It is now the year 2037, and Earth is on the brink of a third global war.
Magic had long been researched by occultists, but it wasn't until the First Great War that the larger public gained awareness of the metaphysical. At the height of that history-defining conflict, a famous English occultist appeared before the king with an offer to turn the tide of the war and a demonstration of his power.
Over two decades later, when the Fatherland attempted global domination once again, the Fuhrer held victory in the palm of his hand. His occultists had studied the Allied offensive from the previous war, realized their own inadequacy, and reached into the dark depths of history to draw out a power which could contend. Were it not for the Manhattan Project, which weaponized magic on an even greater scale and resulted in the destruction of cities like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hamburg and Berlin, among others, the Fatherland would have achieved its objective.
Afterwards, as the two victorious superpowers divided the spoils of victory, they realized that relying on magical technology was not enough. Was it possible for a single magician to have the same effect? It was a race to understand the true nature of magic, and how it might be combined with science.
The third major victor of this war, the monarchy from which Magic was first introduced, sought to maintain its prestige and position within the community of magical theory—no, it struggled to maintain any relevancy whatsoever. However, it had one advantage: the secret grimoires of that great occultist, recently passed, had been kept under strictest guard in the Tower of London. None except the eldest of the Royal Family knew of their existence. With these, they could rebuild.
An old castle on an island off the coast was chosen for no particular reason other than atmosphere. No expense was spared in the refurbishing and retrofitting of the storied halls, so that this former world empire might be able to tempt researchers to its side. The noble houses, having been devoid of political power for some time, jumped at this opportunity to regain their former glory; their sons and daughters would be the first class of the new Royal Academy of Magick, and thus their fortunes became intertwined with the arcane.
There was no direct conflict between the two superpowers, though they did establish institutions of their own. In the end, it was not magic, warfare, influence, or espionage that ended the cold war: it was money that killed the beast, as the unrelenting pursuit of magical research was ultimately unsustainable for the great giant of the East. Phoenixes would rise from its ashes, but for a time, there was no more threat of all-consuming war.
The absence of such a threat must not be mistaken for peace: Thus began the long game, the game of subtle warfare played out not over days, months, or years, but over decades. The victorious giant of the West sought to monopolize its power, while the fallen foes of old sought to undermine their every move. This was the way of the world as it had always been, and would be for some time yet.
Throughout these tense years, the Kingdom of Britannia grew in influence. It was astounding to some that a former empire, now a collection of islands and scattered territories, could achieve such a feat; but they had been smart. The magicians they obtained from their defeated enemies after the war, in conjunction with the handful they managed to sway with the Ravenleigh Grimoire, were more than enough to sustain magical innovation for the next century. The Kingdom was therefore at the pinnacle of invention and discovery, and though their developments would be inevitably copied and mass-produced by the States and the new Peoples' Empire, each new discovery would make the previous seem commonplace.
Accordingly, centers of magical research grew in scale and popularity across the globe, and the Royal Academy of Magick was no exception.
It is now the year 2037, and Earth is on the brink of a third global war.
The Phoenix of the East is moving again to fight the Giant of the West, both sides emboldened by new allies and magical armaments. Not to mention, of course, the presence of the fruit of the magical research institutions: those magicians ranked 'S' on the power scale whose ingenuity and command over the metaphysical render them more destructive than any form of conventional weaponry, the Ultimates, whose abilities put them in a class incomparable to any other magician or even to each other. The outcome of the coming war will certainly depend on the number and quality of Ultimate magicians possessed by each country.
No incident might better illustrate this prediction than the failed invasion of the Maldives Protectorate in 2034 by the Peoples' Empire, fresh off of their similar annexation of Taiwan and the Philippines—territories which had previously enjoyed strong relations with the States. Despite their powerful benefactor, those territories quickly fell to the superior Empire forces, and the world was sure that the Maldives would be no different.
Enter: Arthur Trevena, university underclassman on a holiday jaunt to the eastern island territory, who now finds himself just a few hundred meters removed from the front lines. In a few hours, he will witness the Kingdom's newest Ultimate at work, but for now he must focus on survival—and victory.
It began in the morning.
Walking with his friends along a beach in Addu, they noticed that the horizon was darkened by a vast amount of ships.
"What's that?" asked one of his friends, pointing at what appeared to be an expanding shadow on the water. The realization hit Arthur suddenly, and brought with hit the understanding that this vacation was not going to end well.
Landing craft. Dinghies with soldiers…enough for every archipelago here, he thought. If they follow the same tactics as the Philippine invasion…
His eyes widened.
