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Ch.63- "Metamorphic"

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The question of what to do with Annie Leonhart was bound to come up eventually. She was a potential source of both information and power, gathering dust within the catacombs of Mitras. The remaining veterans of the Survey Corps looked quite out of place, their dress greens not only clashing with the dull brick walls but also the dull beige of the stationed MPs' uniforms.

"You're a cunt, Hange. You just had to drag me with you two- you know I don't want to see this bitch, but nooo, you gotta make sure to put me in a bad mood before the ceremony." Hange scoffed.

" 'Put you in a bad mood'- you wake up in a bad mood."

"Maybe 'cause I know the kind of shit I'm gonna have to deal with…"

"Hange," Erwin interrupted the two. "I know I can't ask for an exact percentage, but give me a rough estimate of how sure you are that this isn't going to backfire spectacularly on us."

"Ninety eight point…" Their lip twisted as they considered it for a moment. "Five. We've estimated that the crystal is about point-six meters thick around Annie's face, maybe a meter around the abdominal area. I'm not trying to shatter her- I just want a specimen of the actual crystal."

"And you really think that dinky little hammer is going to work?" Levi's face remained as bitter as it had been when they first set off down the multitude of stairs- his voice contained enough of a sneer to give it a visual illusion.

"For what I need? Yeah, it should work fine. Cleavage planes, my dear Levi."

"What do titties have to do with rocks?"

"Ah ha ha ha. See, this is why bringing Thomasin in as a consultant was a good idea; she understood that we're dealing with more than just Titans and that our niche area of expertise won't do us any favors in the long run. Stonemasons and lapidaries understand more about the structure of rocks than a Scout ever will, and even if Titan hardening isn't stone, it has enough similarities to it to at least attempt to apply similar methods of deconstruction. You cut diamonds with diamonds, ergo you cut Titan hardening with Titan hardening, and you break it along the cleavage planes." Twisting their wrist, Hange gave the hammer they held a small twirl.

At a glance, it looked no different from any ordinary hammer a laborer would use. At least, in the gloomy dark of the catacombs. When it caught the light, however it was obvious that it had not been crafted of iron. It was not smooth, its surface rough, chipped in the places where it had been shaped. Strips of leather were braided around the section Hange held, denoting a handle, and the rest was coated in a fine black powder that seemed to have rubbed off around the head, leaving sections of brilliant white that were almost painful to look at directly in the dark. As they finally stepped into a chamber that was decently lit, the section commander let out an almost contented sigh, a sigh they reserved for their test subjects.

"There she is, the Crystal Cunt… at least we can tell for certain that her crystal's composition isn't exactly the same as the Reiss crystals."

"How can you know for sure?" Levi asked. Hange gave him a look, gesturing at the transparent mass with both hands.

"Because it's not glowing. I thought maybe it gave off some light that we couldn't see because of the sun reflecting on it at the time, but if it did, there would be signs of illumination on the floor. Alright…" They smacked the hammer against the palm of their free hand as they approached. "Time for you to start earning your keep around here, Annie…"

Hange waltzed forward with the same carefree attitude they always displayed when approaching a captive Titan, but stopped about half a meter from the crystal. It wasn't that they paused or hesitated- the movement was jerky, their right foot partially raised. They remained still for only a second, moving faster now as if to make up for lost time. Erwin had been expecting Moblit to pull them back, too- he could practically hear the man's voice echoing in the chamber, Section Commander, be careful before you lose that other eye…! But there were no other Scouts there besides the three of them, only MPs with their fingers slowly inching towards the triggers of their rifles, visibly flinching with each high pitched "tink!" of crystal tapping against crystal.

This was the first time Erwin had gotten a good look at the thing. It didn't look like any natural stone he'd ever seen- just as with the crystals beneath the Reiss chapel and the hardening that made up the Walls, there was something off about the texture, as though it were something completely man made desperately trying to be natural. The flat facets of the Titan crystal did not refract light the way a cut natural crystal would, meaning that though Annie's form was slightly distorted, there was no sparkle. It looked more like a piece of cut glass than an actual crystalline structure.

