He had prepared for what he would face.

The rumors of their monstrous size, their horrible, grinning faces had reached him long ago. (Rows an' rows of teeth, clacking' away) And he had listened with half an ear to Erwin's nagging (Fifty percent of soldiers who die, do so on their first mission).

What nobody had mentioned, was the smell.

Titans were fucking disgusting.

"Levi."

No really, their breath stunk literally of shit-holes.

"Levi!"

He jumped, and behind him, a clap like a thunderbolt sounded as tombstone-sized teeth snapped close on the space he had been standing a moment before.

Missed me, he thought.

Then he was pulling back with the maneuver gear, sinking grapples directly into its exposed neck. He dragged his blade into its weak spot and felt a deep, profound satisfaction as it sagged.

And then it was down. (The satisfaction lingered, would never quite fade, shooting electricity from the base of his spine)

Another one thundered, scant one hundred meters away. Somewhere at its feet, howls rang out (it took a moment for him to realize that the noise came from human throats). He was there in two swings and dived at it's neck with an extra burst of gas. He had pulled himself into the air again before it toppled.

The third one was smaller, and jerkier. It grabbed at him as he made for it's neck (fuck), forcing him to swerve in mid-air. He still sliced it, but the angle was poor, and not clean enough to avoid a pressurized spurt of red slime spraying all over his face and torso.

It burned. For a moment it seemed all of his exposed skin was on fire. Then it was drying, evaporating unnaturally fast.

The smell still clung to him, and his blood was still hot in his veins when he got on his horse next to Erwin.

"Why are we retreating, commander? I'm still far from my limits."

The look Erwin gives him is strange, for some reason.

"Don't question my orders, private. And you made three solo kills on your first mission."

Oh. That.

Erwin's eyes scanned the horizon for signals as he continued to speak, his tone conversational.

"Good work, today." (It was unprecedented in the history of the Survey Corps) "Though I thought you were going to freeze for a moment, at the beginning." (What he would come to respect the Commander the most for, would be that Erwin was always the first to react in any situation, in the precious heartbeats when other men, even him, stood still trapped in their minds)

"..."

"No comment, private?"

"...I'm never going to get this shit off me."