~ Long Story ~

Annie actually jumped and made a quiet squeal as he kicked the shield out of her hand and leaned closer, stern voiced more than she'd ever seen him before.

"I... Its a long story." She bit her lip, looking around and then taking a deep breath.

"It all started when I was three years old." She began, weaving a story of how she grew up in the slums of a vast city, she told of the two races who lived in her homeland; the descenders of Ymir, the people whom had once ruled the land but had been overthrown by their servants.

Now cast into ghetto's, they were treated like lower life forms. When she was only a child, her parents sent her to a camp where she was taught to fight, to kill and to make sure that she could win any fight.

Out of the hundred young girls, she was the only one to survive, all the rest had died either by each other's hands or by the tests given to them during their training. Annie explained to him of one girl she knew from her neighbourhood strung up on barb wire for three days just out of reach as machine guns pinned Annie down in a ditch no bigger than her own body, a single movement brought a bit of her into reveal and the machine gun would fire at her.

She explained what a machine gun was, she explained everything he asked her about. She seemed to know more about technology than anyone inside the walls.

One day she was brought out with several other boys, taken and stripped naked

"You will become the finest warriors of our great nation. To destroy the one's inside their walls and bring us that vast bounty of land!" She repeated in a high and mighty voice, the General had told them as they were injected and kicked into a pit, each in their own pit.

She explained of the pain, the excruciating pain as her body transformed into a Titan for the first time, her body reacting without her will, unable to control herself. She consumed another person, a girl of around 25 to 30, a previous holder of the Female Titan. She tasted human flesh and felt herself change, shift. When she woke, she had been naked again, Human and naked.

"They called me 'The Female Titan', I was chosen to be the Female Titan. I saw photographs of myself... a photograph is an image, like a painting..." She continued to explain technology as she explained it.

"I was a monster.. A Shifter, a weapon, given the power to change..." She explained to him and sighed. Over the few hours they spoke, she needed food, water and at one point passed out mid-explaining what a ship was.

When she woke, she would continue to tell him what ever he wanted, her journey to the island, their journey to the walls. Watching as one of her fellow warriors turned into the Colossal and the Armoured Titan. She then snuck into the walls and watched as people were eaten.

She was tasked with finding a single person, they knew who it had originally been. "His name was Grisha... I worked out it was Eren's father not long ago. When I heard about Eren transforming... I had been so stupid. No idea that the person I'd been training with for years was the one I was hunting."

"I joined the military to get into the Military Police. My Goal was to get near the King." She told him firmly. "He would know where the prime target was, but when I heard it was Eren. I went after the expedition."

Spitting, she sipped her water with her one hand. "I got close but that damn girl almost killed me. Mikasa, Eren's little love-toy." Annie scowled. "She almost killed me with that little Imp of a man Levi."

"So you know the story, I'm part of your race but you and your entire wall dwelling people are filth, less than me. I was chosen to be a destroyer, to get rid of our people, to make sure we never rose up again." She was crying now, mostly from her visible eye but also from her missing eye which still continued to steam like her leg and her arm.

"So, you going to kill me yourself? You can strangle me, decapitate me. That will definitely kill me."

Matias stayed quiet as Annie began to explain everything and to his credit remained that way as all the bombs were dropped. The descends of Ymir. Two races. Lower Life forms. He sat on the ground in silence and absorbed this information with an expression hidden by the dimness of the light in the cellar. A part of him wanted to scream to the heavens to wake up from this nightmare, but that was overshadowed by another part that wanted to listen. Matias stayed quiet

As Annie moved into her own personal history he was finally able to gain the clarity in her personality and actions that he'd been missing in the time they'd spent together. It wasn't that Annie didn't care, but she's been trained and molded to not care. The smile he had seen on the flowerbed was probably whatever remained of the three year old girl that was turned into a solider. Pity and anger both swirled in the pit of his stomach, but he kept it suppressed to focus on retaining the information about machine guns and these other pieces of technology.

Machine guns and photographs. They sounded like impossibly complex pieces of equipment, but the way Annie described them made it sound like they were as common as a piece of paper. When Annie passed out he was quick to leave the cellar to get the necessary water and food. Knowing that he would have to be clever about this, the officer changed into a plain shirt and a different pair of pants to make this look more like a late night snack. He'd bring a glass of water and an apple to the cellar and then give them to Annie as the story continued.

By the time that it got to the end he could feel his head pounding as it circulated the overload of information that it'd been given. In a way the whole thing reminded him of a twisted fairy tail that the shifters much like the monsters in those stories are forced into. Such a thought is what brought him to embracing the crying Annie in a hug and speaking with soft affection.

"No, Annie. I'm going to help you. You've done more than enough." With his arms still holding onto the small of her back he leaned back to face her with a smile. "From tonight onward your service as a warrior is going to end. And you're service for real this time as my subordinate is going to begin. With the first order being." He was quick to gather Annie up and put her on his shoulder as he stood up to his feet, the wounds she'd sustained easing her weight up quite a bit.

