10 Iron Fist

Alexander stood before the closed doors of the Royal Court.

On his right, Aleyria's three personal guards as well as many other Red and Blue Archmages who are the personal guards of the ministers stood with their heads bowed.

Behind him were ten old Red Archmages. His personal guard. He had found them standing at formation and at the ready outside his door when he left his quarters earlier.

Any surprise they felt at Alexander's sudden recovery and his yellow robes were extremely well concealed.

Upon seeing Alexander, they had immediately bowed and had remained in that position as Alexander stared at them in confusion.

And as Alexander walked away, they had immediately arranged themselves behind him and followed him. Alexander was used to having personal guards, so he paid them no mind.

From within the Royal Court, he could hear his ministers shouting for war. Alexander smiled. This bunch of ministers reminded him of his own ministers back on Earth.

Perfect.

*Rumble*

Huh?

"Buccephalas, why is it rumbling?" Alexander was about to push the doors open when he paused.

"How am I supposed to know? Do I look like I have eyes?" Buccephalas replied very irritably. She truly seemed like a grumpy little girl.

*RUMBLE*

"Hey! Be nice!" Alexander said. "From the looks of things, we'll be stuck together for a long time. It'll be best if we have a positive relationship you know."

"Hmph."

"Alright then, I'm going in!" Alexander shook his head helplessly and gave the doors a huge push.

BAM!

"Ah! Thank goodness you're all still here. I was worried I missed the court session." Alexander said brightly.

"King Aloxandros!" Belroy exclaimed in a not-so-otherworldly voice.

"Teacher!!" Aleyria cried out in elation.

WHAT THE HECK?!! Alexander was stunned. Why was there a corpse?! And what's with this frozen dude?!

"Teacher!! You're awake!!" With a massive burst of power, far eclipsing Belroy's impressive outburst earlier, Aleyria forcefully blasted a path through the intertwined magical energies still locked in struggle, causing painful backlashes to hit Lilian and Belroy.

She leapt forward from the raised dais where the throne was. Aleyria moved so fast across the room that in a literal blink of an eye, she stood in front of Alexander.

She dropped on one knee and gripped Alexander's hand as hot tears of relief flowed down her beautiful cheeks.

"Teacher!" Aleyria sobbed out again emotionally.

"Err, ah.. Yes Aleyria, I am up." Alexander was taken aback by Aleyria's show of emotions. "Do-don't worry! Don't kneel down like that! Get up! Up, I say!" Alexander skillfully helped Aleyria up.

Abstract feelings of affection rose uncontrollably from deep within Alexander as he gazed upon Aleyria's happy face which still had tears trickling down.

"And stop crying. Please!" He couldn't bear to see girls crying. Especially one as beautiful as Aleyria.

"This Aleyria seems to be in love with Aloxandros." Alexander thought.

But before he could search Aloxandros's memory to see if he felt the same way, his ministers finally reacted and mild chaos ensued.

"KING ALOXANDROS! VELAROS IS DEAD!" Roared an extremely agitated Belroy as he barreled his way to the front.

"King Aloxandros, yo-you're awake! How is that possi-I mean, what happened?!" cried Lilian.

"King Aloxandros! ALRIGHT! You're back!" a minister shouted in glee.

A general roar of surprise and happy exclamations could be heard.

Alexander patted Alyeria's shoulder reassuringly and smiled at his ministers.

"King Aloxandros! Velanos killed his own father! Aldrian's camp went too far!" Belroy shouted again, his voice totally losing its otherworldliness.

At that, everybody went silent.

Even Aldrian, the accused, was silent. He was looking at King Aloxandros stupidly, still in a daze.

Alexander glanced at Belroy and looked at Velaros's headless body and the frozen in space Velanos grimly. He pointed at Velaros and a stream of Ice Magic swirled forth and quickly froze the body.

In spite of all the conspiracies that may or may not be true, Velaros had done many great things for Rin-Turah. He deserved a proper burial and a full hero's send-off.

He turned his attention to Velanos and the space that was warped around him, forming an invisible spatial prison. Spatial magic.

He looked at Aleyria in deep surprise. Spatial magic was lost ancient magic. No one had been able to cast spatial magic for aeons.

A smattering across the ages were born lucky and had slight affinity with spatial magic energy. They could somehow trigger slight spatial fluctuations. But none had successfully woven spatial magic and cast a spell before.

Aleyria smiled sweetly at Alexander's look and said "Would you like me to release him, teacher?"

Alexander's heart trembled slightly at Aleyria's incredibly beautiful smile.

He had done a quick search of Aloxandros's memories earlier, and had found that King Aloxandros did not view Aleyria as she did him. He was extremely fond of her, of course, but it was all purely a teacher's passion for a genius student.

He was aware of Aleyria's feelings, but there was nothing he could do. Feelings were, after all, feelings. If it's there, even the darkest night would not be able to hide its light. And if it wasn't there, well, it wasn't there.

"What an idiot." Alexander thought. "A complete moron! Let me help him fix this problem."

"You would like that, wouldn't you!" Came Buccephalas's mocking voice.

"Yeah I would." Alexander absent mindedly replied, still lost in Aleyria's beautiful smile.

"Yo-you... HMPH!" Buccephalas stomped her imaginary feet and went silent again.

"Teacher?" Aleyria asked quizzically.

Alexander snapped out of his daze. "Ah, yes, wait let me think."

Aleyria nodded. A little voice at the back of her mind was saying that her teacher seemed rather different today. His mannerisms and speech, especially. But she quickly shrugged it off. Her teacher was alive! Nothing else mattered at this point.

Alexander focused on the spatial prison. He could sense a weird familiarity with it. It was very possible that he now had affinity with spatial magic.

He sent a tiny sliver of magical energy to the spatial prison, too small to be detected by any other Archmage apart from Aleyria. It entered the spatial prison without any hinderances at all.

Success!! Alexander leapt for joy internally. He had affinity to spatial magic!!

Beside him, Aleyria widened her eyes slightly in surprise. Today was certainly a day full of surprises.

"Keep him sealed and send him to prison." Alexander ordered his personal guard. "I will deal with him later."

With that, he strode forward and made his way to the throne. Aleyria followed closely a step behind.

All the ministers immediately made way for Alexander and Aleyria, bowing respectfully as they passed by.

Upon reaching the throne, Alexander paused for a moment to admire it.

Its magnificence was unlike anything Alexander had ever seen before on Earth. He was impressed.

Finally, he turned around and planted his royal butt on that throne. A hum sounded and a translucent, yellow sphere immediately formed around him before fading away out of sight.

Aleyria positioned herself by his right hand and stood silently.

Alexander raised his hand, and once more, the double doors of the Royal Court slammed shut. He gazed at his ministers who were back in their positions, less Velaros and Velanos.

This Ministerial Cabinet was in a very bad shape. It was divided and it appeared that the division had just become irreconciliable.

There was only 1 quick solution. An iron fist.