Levi Has A Pet
Summary: Levi has a pet, an unusual one, but it's a pet and he likes it with all of his dark little heart. It's small, undemanding and, most of all, clean. But it's a blast from the past and when word gets out, everyone wants it. Levi has to make sure his unique pet remains his and free. Eren, already done with this BS 2000 years ago, gets dragged into it. He's not complaining, despite his complaining.
Levi has a pet. It's an unusual pet, but a pet nonetheless, one that didn't require much to be thriving. It was small and clean and undemanding. And it can eat the dead skin and hair accumulating all over one's house known as dust, which was a big plus in Levi's books as far as pets go.
How did Levi Ackerman, former Captain of the Survey Corps and Humanity's Strongest from two thousand years ago, come by to have such a convenient little pet?
Well, it's a funny story, actually.
You see, one day, his uncle, Kenny Ackerman, his uncle's husband, Uri Reiss, his mother Kuchel Ackerman and his cousins Historia and Frieda Reiss all dragged him to the beach for his summer break the year he started primary school. Levi was not amused; he wasn't very fond of the ocean because it was dirty, all sorts of things took a shit in it and yet people kept trying to convince him the water was 100% clean; if it was, then why wasn't anyone drinking it? Sure, it's salty, but you can just filter out the salt! The salt gets used for various things, but the water is never stored and used by itself, instead left to evaporate on big salt farms so humans can harvest the salt and not use the water at all. So clearly Levi was at least partially right that the ocean was filthy!
Besides, Levi was never fond of the ocean. He'd been reincarnated with his past life's memories, unlike the rest of his family, so Levi remembered all too well the shitshow that awaited the Eldians from Paradis on the other side of the deceptively pretty looking waters. So, no, Levi almost downright hated the ocean and going to the beach was not going to change his mind, no matter what his mother thought. But she'd insisted and Levi was forever weak to his mother. She had a better life now, was healthier though never at 100% after managing to fight through lung cancer for the past couple of years, so whatever she wanted, Levi and Kenny indulged her.
The trip had been financed by Uri, who was too kind to be with someone like Kenny - which often made Levi wonder if the former King of the Walls really didn't have any memories like the others and made him question if he was really all alone in remembering that awful time in human history - and he'd brought his two nieces along. Frieda was seven, like Levi, while Historia was supposed to turn five that year. They were little annoyances and Levi didn't really like them all that much, even if Historia had once been his subordinate and Queen before she and a certain shitty brat had started plotting the veritable end of the world together with that ginger psycho.
It was an overall nice day. No one forced Levi to get in the water and Kenny was all too happy to start an all out water balloon war with him with the water from the nearby showers instead. They were both soaking wet by the time they had done, but Levi got the last laugh when his final balloon hit Kenny straight in the face. Honestly, it had felt good to have some fun with Kenny. Whether he'd wanted it or not, Levi had still seen him as a sort of parental figure in their past life.
And their playing only made his mother laugh and smile more, so that was always a plus.
Eventually, they went on the boat and were meant to spend the night on it so they can watch the stars away from shore. It was a cloudless, starry night and Levi was content with a full belly and warm clothes around himself. Then Kenny asked him to help him set something up, he was standing by the railing and Historia bumped into him, causing him to slip under and in between the gaps of the railing and straight into the no-longer pleasantly temperature water. Thing was, despite Levi not liking the ocean or even pools all that much - he'd seen one too many people pee or spit in them to ever trust even insane amounts of chlorine to keep them clean - Levi was still a great swimmer. And he would have just swam back up to the surface and stopped all the annoying yelling from above, but he'd dropped his mother's favorite blanket, so he'd decided to dive deeper to catch it before the currents took it away.
Turns out, their boat had drifted into a more shallow area with some rocks rising from the seabed. His mom's blanket got caught in some of the seaweed or whatever it was that was growing there, so Levi just snatched it up and swam back up just as Kenny jumped in, nearly taking him down under again. His uncle got a tongue lashing for that one, but Levi also got one from his mother for putting her blanket first over his safety. Levi didn't bother trying to reassure her that he was perfectly safe, since he knew she was just worried and instead let her fuss over him before he managed to escape for a warm bath, taking the blanket with him to wash it out since he's the only one in his whole family who knew how to clean properly. Not unexpected, but still a bit disappointing his teachings hadn't stuck with Historia or that his mother wasn't as meticulous as he was.
Anyways, that's all besides the point.
The point was, while Levi was washing the blanket out, he'd noticed there was something clinging to it. Something small and desperately trying to stay attached to the wet patches of the blanket. So Levi had fetched an empty jar from their beach snacks, gave it a quick wash and squeezed out all the salty water he could out of the blanket before shaking off the clinging thing into it.
