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.

"You guys sure you want to stay here?" Armin asked as he waited in front of the car Mikasa had sent for them. He was going back to Mikasa's safe house with Pieck, Gabi and Falco, who wanted to reunite with their Marley friends and see their Paradis allies, but Levi was adamant about staying with Hange and, well, for some reason, Eren decided that he goes where Levi goes, therefore staying with Hange, too. "I mean, Mikasa's place can offer more security and there's more of us to help out in case something happens."

There's also more of them whom Levi would have to keep an eye on, making any potential fight that might break out all the more complicated and harder to concentrate on than if he only had to look after himself and potentially Eren or Hange. Or Moblit, who had left that morning to get some things from his own apartment but had insisted he'd be coming back before lunch and that he'd be staying with Hange until this whole Hallucigenia thing was sorted out. Hange had actually swooned at his protectiveness and Levi didn't tease her about it, just glad that even without memories, it was clear Hange will always be the first one in Moblit's heart and priorities. But that was beside the point; Levi had entered this 'adventure' alone and while he might have regained his old comrades along the way, he sure as hell wasn't going to drag them into this shitshow now that it was getting real.

And it really was.

Erwin was probably scouring Tokyo for Levi as they speak and if Erwin knew he was here, it wasn't unreasonable to assume that other organizations know, too. Levi was now a living, breathing bullseye target and he refused to let his friends and comrades experience the hell of battle and war in this life if he can help it. He'd already failed once, when Mikasa's men betrayed them during the car ride from the airport, but he won't let it happen again. Mikasa and Jean were getting married, for fuck's sake! Tomorrow! There is no way Levi is going to risk their lives at any point in this new life, let alone the day before their wedding day!

Besides...

"We're safer here," he said seriously. "From Mikasa's wedding attire shopping spree," he finished with a smirk that had Armin laughing and Eren and Hange snorting. "But seriously, though, we'll be fine. This place has a far lower profile and it would be easier to escape or fight in if it ever comes to that. Besides, Hange and Eren are actually the only ones besides myself, Mikasa or Annie who bothered to train themselves in this life as if they were meant to fight like in our last. In a house this small with far fewer occupants, three trained fighters makes a whole lot more difference than in a bigger space with more people, even if the number of trained fighters would be a total of five."

"Yeah, I guess we would be too big of a group to protect with just five people, even if technically we all know how to fight. None of us had really trained our response time or reflexes. We don't have the necessary muscle memory," Armin conceded. "Man, we really let ourselves go, huh, Levi-heichou. You must be disappointed," he said in a teasing tone but Levi still shook his head and replied seriously.

"I'm glad you didn't have a reason to train to fight for your lives, Armin. You've done enough of that two thousand years ago."

"So did you," pointed out Gabi from the car with a displeased frown but Levi just reached in and ruffled her hair now that she was, again even if temporarily, shorter than him, seated in the backseat of the black car.

"That's just how it is for some people and I'm one of them. Mikasa is, too, partially. It's in our genes, even two thousand years later. It can't be helped. But maybe after we've dealt with this Hallucigenia thing, we can all find some real peace, in this life, too."

"We'll be holding you to that," Pieck said with a smile. "It's about damn time someone has better abs than one of you Ackermans."

"No chance in hell," Hange and Eren chimed in, making everyone laugh. After that, there was no more delay. Eren and Armin hugged, Hange waved at her this-time-around cousin and housemates and Levi just nodded at them all before the car drove off. Then the trio went back into the house and into the 'strategy room', also known as the tea room, and just sat down and stared wordlessly at all the things Hange had spread out to show them her research.