There were so many questions regarding the girl (monster) at the front of the chamber, chief among them being whether or not she was conscious within her self-made prison. The question Erwin wondered personally was whether or not the crystal was permeable. If she were alive, it would stand to reason that she would need to breathe, meaning there would have to be air penetrating the seemingly solid surface. The easiest way to find out would be to submerge the entire thing in a deep tub of water and see if any bubbles rose to the surface, but that could potentially kill her, and unfortunately, they needed her alive. For the time being.

"It's disgusting, isn't it?" Levi's voice was usually quiet, but now, he spoke as low as he could without dipping into a whisper. His eyes were trained on the figure immobilized ahead of them. "Watching this monster sleep like a peaceful little baby… I thought, 'maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm overreacting. She's a kid, she was just doing what she was trained to do by Marley…' but then I really thought about it. I thought about how, despite Bertholdt and Reiner having had multiple opportunities to kill people at every turn, they didn't do that. Not directly. They caused deaths, but their strategies were mainly being defensive and retreating. And you could say that the Armor's impervious to our blades and the Colossal's too big to be hurt, but they still fought to incapacitate rather than kill. One swat of this bitch's hand, and she would have incapacitated any soldier that got too close to her- that's what she did with Mikasa and Jean and Armin… but with everyone else, she went out of her way to crush them…" The lieutenant's thin chest rose and fell rapidly under his coat, his nostrils flaring as his eyes widened. "Marley didn't train this demon to toy with her prey, they didn't train her to revel in the slaughter; they sought out a wolf and let it loose amongst a flock of lambs." Erwin walked to Levi's right side so that he could lay his hand on the man's shoulder. He could feel the trembling.

"You can't kill her, Levi. We need the Mimic's power."

"I don't want to kill her- I want this bitch to look me in the eye and tell me how much fun she had killing my squad before before I crush her spine."

"Hopefully, she'll be forthcoming with that information…" It took Hange a few more moments before they rose, arching their back until it popped faintly, and practically skipped over to their comrades. The hammer was stuck into one of the deep pockets of their coat, and their hands were filled with crystalline shards that caught the light of the torches and glowed like flame.

"Look! These are gonna be fun to play with…" Levi's anger retreated to depths unseen.

"Two-eyes, I swear if you start crushing those things and snorting it… I will steal it and sell it to nobles in the Interior." Hange quickly shoved the shards into their other pocket, wagging their finger disapprovingly at the short man.

"It's practically glass, Levi- that could kill someone."

"I have no scruples and want money- that does nothing to dissuade me." It was Erwin's turn to fix his lieutenant with an incredulous stare as they made their way back to the surface.

"You're earning almost three hundred Sinas a month with your bonus; what can you possibly need more money for?"

"I didn't say I need it; I said I want it. Not everyone is content to live on unleavened bread and room temperature water like you, Erwin. It might be hard for the two of you to understand, but I actually wanted more from life than to fight Titans until my dying breath."

Wanted.

That past tense felt like a punch to the gut, and judging by Hange's expression, it didn't hurt them any less. Even so, they quickly fixed their grin back in place, putting into the world what they hoped to get out of it.

"Oh yeah? And what's Humanity's Strongest Soldier planning to do when all the Titans are gone and he's rendered obsolete?"

"Retire. Preferably far away from your crazy ass."

"Aw, you know you'd miss me…"

"Yes; however would I live without my daily dose of shitty glasses stench?" Hange leaned down, draping an arm around Levi's shoulders. He didn't shrug them off.

~o0o~

Erwin stared at the carpet at his feet. He couldn't be entirely sure, but he had a feeling it was new. The patterns seemed different, but maybe that was just because his vision wasn't blurred by pain and exhaustion and all the broken capillaries in his eyes this time around. It would make sense for the Crown to replace it- the last time he'd been here, kneeling on it, he reeked of blood and sweat and piss and vomit, and none of those smells came out easily. He forced his head up. The throne remained where it had been, but the chairs the Assembly used were gone. Maybe they were somewhere in storage, or maybe Zachary had commandeered them and was turning them into art installations.