On closer inspection, it looked a bit like a worm with tentacles as legs and spikes covering its back. It was whitish in color and the light seemed to reflect off of tiny scales like crystals in the most unsettlingly familiar way possible. Then it turned its head up and towards the Ackerman and Levi swore when he saw simple purple eyes staring up at him.
And then there was also the fact that it glowed.
Levi didn't need to be an expert in anything to know that this was the glowing 'centipede' they'd seen during the Rumbling, the one that had attacked him and his Squad twice in defense of Eren's Founding Titan form. It was the ancient creature which had merged with Ymir the Founder, had created the Coordinate and the power of Titans, the so-called 'source of all living matter'.
Levi had just found the thing that had started way too much of this world's bullshit and he was not happy.
However, he couldn't just throw it back into the water; he knew what it was, what it could do, the powers it could grant its host. He knew just how dangerous this little five centimetre glowing worm-centipede-thingy was. And he knew what human greed was like, what it could lead to.
So, ultimately, Levi took the shining creature with him. Told his mother he thought it was cool and wanted it as a pet. Kuchel had nothing against it, glad her son finally had a hobby of some sort besides training his body for fighting, running, horseback riding and climbing, all things she thought might be a bit too dangerous for her young child. Kenny thought it was just a phase all boys go through, finding worms and bugs fascinating.
The first thing Levi did upon getting home was finding a huge pickle jar to turn into an aquarium for his new 'pet', washing it and setting it up with some saltwater plants and some sand he'd picked up from the beach before the left. Then, he took a picture of the thing and posted it on a scientific forum, titling it with a simple, inquiring yet challenging "Who can tell me what this is?"
In return, he got a lot of compliments on his 'editing' and 'drawing' skills, because apparently everyone thought he'd created a recreation of a Cambrian animal species which has been extinct for millions upon millions of years and was still mostly shrouded in mystery. Still, he got some basic information on the thing: it's name was Hallucigenia sparsa, it eats the remains of living organisms that fall to the seabed and is, apparently, very good at surviving. The rest soon turned into scientists and weeds arguing with each other over whether he had turned the animal the right side up or if it should be the other way, but Levi didn't give a shit after he'd learned basic information for keeping that thing alive.
Whether he liked it or not, he was now the owner and caretaker of, as far as he knew, the only living specimen of a thought-to-be-extinct species which had, ultimately, brought about his own existence, the lives of his friends and all of the Eldian race, given they wouldn't have been Eldians had it not been for the Hallucigenia and Ymir Fritz. Killing it after all it had survived, no matter how dangerous it might be, just didn't seem right. Levi didn't want to be responsible for the death of what was basically one of the oldest, if not the oldest, living species and individuals on Earth.
So he took care of it. Occasionally fed it seafood, usually just dumped dust or fish food in its new habitat. He wasn't overly comfortable with how much it liked to eat the dust he collects around the house, considering that around 78% of dust inside a human residence consists of dead skin cells. Guess he discovered where the Titans' hunger for human flesh came from ... Other than that, the Hallucigenia was a relatively easy pet to keep. It cleaned up after itself, so its 'aquarium' never got dirty. And it easily adjusted to tap water, so Levi didn't even need to go to the sea or buy expensive filters and whatnot to get it salt water. It wasn't noisy and its shine in the dark was actually a bit ... reassuring. It reminded Levi of his past life, but somehow devoid of all the horrors he'd seen. It reminded him of the brief serenity he'd discovered within the Paths, as he'd stared up at the glow of the Coordinate, of all the Paths coming together into the source of life and connection of all Eldians.
He never showed the Hallucigenia to anyone but his uncle and mother. Not even Uri. He didn't know who might recognize it, be it as an extinct species or the source of Titan powers. Frieda and Historia managed to learn about it but he swore his cousins to secrecy if they wanted to get to 'play' with the Hallucigenia. He never left them alone with the thing. Levi didn't know if Titan powers, Ackerman awakenings and Royal Bloodlines were still a thing these days, but you can never be sure.
Life moved on, years passed, the Hallucigenia stayed on Levi's desk in his room and Levi even learned to like his 'pet'. It was a very weird, very much unusual pet, but it was a pet and he liked it with all of his dark little heart. It's small, undemanding and, most of all, clean. And he keeps it as a secret for ten years before Freida reveals it to the world in an attempt to get money for Uri and Kuchel when they fall sick one after the other, Uri's heart slowly giving out on him and Kuchel having a relapse with her lungs. Uri is from a well-off family, so they have enough money to pay for both his and Kuchel's treatment, but Uri's older brother, none other than Rod Reiss, is a selfish bastard who only cares about himself and had even dared to suggest Kenny ought to choose who he wanted to save: his sister or his husband.