Hange was a real genius. She was majoring in several subjects, from robotics and engineering to marinology and geology to linguistics and history. Her majors were mixed into dual projects, of sorts, and were revolutionary as far as the world was concerned. Her knowledge of things Paradis and Marley had developed, of the resources they had once possessed and utilized and of the Eldian language from two thousand years ago lent her an advantage she was all too clever at using to gain herself the financial resources needed not only to continue her research and studies but also to find herself and her cousin, as well as their two other housemates they had known from two thousand years ago, a place to live, food on their table and the clothes on their backs despite being practically the same age as Levi this time around. She had her life together and all figured out and Levi kind of envied her as much as he was glad for her and proud of her.

He was glad she wasn't like him: without finished formal education, jobless and on the run from just about every government in the world.

"How'd you even figure out what it eats?" Hange asked and Levi looked up from a book he was idly reading to find Hange's focus was on the Hallucigenia, who was just calmly floating about in its container. Levi wondered if it possibly resented him for taking it from the sea only to put it in a glass vessel and keep it as a fucking pet. Eren said the thing was intelligent beyond their comprehension or imagination and if Eren had shared his mind with it for even just a second, then surely it, too, had become intimately familiar with Eren's drive for freedom. How did it not try to kill him two years ago instead of giving him back his abilities?

Then again, since it's intelligent, the Hallucigenia had probably known what other humans might do with it if they got their hands on it, whereas Levi might just give it back its freedom if he had a safe way to do so. Which is the goal, the endgame, they were all trying to figure out as of now.

"Well, it actually eats almost everything, but I first fed it with seaweed and such things before finding out it likes dead human skin cells when some dust fell into the aquarium I kept it in back at my house. That turned into its most common diet after I had to go on the run since there were times I could barely feed myself, let alone my little 'pet'."

"You don't look too scrawny to me, though," Hange observed and Levi rolled his eyes, pointing at Eren.

"That's because this brat and Arlert practically stuffed me with food every second of the fucking day, especially on the weekends when they stayed at home. The others seemed to have picked up the trend when we met up."

Eren shrugged, not looking guilty at all despite Levi accusing him of forcing him to eat. "We all owe you a lot, so we just wanted to take care of you the way you've always taken care of us. If showing care is a crime then we're all guilty as charged. Besides, you looked way thinner than when we first met, let alone the way you were after we took over the whole of Paradis and suddenly had meat for everyday rations."

"I'm a scrawny teenager, Eren."

"You're nineteen. I remember being nineteen, in both lives, quite well, Levi. You seem to have a high metabolism and fat just won't stick to you and- why are you smiling?"

"You finally dropped the '-heichou'. About damn time, really."

"Is it so wrong to show respect?"

"It is if the person in question already asked you to drop it."

"Geez, you two bicker like an old married couple!" Laughed Hange, absolutely delighted by their back and forth. "But Levi's right, you know? It's considered rude to decline the intimacy of one's given name if they tell you to call them by it. Or at least it is here in Japan, anyways."

Eren sighed and nodded and that seemed to be that. Whether the brat will stick to it, though, remains to be seen.

They basically wasted the day away, not having anything in particular to do after their consortium of brains that morning. It wasn't until lunchtime, when Levi caught Eren videos phoning his mother, that he approached Hange with his request.

"Of course I didn't forget!" The woman had exclaimed when he reminded her. "It's not such a complicated thing to do, so I'll get right on it, shorty!"

"Thanks, Hange," he said as she beamed at him as she started hacking the US government's medical files. Eren was watching them with a gentle smile before he reached out and boldly took Levi's hand.

"You're finally going to find out about your mom, huh?"

"Guess so," Levi replied, letting his hand be where it currently was. It was actually comforting, which was probably Eren's intention to begin with. Levi was thankful for the support even before he got any sort of news. He'd never liked thinking about it over the months and months he didn't return home, but the question of his mother's health had always haunted him. Because, despite everything, in the face of possibly losing his mother to an illness for the second time, Levi became the same helpless child rotting away beside his dead mother's body.