"Commander?" He blinked and the world flashed. A glance to his side revealed Floch standing there, brows furrowed and lips pressed into a thin line. "Are you alright, Commander?" This was not the time nor place for the full truth.

"…the last time I was here, I was being sentenced to death for a crime I didn't commit. That's the most egregious thing about it; I committed plenty of crimes, but they chose to fixate on the one thing I didn't do."

"But… you won in the end. The old regime is rotting in prison while you're being honored by the rightful queen."

"We 'won' in Shiganshina, too, Floch- does that make you feel any better about what transpired that day?" He sighed deeply, turning away from his memories and looking past the nobles and commanders ignoring them, towards what remained of his Legion. "How many battles can you lose while still claiming the war was won?"

"Is that… a hypothetical question, or do you actually want an answer, sir?" He blinked, thoroughly surprised, and turned his attention back to the red-haired boy.

"Why- do you have an answer?"

"Not a definitive one…" Erwin's attention remained piqued.

"But a personal one. Go on, then; tell me." Floch looked away from him, his gaze scanning the throne room, seeming to linger on the queen surrounded by her guards for a moment before ultimately settling on his fellow recruits.

"I'd say… as long as you can wake up without wishing you hadn't, the war's not over. As long as you still have that glimmer of hope that things can be better, that you can make them better, you still have more battles ahead of you. But the moment you decide that it's not worth it anymore, that you should just give up and die… that's when the war's lost. So I guess to answer your question…" The eyes that looked back up to meet his were hard but burned bright with an internal flame. "…just about all of them, as long as you're still willing to keep fighting." Erwin stared into those eyes for a moment, before chuckling wearily. He laid his hand atop Floch's hair, slightly mussing the already unruly nest there.

"You sound just like me when I was your age. Oh, the tenacity of youth…"

"Forty's not that old, sir."

"…I'm thirty three, you little--"

"Erwin. Floch." Hange gestured to them over the heads of the crowd. "It's time."

Historia forsook her custom uniform for more queenly raiment, the long silk gown she wore appearing solid white at first glance. It was only when the light caught on the shimmering fabric that one could see the intricate designs woven into the thread. It was the same look the impostor king had adopted, or more accurately, had been made to adopt- a simplicity the likes of which the common people could never afford. But there were no common people present in the throne room; this was not a spectacle for them the way the coronation had been. This was simply the military patting itself on the back, only this time, it was the area of the lower back that the arms never seemed capable of reaching before that moment.

The guards behind Historia all held open cases, and within each sat bars of iron, wrapped in silk. Each case held the same two bars, one blue with silver borders and the other four equal sections of alternating yellow and green. But some cases also had more. One of Hange's blue bars had a gold border around it, while one of Levi's was completely gold, save for the short sides' crimson stripes. Erwin stopped his eyes from wandering, keeping them forward, staring at the open case in front of him. It was larger than the others- it had to be to hold all the bars. If the queen had to pin each of those pieces of metal to his coat individually, they'd be there all day (it wasn't like the other commanders had anything to do, but he had an upcoming mission plan to go over). So they stuck them all together in a block of gaudy, clashing colors and patterns that made him want to groan at the sight of it, so he could only imagine what other people were going to think. They had to give him all these honors now that the old, corrupt regime had been displaced, awards for meritorious deeds he had performed years ago. After all, how would it look if they continued snubbing a Hero of Humanity?

Just from the way this guard's hands sat lower than the rest, he could tell the block weighed a good five ounces. As Historia stopped before him, pausing to lift the metal plate and open the large pin on its' back, Erwin stiffened. Not because the damned thing was massive- if he fell on that, it was going to go right into his pectoral- but because the best way to not be taken aback in case something happened was to prepare even if it didn't. He stared past the young queen's ear as she struggled to make the hideous badge of honor sit straight on his coat, swallowing the sudden influx of bile-tinged saliva flooding his mouth. Just as she had with every other Scout, she offered Erwin her hand, a golden signet ring on her pinky bearing the crest of the royal family, branches and roots exquisitely rendered even in miniature.