So Kenny and Levi had started working their asses off in an attempt to get enough money to at least partially pay for Kuchel's treatment, both of them even joining shady businesses and deals to get as much money as they could. Levi entered an underground fighting ring while Kenny ... Well, Kenny earned himself the nickname 'The Ripper' all over again. Still, not enough money was coming in so Kenny let Rod employ him, which left a bad taste in Levi's mouth. It reminded him too much of the past.
Historia and Frieda tried to help them get by on a day to day basis, which is when Frieda thought up the plan to sell the Hallucigenia off to the highest bidder. She didn't know what it was, all she knew was that it was a rare species and that Levi probably shouldn't have even had it in the first place. So she put it on eBay and even on a black market secret page. She even offered it to a museum and a zoo. Very soon, the word of a live Hallucigenia started circulating in all the worst circles and Levi was suddenly flooded with prices and offers.
Levi nearly strangled Frieda.
"DO YOU EVEN REALIZE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!?" He snapped in a rare, almost unheard of moment of pure rage when he actually shouted. Levi never raised his voice. Historia and Frieda were, understandably, shocked.
But Frieda wasn't one to easily back down. "I HAD TO! AUNTY KUCHEL IS DYING, LEVI! IS YOUR WEIRD WORM REALLY WORTH YOUR MOTHER'S LIFE!?"
She didn't understand. She couldn't. Because she didn't remember.
She didn't know that she had ultimately set Levi up for a life on the run in an attempt to stop the world from ever rediscovering Titans and the ruin that could come from them.
It all started when, one day, government issued black vehicles appeared in front of Levi's house. He was up in his room, trying to rub off any dead skin cells from the tips of his fingers to feed the Hallucigenia since he didn't really have the money to buy fancy food and he'd run out of fish food last night and hadn't had time to buy more yet. He heard the screeching of tires and breaks, looked up from where he had been keeping a close eye on the shining creature, his eyes widened when he realized what was going on and then he felt a minuscule bite at his fingers, snapping his attention back at the little fucking parasite that had gotten him into this trouble in the first place.
The little fucker had bitten him.
Levi was tempted to squash it right then and there.
But it turned out to be a good thing, as when he'd packed up the bare essentials of some cash, a change of clothes and a bottle of water, as well as the Hallucigenia's now sealed up jar-aquarium and made his way downstairs to sneak out the back, he found himself surrounded by special ops squads all pointing guns and rifles at him as though he were a drug dealer or a serial killer or something.
"Give us the Hallucigenia and no one get's hurt!" One of them, probably the commanding officer, had called out and Levi knew it was all bullshit. So he took out one of the smoke bombs Kenny had invested in for the purposes of his new 'job' and tried to make his escape. There was shouting and gunfire but then Levi found his way being blocked by cars and he casually flipped one with a single hand to get it out of his path before running far faster than anyone Levi had seen do in this time and age. And as his senses sharpened and a sort of power started buzzing through his body, Levi knew one thing for certain: his old Ackerman abilities were back.
Which meant that this Hallucigenia wasn't just the same species as the thing that had created all things Eldian; it was the Hallucigenia which had created all things Eldian. This was the Hallucigenia which had supposedly died with Eren Jaeger, but it clearly hadn't.
This thing, indeed, had the power to turn people into Titans.
Levi suddenly had one thousand more reasons to keep the thing out of anyone else's hands.
And he was suddenly ten times more equipped to do so.
He spent two years on the run like that, hiding and running, evading and protecting the Hallucigenia from the ever growing number of people interested in its mysteries. He'd had to deal with far too many different people for his liking, from scientists, to soldiers, to special operation units to fanatics to conspiracy theorists and even some religious nut-jobs who thought he was trying to 'upstage the Church' or something. As if Levi didn't have a million better things to do than bother with the Church. He hadn't liked the Wall Church and he sure as hell didn't need another religion to tell him what he should or shouldn't do with his life. Especially as he knew their preachings were all very questionable, especially after his past life and the shit he'd seen happen then.
He had a few weird encounters with the people from his past life, both people he'd known personally and people he'd only seen from afar or maybe talked to once or twice. Nile had led that first raid on his house and Zeke motherfucking Jaeger seemed to be in charge of a CIA secret science division that wanted to take the living Hallucigenia from him. Thankfully, neither of them had their memories. In fact, so far, Levi had yet to meet a single person from his past life that did have them. If he were a person of a weaker will, he'd question his own sanity long before he'd found the pesky parasite, but ever since the thing gave him back his Ackerman abilities, he had no reason to doubt.