"Nervous?" Eren asked knowingly, still with a fond little smile, gentle and reassuring and utterly beautiful, if Levi was being honest with himself. It brought back memories of 'simpler' times, when Eren was someone Levi was supposed to protect from the world rather than the other way around. Of times when Eren was so eager to please, so eager to see the ocean, so eager to go outside the Walls and face the world out there, no matter how Titan-infested. It made Levi regret ever having taken that Eren for granted, even for just a second. That Eren was precious, he could still smile so genuinely that it hurt to look at him.

"I wish I could say no," Levi admitted, surprising all three of them with his honesty. Hange had even stopped typing just to glance up at Levi over their laptop, but she didn't say anything, returning to her task at hand. "I guess I just don't want to imagine what she would have felt like if I wasn't there when she-"

"I'm sure she would have understood, either way," Eren tried to reassure but Levi gave him a bitter smile at that.

"It's not about her understanding or not. It's about me not being able to help her when she needed me the most. Again. And this time, I don't have the 'excuse' of being a child to help me sleep at night if something had happened to her. Considering everything she's ever done for me, I should have been a better son."

"Well, good news, then!" Chirped up Hange, whirling her laptop around so Levi can look at the screen. "You have plenty of time to make it up to her as soon as we deal with the Hallucigenia!" Levi just stared at the medical record of how his mother fought through cancer a second time, immeasurable relief washing through him and making him sag against Eren, who was grinning at him softly while Hange beamed. "She's a fighter, your mom. The doctor's notes say it's a miracle she survived, but a nurse's account states that she 'refused to die before she sees her baby again'." Hange cackled as Levi flushed with embarrassment at his Maman's affectionate antics. "Also, it's remarkable how similar you and your mom look," she commented as she scrolled the page until his mother's picture was on display. Eren leaned forward to presumably marvel at how Kuchel Ackerman might as well be a female, long-haired version of Levi while Hange cast him a curious look. "Was it like this last time, too, or...?"

Levi nodded, unable to look away from his mother's beloved face. "Yeah. Sometimes I think Kenny only took pity on me because I look so much like Maman, but I guess that's not entirely plausible considering I looked nothing like her the first time we met, all skin and bones as I was."

"Oh, speaking of Kenny and your other relatives!" Hange interrupted before he could say more. "There's a whole scandal underway regarding the Reiss. Apparently, Rod did end up paying the full medical bill for both Levi's mom and his own brother, but it took a heavy toll on the family's overall wealth. Rod seems to have even made some enemies among the loan sharks but is somehow, mysteriously, being left off the hook. I have my theories about that-"

"Kenny," Levi said with absolute certainty, a rage rising within him the likes of which he hadn't felt since his last life, since Zeke turned his last squad into Pure Titans. "In exchange for my mother's medical bills." Kenny liked to act cold, crazy and aloof to outsiders, to strangers, but he was a big softy and pushover for his family, his sister especially. Kuchel came first, then Levi and then Uri. Uri had always been surprisingly okay with that, with his place in Kenny's and the Ackerman's lives in general. Kenny would do anything for his few loved ones. Levi hated he hadn't been there to prevent his uncle from having to do Rod's dirty work for him.

"Well, yeah. Anyways! Seems like Historia tried to take over the family company and fortune to prevent them from bankruptcy but also from descending into the world of crime. Uri took her side. Frieda, however, took Rod's. The other kids are still too young to have a say in these things, but the Reiss are feuding over the company and other such things. The problem seems to stem from the fact that Uri gifted a good few of his shares to a nephew-"

Levi gaped at that.

"-but Rod is trying to undermine him and Historia by dragging in a cousin who also has shares in the company. Guess who?"

"Dina Fritz," Eren said with certainty and Hange nodded.

"Well, Dina Jaeger, nee Fritz, but yes." It was a correction all three of them ignored, even Hange who'd made it.

"Well, shit. It seems like we're cousins, Levi." Somehow, Eren manages to both sound sarcastic, deadpan and actually upset by the idea.

