Chapter Text
Levi sighs as he watches Erwin disappear into the trees ahead of him, the light breeze picking up. Once the green cloak fades from his sight, the Corporal leaps gracefully off the large tree branch and lands on the forest floor with a soft thud. He begins to follow his commander's orders, quickly refilling the gas tanks in his gear. Levi didn't understand why he had to at first, his tanks were still half full, but he obeyed as quickly as possible. When they're filled completely, the soldier rises to a stand. Levi smoothly raises his arm and pulls the trigger, firing a sharp metal contraption up at a tree. The pointed tip enters the wood and release the barbs, securing the grappling in a matter of seconds.
Calmly, Captain Levi allows himself to be pulled and touches down elegantly on the limb. With a quick survey of the not-so-open sky, his sharp eyes zone in on a pillar of green smoke billowing in the light breeze. He starts to move towards the smoke, where his respected teammate await his arrival, but a second, slightly closer and a little to the right, bright green flare from the treeline causes his to pause. One of the flares had to belong to his squad, whilst the other... Levi frowns and directs his course between the two locations, hoping to meet his squad before they fall into this ambush.
* * *
A scowl etches across the newly appointed Special Operations squad leader as Commander Erwin Smith describes some sad sap in great detail, bored within seconds. Now that Levi had been given this responsiblity, he had to pick which soldiers he will be working with. Not just anyone can be this elite group; Captain Levi himself gets to chose which of these fine Survey Corps service men and women will join his side. He had already narrowed down to five or so applicants based on their written profiles, but he wanted to see them in action before choosing anyone permanently.
"Are you quite done now?" Levi asks impatiently, cutting off the blond before he could start rambling about another fighter. "I'd rather weigh their worth in person than from these documents." He glances at said papers, uncrossing his legs and placing both hands on the table.
"Ah, yes. We'll have them run through a course a few times."
Once the contestants had been gathered, Erwin and Levi direct them to go through a basic training exercise. Unbeknownst to the complaining candidates, the commanders turned up the difficulty. The soldiers controlling the wooden titan silhouettes were orded to move quicker and purposely try to avoid the nominees. Both Levi and Erwin follow the race from the sidelines, keeping mental notes of each soldiers' behavior. At the end of the day, the winners were announced by Levi himself. He welcomed Eld Jinn, Gunther Schultz, and Olou Bozado to his Spec. Ops. squad.