An Arcanist's Citadel 3 (Patreon)

An Arcanist’s Citadel

Chapter 3

-VB-

Away from Vetus System and Elysium, a group of humans sat around a barely inexpensive metal table in a meeting room. 

“... Well?” one of them asked. “What did the investigation reveal?” 

The youngest among them grimaced as he started … a powerpoint slide. “We managed to confiscate all videos filmed during the Batarian Raid of 2638, though there may be a few that we’ve missed,” he began. “And so far, we’ve identified one major defender.”

The powerpoint slide changed and showed a man in his mid thirties. “This is Alan Marris. Birth date: unknown, age: unknown, occupation: unknown, martial status: married to two women, children: seven,” he continued. “As you can see, there are too many unknowns regarding Subject Marris despite the fact that the earliest recorded instance of his residence on Elysium goes back as far as 2624 when he registered with the local library.”

“He registered with the library before he registered with the colonial administration?” a third person asked. 

“Yes. He only registered a full year after with the colonial administration in 2625. Before you say that we can use that, what he did wasn’t illegal at the time, so this is not something we can leverage. I don’t think Elysium still has a colonial law regarding when someone has to register.”

“Really?” someone else asked, a thin woman with a pair of narrow glasses. “You’d think that Elysium would emphasize their history as the oldest colony in the Skyllian Verge to push people to become their citizen.”

“Yes, you’d think so, but their colonial elites are going for a different route. They want to make Elysium into a trade hub, which has been working out for them. And the fact that they are spinning the failure of the batarian raid as a “homegrown” defense has been helping them, too.”

“Homegrown, my ass,” the first speaker grunted. “Elysium has, what, one hundred militia armed with subpar submachinegun and not a single heavy weapon among them. Their elites are even shittier than Martian corporate masters. At the very least, Martians understand that they need to keep their employees safe.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re Martian.”

“No, I’m saying that because I’m the one who is in charge of investigating if any of the Martian MegaCorps are breaking Earth laws. And they don’t. Who would have thought that the old Wittelsbach would have used corporate means to found New Bavaria? They don’t treat it like a corporation, and most of the old guards from Earth are the ones on Mars. At the very least, we’re not Neptunian.”

“Let’s not get political today, Michael, Sean.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please, Jeanne. Continue.”

“Alan Marris currently resides on Elysium with all of his family, which includes his seven children. He owns a number of properties and businesses, most of which have to do with security, which the local Elysians have noted to be the best on the planet, if not the system. He never had a run-in with the law until we’ve found him on the cameras taking down the batarians.”

“... So nothing we can use? What about polygamy?”

“Elysium doesn’t have a law prohibiting or supporting polygamy. We actually have a copy of their Elysium approved marriage certificate here. Both Tatsuki Arisawa Marris and Orihime Inoue Marris are married to Alan Marris,” Jeanne replied calmly. As a member of the New Presbyterian church, she took a more intellectual approach to all things in life, and polygamy was one of those things that almost everyone recognized as being either debaucherous in origin or culture. For anyone of modern sensibilities to practice polygamy, they were most likely a debaucherous person. But she kept her personal beliefs and bias out of the report because she was a professional; everyone inside the Systems Alliance Intelligence Institute was professional.

“Continue.”

“I’ll take over from here,” Sean said as he spoke up, and the giant portly man took Jeanne’s place as she sat down. “So far, we have recorded one-hundred eighteen hours worth of combat records, and the actual combat itself seems to have been limited to three hours. Of the one-hundred eighteen hours of combat records we procured, Subject Marris appears only in nine hours of them. Specifically, he appears at Junction A-J-5, which is at the edge of Elysium’s residential and commercial district. This was where the heaviest ‘fighting’ took place and where two-thirds of the raiders died. Yes. This is the place the journalists are calling it the ‘Valley of Death’ from how grotesquely the raiders were torn apart,” he said as he changed the slide. “And yes, I mean torn, not shot.”

And lo and behold… it truly was a grotesque sight. 

Blood and viscera painted the walls as high as seven stories tall. Broken batarian heads littered the streets. Twisted and broken limbs ownerless along the road, atop cars, and even hanging by thin muscle strains from streetlights and palm trees. 

Guns and armor laid shattered.

And at the center of the image was none other than their subject, Alan Marris, standing in the middle of a pool of batarian orange blood with each of his hands digging into the skulls of two unfortunate batarians he had used as clubs. Even with how grainy the picture was, it was clear for anyone to see that his fingers had dug into the skulls. 

His clothes were torn and basically a rag at that point in time, but the body underneath it didn’t look like it was damaged at all. Only orange colored the man from head to toe, not human red.

“We have evidence of him being blasted in the face by a batarian Shukokovia Type 8 mass effect shotgun prior to this image’s time,” Sean noted after glancing at the image. “But as you can see, not even his hair has been damaged.”

Indeed. His hair, in that grainy picture, looked better than their hairs in this meeting room aboard the Arcturus Station. 

“Trusted analysts have calculated that Subject Marris has the muscle strength, skin and muscle durability, and endurance to have him labeled as a ‘super specimen’ under the Systems Alliance Science Chapter 9 Section 108 and the Citadel Council Legislation Lik-Gal 228.”

Lik-Gal 228, also known as Prohibition of Militarizable Sentient Experiments, was a law that prevented Citadel Council member states and associate states from performing “superhuman” experimentation. 

“How bad would it be if these footages got out to the Citadel Council?” their boss asked. 

“At a minimum? We will face mid-tier economic and military sanctions. Spectres would be arriving in Alliance space in droves, both unseen and registered, and our government will be needled for every secret we have by legal and illegal means.”

“... Continue.”

The next slide showed the infamous moment that has been running circles around all of the human intelligence communities. 

