We stepped out away from the others and waited for everyone to be ready. For the first test to see if she could actually do it it was just me Levi and Petra testing it out. We were going with as few people as possible on the small chance that we would get stuck under the ground. The less people panicking down there the better. Petra and Levi had to go for their powers to be used and me to report back to Pixis of what worked and what didn't.

We waited until Petra gave us a nod telling us she was ready. Pixis had everyone else take a step back. None of us knew what to expect. We didn't even know if this was going to work or not. She took a deep breath and all of the sudden a hole started to form in the ground as dust particles went everywhere.

"Don't breathe it in," she warned. I quickly held my breath as Levi moved the cloud of "dust" behind us as we walked into the hole.

"Ready to be sealed," he said leaving some holes in the dust cloud so when Petra solidified it it wouldn't bury us alive and suffocate us.

There was one major flaw off the bat that I realized down here. Sure there were holes and they were enough to breathe fine from, but there's barely any light coming in, and that's with lanterns just above us, but doing this at night in the pitch black desert would be impossible. Levi wouldn't be able to see the particles he was moving, and the rest of us wouldn't know if it was safe to breathe or not.

"Open it," I said and Petra did just that with Levi's help. We entered back in and Pixis gave me a confused look.

"I thought we were going to do more tests, did it not work?" he asked.

"It worked, but there's one issue. We need a light."

"Oh right because you need to see better for practice," he said handing me a lantern.

"No, we will need a light for the mission too."

I watched as he stiffened up. "But you guys will stick out like a sore thumb even if you are in the tunnel. The light will peak out through the holes."

"I know, we need to find a way around that, but the light is undebatable we won't be able to do anything without it.

"Okay, but if you can't find a way around it then I will have to call off this mission. It's already too risky as it is, but adding a light to it puts it over the edge."

"I'll find a way," I said confidently. I have to.

"Well, if you'll need a light for the actual mission then I'll just give you guys a flashlight it's easier to turn on and off. Not to mention it's easier to hold." He said before heading up the stairs putting everything on hold for a moment to go grab it.

I walked back over to Petra and Levi in enough time to see Levi slip backwards into the holland straight into the cloud of dust that was sitting in it. The dust and dirt clung to his hair and back that was still wet from before.

I tried so hard to hold in my laughter but when his head snapped up to glare at me I lost the little composure I had left. "Damn Levi today really isn't your day," I laughed.

"I'm going to kill you," he threatened as Petra helped him out of the hole.

"You'll have to catch me first," I said before taking off running towards Erwin for some safety.

Erwin just took one look at me as I hid behind him. He looked up at an angry Levi who was marching over towards us and he looked back down at me. "I'm not going to save you," he said and I looked up at him.

"Please, he's going to murder me," I begged.

"Do you see how many knives he has, no you're on your own," he said moving out of the way."

"Oh shit." I watched as Levi looked down at the knives on his jacket almost like Erwin just reminded him about them. "I am so dead."

"Levi went to pull a knife out but I don't know what happened. It slipped out of his hands and instead of using his powers to catch it I watched as he tried to catch it with his hand.

"Son of a bitch," I heard him curse as the knife sliced the palm of his hand.

Play time was over. I saw blood dripping from his hand and ran over to help him. "Hey idiot why didn't you just use your power to catch the damn thing?" I asked but rather than me teasing him my voice actually sounded worried. I looked around for anything that I could use to help stop the bleeding.

"Go find Hanji, she'll help," Erwin said from behind us. "I'll tell Pixis you'll be right back."

"See kiddos this is why you don't play with Knives," Ymir said to Thomas and Marlowe as Levi just rolled his eyes.

I held his hand and used my jacket's sleeve to try and stop the bleeding despite Levi's groaning that it was going to get dirty. It's not like I can't clean it before tonight besides you're more important than a stupid jacket.

On the way up the stairs we passed Pixis who gave us a confused look and I just told him that Erwin would explain. He nodded and kept going. Wefound Hanji in the dining hall with Molbit. They were casually talking while they finished there breakfast.

"Hanji," I called getting her attention.

"Hey-" She looked up and gave us a smile before the smile dropped and she furrowed her brow. "Levi, were you rolling on the floor or something? You're all dirty."

"Um, actually we need help fixing his hand," I said before moving my hand away to show her his bloody hand.

"Oh my god what does Pixis have you guys doing down there?" she asked mortified before running over to us.

"Not Pixis, just bad luck," Levi mumbled. He sounded really but hurt probably because he fumbled his own knife in front of everyone.

Hanji fixed up Levi's hand and offered to wash my jacket for me while we went back to practice. I gladly accepted and handed her my jacket. We went to clean the blood off of our hands before heading back down the stairs and Pixis walked up to us with a disappointed look on his face.

