Alex sat in the driver's seat of the wagon, as they trundled down the road heading towards the beast tribes, they had left the borders of the elven kingdom not long ago and were heading into the plains that housed the dark elves during their exile long ago
A few days after entering the plains that separated the two kingdoms Alex got a mental message from Anna, while they were flying around stretching their wings they have spotted an battle taking place between what appears to be an adventurer group and either plainsmen or bandits. Alex asked how far away this was, Lily informed him not far and how to get there, there was a trail that passed not to far from the fight so Alex advised Vale and Kayla what was going on and told them where to go as he was going on ahead to see what was going on.
Telling them both to be careful and not let their guard down until he came back Alex shifted into his demi dragon form and boosted himself into the air using wind steps and headed in the direction of Anna and Lily.
At his speed it took no more than a minute to reach the scene, he could see what appeared to be a group of adventurers had been surrounded at a rock formation, this allowed them to only have to defend from one side at least until the attacker managed to get someone to scale the back side of the formation. Lily and Anna circled around him as he observed the ongoing fight, he recognised two of the adventurers much to his joy. Advising the girls to stay in the air for the time being, Alex dove down to the adventurer party and landed behind them. The two people in the back providing long range support turned in a panic as something landed behind them, what they saw was the shape of a man with glowing golden eyes, horns adorning his head and wings apparently coming out of his back.
Holding up a clawed hand the figure spoke to them, "Yo".
The woman with the bow, stumbled back as the figure stepped forward out of the shade, revealing his features. The woman stared in shock at that familiar face, "Alex?!" she cried out.
"In the flesh, tell me are those bandits your fighting or did you guys piss off the natives?".
"They are bandits, we came here to claim the guild bounty on them but the group turned out to be much larger than anything in the reports".
Alex grinned, "Well that makes things so much easier, he made mental contact with the girls and advised them the roast anyone outside the rock formation, "Tell your vanguard to pull back now!".
"Dom!, Ron! Pull back!" she yelled out.
The second the two vanguard warriors jumped back and gained some distance an earth barrier rose up to block the bandits from following, the two fighters turned around to see what was going on now there was no immediate threat when the saw Alex standing there they both instantly adopted a battle stance.
"How ungrateful Dominic, here I am lending an old friend a hand and he points his sword at me, Lynette haven't you taught him any manners yet?".
Before Dominic could respond the roar of fire could be heard and the screams of the bandits stopped as suddenly as they started.
"Well that's that sorted, anyone in your group injured?". Alex asked as he scanned the area.
The group checked themselves over and reported back just some light cuts and bruises. They were happy as it could have been so much worse.
"What about the collapsed one", he pointed at the figure obscured by the robe, "oh she was looking for a group to join and eventually hooked up with ours about 6 months ago, she is a fairly competent mage but mega shy", Lynette explained.
"He walked over reverting back to his human form and knelt next to her, he observed her mana channels sure enough they were drained, she had zeroed out her mana.
"She emptied her mana so she passed out", Alex explained to the group, "She will be fine after sleeping. Scooping her up in his arms he headed off towards the trail and where the wagon would meet them.
Ron looked over at Dominic and Lynette, "Who is this arrogant prick, you two seem to know him, spill who is he?".
Dominic and Lynette glanced at each other and laughed.
"What's so funny" Ron asked, he heard a gasp come from beside he turned to see his girlfriend staring wide eyed at the retreating back of the man carrying their mage.
"You just realized didn't you Ellen?", Lynette asked.
"Is it really him?" she turned to face Dominic and Lynette, both nodded, "It really is him".
She squealed and hugged Ron, "Ron its him it's Alex".
Looking confused, "Yeah I heard his name earlier there are lots of people with that name".
Not impressed at her boyfriends denseness she rolled her eyes at him, "Not an Alex, THE Alex".
Ron just stared at her stunned as the penny dropped, "No fucking way that dude is the bladedancer?!".
Dominic and Lynette laughed, "We had better keep up with him", the 4 of them hurried to catch up to Alex.
She felt warm, safe. She could feel the arms holding her, feel the heart rhythmically beating in the warm chest she was leaning into, looking up she saw a handsome face, golden eyes and platinum blond hair, with slightly upswept ears that showed he had some elven blood. The face was looking off to the side chatting to someone smiling, it looked familiar somehow. He seemed to sense something and looked down at her, he smiled and started talking but she couldn't move or hear anything. He must have realized something was wrong, she felt a small surge of mana flow into her body revitalizing her flagging conciseness things came into sharper focus and she could hear now.
"As I was saying little mage, your mana recovery rate is prodigious I was expecting you to be out for most of the day".
"Are you also a mage?", she asked curiosity evident in her eyes.
"To some degree, I was never officially taught at the mage academy nor have I been officially rated. It's been a while since I last saw my teacher as far as I know he should be in Arcvien.
