A Matter of Stature Chapter 20 (ReaderxLevi)

A Matter of Stature

Chapter 20: Truths and Negotiations

You tensed as you listened to the conversation going on beyond the closed door, between Levi and your father.  "I want the truth, all of it," you heard Levi demand.

"That is knowledge I do not possess," your father calmly replied.

"Then what do you know?" Levi insisted in a no nonsense tone.

"Not much," your father admitted, though that was a matter of opinion. "My brother in law may know more, but I would sooner die than show him ingratitude or provoke his wrath. Don't bother asking (Name) I made sure she never knew who her uncle was."

"The records shows that your late wife didn't have any siblings," Levi pointed out.

"He likes his privacy," your father replied with a tone of forced serenity.

"I'm not here to waste time," Levi reminded. This was getting really tense and you feared it would become violent. You didn't want them to fight, but how could you stop them?

"(Name) stop listening at the door and come inside," your father's words took you by surprise. The door was closed and you were very quiet. How did he know? "(Name), don't pretend you didn't hear me."

You opened the door and stepped inside. "Sorry," you apologized and joined them at the small table. Fabrics, sewing supplies and boxes were all over the room that was to become Melinda's atelier.

"It's alright, princess, I do wish you would grow out of this bad habit though, I fear that eavesdropping will get you into trouble one day," your father worried.

"Father..." You could feel Levi giving you a look of some kind, but you didn't look at him to see the details. "Am I invited to this conversation?" You pressed on.

"Yes, I'm sorry for keeping you in the dark, but a contingency plan presented itself and secrecy is no longer a necessity," your father explained. You and Levi waited for him to continue with the explanation, listening with attention. "There are people in this city who don't belong, people linked to the female titan incident. I have never met them myself, but as I'm sure you already suspected, they are within the walls. There is another group, they have no formal name, but they were basically double agents. Eventually they realized that the spies would not take them into their side, so they concluded that they had no choice but to side with humanity, or so I've heard. None of this is confirmed, but very likely."

"Those people somehow obtained a substance that could turn humans into titans, though only a limited amount. Most or all of them were supposedly killed by the spies, but the substance went from one hand to another, until it reached the black market. A gang got a hold of it and began to consider a super soldier project. The idea of having a titan fight for humanity was too radical at the time, this was well before Eren's abilities became known, perhaps before he was aware of them himself. So they tried to make a substance that granted regeneration and super fast healing that would be combined with rigorous training to create humanity's champions."

"My brother in law was a part of that project and, without my knowledge at the time, sacrificed many people to the failed experimentations. He only pretended to work for that goal though, a secret private army controlled by the darker side of Sina, the mafia if such a thing exists within these walls. His true goal was to cure his sister of the genetic disease that eventually killed her. Though I didn't know of his activities, I helped fund his research along with the mafia, so I feel responsible for it."

"The elixir failed to save my wife, and I learned of the atrocities. Yet, I didn't tell anyone, I simply decided to convince my brother in law to focus on normal medical research and I thought he listened. He didn't though, and the experimentation took many lives. Then finally, years later, he told me that there was a successful elixir, one that can make a person regenerate and immunize them against any illness without a permanent titan side effect. The titan shifting part was weakened, I'm not a medical expert, but from what I could understand, the formula included something to make the body clean out that part of the process, keeping the regeneration."

"Because (Name)'s immune system was weakened, it would take longer for her and she was at a greater risk of becoming a wild titan." Your father looked at you apologetically. "The problem is that because your body sees the titan shifting as a virus, it would attack the titan skin around you and it in turn would drain energy from your body to maintain itself. You would die within a few hours, after rampaging through the city. I had obtained information that Levi could retrieve a human that had gone titan. Surely he would want to interrogate you rather than kill you. I had to keep him close to you so he could save you, since we had no idea what triggered the transformation, and for all we knew it could be entirely random. I had expected this to happen, but miraculously, it seems that you managed to stay in human form."

He didn't know fear was the trigger, maybe it wasn't always the trigger, maybe it was random and this was something that happened only in your case. "What about Melinda?" You asked before you could hold yourself back. "The formula was tested on her first, wasn't it?"