In it, Marris stood over a batarian of some importance, if the prestige armor said anything. However, Marris wasn’t touching the batarian. He had his hand over the kneeling batarian some good two feet above him at his shoulder height.

And the batarian was screaming. 

Most who saw the video never looked at it again. 

Those who had to look at it multiple times all suffered nightmares. 

The sounds.

Everyone in the room had seen the video at least once, and there was something truly inimical about it that triggered all of their fight or flight reactions. 

That there was something between the kneeling batarian and the hand above him. Something that had been pulled out of the batarian. 

“Have we discovered anything regarding that?” 

“... No. Maybe,” Sean replied with a grunt. “I’ve gone so far as to phone in a colleague in Rome.”

“And who might this person be?”

“... A vicar.”

That got everyone’s attention.

“I didn’t know you knew a vicar, Sean.” And there was a subtle threat there. The Systems Alliance could not be beholden to any entity, and any of its members holding a close relationship with elites of other nations were looked down upon. Especially within its intelligence agencies. 

“We grew up together.”

“... and?”

“I… livestreamed the video to him.”

“Sean…”

“And he told me that the Roman Catholic Church will be sending a team of Exorcisia Militant to Elysium, but that they will only remain there as long as we and the Elysium colonial administration allows them to. And that they will be under our command for the duration of their stay.”

Their boss took a deep breath in.

Exorcisia Militant. Historically, it was a young branch of the Papacy, and formed only after the First Contact War. They acted on behalf of the Papacy on some matters of unknown importance or relevance, but, well, the name said it all, really. There wasn’t any news about them, either. 

“... I’ll determine what I’ll do with you after this is over, Sean. Be very grateful that your friend is not acting on his own.”

Sean nodded rapidly. 

“So a clean record, a businessman, and a family man who … could ignore a mass effect blaster to the face, crush flesh and bones with his bare fingers, and do something obviously not natural to extort information out of his victims that has roused the Roman Catholic Church to send their Exorcisia Militant.” A pause. “Anything else?”

“... None.”

“Fucking hell,” he grumbled. “Okay. I want a full information lockdown, alright? Elysium is already cooperating with us, so we better not have a leak in this office.” A pause. “Who are we sending to meet with the … exorcists?”

“I can go if you want me to,” Sean spoke up. 

His boss glared at him. “Fine. But if you fuck up after leaking critical intel, then don’t bother coming back.”

And that’s how Sean McConnell of the Systems Alliance Intelligence Institute found himself on the next flight out of Arcturus Station to Elysium.

-VB-

I sat across from three people.

Jeffery Bolkins, the owner of the spaceport and biggest employer of the colony. A thin, clean shaven man with sharp eagle eyes whose calm, quiet, and sharp demeanor scared his employees despite the fact that he was the most 

Melanie Fitz, the second generation colonial administrator. A stern and young woman with a bit of bones on her whose sense of taste was horrible when it came to personal attire but great when it came to architecture and logistics. She was in tune with her inner flow, as she liked to say. 

And the last person, Myunhwa Kim-Mitsui, the sort of yet not so secret “owner” of Elysium. The Korean-Japanese descent of the Samsung-Sumimoto houses (neither the mainline Samsung or Sumimoto-Mitsui megacorporation) was the third generation “owner” of Elysium. It was her grandmother (Hara Kim-Mitsui) who took the risk to set up Elysium during a time when the Systems Alliance was not only weaker than the Batarian Hegemony but also internally incoherent in the aftermath of the First Contact War. She took over from her father, Chosu Kim-Mitsui, when he died of a heart attack half a decade into my stay on Elysium. 

And all four of us were here for a good reason! 

Me. 

“Just … tell me honestly, Alan,” Jeffery, the oldest among us, grumbled as he met my eyes. “Are you an Alliance superhuman experiment?”

“Nope,” I replied easily. “And that’s the honest answer.”

“Then what are you?” Myunhwa asked with a frown as she pulled her arms under her … coughbigtittycough bosom. I was practiced enough with my gaze to not look when they grew bigger. Jeffery wasn’t so well trained, though.

(Even after decades of lovely bedtime with both Tatsuki and ‘hime, I was still a greedy horndog.)

“An out of context problem?” I grinned sardonically. “But as far as you three want to know, that’s not enough of an answer, is it?”

“No,” Melanie frowned. “Not when we might have the Alliance and the Citadel coming down on us for your … heroic actions.”

I looked at each of the three people here, who I could say with certainty that they were my allies and not my enemies. After all, I’ve treated at least one of their family members of some serious illness that couldn’t be treated here on Elysium.

The regular people didn’t know that about me but all of the “elites” did. It’s partially how I got by aside from running a … dubious security company. “Somehow,” whichever company that hired me never got hit by a robbery. Somehow. It was like people with ill intent were repelled from their facilities…!

And I knew that everyone here was now thinking about just how much of that and the healing were related to my … unnaturalness. 

… Well, technically, I was not a healer. What I did was “force” the soul of an individual to “remember” its pristine form and to superimpose that memory of its body onto itself. Under normal circumstances, this did nothing as most souls didn’t have the raw power necessary to rejuvenate its mortal body. But if the process was powered by enough power, then … even late stage cancer was not a problem.

They knew that I was already unnatural, but the awe inspired by healing was different from fear drawn up by slaughter. 

“As long as Elysium continues to be as cooperative as it has been in the past decade, I will remain a friend to Elysium,” I replied with a smile. 

It wasn’t as if Elysium was a true member state of the Systems Alliance, merely an associate, much like how the Systems Alliance was an associate of the Citadel Council. The Alliance had little to no hold over Elysium’s internal politics. 

‘And I hope it stays that way.’