Levi gives him a strange, well deserved Look. "Eren. Shitty brat. Don't be a dumbass. I think Floch's dumbassery actually managed to rub off on you in the hour he spent here. Dina may be Uri's relative, but I'm not actually related to Uri, nor are you related to Dina. Uri is my uncle's husband and Dina is your stepmother at most. Not to mention that the Fritz must be some twice removed cousinry shit or whatever, since they've never come to any of the gatherings Uri usually held for family, like Thanksgiving or the Christmas party the day before the actual holiday. We're not fucking related, get that bullshit out of your little brain."

"That aside!" Exclaimed Hange, for once uncomfortable by weirdness. "It seems that with Dina's support, both sides have 45% of the shares. This means that Levi probably has 10% of the shares of one of the most successful companies in America to his name!"

"But why would Uri give Levi 10% of his shares? Doesn't that contradict the basic point of having a business, mainly meaning you should hold at least 51% to have control of a company at all?" Eren asked and Levi closed his eyes as though in pain.

"Uri must have transferred some of his stocks to me while he was sick. Probably so we'd have something to fall back on in case the sickness wins that battle." Uri Reiss was too pure for this world, too good, too kind. He did not fit in with the other Reiss, not one bit. "He probably gave it to me instead of Kenny because he knew Kenny would be distraught by his potential death and, well, let's face it: Kenny hasn't changed much; out of the two of us, I'm more likely to keep a cool head in a situation such as that hypothetical one."

"And since Levi's officially the stock holder now, Uri can't just take the stocks back," Hange mused.

Eren narrowed his eyes. "This doesn't sound promising." And Levi had to agree. If Rod had Kenny in some sort of debt for paying for Kuchel's treatments, then Rod will probably try to use Kenny to settle this dispute in his favor. And the only way Kenny could do that ... "Great. So we have to be on the watch out for Kenny, too. As if all of this wasn't heart enough. Though, I do warn you in advance, Levi, that I am not going to hold back on him this time around if I run across him. I still owe him for the shit he put me through when he kidnapped me and Historia."

The Ackerman snorted. "Eren, please don't try to mess with Kenny. He might not be as strong or as bloodthirsty as he was two thousand years ago, but he's still skilled way beyond an average person or even a professional fighter and just as hesitant to do illegal shit if push comes to shove. In fact, he's been dealing in some shady business or something since Maman got ill again to try and make ends meet while paying for her bills. I don't know the details, because he was at least careful about that, but I was still the one who did practically all the house chores so I can tell you there's been quite a few times when I've had to scrub blood from his clothes or even our floors. I don't know if Rod had him doing his dirty work for him before I had to leave, though."

"Kenny worked for Rod Reiss even before this dispute?" Hange asked with a frown and Levi nodded.

"Since my mother got sick again. I told you we couldn't pay the bills and Rod first tried to make Kenny choose who would get their treatment paid for once he took over the Reiss finances when Uri got bad enough that he wasn't allowed to do any strenuous or distressing activity. Kenny refused, so we did a lot of shady and questionable things to get enough money for the treatment for Maman. I joined an underground fighting ring and was there almost every night of the week, while Kenny earned himself his old moniker. At some point, Rod probably found out just how far Kenny is willing to go for those he lets himself love and he employed Kenny. As a bodyguard, at first, or I think so. I can't quite say how honest Kenny was when he'd informed Maman and I of that job offer. It became easier to pay for things a while after that, at least, but I still hated that Kenny was working for Rod again. It reminded me too much of how things went last time. And this time, I will eviscerate Rod Reiss if anything happens to my uncle because of him. I didn't keep him from dying of food poisoning all these years from his attempts to 'cppk' just for Rod to get him fucking killed."

"So we definitely have to look out for Kenny. But what are the odds of him coming to search for you in Japan? And while we're on the topic of our weird as fuck families," Eren said. "Is there any mention of Zeke in the Reiss vs Reiss-Fritz debacle? We need to know if he's busy with other things or if he's still at large and potentially a problem."