"No," your father replied, a bit surprised by your theory. "Did she say that?"

"No, I just guessed," you admitted.

"Melinda was not the test subject, if she was, she could have told us how the elixir felt and what she thought caused each reaction," your father explain. "The test subject couldn't give anyone any information because he couldn't speak and by the time he was able to, it was all forgotten." You stared in confusion as your father continued. "I didn't know Artie or Melinda back then. When she was close to giving birth, she and Artie were attacked by robbers in Rose. You wouldn't recognize Artie if you saw him then, such a scrawny boy. That experience changed him though, not just physically. He trained to be strong so he could protect his family in the future and became determined to always be cheerful and not let anything get to him so that Melinda wouldn't be sad."

"Melinda did give birth and recovered, but the child was born in a very fragile state due to the hits she received from the robbers. Young Anthony wouldn't have been able to walk, he could hardly breathe. In desperation, they took the miracle cure that my brother in law offered and saved their little boy. I found out and resolved to protect the boy to atone for not having stopped my brother in law. Tony went through a seemingly random transformation stage, but because he was only a baby, his titan form was small and a little clumsy in moving, so we managed to keep him hidden in the basement of our old house. He eventually grew out of it and became a normal healthy boy. We knew then that the elixir had indeed been perfected and that's when we decided to give it to you."

"Obtaining the proper materials was difficult, even if my brother in law knew the formula. Apparently, there was only one sample of the original substance and it was a key component of the new formula. I don't know what the size of the sample was, but there was little of it left at that point and it had not been possible to figure out what was in it. That's when my brother in law took things into his own hands again, he offered the mafia Tony, a perfect candidate for the super soldier project, as he was young enough to be easily trained, in exchange for the last portion of the substance. He made the formula and it was delivered."

"The original sample of the titan shifting substance is completely gone as far as I know, the clue that could lead us to identify the spies linked to the female titan incident and very likely also Shiganshina leads to nothing, and the mafia is after Tony. The only thing left to do is to protect him from the life of a mercenary slave slaying titans for a reward, rather than for freedom. My brother in law wants to give him up, to calm the mafia and wash his hands of all this. With the money I gave them plus Tony, they'll leave us alone, but I can't let them have that boy. For all the people that I didn't help and for all the suspicions I willfully ignored, because all I could see was the hope of keeping my own wife and daughter alive, I must save this boy."

"Why not tell me the identity of your brother in law?" Levi spoke for the first time in a long while.

"He has no one identity, he can change his appearance as he pleases, he's a shape shifter, a secret that he discovered and refused to share with anyone but me. He said it would be too dangerous for the mafia to know that it was possible, that the formula for shape shifting would exist only in his mind and die with him. It's like a human sized titan, a human with an extra outer layer that has a different face. I don't believe you'd be able to capture him. You'll only get yourself killed if you pursue him."

"Are you saying that he could impersonate anyone?" Levi inquired with alarm.

"Yes, but not if you know that person. His copies are not precise, if you're familiar with a certain face and especially a certain voice, you should be able to tell there's something wrong." Your father explained, which at least gave you some small degree of reassurance.

"Is Tony hidden somewhere safe?" You asked.

"He's with Mona Lisa," your father revealed to your surprise. "Mona wants the glory of a hero for a son, so she's adopting him. He'll be trained, though in much more humane ways than the mafia would train him, he'll join the scouts when he's old enough and become humanity's new strongest soldier. Mona will treat him well, I'm sure she won't risk upsetting him, Tony is smart and determined well beyond his years. Once Mona is in power, she can keep him safe after taking command of the ninja clan that once served her father, until he's old enough to keep himself safe. Though I'm sure the mafia would have given up by then, if Mona doesn't wipe them out to claim their territories and riches first. She's quite daring."

So that was the change in plans that came up, a negotiation with Mona Lisa. You wouldn't run off to protect Tony if he was already safe behind an army of ninja, so telling you about him would no longer cause you to put yourself in danger.

"I insist that you tell me the identity of your brother in law," Levi repeated.

"Fine, but first, I want to see (Name) fight," your father's reply took you by surprise. What in the world was he talking about?

To be Continued