Alexander The Great Mage

"But enough about the top mercenary group in Symphonia. Tell me more about the other dragon types." Alexander said as he motioned Blackfire to rise up into the night sky with him.

Alexander loved relaxing in the sky. Even at night, his powerful vision allowed him to see everything as clearly as though it was midday, and he could see everything as far as the curvature of the planet allowed.

Up there, he felt free and unfettered by the mundane things of the world. He felt completely invigorated, and ready to take on the big things of the Universe.

"The third and fourth most expensive dragon mercenaries are actually tied. The Royal Black Dragons and the Royal White Dragons. These are dragons which have mastered the Element of Darkness and the Element of Light, respectively.

Just being a Royal Dragon who has maximum affinity with the five basic elements already gives the dragon an incredible number of spell combinations, all of which makes him or her a complete terror on the battlefield.

Having a maximum affinity with another element compounds that battlefield prowess by many, many times. There aren\'t many who are able to do that though, just becoming a Royal Dragon is already an achievement of a lifetime. Having a maximum affinity with another element is extremely, extremely rare.

Having said that, there are quite a few who managed to achieve that legendary level, courtesy, of course, to the huge number of dragons that are currently alive. No matter how difficult a thing is, given enough time and enough numbers, there will always be exceptional beings who will get that difficult thing done.

Royal Lightning Dragons and Royal Wind Dragons are extremely powerful, but they are not powerful enough to make the top 5. Their extra element is not strong enough to overcome the pure physical domination of the Royal Battle Dragons, while Royal Black Dragons and Royal White Dragons have too much of an edge over them.

As you know, Darkness and Light are the two greater elements. Darkness is an absolute dealer of death and destruction, while Light nigh unkillable with their powerful healing. Combined with their extremely potent light attack, they are an extremely balanced and powerful entity.

Coincidentally, the third ranked mercenary group, Night and Day, is led by these two dragon types. Night and Day was initially just named "Night".

The founder is a Royal Black Dragon, Aragosh Dragonos, who fell in love with a Royal White Dragon, Yerra Draco, and somehow managed to win her heart despite an incredibly complex situation that almost saw them become sworn enemies.

His story is an epic one which I will regale to you another time.

After their wedding, Aragosh Dragonos changed his mercenary group\'s name to "Night and Day". Together, they managed to grow the group to be the third ranked mercenary group."

"Wait, I thought you said they were second ranked?" Alexander interrupted. "And isn\'t Dragonos your home planet? If I remember correctly, Dragostan Dragonos was from your planet as well."

"Yes, Aragaosh Dragonos came from my home planet." Blackfire replied in mild surprise. "I didn\'t realize you knew that. Aragosh Dragonos and Yerra Draco were extremely powerful and beyond competent in managing their mercenary group. But as strong and as competent as they were, they were unable to defeat the then second-ranked mercenary group "Thirteen"."

"What a weird name." Alexander chuckled.

"Thirteen refers to the thirteen Royal Dragons that founded the mercenary group." Blackfire went on.

"Oh." Alexander merely said.

"Of which, three were dual titled. Death was the undisputed number one with their twenty Royal Dragons, and Thirteen was the undisputed number two. Night and Day could only settle for third place for a very, very long time. Until they acquired another dragon couple which instantly catapulted them into the second rank."

"Hmmm." Alexander\'s eyes gleamed with deep interest.

"The Royal Space Dragon, Zas, and The Royal Time Dragon, Rona Rhythmos." Blackfire said rather fervently.

"Let me guess, another epic love story?" Alexander drawled.

"No, of course not. Theirs was a marriage of convenience and a marriage of… hope." Blackfire replied mysteriously.

"Hope? What do you mean, hope?" Alexander asked curiously.

"I will explain that part later." Blackfire smiled a deeply mysterious smile which rather irritated Alexander. But Alexander remained quiet. It was shaping up to be an extremely interesting and informative session for him.

"Suffice to know after Zas and Rona joined Night and Day, the number of double-titled Royal Dragons in the mercenary group doubled to become four, one more than Thirteen.