"Good thinking," Levi complimented and Eren all but beamed at him. The shorter of the two rolled his eyes.

"Actually, there's another article questioning Dina about that," Hange replied as she opened a different tab and showed them. She came around the table so they were all able to see the screen at the same time as she explained. "It seems that Dina has publicly expressed distrust in Zeke's 'ability to know how to properly and safely manage the family company's stocks', saying that he wasn't entrusted with any share of the company and never will. Instead, if anything were to happen to her, her shares, according to her will, will be divided between her cousins, her husband Grisha Jaeger and her eight year old daughter."

Eren's eyes widened. "They had another fucking kid!?" He yelled, making Levi and Hange flinch from the loud noise right next to their ears. "What the fuck!?"

"Yes. Faye Jaeger," Hange replied and scrolled to a picture of the whole Jaeger family. Or, well, the other side of it, excluding Carla and Eren, of course. It was a recent picture, Levi could tell, because the last time he'd seen Beardy, Zeke would have earned the nickname. Now, standing between his younger sister and what must have been his grandmother, the blond Jaeger brother had a clean shaven face and looked almost five years younger. The little girl who was beaming at the camera while clutching her brother's hand had huge grayish green eyes, short brunette hair and chubby cheeks and could only be described as adorable. "It seems to have been an unplanned pregnancy."

"That's my father's baby sister," their Jaeger breathed. "She died when she was this age, back in Liberio. One of the Marleyian fucking Public Security Authorities officers had dogs tear her apart. Kruger killed him when he was about to turn Grisha into a Titan on Paradis."

"Kruger?"

"Eren Kruger," the other Eren answered Levi's inquiry. "The Attack Titan before my father and me. My namesake, I guess."

"Is this him?" Hange asked as she pointed at a man in the picture standing beside Grisha and Dina. "I mean, the tags say so, but I wanted to make sure."

"Yeah, that's him alright," Eren said with a snort. "The Owl himself. Willing to sacrifice fellow Eldians for the oh so grand Eldian Empire."

"Aren't you the same? And aren't you the one who influenced him to do so?" Countered Hange in the coldest tone she'd used against Eren in this or the past life and Levi watched as the two brunets had a glare-off, Eren's usual anger coming to the surface as though summoned in a demon ritual or something.

"You are mistaken, Hange-danchou." Hange actually flinched at her old and last rank. "I have never beaten up an innocent child for the sake of a lie. I have never let an innocent child be torn apart. And I most certainly have never sacrificed Eldians for some grand ideal of a fucked up empire that was the Eldian's supposed golden age. I never believed in restoring the Eldian Empire. All I've ever wanted to do was rid this world of Titans and I've stayed true to that goal to the end. All I've ever wanted was to keep my home and my people safe. And my people are the people of Paradis and the world would not let us be safe and happy and free. The Rumbling might have been extreme, but it was the only way and I won't regret it. It's the only choice I could have made which I wouldn't regret. Couldn't. Can't. I only regret what it has forced my beloved comrades to do in order to stop it, to stop me. I only regret the lives of our comrades that were lost when Floch and you guys fought each other. I regret your sacrifice, Hange. But if I were to be put in that exact same situation again, I would do it all over again if it means my loved ones can live long lives and try to be happy. Free." He took a deep breath to calm himself. "So no, I most certainly did not influence everything Kruger or any other person did. Not the way you all seem to think I did or could do. You have no idea what it takes in order to influence someone's choices in any way. Controlling Titans can be tricky enough. Humans and especially Shifters, even the Attack Titans, are a lot more complicated."