He wished he'd worn a glove as his hand touched hers

he could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins, his lungs and legs and eyes burning as his heart nearly beat out of his chest. He could have run faster, his legs were longer, but that would mean letting Annie out of his sight and if there was one Titan, there could be more, and Reiner took off so fast and Marcel

and he dipped his head

"It's your fault this happened, so own up to it!" her foot came down on his head again and again and Erwin flinched each time because he could hear the bone fracturing, but she wouldn't stop, her voice raw with anger and pain and fear and he was scared too- "Marleyan or Eldian- they're all just in it for themselves!" they were all alone and there were Titans and Marcel was dead and he didn't know what to do

and lightly pressed his lips against her knuckles

the light blonde hair was darker, longer, stained with dirt and blood and vomit and he held her in a choke hold, long powerful arms paying no mind to the nails scrabbling at them, drawing blood beneath the cloth as pale eyes grew dark and bloodshot and frothy saliva dribbled down full lips

"Reiner is dead," Mike rasped, blood flowing over his swollen lips. "If we need Marcel, then he's who I'll be…" and all Erwin could do was watch and feel the tears run down his cheeks, mixing with the sweat and dripping into the dirt because he was bigger and stronger than both of them but he couldn't make his legs move or do anything but watch as Thomasin's thrashing grew weaker, her hands falling limp on the grass

"Stop it… let her go…"

"Commander?" He blinked hard, drawing his hand back and placing his fist back over his chest as he felt the moisture run down his cheeks. Wiping it away would just draw more attention to himself, and attention wasn't what he needed right now. Erwin listened to the queen's speech in a daze, his mind kilometers away… about fifty, if his calculations and Bertholdt's memories were right. He could feel eyes on him, mostly Hange's with at least one of Levi's thrown in to make it a pair, but they had to remain where they were, kneeling with their fists over their hearts, the perfectly trained and dedicated paragons of humanity Her Majesty lauded them as for the next several minutes. By the time they were allowed to stand, Erwin felt as though his knees had locked in place, and he wasn't the only one judging by Hange's staggering.

"Erwin!" Their voice was as much of a shout as it could be while still being a whisper. "What did you see?"

"A memory--"

"No, really?" Levi's voice dripped with condescension. "Here I was, thinking you'd caught a glimpse of the future. What memory- be specific."

"Something… recent… ish. From five years ago, before they reached the Wall. It was… right after Ymir ambushed them. They lost the Jaw Titan, their leader, Marcel… Annie wanted to go back, but Mike wouldn't let us--"

"Who?" Erwin's eyes snapped open. He hadn't even felt them close. His officers were both staring at him as though he'd grown a second head during his speech. "Did you mean… Marcel?" Hange asked uncertainly.

"What?"

"You said 'Mike'," Levi whispered. " 'Mike' wouldn't let us… but you meant 'Reiner', didn't you?" Hange reached out, grabbing his elbow, pulling him closer to block out all the other voices around them.

"Erwin… tell us exactly what you remember. Don't tell us what you know happened- tell us what you remember." He swallowed again. That bile had a metallic aftertaste.

"I remember being terrified and feeling weak and worthless… watching my friends try to kill each other…"

"Your friends," Hange reiterated, and he nodded, his head feeling painfully swollen. "Your teenage friends. Reiner is blonde. Annie is a girl. I don't know this Marcel--"

"He was a brunette." It made his stomach churn, how readily he had that knowledge. It was still fresh in his mind, seeing the fear in his eyes as that demon crushed his skull… The section commander didn't smile, but there was an almost smug look in their eye.

"How much do you want to bet that if you experience another one of these memories where this Marcel is alive, you'll remember him as Nile?"

"No. That's insane- Eren doesn't experience memories like that--"

"Are we sure? Let's ask him. Oh, Eren!" He could practically hear the boy rolling his eyes, dragging his feet as much as he could without it being blatant insubordination.

