Levi's POV

As I stare down the valley between the mountains, I feel an uneasy knot form in my stomach. The battle tomorrow should go smoothly, but I have the gnawing feeling that something is going to go wrong and the enemy will defeat us. The plan is perfect, but I still have the feeling that something is going to make the whole operation go south.

The Titans have been capturing more boulder class dragons than usual, but the reason is still unknown. Boulder class dragons are important for making weapons and armor, so that's the most likely reason for them needing more of them but no dragon in their right mind would willingly work for the Titans. They're beasts that have almost taken over the entire world, and my small group of rebels is the only thing standing in their way. The Scouts are the only ones willing to stand up and fight against them to fight for our freedom from the tyranny of the Titans.

I take a deep breath before shooting a plasma blast into the air, a signal telling everyone who can see it to get some sleep. They're going to need as much strength as they can get for tomorrow. I just wish that the Titans hadn't found the routs we use to get supplies to our camp. They've stolen almost all of the food, different types of rocks, minerals, and ores that are essential to making an armory stronger. If the majority of the Scouts weren't dragons, we'd be virtually defenseless.

Very few who aren't dragons can kill a dragon, which comes with both pros and cons. It means that we have to train our non-dragon troops even harder than the others just so that they have the skill and stamina to take down a dragon. I'll bet that that hummingbird that I saw a few months ago wouldn't even need any training. I still constantly wonder about her and her two friends that I saw that evening. Especially the cloaked figure with the ocean colored eyes. I still have no idea what gender they were, let alone their species. It's rather annoying, to be honest.

I bet that that hummingbird would have been a great ally, if I had gotten a chance to speak with her before she left with her friends. The speedstinger looked like he was rather smart, and probably would have been another asset to the Scouts. I'm not entirely sure about their cloaked friend, though. Depending on what they were, it's possible that they would have been an even greater ally than the hummingbird and the speedstinger combined, though it's also possible that they would have been the most useless of the three, and their friends only stuck by them because they needed protection from someone or something.

Either way, I'll never know. No matter how hard I tried to track them down after that, I was unable to find them because they disappeared without a trace. It's like they just vanished into thin air. No one anywhere has seen them, no one has heard of them, and no one knows who they are. If the men I'd had posted outside hadn't seen them, too, I'd probably think that they were just figments of my imagination.

A cold winter breeze blows through the camp, and since I'm taking first watch on this mountain tonight it feels colder than it probably is. It's snowed almost constantly for the past week. We're lucky that the skies are looking clear - if they weren't it would be a lot harder to spot any potential enemies trying to attack us in the dark.

I see a bright yellow-orange glow making its way towards me as the sun starts to disappear below the horizon and I recognize the dragon at the center of the almost blinding amount of light. It's the fire worm queen who won't back off when I tell her I'm not interested in her. Her name is Petra and she just can't get it through her thick skull that I don't like her that way. Yes, she is a good soldier and I admit it, but she wants a relationship that goes farther than just Commander and Squad Leader.

She lands beside me, her eight legs all toughing down at the same time. Her arms are crossed and she looks a bit unhappy. I just hope she doesn't try anything this time.

"The Titans are at it again." She says crossly, her long prehensile tail wrapping itself around the lonely tree I had been sitting under. "They stole almost everything. I know it's not a surprise, but if they know where our supply routs are, couldn't they have followed them to the camp? Something doesn't add up."

"Who knows what the Titans are thinking." I mutter under my breath, though what she says is true. Something doesn't add up. They've raided almost every supply wagon coming in which means they know exactly where our camp is, yet they haven't attacked. The raids have been going on for months, too.

Then a thought comes to my brain that has never been there before: What if it wasn't the Titans who were raiding our supply wagons? I don't share this thought with Petra since if I stop talking she'll probably leave sooner, but I start to ponder my new theory.

When she finally gets up and spreads her wings about to take off I say, "Will you send up Mike and Erwin? Urgent matters need to be discussed."

She nods and lifts off, heading down to the tent shared by my two closest advisors. I would have Hanji helping me with this as well, but they were captured by the Titans around a year ago and no one knows where the Titan camp is. If they escaped, they were either captured again or weren't able to find their way back here. We've moved locations a few times since they were captured.

I see Mike and Erwin ascending towards me, and I ponder the best way to share my theory. I know that since the sun has already set, they won't be able to see exactly where they're heading so I lite the small fire in front of me with a blast of fire. One of the perks of being a night fury: I can see in the dark and I can "see" with sound. It's a little difficult to explain, so I won't go into the details.

I use my tail to clear the snow away from a patch of ground before I sit down, wrapping my wings around me to help keep out the wind. The wooly howl and the sand wraith land on the other side of the small fire and bow in a respectful manner. They bow for two reasons the first being I'm the last night fury on earth, and the second being I'm their commander.

Erwin - the wooly howl - speaks up first. "What is it that you wanted to discuss with us?"

"I don't think that the group that has been raiding our supply wagons for the past few months is the Titans. I think it is someone else, but who I am not sure."

"It didn't smell like the Titans at the few raided wagons I went to." Mike says. I've always been able to trust his nose.