Levi was tempted to leave the house while these two hashed it out, but he feared there might not be a house left standing by the time they were done, judging by the tension in the air. He guessed it made sense that this is the topic they clashed over. Anything related to the Rumbling could have triggered the two to finally hash some things out regarding their moral standpoint on that mass tragedy. Levi was honestly over it by now. He may have been with the team that had stopped Eren, but the Rumbling had already done it's job. All those who were a threat to Eldia have faced the terror of Eren's protectiveness and rage. The continent where those enemies had lived on had been all but purged of non-Eldian human life and who knows how far that destruction had spread. By the time Eren was stopped, it was a moot point to even try, yet he'd gone along with it, because that was his duty and his promise.

But ultimately? Levi couldn't truly begrudge Eren his actions, because it had, in the end, given meaning to all the fallen Scout's sacrifices. It had taken a good few years before people stopped fearing Paradis, but its people could move about freely, without the fear of Titans breathing down their necks, or a hateful world looming over them, ready to take even more from them than the Titans ever did. And it may not have been the right way to do things, but Levi had to admit it was the only way. Paradis was a danger to the world but the world was a danger to Paradis. The question was: who would first turn into a monster and destroy the other? Eren wasn't even the first one to make that choice, Willy Tybur was. But Eren was the first one to act on it. And that's what went down in history.

It's funny how the incompetence of past or present leaders forces the youth to do dangerous or unspeakable things. It's no excuse for any crime that might be committed, but no war started because of a singular reason, by a single person. There is always more behind it than history will ever record because, unfortunately, it is all too true that it is the winners who write history, or at least their side of the story is the one that is widely accepted.

History is, unfortunately, a string of lies, stories, events and concepts people agreed upon to be the truth. Whether they actually happened the way people tell it today is always up for question. Perspective changes the story in ways you wouldn't believe.

Levi had always been aware of that. Perhaps it was his Ackerman side which couldn't be affected by the King's brainwashing, perhaps it was his natural cynicism, but he'd always doubted the history that was widely accepted within the Walls, since it made no sense that humans had enough time to erect fifty meter walls over vast distances if they were constantly being attacked by Titans. Then, they had started learning a lot of shit when Eren came along and he was proven right. That view of history and a widely accepted narrative at all carried on into this life, too, making Levi as skeptical of politicians and widely-consented narratives, including modern day history. The fact that Paradis didn't exist in the collective recollection of the world as a factual place but rather a myth only cemented his beliefs and after reuniting with Hange and finding out everything that seems to have happened ...

It all made this argument Hange and Eren were having seem moot. What was the point? Why argue? No one is ever innocent in war. The first second someone's blood is shed, both sides have sinned, even if it was only one person who shot the bullet or swung the blade. War was the worst creation of humanity and they were, unfortunately, far too talented in making it deadlier, crueler, more inhumane.

It's why the Hallucigenia must never again fall into human hands. The power of Titans had proven to be overwhelming even against the most modern of war technology of Marley, which had been very close to the technology people have developed during and after the two World Wars. Today, there were even more Eldians than two thousand years ago, it seems. Even just a speck of Eldian blood would be enough for an Eldian to be turned into a Titan. If someone were to start the Rumbling in this day and age ...

His train of thought was interrupted, as was Hange's and Eren's ongoing argument, by the Hallucigenia's freaky hiss-screech, snapping everyone's attention to the Cambrian animal. It looked rather distressed and Levi was instantly on alert. The Hallucigenia had a keen instinct for survival, as it turns out, according to Eren. The last time it was even remotely distressed had been when it had bitten Levi and had given him back his Ackerman abilities so he can escape with it and protect it from other humans.

"Get up. Now!" He ordered, falling back into his old role as he took the container with his so-called pet and sprinted for the room he and Eren had been sharing, throwing the container into his ever ready backpack and slinging it onto his shoulders just as the front door was busted down. As soon as he heard 'Kitchen, clear. Living room, clear!' in English, he knew he was dealing with either Americans or English, meaning either Zeke or some other American secret service agency or Erwin and he didn't know which would be worse. Hange and Eren were already waiting for him on the balcony leading to the backyard as Levi quickly put on the gear Hange had reconstructed and grabbed them both around their waists before launching them across the backyard to the next house. The kid playing with a ball in his own backyard looked up and his little jaw hit the floor as he watched Levi do his best to correct his balance mid flight with two people of very different sizes and weights as his impromptu passengers.