"Everybody, defensive magic!"
But the enemy artillery did not wait for his friends to heed his warning. He witnessed the flash and heard the boom of heavy guns in the distance, and hurriedly began chanting the arcane sounds of a protection spell: "Onixdar arvin pax gigpah gemeganza! Onixdar arvin pax gigpah gemeganza! Onix—!!"
A shell disintegrated in a flash of green light above his head. It was a low-level spell, one designed to be used by anyone, but it was certainly effective: anything which came within a certain radius of the caster would find itself the catalyst of its own undoing.
And now, as the bombardment continued and the once-serene beach was rocked by a neverending stream of explosions, Arthur hoped with all his might that his friends had been as quick on the draw as him. He ignored the voice in his head telling him to look around for as long as he could, but eventually he could resist no longer.
The scattered remains of his friends, limp and lifeless, were scattered around the beach like fallen leaves, soon to crumble and become wormfood. The ground was stained red, the craters charred, the remnants of the grass still burning. But the explosions themselves had stopped; looking up, he saw the familiar flashes of green light, along with an otherworldly green glow emanating from the Kingdom's nearby military base.
Looks like they've activated the shields.
Arthur fell to his knees.
I am weak.
They were weak.
Everyone is weak.
He looked up and saw the landing craft, now clearly visible, only a couple minutes out from the beach.
He felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Can you stand, son?"
Arthur turned. A soldier, probably twice as old as him, was standing beside him. He had a weapon, an outdated magical assault rifle model, resting against his shoulder. Arthur could tell that, despite the relaxed posture, that weapon was ready to fire at a moment's notice.
There were more soldiers that Arthur could see taking up defensive positions behind this man. He looked towards the sea: Of course. An invasion force…artillery…landing craft. They'll be here any second now.
Shaking, he stood and cleared his throat.
"I want to fight."
The aged soldier didn't say anything for a moment, but looked the young man up and down.
"You have training?"
"University Officers' Training Course, specialty in magic-accelerated combat."
The soldier nodded.
"Grab a rifle from our transport before it returns to base. Fall in with the defensive line. Check your shots, but do not hesitate. We have to hold out long enough for the cavalry to arrive."
"Yes, sir," Arthur replied. "…the cavalry?"
The older man cracked a grin, a small movement which gave Arthur unexpected confidence.
"If you survive, you'll be in for quite the treat."
Arthur did as the soldier instructed; he grabbed a rifle, an older M4-MA, and took cover behind a nearby rock formation just as the landing craft approached the beach.
The rest of the deployment began firing as soon as possible. Their goal was to sink the landing craft and pick off the soldiers that survived, which, in many cases, would have been an excellent strategy. Despite being over twenty years old, the M4-MAs with which they were equipped were easily able to put holes in most light watercraft; they used runes which harnessed the energy from the ignition of the gunpowder to superheat the bullets and accelerate them up to ten times the speed of bullets from conventional weaponry. To a human, any sort of body or head shot was fatal unless heavily armored. A limb hit by a round from an M4-MA would be obliterated, but the victim might survive. The best feature of this weapon, however, was the fact that the runes were inscribed into the shell casings themselves, instead of the chamber. This allowed modern magical ammunition to be used with any sort of firearm, which had cut the cost of production by half.
The hull of a lightly-armored dinghy and the soldiers they carried should have been easy targets for such a weapon, if physical armor was all that they had to deal with.
Arthur was initially confused at the fact that only one of the landing craft went down—their fire surely covered a broader range than that. But then he saw the reason why: those all-too-familiar flashes of green light, which had previously been a safe and comforting force, were protecting the invaders.
"They've got talismans on the craft and on their armor. It'll be tough to hit them without disabling the talismans first."
The older soldier, who had been laying down cover fire for his comrades, knelt beside Arthur.
"Do we have any of those talismans?"
The soldier chuckled.
"I wish, kid. They've got to be pretty complex runes if they can distinguish between friend and foe like that. Nothing like the simple defense chants we're trained to use. We don't have the budget."
"What about counter-magic?"
"Not our specialty. Can you use it?"
Arthur looked behind him and saw a raven perched nonchalantly on a piece of driftwood, watching the pair intently. He made his decision.
"I can try."
The soldier didn't take his eyes off the enemy, yet Arthur still felt the soldier's gaze examining him.
"Do it."
"Cover me."
The soldier respected the lack of hesitation in Arthur's voice.
It's a pity, he thought. He would've made a great brother-in-arms.
