The next morning had a rough start for Fallen. It was already noon as he woke up because he had to work the whole night to build his laboratory and set everything right in his chambers.

He had a bookshelf, a desk with some scrolls, a rest place for Arachna and next to his bed was a little table with a infinity burning purple green flame on it, the flame didn't made any sound or light. He stood up and opened the windows of his chambers, what he immediately regretted as the light blinded his eyes. "Ah!"

He heard somepony knocking on the doors. "What?"

The door flung open and a smiling Bright Side was standing there. "Come on long sleeper! We have to go to a party."

Fallen needed some time before he really understood what Bright just said. "I won't go." He walked to his bookshelf to grab some books for his today's researches. "I have no time. I still have to catch the lost time because our moving and besides that, you know that I don't like parties."

"Come on Fallen! This party is to welcome us and another new pony to the town and we still haven't met many other ponies in this town."

He just walked out of his chambers and made his way towards the basement. "My answer is still no. Now let me study!"

But Bright followed him and didn't stop talking. "Come on, please. If you don't come I will follow you the whole day and disturb you!"

"And I will push you outside the basement and lock the door!" he said cold and didn't stop walking.

"Oh. come on. Please please please pleeeease! I will stop annoying you if you come!"

This goes on until they arrived at the basement. Fallen has lost all his nerves and just put the books of one of the worktable. "Fine! I will go but after the party you will let me work for the rest of the week. Am I clear?"

He gave her an angry glare but Birth only responded with an smile and said "Yay!"

Later they walked towards Sugarcube Corner. Fallen was wearing his cloak again. They used the time to talk a little bit.

"How do you know where we have to go?"

"Well I woke up early this morning and Twilight thought it would be a good idea to show me around the town. On the tour we met Pinkie Pie again, that is the pink earth pony that you met yesterday, she is the one who throws the party and she told me to bring you to Shugarcube Corner this noon."

Fallen raised his eyebrow. "What is a Sugarcube Corner?"

"That is the locale bakery and confectionery . So where was I? Ah, right! After we talked to Pinkie she introduced me to the other bearer of the elements of harmony, Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Fluttershy. You will meet them all at the party."

As she went on talking Fallen saw that a pony with a map in his hooves was about to crash into them, he used his magic to change the direction the pony was walking. Instead of crashing into Fallen and Bright the pony ran straight into another pony who wasn't looking.

Fallen chuckled as the pony started to argue whose fault it was. 'Why dose somepony even need a map in such a small town'

Bright didn't noticed anything and just went on talking. "Oh and I met Rarity again. She told me to tell you if be so rude to her again she will show you how good her magic is."

Fallen just laughed about this threat. "That would be interesting it is a long time since my last duel."

Now Bright was a little bit worried. "Please don't challenge anypony. You know that the only pony in Ponyville that has a chance in a duel is probably Twilight and it is wrong to challenge the host to an battle."

"You have a point, I doubt that some pony in Ponyville besides Twilight has the magic abilities to be a challenge for me. But I think challenging Twilight would be interesting. Please remind me to ask her for a duel after the party."

Bright thought only one thing. 'Me and my big mouth'

As they arrived at Sugarcube Corner Fallen saw somepony sitting n front of the shop, with closed eyes. It was a earth pony with an brown coat and a green mane. His mane was cut to an irokese. His cutie mark was a ghost wolf. But Fallen sensed something. 'This is an unusual strong magic aura for an earth pony.'

Bright immediately talked to him. "Hi, you must be Spirit Wood."

He opened his eyes as she finished, his eyes were dark green. "Yes I am Spirit Wood and you two must be Bright Side and Fallen Dark. It's nice to see that I am not the only new one!"

"That is high mage Fallen for you!" He looked angry at Spirit, he thought that the ponies in this town would have more respect for a high magician.

Bright was not so happy about Fallens reaction 'He is not even on duty here' "Fallen! Be nice and take your cloak off!"

Fallen was not in the mood to argue. "Fine." He took of his cloak waiting for questions about his horn or crystal hoof but there came no.

"Well it´s nice to meet you anyway but may if I ask the question, from where do you know each other?"

Bright smiled at this question, she was happy that Spirit didn't ask anything about Fallens appearance. "Well he is my big half-brother, we have the same mother."

Then Spirit had another question. "Is it rude or may I ask you what with your father is?"

Bright winced, fearing Fallens answer.

Fallens expression got a little more serious than before. "This is nothing of your concern and I would recommend you to not ask again, but now I have a question. Why do you have such a strong magic aura?"

"I think you mean the bond between me and my pet Bite, well it´s part of my special talent and it allows me to speak with him through my thoughts and if I concentrate on the bond I can see through his eyes! And also, I don´t know about here but where I came from we believe that everypony has magic even earth ponies and pegasi! "

'Does he think I never learned the basics of magic?' Fallen was angry about this insult. "I know that, I am not an high mage because I can levitate stuff. I was only curious because normally a magic aura of an earth pony is much weaker. But what you told me sounds interesting. Maybe you agree to some special experiments?" His voice changed a bit while he asked.

Bright knows this tone in his voice well. It means that it is a very bad idea to agree.

"No I don´t think I have time for an experiment, sorry!" 'Puh!' Bright took a deep breath.

Fallen was disappointed but didn't showed any expression. 'That could have been a perfect opportunity to study dark magic at earth ponies.' "What a shame. But I think we already wasted enough time. Where is that party I want to get this over with. I still have some experiments to work on."

Now Bright smiled again."The party is right inside."