"They're out the back!" Someone shouted, followed by more shouting - some orders, some directions - before he recognized the distinct and far too familiar sounds of being followed. The clanking of weapons and protective armor, the pounding of heavy boots, the grunts and huffs of air as people ran after him. Oh yes, Levi was unfortunately all too familiar with these sounds. In both lives, actually.

"Mierda! How did they find us?!" Eren exclaimed with a curse as he and Hange did their best to keep up with Levi's running stride and jump in time with him from roof to roof. Cars screeched through the peaceful streets of Hange's neighborhood, trying to follow them but Levi kept changing directions to confuse their pursuers while actively searching for a place where they could hide or he could drop off his 'passengers' so he may lead the fuckers on a wild goose chase before either taking off with the wind or coming back to them, whatever ends up being the safest option.

"Mike or Petra must have said something," Hange guessed and Levi would have to agree. Without their memories, Levi was just a person who had decked a police officer and acted all suspicious like. Surely, they would have reported his presence at Hange's house to their superiors and said superiors must have been working with Erwin or any other agency that was at the science fair scouting out young talented scientists for their own organizations, who would surely recognize Levi's description, even if vaguely, and send their troops after him. "Fuck, my research!"

"You're seriously thinking about that right now, Four Eyes?" Levi asked incredulously as he dropped down to the street when he heard a chopper join the chase. Great, just fucking great! Just what they needed!

"Levi, that research is about fucking Eldians, Paradis, Titans and, as of recently, the Hallucigenia!" She reminded and Levi and Eren both cursed at that. "Though, thankfully, I keep my personal notes in my old shorthand, so as long as they're not found by someone who remembers or was familiar with my shorthand back then, we should be fine. But my research materials are up for grabs as it were."

"The most important sources are in Eldians, so they still won't know what's really being said," Eren reminded as they ducked out of the chopper's sight until it past, before Hange suddenly started leading them in a certain direction.

"This way! There's an abandoned radio station where we can take shelter in! There was a big fire some years ago and no one ever bothered to fix it up, so no one goes in there anymore!" The two men don't make a fuss and just follow her, letting her lead the way as the building in question slowly comes into view over the rooftops of the houses. Levi doesn't try to move them along faster with the Maneuver Gear for fear of a helicopter spotting them and they were far enough away from their on-foot pursuers that they can't even hear them. The streets Hange was leading them through were even pretty narrow, so any speeding with a car would be extremely dangerous, if not outright impossible.

Hange had clearly planned something like this out. Probably in case someone came after her either because of her hacking or because of her genius and inventions.

Levi grit his teeth. He'd never wanted so many people involved in his shit. It had become his responsibility to keep the Hallucigenia secret, and he had failed. It had become his responsibility to keep it out of human hands, and he had nearly failed that, too. He should have never followed Eren that day in Barcelona. They should have simply parted ways; none of his friends and comrades would be in this mess right now if he'd just stayed true to his 'lone wolf' plan for this life.

Fuck Frieda and her good intentions! Fuck Eren and his stupid loyalty! Fuck Hange and her genius and stubbornness and friendship! And fuck all of his brats for their inability to leave one of their own behind!

"I'm calling Mikasa!" Eren declared, phone already in hand and pressing the speed dial and Levi couldn't even deny they might need her help to get out of this mess.

Fuck, they were going to practically ruin her wedding! Or was it already marriage?

Levi really wanted to regret meeting Eren in the metro that day.

He hates himself that he couldn't, even with this mess.

So he just kept running.