"Yes, Section Commander?"

"When you were experiencing the memories of the other Attack Titan holders, what did it feel like?" Pure confusion ate through petulance like acid.

"Huh?"

"I mean- wow, this is actually kind of hard to put into words… Okay! When you saw or felt things that, say, your father experienced, were those things familiar to you, Eren Yeager, or were they only familiar to Grisha Yeager?"

"…what?"

"You saw Shadis in one of your dad's memories, right?" Levi asked him.

"Yeah."

"And you recognized him."

"Eventually--"

"I'm not talking about 'eventually', I mean when you experienced the memory the first time. Did you recognize him as Commandant Shadis, or as Keith Shadis?" Eren's thoughts were racing, it was obvious behind his eyes as he struggled to pick through decades of memories to find the answer.

"I don't--"

"Stop thinking and answer, Yeager!"

"Keith!" Eren blurted out, loud enough to draw attention from the other soldiers in the other branches, but none of the Scouts paid them any mind. Their attention was solely on Eren, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes as his harried breathing slowly calmed. "I recognized him as 'Keith', but I didn't know who that was- that's why I didn't recognize him as the Commandant until later…"

"Is that how it is with all the past holders' memories?" Erwin asked quietly, earning a weak nod.

"Yeah… even Freida…" He lowered his hands, his gaze scanning the room and settling on Historia, who was watching the group from the corners of her eyes. "…it's hard to look at her and see a queen when I've got the memory of a snot-nosed gremlin in my head…" Slowly, emerald eyes drifted back and met cerulean. "So it's not like that with you?" He raised his voice before anyone could interrupt him. "No one ever thought to ask me about whose perspective I see memories from before. All these new questions only crop up because something weird happens with you and you want to double-check with me to see just how weird it is."

"Well, that's the joy of having two Titan Shifters on hand!" Hange was filled with excitement, and it seemed only a small portion of it was faked. "That way, we can have a control group--"

"And who exactly is that?" Hange gaped at Eren, and the boy returned their look. "I think you may have forgotten that I have two Titans inside of me, one of which is the Founder, so am I the normal one or the deviation?"

"Well--"

"There's also the fact that Commander Erwin is old. Older than most Shifters, at any rate. They're generally dead with their Titan passed on to someone else by his age, so does that factor into who gets to be the control group?" It seemed that Eren was trying to needle Hange by picking holes in their little project, but given that he hadn't even known them for a year, it was forgivable that he wouldn't realize just how much Hange loved having people genuinely engage with their Titan obsession, even negatively. They beamed at the young Shifter, squealing softly and taking his face in their hands, squishing his cheeks.

"Look at you, Eren- accounting for variables I didn't even consider! You got so smart in jail; I've never been so proud! Oh, we're gonna have so much fun with the next round of experiments once I drug Erwin and kidnap Thomasin!"

"Hange, so help me--"

"Is that even gonna work?" This time, it was Levi bringing up the unaccounted variables. "I mean, do normal drugs even affect Shifters? We know they can be tranquilized because the Interior MPs knocked Eren out when they kidnapped him, but who knows what kind of shit they were using? Not us, that's for sure."

"I know! That's where Thomasin comes in- making things like that is literally her job--"

"Was her job."

"Same difference!" Hange pulled their hands back, crossing their arms over their chest and closing their eye, reviewing the catacombs of their own memories. "When we were trying to figure out what the serum was, she kept bringing up things like 'binders' and 'stabilizers'- I think she has some idea of what needs to be done to turn raw spinal fluid into serum, but, well… life gets in the way." They opened their eye just long enough to glare at Erwin. "You could've done all that hanky-panky five years ago so that by now, she'd be ready to work and provide us with an assistant, but noooo, you just had to drag your feet-- ow!" They flinched as Levi punched their arm (thankfully holding back enough so as to not fracture the bone).

"Don't talk about 'hanky-panky' in front of the brats, two-eyes; you wanna give these pubescent bastards ideas?" Hange brushed him off.