"You getting some sleep and recovering. We've got a lot to talk about once you're back at 100%" Although somewhat rusty with the military police's responsibilities, the officer was still able to lift them both out of the cellar door and in the darkness that the night gave them able to cleanly sneak up to his bedroom. Once they reached his own room he put Annie out of the line of sight of his window.

"As you've probably guessed the military police and survey corps are watching me. They'll relent at some point, but for the first few nights we need to be careful. You'll be sleeping in my room from now on. Never approach the window though unless I'm here, we need to keep the illusion that I'm the only one in this house." He demonstrated his point by calmly walking over to his lamp and blowing the heat away to blanket the room in darkness. "Now those outside will think that I'm going to bed, when really we both are. Now with that said... He turns to Annie in the darkness of his bedroom and points over his shoulder at the bed as he walks to his desk. "Feel free to take the bed. You need the sleep."

"I'm not done." She told him as he told her she was done being a warrior. "I failed. I failed and I want to go home!" She cried out into his shoulder when he picked her up, in pain but also in sadness; she'd NEVER been able to release any emotions, playing this double life she had to be firm and stoic.

"I want to see my father but I know he's already dead. We failed years ago, we failed to fight. Reiner, Berthold and I, we were all that remained. One was killed, eaten by a Titan when we came towards the city but we ran." She explained as he carried her upstairs into his room.

Settling out onto the bed, she bit her lip as her single eye looked at him.

"They will never stop hunting me. You're in danger keeping me here." Annie told him. "Once I am healed, I will be leaving. I need to report back to my commanders. Tell them of the technology you have made, the 3DM gear. We never knew about that. That your people forgot everything, or it was taken from you all."

However the moment she was placed onto the bed, she yawned, even though she passed out she was exhausted beyond measure. The last time she'd slept for two days, today she had expended almost everything inside her to try and escape, she would need way more than two days to recover now.

Passing into sleep, Annie was peaceful, she barely breathed at all and would look like a corpse if it wasn't for the slight smoke coming off her wounds as they regenerated.

Once Annie was actually asleep and he had checked that she wasn't dead, the superior officer took at seat in his chair and relieved the heaviest sigh of his life. He'd said what he had said to both close the conversation and to the best of his ability make sure that Annie could somewhat calm down. It was all a giant moral headache, the officer knowing that he can't allow her to leave with all that she can do to help humanity. But he can't give her up either without getting arrested and her getting tortured.

He couldn't even tell them all this information without getting asked how he knew about it. All he could do was stay silent and make sure that Annie recovered. Perhaps he might be able to sway her thoughts about reporting back to her commanders. Maybe she'd stay with him as...something. Looking over at Annie he recognised that all he had done went far far beyond a simple subordinate and friend relationship. This was something deeper, even possibly romantic as horrible as that sounded.

"Ugh. She always did say I was attracted to danger." The man muttered as he rested his head against his desk and let the exhaustion imposed on him by this entire day wash over him. He was quick to fall asleep and even quicker to wake up once the sun shined through the window.

His entire body ached from the horrible position he'd been in, but he was rested enough to continue with the day and make sure everything was at it should. He snuck over to his bed and turned on the light to make sure that it looked like he was getting up from there. After checking on the still slumbering Annie he wrote a note that read,

"When you read this don't go anywhere until I get home." and placed it beside her as he grabbed his clothes to get dressed for the day.

The day as it turned out proved to be less-hectic then he had thought in the military police headquarters. Most didn't know about the attacks and somehow were still going about their business, while others that did know were panicked and looking for a way to get moved to a different district. The survey corps had somehow gotten wrapped up in something else, perhaps the titans in the walls with how damaged they'd gotten in the fight as Annie had told him and went to investigate that. It made his activities rather lax and his shopping that day go by without a single issue.

What he grabbed on his travels was food and clothing, his acting skills coming into play when it came to getting feminine clothing that was hidden beneath bags of food. He'd already figured that Annie would want to go out at some point and made preparations with clothing that people would expect of a civilian instead of a solider. Of course this clothing couldn't hide her facial features particularly her nose, but that was an issue that he'd think about for a later time.

When this day ended and the next one began something absolutely amazing happened. The Armoured and Colossal Titan revealed themselves on top of Wall Maria. From what he'd heard Eren Jaeger was captured by them and the survey corps had given chase to get him back. Although this was incredibly bad, he was able to be a little relieved to know that the focus on finding Annie had lessened considerably. It made his shopping and glances at the slumbering Annie much less stressful then they had been.

Multiple days later when she finally woke up, he was actually waiting for her with a plate of pancakes and bacon with a side of fruit and water. He wasn't even dressed in his military uniform, but casual clothing. After the identities of the armoured titan and colossal had been revealed, a lot had happened to the political world. To sum it all up the military police and garrison are trying to get rid of the survey corps and execute Erwin.

Those in the lower barracks like him have been allowed to do what they want, in his case it was to skirt his duties all together and become a ghost. He's been helping Takeo at his food-stand to keep himself busy and far enough away from the military police and their machinations. Whatever is about to go down there he wants nothing to do with.

"Morning. You've missed quite a bit." He places the plate and tray down with a fold of his arms across his chest with a serious expression. "Your other comrades revealed their identities and have abandoned the walls. You're the only one still here."