An Arcanist's Citadel 2 (Patreon)

A/N: this is the chapter that shows some of the AU elements of the setting. 

An Arcanist’s Citadel

Chapter 2

-VB-

The day after, Dad pulled her to the side to talk privately in his man-cave.

“Okay, so I want to hear from you why you decided that a man nearly a decade older than you was a good choice,” Dad began as he sat down in his favorite chair in the huge basement where he “tinkered” with stuff (a literal giant man cave). He really emphasized that word. Tinkering. 

She glanced around. 

It was the best place in the world for her and thus the worst place in the world at the same time. Nothing would beat this place in the awe it could inspire in her, and because of that, nothing else out there in the galaxy would be awe-inspiring. 

“Everything’s changed?” she asked. 

“Well, I’ve been a little busy since the batarians attacked.”

Instead of the usual clutter of half-finished projects, actually finished projects, and other stuff, there were now a lot of bombs. Some were shaped like medieval spherical iron hand grenades while others had wildly varying shapes and sizes that one wouldn’t expect from a bomb. 

Like a spear. 

“You’ve been prepping.”

“Yes, I have,” Dad hummed. “So tell me. How did it happen?” he asked her.

She squirmed. 

It was one thing to defend James in front of Dad but it was different to talk about him to Dad in private. 

“It just … kind of happened?” she hesitated. “I didn’t go to a party or anything like that! I was just out with my friends.”

“Uh huh. You’ll have to go more in depth. When did you meet him?”

“Ah… Last … year?”

“... So you’ve been seeing a man eight years older than you for a full year?” Dad asked. He was dangerously calm about saying that.

“No! I knew him for a full year. We only … really started being boyfriend-girlfriend like… last month.”

Dad relaxed, and she knew she wasn’t going to see James on the obituaries.

Probably. 

She might see him bloodied and bruised every Sunday, though.

He looked at her for a moment before turning away and looking at some of the computer screens that sat on top of his main desk. “... This is James of yours is interesting, you know.”

She froze and then looked at the screen.

And on one of them was James’s face. 

“Dad…!” she hissed angrily. 

“I’m being honest with you, hon. Did I at any point tell you to not go out with him, hmm? Honestly, I wouldn’t even be going in this deep if you weren’t, I don’t know, fifteen years old.”

She held herself back for a moment because Dad was right. Not the fifteen year old but that he hasn’t explicitly forbidden her or James from seeing each other. 

“Born 2615 January 19th on Earth, he and his parents moved to Elysium in 2620. This means that he’s been on Elysium for longer than you’ve been alive. He graduated from the Second Elysium College just a year ago with a bachelors in electrical engineering. A good field. He’s volunteered at churches, hospitals, and even clinics. On paper, he looks like a good man.”

Then he waved his hand and the image, along with his school and volunteer records along with accompanying pictures, changed to show a more densely packed paperwork. 

“If you look deeper into him, then you’ll see that he is the paternal grandson of an admiral of the Systems Alliance Navy. His maternal grandfather is a senator of the Alliance Parliament..”

“... So you’re saying he’s well connected?”

“Yes. Too well connected.”

… Oh. This was about the family secret. This wasn’t about her. 

The secret that every single one of her family was much more supernatural than alien biotics could ever be. 

“In particular, his senator grandfather is also the head of state of the Titan Ducal Republic.”

She froze. 

“Yes, you’re starting to see the problem.”

The Systems Alliance, as she learned in school, was a supranational government whose individual members were their own sovereign states that the Alliance could not interfere unless investigations specifically showed extensive violation of Systems Alliance laws, which only applied outside of each individual member states. 

The Titan Ducal Republic, or more commonly known on the human internet as the Spy Republic, was a semi-authoritarian dictatorial republic with a life-ruling “president” and advisors who were elected by the “citizen class.” And TDR was called the Spy Republic for a very good reason; almost every single year, a TDR spy was found in a SA member world. 

The problem, of course, was that SA had no laws about individual member worlds not being able to spy on each other for whatever reason. Only overt actions like hostile corporate takeovers, illegal resource/citizen exploitation, violence, and the like were. 

“You think… his parents are spies.”

“No, I think he is also a spy.”

“B-But you said it yourself! He came over when he was five!” 

“Yes. And he just happened to start going out with you a month after my little handling of the Batarian raiders.”

She froze. 

He waved his hand again and a video started playing. 

She realized that it was Dad when he got serious in combat, but this video wasn’t taken in any of their underground designated combat zones. 

It was on the surface. 

“I was careless,” Dad sighed, deflating slightly. “Several cameras that were far enough away from where I engaged the batarians caught sight of me and my face.” He turned to her. “I’m sorry.”

Her hands trembled. 

Was … Did James approach her that day b-because she was her Dad’s daughter? Was … Was James a spy?

People disappeared right before or after TDR spies were found, but there were also kidnappings and other disappearances that weren’t attributed to TDR.

And the “president” of TDR always spoke loudly about his favoritism of “talented” individuals. 

“Now, James might not have approached you out of a desire to spy on us,” Dad suddenly said. 

“W-What?”

“You think I beat the shit out of him for no reason?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Fine, I did. He touched my baby girl.”

“I’m not a baby!” 

“Once you get your own children, you can try saying that to me. Once my baby, always my baby, even if you shat in my hand.”

“Dad…!” she growled. That was his favorite story to tell about her! It was super embarrassing! 

“So while I was beating the shit out of him for touching my baby girl and maybe even kissing her …” he trailed off, and she slowly grew red in the face. He grunted a little angrily. “I’ve had a few devices looking into his memories. It turns out that if you lack sufficient spiritual presence, then you don’t even feel someone poking in your head.”

She shuddered. 

She hated that feeling, and only experienced it once in her life. 

“A-And…?”

“Personally? James is clear.”

She let out an explosive sigh of relief. 

“But he approached you only after his mother pointed you out while you were out with your friends.”

She froze again. His mother was the one who was connected to the TDR.

“So the situation is like this, Amy. A grown man approached you because his mother pointed you out to him. His mother is definitely a spy or at the very least working with the Titan Ducal Republic. She is but one of many spies that are now scouring Elysium. The only reason they aren’t approaching me is because they fear what might happen to them after they saw me rip batarians in half with my bare hands. Oh, and in one instance, make a batarian scream as something obviously not normal happened to the slaver before I asked the slaver how some random noble lord in the Hegemony was doing.”

Amy felt her stomach start to drop.

“Whether they know the last part is secondary to the fact that they obviously want to know how I did all of what I did to put those slavers down. In fact, there might be a chance that the Systems Alliance itself may come to demand answers. And you know how I already react to threats.”

The batarians knew it for sure. 

“I’m not telling you to stop seeing James, but I want you to be more aware of your surroundings, okay? And carry the anti-kidnapping bracelet from now on.”

“Aww. But those itch!”

“No exceptions. That’s your soul itching, not your skin.”

“That’s worse!”