to barely make it. I got lucky. My wires shot back into a tree, then I landed back on my horse. My squad sat there in awe even though I commanded then to help. Truly, I was upset that they didn't assist at all, but it wasn't the time for punishments out here. We had to focus on our mission at hand. They could be punished when we got back to base, but I didn't punish them due to the situation.

Not long after I killed the first abnormal titan, it started to pour. We all pulled our hoods up onto our heads and road through the rain. Riding through the trees helped.

Because of the heavy rain, a mist began to form. It made it harder to see titans or anything for that matter. We needed an advantage point, and I had one. "EVERYONE UP IN THE TREES. WE'LL WAIT OUT THE FOG. DON'T KILL ANY TITANS UNLESS YOU FEEL THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO WITHOUT ANY TROUBLE." I shouted to the whole squad.

I launched myself into a tree and stayed there. My assistant named Amethyst landed next to me. "We lost Jacob. I believe he fell behind." She informed me as I stated down at a few titans that gathered below. I nodded, acknowledging what she had said. She was a smart, decisive person who knew her way on the battle field. Erwin had wanted her for his squad, but I stole her before he even had the chance of taking her. She fit well into my squad. She was intelligent, friendly, and the top of her class. My squad was more elite than Erwin's, therefore, I needed her.

We stayed in the trees until the fog cleared and Erwin shot his yellow retreat flare. My team and I hopped back on our horses and rode towards the yellow colored signal.

When we arrived along the side of Erwin, I noticed a significant amount of soldiers were missing. I saw all the squad leaders there, so that confirmed my theory of they were M.I.A, or dead. It saddened me that we lost so many this expedition compared to others in the past.

As I scanned the few remaining cadets, I managed to spot Levi. He was all alone. I tried to find Farlan and Isabel, but I couldn't see them. I then looked closer at Levi's expression. I had never seen him show so much emotion. He looked deeply depressed and almost as if he wanted to die but he knew that he couldn't. I wanted to go up to him and give him a giant hug.

It wasn't before long until we were inside of the walls, finally safe again. I was frustrated. I couldn't see Levi when I needed to, and I had to listen to these damn citizens scream at me how we wasted their money only to kill more people. I didn't see any of their asses volunteering to fight the titans! If they didn't like the way we are doing it, they could have joined the military and tried to change it, but did they? No. It pissed me the hell off that they just ran their mouths.

The shouts and screams began to get to me. I couldn't hold it in anymore. I needed to let my anger out.

"I DON'T SEE YOU GUYS DOING ANYTHING!" I stopped my horse and got off of it, standing in front of a huge crowd of angry people. "IF YOU DON'T LIKE HOW WE DO IT, WHY DON'T YOU FIGHT THE TITANS YOURSELF? That's what I thought. . . SHUT THE HELL UP AND APPRECIATE THAT WE TRY TO ERADICATE THE TITANS FOR YOU!" I was seething.

After my shouting match at a deaf audience, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and almost kneed them in the stomach, but I realized who it was; it was Levi. My eyes welled up with tears as I engulfed him in a hug. I felt his arms wrap around me and squeeze back. I was hoping that he'd make it back alive with his friends, but only he came back. Overwhelmed with emotion, I busted out in tears in front over every person that I had just yelled at. They all stared in awe of how my emotions changed so quickly. A few even "awed" at Levi and I. I needed his touch, he made me feel safe again. And even though he was always an asshole and caused me trouble, I fell in love with him and he fell in love with me even though I treated him like shit. He overlooked all of that and decided to love me. He truly was a beautiful person although he never let many people see him that way.

"I couldn't save them. . ." He whispered in my ear. What he has said made me feel sadder. "T-they were right there. . . I wasn't fast enough. . ." I felt a tear of his wet my shirt.

"You can't give up. You can't die on me. Fight. Get stronger for them. I need you, they need you here. Please, don't give up." I tried to encourage him to keep on going, but I didn't know if it worked or not, I couldn't see his face. I know that it was selfish of me to tell him to stay, but I needed him so I could keep going on too.

Levi held me by the shoulders and looked me in the eyes. He was intense. "(F/N), I will not give up. Not on you and not on life. You're my captain. I'll get stronger to protect others. I love you. I'll fight until the day I die. I'm not giving up."