Grand Arcanist: A Warcraft Fanfiction

"I love being a Warlock!" Aethas screamed from the top of his lungs as portals continued to pop into reality, unleashing packs of demons at his enemies.

The massive tower floor which was formerly quiet and deathly silence now ensued in chaos as Demons and Undeads tried to destroy one another.

"Master, Ritzglop has completed his task, your mercenaries have arrived on time." the little Imp swiftly made his way toward Aethas while screaming among the chaos.

"Good job, I'm sure you already informed them of what their temporary duty is, I hope?" Aethas smirked at the little imp, all of those Mana crystals were not wasted if they can complete this one and simple task.

"Yes master, to sow chaos within this very fortress until they are either destroyed or they are forcefully banished back to the twisting nether." the imp bowed gracefully at his deed.

"Tell them to keep the lesser minions of the Scourge attention, draw them all aways from this very location, I have a bone to pick with Dar'Khan myself." he then turned to Valeera.

"I'm sure you do too." he smirked as the girl let out her bloodl.u.s.t ready her swords and disappeared from that very spot.

From the look of it, it seems to be an advanced form of the stealth skill, "Vanish", from the game, this is one of the most useful abilities a rogue can have in terms of just pure escape and surprise attack, no doubt Valeera going to use it for the latter.

"Fireball!" without further adieu, Aethas tossed a "Fireball" the size of an apple at Dar'Khan with his finger, to which the now undead elf sneered.

"Such weak magic! I can barely feel any mana in it and yet you want to harm me-"

*BANG! Dar'Khan intended to slap the fireball out of existence with his palm, only to be surprised by a fierce explosion that engulfed him soon after.

"HA! Got you!" that wasn't just any fireball that any fire mages can cast, to expect Aethas to cast such a weak spell with his talent in magic and enchanting is just a massive insult! The exploding fireball magic was a result from his earlier experiment on enchanting.

Instead of just enchanting items and imbuing them with special effect, he's wondering if it is possible to instead grant special ability to items, he could instead try to give it to spells itself.

So after countless trial and errors of magic going haywire on him, Aethas finally somewhat mastered the ability to cast special enchantment on magic itself! Granting them abilities such as Explosive, Piercing, or Empowerment at the cost of increasing the difficulty and mana expenses(something he doubted that he lacked), this ability to enchant spells come in the form of a magic rune tattooed on himself, a lot can happened within a couple of months of locking yourself inside your own laboratory.

He named this special ability that he came up with… "Metamagic", however those from the game would instantly know these abilities as "Rank 2" of the base ability, Aethas just took it to another level, that is all.

He had all three of these special enchantments applied on himself, if any other mages were to try to do this, they would get mana burn after just casting a few weak spells from their book.

"You like my surprise?" Aethas mocked Dar'Khan, now looked all tattered instead of his formerly "noble" self, the pristine ebony robe covered in burn marks, but surprisingly, those were just surface injuries that wouldn't be bothered by the undead however.

"That was unexpected, was that your strongest spell? To surprise me with a weak spell that morphed into a fiery infernal?" the wound of Dar'Khan began to regenerate at a rapid pace, Aethas was wondering how the hell it was possible for an undead to heal in the first place, but he found his answer from the back of his head that Dar'Khan might have been turned into a Lich, or a weaker version of one since he's not a floating arrogant skeleton.

Albeit he is already arrogant and egoistic to the point that Aethas himself had to blush, strongest spell? Please! That was nothing! A cantrip fireball that any apprentice mages can cast can be called a secret trump card?

"Heh? Why don't you test me?" With a snap of his finger, what happened next shocked Dar'Khan to his very soul, countless weak "fireballs" materialized and danced around Aethas in unison.

Seeing such explosive horrors danced at his enemy fingertip, Dar'Khan quickly dropped his usual arrogant and went on full defensive, using both of his hand to cast an anti-magic shell, hopefully to negate the damage- only to him out that a sharp blade had pierced his undead heart and burning his very body and soul!

"GAH! Why you bitch!" Dar'Khan swung his staff, however all he hit was empty smoke, Valeera has long vanished from the scene.

"Eat this." Aethas grinned and soon, a barrage of fireballs were "pounding" on the Scourge supreme leader of the Ghostlands branch, not even his bones will be there after the dust settles, but of course Aethas didn't let him off that easily, to prevent a Lich from ever coming back to unlife once again, or this case a demi-lich, one must attack it soul directly and destroy it!

"Chaos Bolt!" a roaring blast of Fel and Flame soar toward the location of Dar'Khan.

Outside of the Tower, Deatholmes.

A roaring explosion caused the entire upper floor of the tower to be practically blown off, sending undeads and demons alike flying out from the ten stories building onto the cold hard ground below.

Of course Aethas casted a large protective field of magic around his location to shield himself and Valeera from the hell that was unleashed.

"Now that's what I call destruction." even without using Fin'Felo, Aethas was amazed with the total destruction he managed to cause, imagine what he can do with the staff power imbued, be now he felt really drained afterward, that is the most surprising part, Aethas hasn't had this feeling for a very long time already.

The mayhem caused Valeera to doubt herself as well, is there a point in any of the hellish training she went through?

"Arghhh!!! Why you little runt!" my oh my, Dar'Khan resilience and tenacity shocked Aethas to the core, he tossed everything at the former Magister and yet the damn creature is still alive?!

At this point, Dar'Khan gave up on "Dueling" Aethas in magic, since he now knows that it is impossible to beat the brat in his own field of mastery, and thus he dropped his staff and summoned a thin sword made of sharp bone.

Aethas raised an eyebrow at Dar'Khan action.

This sure in hell wasn't canon, he thoughted, since when did Dar'Khan ever go melee against his opponent with a sword? Certainly not in the game!

However unfortunately for Aethas, melee was never his forte, no matter how much Theramar wanted to drill the art of sword and melee combat into him.

"Aethas, allow me, I want to show you my training result… my resolve to do whatever it takes to defend you." Valeera jumped in front of Aethas with the two blades crossed.

"Foolish child, do you think you can defeat me?! The great Dar'Khan Drathir in the art of sword fighting! The little brat might have beaten me in magic! However in my prime I was a former dueling master! A true noble!" here we go again, more of the evil villain rambling.

What Dar'Khan wasn't expecting was for Valeera to suddenly appear right before him and the blade of her curved Elven forged sword sliced and created a thin line across his neck.

"You talk too much for a dead man." she growled.

If Dar'Khan could break out in cold sweat, he would be dripping wet by then, and if he were to be his former alived self, he would be long dead as the blade actually sliced through into his throat.

After falling back a few feets, Dar'Khan casted a minor mending spell around his throat and repaired it, allowing him to speak once again.

'What a pair of monsters!' Dar'Khan thought to himself, a powerful Mage and Assassin duo, what a deadly combination, the blade was so quick that Dar'Khan wasn't even able to feel any pain from the holy water soaked blade, it just showed how much skill Valeera put in to hone her blade, to make a dead man feel no pain from the burn to his soul with her blade.

"Head's up." Aethas mocked Dar'Khan from the sideline, finally brought the undead elf attention back to the fight, to only notice Valeera has long disappeared.

Explanation.

Metamagic, the ability to "Enchant" Magic itself and increase the ranks and power of an ability or spell, some come with a cost, while others don't- the best example of "Metamagic" from the game world is classes second ranks skill.

it has shown it appearances in either form of a type of marking or tattoo( Demon Hunters) or in some cases, Rune Words imprinted on the body of Mages.