Hey darlingssss :* how've you all been? Good, hopefully, aha.

Here's the last chapter for this drabble series. I'll talk more about that at the end : )

This one was recommended by an anon LoveTheFandom, so hopefully you'll all enjoy it the way I hope you would.

Rating: T

Fighter

Tightening his hand bandages, Levi rolled his shoulders, working on loosening the kinks that stiffened his posture most times before a match. It was a bodily force of habit; the tension in his back was nonexistent any other time, only plaguing him right before he entered the ring. It wasn't that he was nervous. Hell no. He hadn't been nervous for a match for close to eight years, but perhaps he had been nervous and tense for so long when he first became a fighter that the habit stuck with him all this time.

'Ready for this one?' Erwin grinned at him, entering the room.

'That bastard's going down,' Levi growled, looking forward to cracking his opponent's face.

'Funny that he's saying the same about you. Of course, we know who the winner will be.'

Erwin was right. Underground fighting was illegal in every sense, but it did not stop the accumulating hierarchy in the permanent fighters. Max, his opponent, who he planned to send to the hospital not an hour from now, was an easy ranking of twenty nine. Levi's ranking had climbed by twos and threes years ago, and he stood in the hefty sixteenth rank. There was no doubt about who'd win. The sixteen fighters ranking above him, he hadn't had the fortune to fight yet. If he had, Levi was sure (if not entirely confident) that he would place in the top ten. But it was a slow and steady battle, the fight to the top. And Levi was patient. He could wait.

'So what happened between you two for you to look forward to beating him so much?' Erwin questioned, handing him a towel. Levi took it.

'We were in high school together. That skank was a complete phony. Hate his guts,' he muttered the last part to himself.

'What a coincidence for the two of you to be part of the same illegal fighting system,' Erwin commented. Levi did not dwell on it.

'Well, the match is starting in forty five minutes. Be out in half an hour. You've got bones to crack tonight, Ackerman. Make it a good show since lots of people are placing bets on this one.'

Levi did not respond and Erwin exited the room, leaving him in the silence of his own company. Surveying himself in the full length mirror, Levi scowled at his reflection. 'He's going down,' he repeated. No way was he letting that Max sleaze get off easy. He'd waited over a decade to return the favour in high school, and now was the time.

'You're quite vicious in real life too,' a voice behind him mused. Levi watched in the mirror as a girl stepped into the room, smirking. She was young, perhaps in her early twenties, and had gleaming amber eyes that shone even through the reflection. What struck him was her height, and Levi turned to her just to confirm that she was indeed as short as she seemed. It gave him mild satisfaction to know not all attractive women had to be taller.

'I think I know why you don't like the Bullet,' she stated.

The Bullet was Max's nickname, given to him for his speed and agility in the ring. It didn't impress him that she used it in front of him so carelessly.

'Pray tell,' he droned, subtly looking over her form.

'He's the reason you've got that bend in your nose.'

His eyes snapped up and her smirk grew, as though taking it as confirmation.

'You're nose is crooked to the left. Not obvious, but whatever caused it was severe enough to warrant a permanent disfigurement,' she observed. 'Guess the Bullet was a skank in high school.' So she was eavesdropping. Shifty girl.

'What makes you think it was him?' he questioned.

'Oh, not much,' she said airily, 'just female intuition.' Lifting out her hand to him, she introduced, 'I'm Petra. A great fan of yours and knowledgeable enough not to bet on you tonight.'

He raised a brow, pride slightly wounded. 'Clearly not knowledgeable enough to know that I will win tonight.'

'Hmm, don't think so. I've never lost a bet before. Not on these matches, and definitely won't on yours.'

Her arrogance was confronting, and it angered him slightly to hear her speak so confidently, but there was a charm to it that attracted him to her, as though she held a secret he wanted to find out. 'How long have you been betting?' He asked, not taking her hand. Her arm dropped back to her side, but she didn't seem fazed by his rejection.

'Seven years.' She was older than she looked, he concluded. Underage people were strictly forbidden from watching the fights as they were gruesome and bloody, hardly appropriate for teens. She smiled at him, and there was a certain beauty in it that he wanted to see again.

'You're an interesting man, Levi Ackerman.' She said.

'That intuition of yours is something,' he commented.

She laughed, and it wasn't melodious or soothing, but infectious and calming. But he didn't relent to the smile that threatened to stretch on his face.

'Well,' she inhaled. 'I'll see you at the ring. You'll lose, but I'll cheer you on anyway.' She left, and suddenly the room's atmosphere felt dull and dry, and Levi didn't remember it ever changing.

He sat on the bench, towel around his neck as he pondered over the girl's words. He knew he wouldn't lose, he just knew, but it made him wonder why she thought he would, and why she'd say it so blatantly to his face. He couldn't find the answer before he noticed the time on the wall clock.

-X-

In the ring, Max looked as proud and arrogant as he remembered, and his nose almost twitched in recognition, as though a collection of painful memories were being brought forth by simply being in the phony's presence.

