For a start, he had no recollection of how to recreate technology before the Fringe. He remembered using the technology, but the same way a man might remember using a sword he had no part in forging. He knew what it felt like, what its strength was, and how to wield it—but he could no more rebuild those weapons and drives than he could sprout wings and fly.

Additional to this was the fact that, in truth, Arthur Zacaris had been a bitter and cruel man. Forged by his environment perhaps, and created through a series of horrible and abusive events that had—to what little recollection Arthur had—shaped him into the selfish, arrogant, and fundamentally spiteful creature he’d experienced in the memory. He could empathize with Arthur Zacaris, but in that moment, he came to an immediate realization.

He had no desire to become him again.

At least not in the way he remembered.

“He’s waking up!” a familiar male voice warned.

Arthur’s eyes opened and he looked up with a sharp gaze to see Cassandra watching him with an impassive and focused expression, her gray eyes drilling into him with searching intensity.

Atreus flanked her to her left, and both Endymion and Perseus had joined her to the right with their visored helmets turned toward him in silence.

Cassandra’s expression softened when his eyes met hers, and she spoke in a perfectly calm and controlled manner.

“Welcome back, Kyrio Magellan. The impact of Lord Atreus’ investigation seems to have taken a toll on you. How do you feel?”

“More myself.” Arthur answered with a small slur. His accent had even been changed, and he felt his remembering mind fighting with false muscle memory to build words in a way he was no longer used to.

“Are you sure you are quite alright?” Cassandra asked carefully.

“I—I will be.” Arthur said while still attempting to master his rebellious tongue. “May I ask what happened?”

“Your psyche collapsed under the strain of the probe.” Cassandra answered while Atreus watched on. Clearly she was the ‘designated speaker’ in the present case. “Lord Atreus has assured me that you will be back to your normal, healthy self in a matter of minutes.”

“I see.” Arthur said carefully, while forcing his tongue to cooperate and quietly reaching out to sip the glass of water still left on the coaster. Much of its perspiration was gone, due to the length of time it had sat idle, and from that he could gauge that he had been unconscious for more than the perceived few minutes of the flashback. “How long have I been insensate?” He asked slowly.

“Two hours.” Cassandra answered with an appraising look. “Though I’m told that’s not unheard of. It seems your psions simply disliked the stimulation that Lord Atreus enacted upon them through contact with your mind.”

“I… don’t really understand what that means,” Arthur admitted with the same deliberate speech, “but I’m going to optimistically hope it’s irrelevant to me.”

“As far as I understand it, it is.” Cassandra said with a wry smile.

Arthur grunted when a small lance of pressure passed through his mind, and lowered his palms to compress his upper neck and the back of his head while slowly rolling both hands from side to side. The memories in his mind were like blades, each stabbing at his brain in a manner he found exhausting.

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It took him almost a full minute before he spoke, and to their credit nobody seemed interested in rushing him.

“Did you find what you were looking for to satisfy your concerns?” Arthur asked carefully, and while looking up at Atreus specifically.

“In every way that matters.” the Myrmidón confirmed coolly. “Though there are extenuating factors we must discuss.”

Arthur grimaced and blinked against the pain in his head, and then nodded his assent. He wasn’t surprised by the statement. He’d suspected something would come of the probe, though he was hoping it wasn’t a revelation of his true origins. Something told him that Nataliya would have planned for that much.

And from what he could recall of Nataliya Verchenko, she was incredibly powerful.

“I am all ears, my lord.” Arthur murmured with a grimace of pain.

“All Eidolon pilots possess psionic talent to some capacity, which is what allows them the prescience, spatial awareness, and almost supernatural reaction times required to be combat effective in what would otherwise be very expensive prostheses.” Atreus said without taking his eyes off Arthur. “Though this is hardly news to you given your status among their number, what is surprising is that while your testing records results show you at a Callandium compatibility of forty-two percent; my delve revealed an oddity with your psion levels.”

“Please enlighten me...” Arthur said while massaging his temples gingerly.

“Your psion density is, frankly, factors larger to the point that I’d suspect it of being false, no matter the fact it’s impossible to falsify.” Atreus said with focused intensity. “I’ve seen high numbers, but this is beyond the pail. You don’t have the highest ever recorded in Hyperion, but you’re in the top twenty at least.”

“Well, I suppose there are worse things to hear.” Arthur muttered with a slow roll of his neck and another grimace of pain. “Though with my lack of Callandium compatibility, I’m hardly about to start crushing buildings.”

“Your psion density is irrelevant in the larger scale, because you cannot handle the Callandium required to catalyze them safely. Yes.” Atreus agreed tersely. “However, it does mean your reflexes, spatial awareness, and neural bandwidth ratings are likely all rated higher than almost any operator in Graecia—to say nothing of your passive ability to inspire comfort, familiarity, and even loyalty in others, as you did unwittingly with my Kidemónes brothers.”

The last part of course was enough to give him pause. It was not as if he’d actively manipulated either Endymion or Perseus, but the simple reality was that someone with psions as dense as Atreus claimed his were could make even the most well-trained mind bend and yield toward disproportionate magnetism. Humanity had often wondered as to what charisma truly was, and in psions, they had found their answer.

People with high psion density were essentially magnets for positive interaction.

The only redemption for such effects was that they could not control them at all.

“You were not honest with us, Arthur.” Atreus continued heedless of his internal thoughts. “You are not merely an Eidolon pilot.”

Arthur eyed Atreus carefully, but said nothing. He waited to see what the Myrmidón believed was the truth.

“You were an Aurelian Champion, weren’t you?”

Had his true memories been revealed to the Myrmidón, then the questions Atreus was asking would have been far more probing and far less courteous, but that was not the case. The tall spartan was rolling with the only logical assumption which the identity of Arthur Magellan allowed: that Arthur was a member, either retired or deserting, of the Aurelian Star Kingdom’s elite Eidolon operators.

It was not too far from the truth, though if he revealed the whole truth he had a feeling he’d give the Graecian soldiers in the room apoplexy.

Aurelia might have been distant and powerful, but being from the Fringe power’s elite was at least something they could logically accept.

Being a Knight of Albion?

Not just that, but a Knight of the Round Table?

He might as well have said he was Achilles reborn.