"Why didn't you speak up about this sooner? We could have found this third group and found out if they are allies or enemies. They might have been stealing from us thinking that we're the Titans."

"I wasn't sure whether or not you would believe me, sir. I know that my nose is almost never wrong, but I myself wasn't too sure about there being a third group."

Eyebrows contributes to the conversation next. "When have we not been able to trust your sniffer? You're the best tracker we have - even the rumblehorns aren't able to keep up with you and they're practically the bloodhounds of all species of dragons!"

The sand wraith shrinks a little out of embarrassment - he isn't used to getting compliments. Well, if that's what you call Erwin's words. I would call them flattery - that holly howl has tried at the both of us several times.

"Another reason why I didn't trust my nose was because I smelled something I've only smelled once before the first raid I visited." Mike says so quietly it's almost a murmur. "I smelled the combined scents of a male speedstinger and a female hummingbird."

I freeze for a second, processing this. "You should have reported that immediately. You were one of the ones posted outside that night, so you should have told me as soon as you got back that you had found them again."

"I tried to follow the trail several times, but it was always masked by another scent that messes with my sense of smell. It's hard to describe what the scent is, and even the rumblehorns couldn't track them through that scent."

"Could you have tracked that scent instead of their trail?" Erwin asks, placing his tail on top of Mike's.

Before answering the wooly howl's question, Mike moves his tail away from Erwin's and wraps it around himself. "No. It was as if the scent was only in a single area that messed with our noses so much that when we tried to track it, everyone went in a different direction and wound up going in circles."

I take a minute to process this new information before asking, "Is there any way it could be related to Hanji? I know they were working on a way to disrupt the sense of smell of even the most talented trackers before they were captured."

I see a pang of hurt in Mike's eyes at the mention of the strange sand wraith scientist. "Possibly, but I think that if Hanji had escaped the Titans, they would have come back to the Scouts. They were more loyal to us than most of the soldiers down there."

"This is true. Hanji was one of our most loyal members. Every opportunity they got, they'd be trying to improve armor, weapons, efficiency of farms, and several other things. Always doing more than their fair share of work."

"Speaking of doing more than their fair share, I don't think that you should be the one on watch tonight, Commander. You do enough for us already. I'll get a small group of changewings to keep watch tonight." The wooly howl says, a bit of concern in his eyes.

"I won't be able to sleep tonight anyway, and I have the best night vision. I'm fine as I am. If you're going to send anyone up, send one of the singetails. They're the best at sending signals in the form of fire." I reply, my voice a low growl. The last thing I need is Eyebrows sending up more troops than necessary for two reasons. It would mean that more of the soldiers in the camp didn't get as much sleep as they could have, and it would spread a bit of fear that I'm not as strong as they need me to be. If they started fearing that I'm not as strong as needed, they would start losing faith in the Scouts and either join the Titans willingly or leave to try to find a place to hide from them.

"Is that all you wanted to discuss?" Mike asks.

"Yes, it is." I say, and another cold gust of wind flows by and it puts out what remains of the little fire I lit earlier.

"We'll be going, then. Do keep warm, Levi. I know you hate the cold." The sand wraith replies, a hint of kindness in his voice. He turns around and launches into the air, Erwin not far behind him. I just hope that Eyebrows doesn't try anything. Both Mike and I noticed Erwin trying to make a subtle move on him earlier.

I turn my attention away from the camp and my cold grey gaze sweeps the valley on the other side of the mountain, looking for any sign of the Titans or the confirmed third group that has been stealing supplies for the past few months.

I hear a faint rustle of wings and look around because I can't quite tell where it's coming from. The sound fades a bit and I hear something I haven't heard since the Titans killed my parents: the faint sound of a night fury folding his or her wings and going into a steep dive. At this point, I know my ears are playing tricks on me. The Ackerman clan was the last remaining clan of night furies and I was the only dragon to escape alive.

My theory that my ears are playing tricks on me is confirmed when I start to hear the murmuring of the dragons of my clan. Though I know my face doesn't show it, it hurts a lot to be reminded of times before the rise of the Titans. It feels like my heart is being torn in two when I remember all of the innocent dragons and hummingbirds who were either killed or captured and then killed when they didn't obey their captors. There were two Ackerman clans that joined together to make one larger clan made up of both night furies and hummingbirds.

My adopted little sister Mikasa was one of the few hummingbirds captured when the Titans came, and I never saw her again. She was so little when it happened. She hadn't even started branching lessons yet - her wings were about two months away from sprouting the first of her flight feathers. I have the feeling that I wouldn't even recognize her if I saw her now. It was at least ten years ago that she was taken. That was back before the Titans were as feared as they are now. The attack on the Ackerman clan was what spread the fear of them throughout the world.

I shake my head to clear away thoughts of the past. I need to be focusing on the present and the future. My efforts to clear away my thoughts prove futile when I see something coming this direction along the ground.

I take a closer look at what I'm seeing in the distance and it turns out to be a patrol of Titan scouts. I freeze for a second, about to turn and shoot a plasma blast above the camp to warn the others, but something else I see stops me. They shoot a net at a dark object in the sky, and I hear the sound of a wounded night fury falling towards the earth.

Merry Christmas, guys. I hope you enjoyed Chapter One.