Say goodbye to your career, Levi thought smugly to himself. The bell rang, and Max attacked first with a fist to his cheek that Levi skilfully avoided. The Bullet may be fast, but Levi was faster, most likely just solely based on his smaller frame. Throwing a punch into his stomach, Max stumbled back, and Levi smirked, feeling himself settle into the motion of things. Throwing himself forward, he right hooked him in the chin and in his distraction, Max forgot to focus on his legs and Levi tripped him with a swift kick. He hit the ground with an oomph but rolled back up to his feet, unwilling to go down so easily.

Before Levi could go for the offensive again, someone in his peripheral vision caught his eye. Turning his head slightly, he spotted Petra in the crowd, as though sensing her eyes on him. She was cheering loudly with the rest of the audience, but her eyes were focused on him. The mischievous sparkle in them caught him off guard, and he took a punch to the stomach.

Concentrating again, he fought back, hitting left right and centre with all the force he could, and he could feel it, his victory, as though it was a light at the end of the tunnel. But Petra's words came back to him, and her amber eyes clouded his mind. And consciously, without knowing why or even how he changed his mind, he turned his back to the light. Ten minutes later, he was on the floor of the ring in a headlock, the referee counting down from ten. He had the energy and stamina to get himself free, to get up. He had an entire bottle of anger he still hadn't opened against Max the Bullet, but by the ref's count of six, Levi long forgot his thoughts of revenge and the bet money he would win if he won this fight. His climb to possibly fourteenth in the fight ranking. All he could think was, why not? Let him win. Why the fuck not?

And on the ref's count of two, Levi let go of himself completely. He could imagine Erwin's anger at his behaviour, how it would cost him buckets of cash, but the pleased look on Petra's face overtook Erwin's madness. He had fulfilled a destiny, played out her vision and intuition. Maybe it meant something, he thought.

Zero. It was over.

-X-

'I told you,' a grinning Petra entered the room. 'My intuition is fantastic.'

'It failed to foreshadow my manager's wrath,' he said wryly, flexing his jaw to relieve the pain he felt from Erwin's heady fist.

'Details,' she rolled her eyes. 'Thanks to you, I'm loaded.'

'Thanks to you, I'm still sixteenth.'

She laughed again. 'First place is a place far away from where you are right now.' She stepped closer, lessening the distance between them as she did. 'How about I make this less humiliating for you? I caused your failure, so might as well treat you to dinner, right?'

'It's almost midnight,' he pointed out, but could not ignore the fluttering in his stomach.

'Details,' she repeated, as though waving it off.

He accepted, a little less graciously than he would have if he left the ring a winner, but it was her fault, so he might as well let her make it up to him.

A shower and twenty minutes later, they were at a late night diner, eating burgers and fries.

'So how'd you really know I was going to lose?' I asked.

She grinned, biting into a chip. 'I didn't. It was a test.'

His brows furrowed, confused. 'What does that mean?'

'I just wanted to see if my method would work. I'm a psychology major, so live experiments are pretty telling sometimes.' She winked.

He sat, frozen. Had he just given away his career for free? For an attractive girl who was using him to test out her theories?

'Also, I wanted to see if you'll lose for me.' She added.

He glanced up at her, still feeling slightly numb.

'I mean, I really wanted to ask you out for this dinner, so really, my motive was to see your reaction to me. The whole psychology thing was a bonus.' She looked a little flustered, and he could see a blush crawling up her neck.

'You find me attractive?'

'Maybe.'

'This is all in the wrong order,' he stated bluntly.

She lifted her cup of soda to her lips, drinking and putting it down. 'Why?'

'Next time,' he deliberately said it slow, 'I'll ask you out.'

She was definitely blushing now. 'Deal.'

I hope you guys liked this one! It was pretty fun to write, and hopefully I did LoveTheFandom's recommendation some justice.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

This is the last chapter of this drabble series, my beautiful readers. I know at the beginning I said I'll aim for fifty, but it didn't turn out that way. But do not fear! It doesn't mean my Rivetra fics are stopping, I'll just be posting them on my profile as individual fics instead. I'm doing this mostly because most of the fics I write for them are incredibly long as opposed to the drabbles this collection should be, so I've decided to give them individual credits. I've got one in the making right now, that I'll be calling Willow Waves, and it's well over 15,000 words long, so look forward to that!

I've got a Rivetra multi-chapter fic called Cry Differently on my profile, for those you want to check it out. It is my main writing priority at the moment, so it will be updated regularly. Also, I've got another one coming up, which I've spoken about before in previous chapters called Lights Were In Their Eyes, which will be a Rivetra Origins fic. I don't know when I'll be posting it, as Cry Differently and a Naruto fic of mine will consume my time.

I'm so grateful to all of you who favourite, alerted and reviewed this story, and I'll cherish all your kind words : ) The many recommendations you guys made that I never ended up posting in this collection, I will most likely post as one chapter fics on my profile, so if you check regularly, you can get your dose of Rivetra there if you guys can put up with my lousy writing.

Let me know for one last time how you guys feel about this drabble (ahem, fic) and whether it was good, bad, okay. I look forward to your reviews and lovely comments : ) One last time to Life Is Beautiful With You.

Shout out to everyone!

Love & Respect

xx