"Who is your teacher maybe I know him?" chirped the young woman.
"Hubert Pennteller", the boy responded.
Her mind went blank, this guy was a student of the omni magus, thinking back to everything she knew about the omni magus she recalled he had left the academy for 6 years, when he came back and people asked where he was he would always reply with 'I was training my last disciple'. No one in Arcvien knew the identity of the mysterious disciple and yet here she was being carried in his arms having a chat.
"Could you put me down", she asked meekly.
"No, your body is in a weakened state from zeroing your mana, you should recover in about a day, at least that's how long it normally took me when I zeroed out my mana".
"Oh I'm Alex by the way".
"Rose" she replied, "A pleasure to meet you Alex".
Curious about the man carrying her she asked, "So while you haven't been officially tested do you have an idea what class mage you would be?
"I should be tactical class mage at this point", Alex said with conviction.
"Be serious would you, your what 18 and calling yourself tactical class", joked Rose.
Looking at her with amusement, he asked, "Where you in the elven kingdom on the night of the blue fire?".
"Your kidding, that was you?" Rose picked up on where Alex was going with that.
Alex simply nodded and Rose fell into silent contemplation. She suddenly asked something from out of the blue.
"How come you can carry me for so long so easily if you're a mage?".
Laughter came from the left and she looked over to see Dominic and Lynette were both chuckling, seeing Rose was glaring at them the quickly stopped and Dominic spoke up.
"Alex had two well known names when he was in Valent, the first was spellblade and the other was bladedancer, as you can infer from the names he is also an accomplished fighter as well as a mage".
Rose looked up at him and joked, "I suppose you're going to tell me your combat instructor was Lady Melliandra".
Alex smiled slightly as Lynette chimed in with a "Yep". Rose stopped speaking fearing what ludicrous thing might be confirmed next.
Lynette spoke, "Don't worry to much about it Rose, Alex is just a bit different than the rest of us". Alex cocked an eyebrow at that comment.
Dominic laughed, and spoke up, "Alex might not realize it himself but he tends to have a great impact on the people around him, lets take you for example Rose, normally you would be a stuttering stammering mess in this situation yet here you are being carried in the arms of a stranger holding a conversation like it was nothing".
Rose thought about it, Dominic was right she normally wouldn't be able to talk to anyone like this unless they were a family member, yet she felt so secure in this young mans arms all her anxiety seemed to vanish, it was curious she didn't know him and had only met him once before in the guild yet here she was talking like he was family.
"Hey Alex, did those two mysterious girlfriends of yours ever show up?"
"Fiancés", Alex responded
"Huh?" a confused look crossed Dominic's face
"They are my fiancés now".
"What about Kayla", asked Lynette.
"She is one as well of course", smiled Alex.
"Wait you have three fiancés?", Ron queried with a surprised look on his face.
"No four"
The five of them all looked at him with a mixed bag of gazes, Dominic joked "How do you manage four at once?".
Straight faced, "Stamina" Alex deadpanned.
The three girls all blushed while Dominic and Ron grinned at Alex.
Shortly they reached the trail, Alex enquired through his mind link to Lily and Anna how far the wagon was and if the area was clear. Anna responded that she couldn't spot anyone nearby and Lily advised that the wagon would be there in about ten minutes. He gave his thanks and asked them to join the group waiting for the wagon so he could introduce them to two old friends.
Alex placed Rose down against a nearby rock so she could lean back, the moment he released her from his arms and stepped away her anxiety came flooding back and she didn't understand what about this young man calmed her so. She noticed her hood had been down the entire time and she hastily moved to raise it back up again. She noticed the amused look in Alex face and cursed him internally then gritted her teeth and let the hood fall back down.
Alex simply smiled and nodded at her. Just this simple act of recognition of her actions felt good.
The sound of beating wings was heard and the 5 of them looked on in amazement as two dragons calmly landed in front of the group, a glowing light enveloped the two forms and they began to rapidly shrink down, as the light faded revealing two stunning looking women both of whom ran up to Alex and hugged him while stealing a kiss each.
"Good work out there my little dragonlings, I'll introduce everyone". Alex began a round of introductions. They began to chat as they waited on the wagon to arrive, Anna & Lily grilled Dominic and Lynette about what Alex was like in the academy.
Soon the wagon arrived and a second round of introductions was started, once that was all sorted out they all clambered into the wagon and got moving, Alex told them they were headed to the capital of the beast tribes so if they needed to detour somewhere they should speak up. Apparently that all fell in pace as they needed to head to the guild in the beast tribe capital to report their mission, plus they were planning on spectating the games that were going to be kicking off in a few weeks.
"Alright the cheering section for Alex has been expanded!" cheered Kayla
The five newcomers all gave her quizzical looks.
"Alex has been invited by the King and given permission to enter the games even though he isn't beast kin", clarified Kayla.
The wagon trundled on as the group chatted happily.