People everywhere began referring them as the second-ranked mercenary group. Of course that didn\'t sit very nicely with Thirteen. They were determined to prove that they were still the second ranked mercenary group. You can guess what happened next."

"Thirteen joined the opposing faction after Night and Day took on a long term campaign mission?" Alexander asked.

"Yes! Exactly!" Blackfire said emotionally. "It was a glorious, tragic, fearsome, amazing, incredible campaign!"

Alexander narrowed his eyes lightly as he observed Blackfire\'s rising emotion. "By any chance, are you somehow related to Aragosh Dragonos? Were you there during that campaign?"

Blackfire smiled and nodded. Alexander\'s deep intelligence and observational skills impressed him.

"Yes, I was Aragosh Dragonos\'s follower. One of many who wanted to left Dragonos to join him when Aragosh formed Night. I was there for the entire campaign, from the rocky start to its glorious and epic conclusion that firmly placed Night and Day at second rank."

"Tell me the details." Alexander instructed, his eyes gleaming excitedly. Learning how two top mercenary groups duked it out on a scale of an entire military campaign spanning an entire Star System would be beneficial for him. "I want to know everything."

*-*-*-*-*-*

(Author\'s Note: I will be doing a first-person recounting of Blackfire\'s experience from this point onwards for the next few chapters. It\'s a style of writing I use in my other book "I Devour Mechas" and I will be muting Alexander. His questions would be implied, and still very easy to understand. It\'s pretty fun to write that way. I hope you guys enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them. :))

I was a young dragon when I decided to join Aragosh Dragonos.

Looking back, it was the best decision I had ever made.

I joined Night just before Aragosh Dragonos met Yerra Draco, so I knew exactly how much Yerra Draco impacted the mercenary group. Before her, we were a strong, mid-tier mercenary group. With her, we became almost invincible and skyrocketed to the third-ranked mercenary group in Symphonia within two short years.

Yerra Draco was the one who restructured the mercenary group. We were only at battalion strength previously. A hundred or so dragons, supported by a few hundred trolls, humans, elves, orcs and a smattering of every single combination of half-breeds you could think of.

On her first day as Co-Leader, she interviewed each and every one of us personally.

She actually split herself into many clones and had us join her in a private room for a private interview. She asked me a series of questions at first, and we had a comfortable few minutes talking about nothing really important.

However, right before the interview ended, she looked me in the eye and asked me, "When do you intend to betray us?"

After a few seconds, she smiled and asked me to leave the room and proceed to the quarantine room.

It was only after everyone was interviewed and we found some of us missing that we realized the last question was a test to root out spies from within us. Three dragons and thirty other members were killed where they sat when they displayed signs of panic at that question.

Oh yes, Yerra Draco was a genius at reading people, her maximum affinity and mastery over the Light Element made sure of that. And she was viciously merciless too.

One of her favorite quotes was "If you\'re not Almighty God, being merciful to your enemy is being heartless to your allies."

However, because of her, we were able to easily recruit on a massive scale without fear of accidentally letting in a spy from a rival group. Every day hundreds, if not thousands of new members joined us. Our numbers swelled magnificently.

Yerra Draco was not satisfied with us merely being a minor mercenary group. She also had Aragosh Dragonos draw up a vision for the mercenary group, an ultimate form of how the ultimate Night and Day would look like. In front of every one of us, Aragosh Dragonos just lifted up 1 finger.

"1 planet, just for us. 1 billion fighters. Number one in the Universe." He said softly.

He didn\'t need to say anything else. Our hearts were set fully ablaze by his audacious goals and his overflowing confidence in achieving them.

From that day onwards, we trained like there was no tomorrow. Tactics, strategies, teamwork, as well as our own personal strengths. Whatever we could do to wisen up and power up, we did.

We were divided into squads of twenty five and every few days, Aragosh Dragonos would have each squad take on small but dangerous missions that sent us across the universe doing all sorts of things.

Some squads did not return, others returned at reduced strength. But many more returned victorious and much more experienced. And still, our numbers swelled. We took on many, many more than we lost.

Within a year, we went up from being at battalion strength to being at five regiments.. Fifty thousand soldiers, a full five thousand of them dragons."