"If they're having sex, they're having sex and there's nothing we can do to stop them." The section commander turned to face the recruits, who all- Eren included- looked as though they wished they were anywhere else in that moment, up to and including inside a Titan's mouth. "Are you kids having sex?" Jean recovered first, his visceral discomfort morphing into exasperation.

"…do you really think we've had time for that in the last six months? With how ragged we've been run, the only thing I care about doing in my free time is catching up on my sleep." The boy's shoulders slumped, and as he exhaled, his entire body seemed to deflate, leaving him looking small and miserable. "I'm so damn tired all the time…" A soft murmur of agreeable tones washed over the other recruits. Levi's gaze was sympathetic. His words were not.

"Welcome to the joys of adulthood; it only gets worse from here. If you value what little rest you can get, I suggest you never strive to be promoted- you will spend the rest of your life cursing Commander Erwin's name as you spend every god damn waking hour filling out forms in triplicate because somebody in this room accuses you of 'wasting fuel' and wants to account for every squirt of it down to the gram and if he can stay up for forty hours straight doing paperwork, so can everyone else, apparently…" Erwin normally would have let that slide, but the weight of all that iron on his coat was pressing down on him, through cloth and skin and muscle, all the way down to the heart that lay beneath. Normally, he would not have had any reason to think about all the things he was being recognized for ex post facto.

"I'm so very sorry that answering to me is so tedious a task, Levi. I'll tell you what-" He leaned down, draping his arm over the shorter man's shoulder in a way that didn't look predatory at all. "From now on, you can take those forms directly to the Premier and you can personally explain to him why you and you alone account for nearly forty percent of our iceburst consumption. You can experience the unbridled joy of a ten hour long ferry-and-carriage round trip every month to head into Stohess to talk to him. That way, you can set your own hours. Doesn't that sound like fun?" Levi shrank away from him, something very close to fear in his expression.

"…that's not funny, Erwin- don't joke about that…"

"I can do you one better- I will do you the favor of making you a completely separate account, for both your fuel and your tea, so the Premier can see exactly how much money is being spent on you. And hopefully that account will never be made public because no one is going to accept that a single man is capable of consuming that much tea."

"He's bluffing, Levi," Hange said dismissively. "Don't listen to him; he tried that exact same threat with me when I restarted the Corps' Titan research, and it was empty then, too."

"Why don't you tell everyone here what happened when you conveniently forgot a 'crucial' piece of your canon prototype that I absolutely had to find funding for in the last minute, otherwise the mission would have been a wash out?" Hange's shoulders bowled inwards in shame, but Erwin would not relent, glaring at them until they reluctantly looked at the recruits.

"…he made me file my own taxes that year… without any help…" Connie frowned, tilting his head slightly.

"What are 'taxes'?" The acoustics of the throne room were lacking, but any Scout worth their mettle quickly developed a lung capacity beyond that of a standard soldier, as Jean was more than happy to demonstrate for the lingering crowd.

"They're taking how much of my money!?"

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A/N- *deep sigh* Stats are still completely down on this site, so I have no idea if anyone has read the last three chapters or if the notification emails are going out (thanks, devs, for automatically turning them off after 6 months. That'll really keep readers engaged...). I legit almost forgot to post today because of that.

We know there are taxes in Paradis- Pixis says they're constantly on the rise in the manga- and income tax is the only thing that makes sense seeing as they've lost a solid third of the total available property. I don't believe for a second that anyone in the 104th knows what "taxes" are (I don't believe most of the people living within the Walls are literate). Erwin normally files his Scouts' taxes for them because he's thorough like that (and them fucking up is just going to come back to bite him in the ass), but the man knows he can be petty and if you piss him off big time, he'll just hand you the form and if you end up in debtor's prison, that's a "you" problem.

And no, I'm not letting anyone who isn't a fucking commander wear a bolo tie. I'm not acknowledging that any kind of honor status symbol that Pixis isn't wearing in "Battle for Trost" exists unless Isayama himself explains why that jackass is wearing a fucking sash but Erwin isn't. The ties denote rank, the stones denote branch.