Life on the run wasn't fun, at all. He had to settle for shady motels, never stayed in one place for too long and he'd even had to smuggle himself on a cruise ship to get to a whole different continent in hopes of escaping his most persistent pursuer, the Monkey. Though he wasn't any safer in Europe, either, and he thinks the different climate might not actually agree with the Hallucigenia. It hasn't been looking too good since they got off the ship in the UK and the MI6 were a bitch to run from, especially with none other than Erwin Smith leading the hunt on Levi. Ending up in Spain would have been the best thing he could have done for himself and the glowing menace, if only he actually knew how to speak Spanish well enough to get by. He knew he should have paid more attention in class.
At least he found a shack by the coast where he can hide and he has his improvised fishing gear, so he can get both himself and the Hallucigenia some food. If Levi's ever been thankful for anything to have passed from one life to the next, it was his memories and skill sets, because he would have probably starved to death while on the run without his old survival and pickpocketing skills. And he was actually very grateful to the Hallucigenia for giving him back his Ackerman powers; he'd come to rely on them quite a bit since coming to Europe meant a whole ton of new problems had arisen, as he was chased not only by secret services, militaries and various countries' police departments, but also by a whole lot of new criminal organizations and mafias and who knows what else. He honestly felt like he was in one of those cliche action flicks and he was sick of it.
"You're a whole lot more trouble than you're worth," he glared at the Hallucigenia in its fancy new carry-on aquarium. An asshole in France had actually managed to steal the Hallucigenia from him for a while and had delivered it to some crazy scientist, who'd put it in an almost science-fiction type of container and had been ready to set off for China or something had Levi not interfered and taken the Hallucigenia back. He kept the container after checking it for tracking devices and bugs because the thing was sturdy as hell and he didn't have to worry about a jar breaking while he runs around when people are shooting at him. It was also bulletproof, so it could be used as a good body armor.
Gosh, he misses the days of 3DMG and Titans. Things actually made sense back then. Actually, scratch that; things were even more fucked up then than they are in this new world and time. And he definitely didn't miss the Titans. Maybe a certain two or three Titan Shifters, but not Titans themselves. But he did miss the 3DMG; escaping all of his pursuers would be tens of times easier if he still had it.
But alas, he had to settle for normal transportation just like everyone else. Which is a whole lot more difficult when you're on the run.
All passengers for the train from Barcelona to Calella, the train will leave in ten minutes. I repeat, all passengers from Barcelona to Calella, the train will leave in ten minutes, went the announcement over the speakers, thankfully in Spanish, English and even French. Levi sighed in relief at hearing he won't have to stay in such a big city for much longer. Calella was a tourist spot, but it wasn't all that big despite having some spectacular beaches, clubs and hotels. Levi could easily keep a low profile there until he decides where he should go next. He knows he'd probably be safest in Africa, but he's not sure if he could keep the Hallucigenia alive in its weather conditions and the fact that he'd have less access to food than usual. Yes, the Hallucigenia could go weeks feeding off of only Levi's dead skin cells, but he could still get it some other food, too. And he needs food himself, too, not to mention they both needed water. The Hallucigenia had adapted to fresh water instead of salt water, but Levi wasn't sure if it could survive if he accidentally changed its water with some land fresh water full of chemicals that could be lethal to humans, let alone something as small as the Hallucigenia, no matter how many powers this little piece of shit has.
It's why Levi was aiming to reach Asia. Preferably Japan or China. He has a pen pal in Japan and he's sure she could help him find a place to stay and China simply has too many people to worry about an illegal immigrant willing to make a few bucks in underground fighting rings. Levi would probably even become a favorite, considering he doubts there's anyone left on Earth who could match an Ackerman even with steroids and whatnot going through their veins.
But that's a worry for another day. Right now, he just has to go buy a train ticket from one of those convenient dispensers. It's why he chose Spain, really, even if he didn't speak the language. People here have automated about 75% of all transportation. Levi just had to let the conductor check his ticket, he won't be asked for his name or destination or anything.
Spain's also one of the cheaper places in Europe where one can buy fake IDs and other such documentation, which Levi really needs if he wants to get further than say, Italy or Greece. International and especially intercontinental flights are off limits, but he could at least board a ship.
"Let's just get this over with, huh?" He said to the Hallucigenia before he tucked its container into a cloth bag since his old backpack finally ripped after two years of strenuous use. A backpack is one of the first things he's getting once he gets off that train. As he was making sure the damned bag can actually endure the portable tank, he bumped into a brunette woman who immediately started apologizing to him in rapid Spanish that Levi couldn't make heads or tails of. Not that he was listening.
