The Grand Gala

With the plan locked in, so began the plans for the grand gala to be held at the palace. Invites were sent out along with rumours that anyone who was anyone would show up, This should force the people we want to turn up actually showed, it placed pressure on them at a time where they didn't want to stand out by refusing an invite from the Queen. The gala was to be held in a month so as to give everyone time to get ready and make travel arrangements. Alex took the time to try work out how to trigger his transformation back to his human form, as well as learning to control his strength while in demi dragon form. The girls were particularly excited about the whole things, Kayla, Anna and Lily had never been to this sort of thing, and Vale had only been to smaller scale affairs so all four of them were getting into the spirit of things and spent a lot of time getting their outfits made, Alex was shooed out of the room while this was going on.

The week before the gala Alex finally made his breakthrough and found his trigger and reverted back to human form, he still needed a bit more practice controlling his new strength as he still accidently broke things, he badly wanted to learn draconic magic but didn't have access to an orb to measure if he had gained affinity or not, so he just made a mental note that once the mess was sorted out he would track one down. Now he had his human form he no longer went around topless much to the disappointment of the majority of females in the palace. It also meant he could dress up properly for the event, he hadn't been looking forward to either going topless or wearing something that looked like a backless top.

During this time delegations from Valent and Arcvien arrived where as the delegation from the beast tribes had long since left, time ticked down to the event. Eventually the day arrived, everything had gone smoothly which in itself can sometimes be scary. Alex suited up for the event, his outfit was a deep blue with gold trim the colour offset his eyes quite well, he styled his hair to make it a bit less like he had just woken up and headed over to collect the girls.

Knocking on the door, he waited for the ok to come inside, he heard Lily call out "Come in", so he popped the door open and walked. He saw the girls standing there looking at him expectantly but his brain just went blank, and the only thing he managed to get out was, "Wow".

Alex just stared at the four of them

Lily and Anna, wore the same style of dress, completely backless just barely stopping before their backsides, with the front was covered completely and was secured in place by wrapping around the neck like a choker, the hem reached to just off the floor with a slit running up the right side to about mid-thigh, Annas was a deep red colour that offset her eyes and was matched by her dark red hair, while Lily's was a deep blue, that matched her eyes.

Kayla's outfit was pure black with silver highlights that clung to her figure. Like Anna and Lily's outfits the dress hovered just off the floor and had a thigh slit in it, unlike theirs however Kayla had a narrow v slit in the front going down to just above her belly button.

Vale's dress was a dark violet that hugged her curves with a generous scoop taken out of the front showing off a bit of cleavage, the dress hem was higher in from than in back so from the front is showed her legs up to the knees

"What do you think", they choursed

"You all look stunning" Alex said still unable to tear his eyes away.

Alex then grinned, "Now I've seen you in them I can't wait to get you out them".

The girls all giggled, "Not now dear", said Kayla, "We don't have the time for that just yet".

"Well I can see my job as pest control has been established" cried in mock despair.

Vale looked at him curiously, "Pest control?".

Alex nodded, "Yep I'll be spending most of my night shooing away flies from my fiancés".

They all laughed.

"Well shall we go my beauties, time to make all the men at the gala hate me", smirked Alex.

They all walked out together Lily and Anna securing their places on his left and right arms while Kayla and Vale looked at them with a mix of disappointment and amusement.

It wasn't far to go and when they arrived they saw the Queen seated talking to Levindal who had come to help with security as someone we could trust.

"Have they all arrived?", questioned Alex.

Levindal nodded, they final pair arrived five minutes minutes ago we are all set to get things rolling".

"Do we really have to do the full introduction thing, mine is starting to sound like a novel", Alex whined slightly

Grinning at him Levindal just responded with,"Yes".

Looking at the Queen "Let us know when you are going to start the little one on ones and Vale will come over", said Alex with a more serious tone.

Taking a deep breath, let's get this over with. He and the girls entered the grand hall, they stopped at the top of a small flight of stairs. The announcer stepped forward and as he had done for every other set of guests and began the introductions.

Ladies and gentlemen, my I present to you Lord Alex, Graduate of the Valent Grand Accademy and called the Spellblade, undefeated champion of the Valent Arena and called the Bladedancer, The birth son of Lord Landrem & Lady Rinka and adopted grandson of the golden dragon king Zakath, Disciple of both Lady Melliandra and the Omni Magus, blessed with the title of Grand Highlord by the elven woods.

Alex almost rolled his eyes at that whole thing, *gotta get that shit shortened somehow* he thought to himself.

The announcer moved on the ladies, "Accompanying him are his four fiancés", that comment caused quite the stir among the male half of the room.

"The Lady Kayla daughter of Lady Melliandra" Kayla gave a curt nod.

"The Lady Valeanaria Duedalion, heiress of the Duedalion trading company", she performed a small curtsy.

"Finally we have Anna and Lily the granddaughters of the golden dragon king Zakath", they both just smiled

The crowd just stared, things were feeling a bit awkward so Alex just stepped forward, "It's a pleasure to meet you all I hope we all enjoy this evening together".

That seemed to break the ice as everyone went back to what they were doing as Alex and the girls descended the stairs. Vale headed off to speak with her family that had been invited and she had spotted, Kayla headed off to the food buffet and Anna and Lily found themselves whisked away by a group of young elven girls.

The Valent delegation leader was sweating bullets after seeing and hearing Alex's introduction, turning to his aide he told him to make sure no one did anything to piss him off that went double when it came to the women.

The Arcvien delegation, "Ohh, the omni magus disciple, this should be an amusing night I wonder if we can force a magical duel with him, I would love to see how good he actually is. The elder of the delegation stepped up to the two younger mages and promptly told them to not even think about such a thing, according to the omni mage the boy was bordering on being a class 1 mage the last time he saw him. The two mages stopped short looking aghast at the news, "You can't be serious isn't only supposed to be seventeen years old, that is ludicrous".

The elder grunted, "there is always a taller mountain, from the reports I've read he awakened his mana at the age of six and took to magic like fish in water".

The two young mages both barely in their late twenties and thought they were doing well by being fifth tier mages, in fact they were considered prodigies in the magical academy as the rule of thumb for raising ranks was ten years per class the fact that had gone from the eighth tier to fifth in fifteen years was nothing short of remarkable.

The old mage chuckled at the dejected looks on their faces, "Don't fret over it there is only one like him in the world and we are unlikely to see another for some time to come, if you want my advice I would recommend you drop the usual mage attitude with the lad and try befriend him, if for no other reason than you can tell your kids in the future you shook hands with the greatest mage to walk the planet", and putting words into action wandered over in the direction of Alex while the two younger mages gave serious thought to what their elder had said.