Alexander The Great Mage

"Well, I guess that\'s that." Fluff-fluff sighed as she stared at the spot where Magius disappeared. He had turned slightly green at Aleyria\'s previous declaration and had chosen to teleport away in a huff without uttering a single word in response. "He never was rational if it involved Lady Kyara. I guess it is for the best."

"The sooner he gets over this false hope, the better it is for the entire realm. My senses tell me that the barriers between the realms are more far gone than Magius realized. And the number of \'guests\' we have from both the higher and lower realms are increasing exponentially. At this rate, we could be dealing with significant threats within the realm in less than a hundred years." Aleyria said in a troubled voice.

"I\'ve said it before, and I\'ll say it again. We need to launch a pre-emptive strike. Now that two realms are sneaking about in our realm, it makes my idea all the more important. We cannot possibly deal with a war on two fronts. We need to strike first and strike hard in one of them." Alexander reiterated his argument.

"I agree. What should we do now?" Aleyria looked at Alexander and gave him his full and unconditional support.

"The first step is to find out how strong an army we can mobilize, and gather intel on how strong our enemies are. And directly because of this, our only option is to attack the Realm of Darkness. Regis Darkbane will be a critically important source of intelligence for us. Will you be able to get in contact with him?"

"Right now?"

"Let\'s clear up this mess and go back to Rin-Turah first." Alexander sighed as he pointed to the frozen Starships and Krakus. "Let\'s bring Flario, Jolto and Hilda back to the City of Rin and we can hold a war meeting there. Fluff-fluff, will you join us?"

"Although we\'re still pretty far off from the four month dateline that Lyra has given us, much has changed. The threat from the Lich King is no more, and with Aleyria, not even Symphonia would be a threat to Arcanus 26 anymore. I would like to go back to Lyra and resume my job as her contract beast." Fluff-fluff said.

"Why do you do that anyway? You\'re strong enough to take out the Lich King very easily. Even Symphonia would have to bow before you if you make yourself known." Alexander asked her curiously.

"Live to six thousand years, little boy, and you\'ll get your answer." Fluff-fluff answered mysteriously with a smile. "And with Aleyria by your side, you do not need me at all. She is the new sovereign of good fortune and luck. Not that she needs any of it."

"So you won\'t be joining our expedition in a pre-emptive strike?"

"No, I will not. And it is a bad idea to send out all of our top fighters out at the same time anyway. You of all people should understand that. Some one must guard our main base."

Alexander smiled. "If I can have my way, I will mobilize all of our top fighters and surgically take out the enemy\'s top fighters in one quick maneuver. The home base will be fine without us for a few short years. But I respect your choice."

Fluff-fluff snorted cutely. "You\'re way too aggressive for my taste. I miss Lyra and her idyllic life. Let\'s quickly grab those stuck up royalty and go back to Arcanus 26."

"Fluff-fluff, thank you so much for all that you\'ve given and done for me." Aleyria stretched out her hand and held onto Fluff-fluff\'s cute little paw warmly.

"No, thank YOU." Fluff-fluff laughed. "With you around, I can totally enjoy my time in Arcanus 26 without feeling guilty any more. Whether you like it or not, the fate of our realm is now in your hands."

"It is in good hands." Alexander smiled.

*-*-*-*-*

Back in the City of Rin, things were progressing extremely rapidly. Alexander and Aleyria had gotten extremely busy the moment they appeared once more within the city.

The City had been completely flattened by the previous battle with the Lich King, and whatever minor repairs they had managed to do were completely undone during the battle with the mechas.

But with the battle for Arcanus 26 all but over, the millions of Rin-Turah citizens as well as the three hundred thousand trolls had quickly restarted the reconstruction of the city. To bolster their speed, Alexander had even sent a few hundred thousand \'free labour\' from the various Starships to help rebuild the city. With their extremely high level of technology, the new City of Rin would be a spectacular marriage of magic and technology.

The new design of the City of Rin took a few long days to finish as local designers quickly got into deep arguments about key applications of technology with the Symphonian designers procured by Alexander. In the end, Alexander had to personally intervene and make his ruling as to what he wanted.

If the reconstruction of the City of Rin was a spectacular marriage between magic and technology, then the restructuring of the Army of Rin-Turah was a rapid evolution of a magical juggernaut into a fearsome magical cyborg juggernaut.

The archmages of Rin-Turah immediately incorporated Symphonia\'s technology into their system.

Within a few short days, high tech armor designs for both archmages AND their Wyverns were completed and approved by Alexander. In fact, Alexander was more than impressed by the incredible combination of magic and technology.

"This is Magic Armor 1." An old general that Alexander hardly remembered exclaimed excitedly as he presented his design before Alexander and his war council which comprised of Aleyria, Flamewing, Blackfire, Dubaza and Caerose. Along with them were the three Royal children of Symphonia, Prince Flario, Prince Jolto and Prince Hilda, serving as consultants.

"I\'ve taken the HIGHEST grade of Symphonian personal armor and imbued it with anti-magic runes! This armor would be able to resist the all out attack of a Red Archmage for a full minute! I have also imbued an elemental defensive rune on it which would be able to resist a mecha\'s full powered energy beam for yet another full minute! And this is all without the mage casting anything!

Within the armor, I have attached modified diamonds which would be able to channel magical energy to power both shields. The armor would be active for as long as the Mage\'s magical energy holds out!" The old general was so excited that his spittle sprayed out everywhere as he explained his design. "I have also designed SPACE modules which could be easily attached to the armor and would allow our soldiers to fly in space!"

"AND LOOK AT THIS!" He placed his Magic Armor 1 design down gently and took out another design. "ARCANE RIFLES!" He shouted. "These arcane rifles can take in both arcane energy and Symphonian energy cells to fire out concentrated beams of the spell runes which is currently plugged in! So if you take a SPATIAL PRISON cartridge and plug it into this Arcane Rifle, it would spew out SPATIAL PRISONS! Imagine the tactical advantages our soldiers would wield! If you plug in a SPATIAL BLADE cartridge, it would spew out SPATIAL BLADES which could pierce through almost anything! And if your majesty could create a stronger cartridge with your personal rune…"

After listening to the old general rant excitedly about his designs for a full hour, even Alexander became uncharacteristically excited.

He could already see it in his mind. Starships filled with not just Motherships and the other fleets, but also Wyvern Riders clad in Symphonian armor, as well as countless non-magical soldiers wielding Arcane Rifles. In essence, he now gained the ability to arm the entire population of Rin-Turah, and Symphonia for that matter, with powerful magic.

"With this development, we would have no problems creating a powerful expeditionary force to tackle the Realm of Darkness." Alexander mused to Aleyria once they were done with the presentation and had sent everybody away except for Caerose, Flamewing, Blackfire and Dubaza.

They had openly told the rest of the team what exactly transpired in space and the threat that was looming ahead.

"Three of their Starships is a powerful force indeed. It would allow us to gain a powerful foothold in the Realm of Darkness. However, we are completely blind about the Realm of Darkness. We need a local partner." Caerose remarked.

"We have a local partner." Alexander said with a laugh. "Regis Darkbane and the Darkbane Kingdom would be our starting point."

"Do not forget that the Darkbane Kingdom serves Blytoros, the God of Tricks." Blackfire warned. If you want to invade the Realm of Darkness, you would need the God of Tricks to be complicit. Somehow, I doubt that he would willingly agree to see a higher realm invade his realm.. In fact, we do not know if Blytoros is part of the coalition which is eyeing our realm or not."