He was too busy staring at a far too familiar face. "Excuse me, but ... Do I know you?" He asked the woman, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. It was a familiar face alright, but also not quite. He'd simply seen a face like it before. Tan skin, brunette hair, large eyes, slightly thicker but shapely eyebrows ... The only thing out of place was the eye color. It was honey-gold and while Levi had certainly seen such a shade temporarily take over the eyes of the face he was familiar with in certain lighting, usually near a source of fire, they had always looked more gold than honey.
"Oh ... I don't know ... Now that I think about it, you look familiar, too," the woman said, in English this time, but that wasn't as comforting as Levi would have thought. Because, no, he wasn't supposed to be familiar to anyone. When he'd left home, he'd had jaw-length hair and glasses. That's the last time anyone had had a clear look at him. But the Hallucigenia's little trick of returning to him his Ackerman abilities fixed his eyesight and he'd gone back to his preferred undercut several months once he'd had to run away from home. He even often wore contacts to cover up the change in color his eyes went through, no longer the clear blue they'd been before the stupid worm had bitten him but instead once again that silver-blue he'd had as Humanity's Strongest Soldier, which was a distinguishing feature of his but thankfully everyone else seemed to think that color was a product of contact lenses. He often wore fake braces on his teeth when he was staying in some town or making a new fake ID.
This woman shouldn't be familiar with him at all.
Not unless she was-
"Mom, come on, or you'll miss your train!" A sudden, all too familiar voice called out and Levi and the woman turned around at once to face the approaching tall, young man with long, silky brunet hair, tan skin and mesmerizing oceanic green eyes. Levi felt his brain stall as he realized why this woman looked so familiar but yet not completely. She was the mother of-
"Oh, Eren! Ah, yes, I'm going now," the woman said, still sticking to English, smiling at her son, who had frozen as he registered who was standing beside his mother on a random metro station in Barcelona, gawking at him in just as much surprise.
"Levi-heichou?"
"Eren?"
"You remember!?" They both asked at the same time, still staring at each other with wide eyes. The woman, who must be the famous Carla Jaeger, just looked between the two of them before smiling.
"Well, it seems like you've run into a friend of yours, sweetheart! You don't have to worry yourself over escorting me to my train, I know my way around." That snapped both men out of their trance and both protested that Eren should escort his mother to her train but she waved them off and mock-sternly ordered them to catch up. As she turned to walk away, she winked at her son teasingly and singsonged at him. "And you better bring your little cutie over the next time you visit home for break or I'll have to play detective and get to know him on my own!"
"M-mom! It's not like that!"
"That's what they all say~!" And with that, the woman was lost in the crowd of other passengers, leaving one Levi Ackerman alone with one Eren Jaeger, the first person Levi had ever met from his past life to still have his memories intact.
The moment of stunned and awkward silence between them was broken when a honestly terrifying warbling hiss kind of sound came from Levi's cloth handbag and they both looked down at it, Eren in confusion and Levi in mounting worry. "Uh, Heichou, what was that?" Eren asked when the hissing wouldn't stop no matter how much Levi kicked the bag to shut the damn Cambrian living fossil up. "Oh, am I holding you up? You probably have a train to catch. And considering you're on this level, it means you're going out of the city ... Have you been here this whole time, though, in Barcelona? I can't believe we've never run into each other ... You look ... Good. Really good. And younger. But you still have those dark circles under your eyes-"
"Eren, will you please shut up and get us someplace private that we can talk about?" Levi asked when he realized there was no shutting the Hallucigenia up. Twelve years with this thing and never once before has it made a single sound, but now it's suddenly throwing a literal hissy fit. An idea occurred to Levi. "Wait, hold this." He unceremoniously thrust his bag into Eren's unsuspecting hands and he nearly dropped it but reflexes kicked in and Levi glared at him for the near miss. Not that anything would have happened, that container was near unbreakable, but better safe than sorry.
The hissing stopped.
"Oh, screw you! Twelve years! I feed you and keep you safe for twelve fucking years and this is the thanks I get? Fuck you, you shitty glowing parasite!"
Eren just gawked down at the container peeking out of the bag. "Heichou, what-?"
"Do you have anywhere we could talk in private? Preferably with some food? Also preferably with a wide range of choices that includes seafood and that's not too expensive. Oh, and do you have a backpack I can borrow?"
"What is going on?" Eren asked even as he started leading the way.
Levi ran a hand through his hair. "I'll explain later."