The landing craft had reached the shore. The ocean had been replaced by waves of enemy combatants who began firing towards the defenders as soon as their boots touched the sand. Their rounds, from weapons more advanced than the M4-MA, tore up the landscape with almost as much force as the artillery.
Our cover won't last long, Arthur realized. This thought threatened to consume his mind, but he forced himself to focus on the task at hand.
Counter-magic was a difficult sorcery to cast. The theory was simple: disrupt the casting process, causing the magical construct to experience blowback and self-destruct. The practical application of this theory was much more challenging, as it required either specialized runic technology at a prohibitive cost or a magician with enough talent to edit a chanted spell to achieve the desired effect. Neither case was a common sight among the armed forces of the world. Though magic had become the key element of world status, prestige, and power, there was still far too much about it which was not understood.
It was for this reason that neither Arthur nor the soldier beside him expected success.
Still, he had to try.
Arthur recalled his magical vocabulary classes and hastily assembled a chant:
"Arsl—gaiol—napta—onixdar—arvin…pax gigpah gemeganza!"
Nothing happened.
"Arsl gaiol napta onixdar arvin pax gigpah gemeganza!"
An explosion nearby; not from Arthur's spell, but from the impact of an ultra-velocity round against the rock where they were taking cover. He checked on his comrade: the soldier beside him was laying on the ground, half of his body missing. He could not resist the tears.
"ARSL…GAIOL…NAPTA—"
"That's enough."
Arthur looked up. In front of him stood a small squad of unusually-dressed soldiers; at least, he assumed they were soldiers from the rifles they carried, but the cloaks which surrounded their bodies and concealed their faces made them look more like assassins from some video game.
"Who…are…you?" he asked, sucking up the snot and tears in an attempt to look presentable. Suddenly, a ray of hope shone across his face. "Are you the cavalry?!"
"Military Intelligence, section 5. And yes, Mr. Trevena. We're the cavalry."
Arthur saw small green flashes of light sparkling across their cloaks—were they inscribed with protection runes, like the talismans on the enemy soldiers? They were not taking cover, and they didn't seem to care about the bullets flying around them.
"You know who I am?"
It was a silly question. Military Intelligence. Of course they would know the names of everyone on the island.
But the man did not answer. Instead, he motioned to someone behind him. Arthur braced instinctively; a very powerful aura was unleashed on the battlefield, overwhelming him to the point of hysteria. It felt as if the very air itself became oppressive to life; as if gravity had increased, as if Arthur's bones had given up the will to stay strong.
That's when Arthur saw him.
It would be impossible for Arthur to describe him: for even though Arthur knew he was looking at a man, something was preventing him from actually seeing the being before him. It was as if the visual signal was being distorted before it even reached his brain.
Maybe that's really what is happening, he thought. This must be the source of that terrifying aura.
It's believed that a magician's aura is contingent upon their ability to affect the physical world; that is, upon the scale of magic they can cast. It helps magicians identify each other, and in some cases, they can even transmit emotions via their aura. But even then, this man must have a terrifying capacity for magic—Is he an Ultimate?
The enemies had been overwhelmed by the aura of this mysterious man as well, though some managed to keep their wits and opened fire on the suspected Ultimate.
Arthur looked for the telltale green flash of protection magic: there was none.
Arthur waited for the sound of the man's tattered corpse hitting the soft sand: it never came.
He studied the picture before him: the white-hot slag, travelling at speeds incomprehensible to a regular human, were disintegrating before they even reached their target.
Is this…Perfect Parry?
'Perfect Parry' was a rumored spell which blocked anything the caster desired by simply dissolving the molecular bonds of the structure. While it shared some similarities with common protective spells, it was uniquely powerful because it could be cast instinctively, without the need for chants or runes. It was first used by an Ultimate from the States, but there had been reports of many top-ranking magicians throughout the world being able to cast it when under extreme pressure.
The man walked towards the enemy forces, which must've numbered in the hundreds at this point, yet he seemed unphased. And there was a good reason for that: to his horror, Arthur saw a man dissolve into dust when subjected to the man's gaze.
Then another…
…and within a minute, the entire enemy force was gone.
Arthur was unsettled by the quiet. Only the gentle lapping of waves and rustling of ocean winds played at his ears. It was too sudden; up until a few seconds ago, this morning had been nothing but a whirlwind of explosions and gunshots.
The commanders aboard the invasion fleet must've received word of their troops' defeat, for the artillery started up again, entirely focused on the man who stood at the edge of the water.
That heavy aura hadn't diminished. If anything, it had grown greater. But now, Arthur could detect something within the raw energy: an emotion, communicated straight from the heart of this Ultimate magician.
Excitement.