"Oh here comes the lecture," I heard Levi mumble.

Instead Pixis just came up, put a hand on Levi's shoulder and said, "I hope your string of bad luck ends before the mission tonight."

"I hope so too," Levi said, glaring at me a little.

Pixis just nodded and headed back to the rest of the group giving Levi a pat on the shoulder before he went.

"I'm sorry I won't give you any more shit," I said slipping my hand into Levi's. "You actually really scared me when I saw how much you were bleeding."

"I'm fine, you can stop with the worrying," Levi rolled his eyes but leaned his head on my shoulder for a minute. "I am glad you are going to stop being a little shit though," he said and I felt the urge to talk back but I held my tongue.

Instead I just said, "Well for today at least."

He just rolled his eyes and walked towards the rest of the group pulling me along by my hand which he refused to let go of.

"Alright, everyone ready?" Pixis asked, looking at us. He smiled a little when he saw us holding hands. I think he's just glad we aren't "fighting" anymore.

"If you can even call it that," Levi mumbled under his breath. "It was hardly a fight."

I know right, I was just being a dick for the hell of it, I thought trying not to laugh.

"We're ready," Levi said giving him a nod.

"I'm ready," Petra said.

He nodded and handed me the flashlight. "Alright we are going to do the rest of the test before seeing if Petra can make a tunnel big enough for the whole team as well as if Levi can keep it covered." Pixis said.

"Okay we're ready," I said and he had everyone back up again we were about to start when he spoke up.

"Hold." he said before walking up to me. "We need to figure out a way around the light so look for that while you are down there, we are going to do this test run with the lanterns turned off up here while you go down so we can see just how much you can see the lights up here."

"Okay, will do," I said, making sure to keep that in mind. He had everyone turn off the lanterns and I noticed that we are going to need the light on for the above ground entry too.

"Shit," I mumbled before looking up at Pixis who was nothing more than a silhouette in the dark but I knew he must've had a similar realization when I saw his silhouette's hand pinch the bridge of his nose.

"I will come up with a way to work around this too, but this first run is just a basic test," I called over to him as I turned on the flashlight. That should by me a little more time. The last thing we need is him pulling the plug on this mission.

"Alright," let's do the run through then," he said with a hesitant sigh.

We went down and covered it over. I could see a lot better in here and it was easier to see where the dust particles were when Petra and Levi moved them around. "Alright Pixis come stand over the tunnel," I yelled out of one of the holes.

"Be ready," I said to Levi as I heard Pixis walking over.

I knew the second Pixis stepped on the tunnel cause it started to cave ever so slightly before Levi moved his hands. I could tell he started holding it up. Well that answers one question. No the tunnel will not stay up by itself so yes every time someone walks over it Levi will have to hold it up.

"I figured as much," he mumbled.

"Well that's one thing figured out we just have to figure out what to do with the light and what to do with everyone else." I sighed.

"I mean the light has an on and off switch, so that solves half of the trouble," Levi shrugged.

"And when the light is on is when we are making the tunnel and when we are moving inside the tunnel," Petra noted. "Why don't we just make the holes last instead of at the beginning?" She suggested and I had a hard time following.

She saw my look of confusion and told me to the point the light at the roof of the tunnel where there wasn't a hole. "We have Levi cover us with a solid hole and then when you turn the light off I make the holes by picking little spots with my fingers and quickly turning where I want the holes into gas particles and then quickly back into a solid particle. It would stop everyone from breathing in the gas particles and it would give us holes to breath. The only issue is having everyone hold their breaths for an extra few seconds," she explained.

"I mean I think it will work but we have to check if everyone else is okay with that," I nodded. "Now I just have to figure out how to hide the light like while we open the first tunnel."

"What about having Erwin mask it with the portals? Ya know like he hid us when we did the other recon mission?" Levi suggested.

"That only worked because of the trees hiding where the portals were. In the open desert it will be very hard to hide," I sighed.

"Well I'm sure we will figure something out, besides we still have time we still aren't even sure if we can pull this off fully yet so while we figure that out you think more about the light issue yeah?" Petra said, patting my back.

"Okay," I nodded. Levi opened the tunnel back up and I walked over to explain the things I did figure out to Pixis while Levi and Petra got the others filled in with their ideas.

"So we are still figuring out the light issue for the first part but the rest of the light issue has been fixed?" He asked double checking.

"Yes. I just need a little more time to come up with something," I said and he nodded.

"Okay, I believe in you, but maybe we should also see if the others have any ideas?" he suggested.

"That would be great, we need all the help me can get with this one," I nodded. We walked back over to the rest of the group.

"We will be taking a short break to let Petra and Levi catch their breaths while we all brainstorm this issue," he said having everyone take a seat so we could discuss this.