The room was filled with many ponies and as they walked inside the ponies screamed "Welcome to Ponyville"

Spirit immediately walked to the ponies to greet them. Bright also walked around and talked to everypony.

Fallen on the other hoof looked for the next empty table and soon he found one in the corner of the room. He sat down and started watching the other ponies in the room.

He saw Spirit sitting at a table with Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, two pegasus and another earth pony which he assumed to be Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Applejack.

Then he watched some other ponies having fun, sometimes a pony tries to sat down on the table with him but each time they turned around as he gave them an angry look.

He used the time to practice one of his spells. He used a spell to see their fears. Most of the time he saw things like losing family or friends. 'Sentimental fools.'

He learned a long time ago to control and defeat his fear of losing somepony.

Then he saw the bearer of the elements of harmony coming to his direction. Twilight spoke first. "Hi Fallen. I wanted to introduce you to the rest of the group. You already met Pinkie Pie and Rarity."

Pinkie Pie bounced up and down. "Hi."

Rarity tried her best to act normal. "It is a pleasure to meet you again."

"After the massage you send me I highly doubt that. Oh and if you stay at your statement, I have nothing against a little duel, but I think that I have a little more practice in combat magic." He smiled evil.

Rarity started to stutter. "E-em, I d-don't think t-this is n-n-necessary." Everyone else didn't know anything to say and Fallen just smiled at her reaction. "So you want to introduce me to the rest." He abruptly changed the topic back.

Twilight shock her head to forget what she just heard. "Oh right. So this is Fluttershy." She pointed of one of the pegasus. "H-hi n-nice to meet y-you." 'I sense very much fear in her.'

"This is Rainbow Dash." The other pegasus spoke up. "What's up."

Now Twilight pointed at the earth pony. "And this is Applejack." Applejack step forward and held her hoof to him. "Nice to meet ya?"

Fallen took the hoof and shook it. "Well it is nice to see that this town isn't only filled with cowardly ponies that are as foolish as they look."

The others just stared at him.

Than Applejack spoke up. "Say what now?"

Fallen told them what he did this day. "I used the time to here to see in the fears of other ponies to practice a bit and I must say you are the first ponies today that have at last not completely pathetic fears."

Each one of them felt uncomfortable knowing that he knows their fears.

"Now if you excuse me, I have to meditate about all the fears I have seen today." And with saying he closed his eyes.

Knowing that he wouldn't talk any more the others walked away. Fallen was lost deep in his mind to put all the new faces names and fears in the right place.

Later as the party was nearly over, Bright finally noticed Fallen sitting alone with closed eyes. "What are you doing there?"

He didn't opened his eyes to answer. "I am collecting and sorting fears."

Bright groaned at Fallen. "Couldn't you just do something else? Only this one time? I thought you would talk with Twilight about magic or something else?"

He finally opened his eyes. "Thank you for reminding me, I still have to ask her for a duel!"

Bright facehoofed herself.

After the party was over everypony went home but Fallen wanted to speak with Twilight before they left. "Twilight, since you are a master mage too, I thought I follow the tradition of the battle of master mages and challenge you to an duel."

Twilight didn't understand what he means. "What tradition are you talking about?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Caelestia never told you about the battle of master mages?"

Twilight just shook her head.

"Well I have time to explain it. So the battle of master mages is an very old tradition under unicorn mages, when a master mage thinks he found somepony on his level of power he challenge him to a duel. The rules of the duel are simple. For offensive spells are only paralyze-spells allowed, weapons have to be enchanted that they don't do any deadly damage. For defensive is everything allowed from barrier-spells to illusion-spells. So, do you agree to the challenge?"

Twilight wasn't sure, she never really practiced much battle magic but this tradition sounds very interesting. "If it is a old tradition I accept!"

"Good. I know where we can fight." He walked towards the castle and Twilight followed him.

The others heard everything. "Oh oh oh. I want to duel too." exclaimed Pinkie.

"Darling you are no mage, so you can't fight a magic duel."

Applejack was worried. "Ah didn't like the thought that Twilight is about to fight a dark mage."

"We have to respect his traditions darling."

Fluttershy was even more worried. "I think this tradition is very brutal."

"I think it sounds awesome." exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

As they arrived at the castle Fallen walked to the big empty place next to it.

"This is a good place for a arena." Fallens eyes and horn started to glow with dark magic and he stomped on the ground. Giant crystal walls grew out of the ground.

As he was finished they were now standing in front of an round arena made of dark crystals. It was big enough for twenty carriages to park in.

Fallen turned around. "So since you are the challenged one you get to choose my and your weapon!"

"Choose weapons? How about we duel without weapons?"

"That would be unusual but fine. Next thing transportation abilities yes or not?"

'It seems like he take this very serious.' "Ok, transportation abilities are allowed!"

"Good now you six," he pointed at Bright and Twilights friends. "you are going to watch that no one breaks the rules, but I have to warn you. Every kind of distraction or help is against the rules. Now that everything is clear let's begin."

He and Twilight walked inside the arena and the rest to place at the spectator seats. "I will count down from ten to zero. On zero the fight starts."

"Good."

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, ZERO."

He immediately shoot the first paralyze bolt. Twilight jumped to the side and shoot one herself.

Fallen blocked this with a barrier.

Twilight flew in the air and shoot three more bolts, but they all missed because Fallen dodged them by going in the ground and becoming a shadow.

He stayed a shadow until he reached the other side of the arena from where he shoot a gigantic energy sphere which flew very slowly at Twilight.

Twilight flew back to the ground. "Did you really thought that something that slow is going to hit me." As she said that she heard a explosion above her.

The gigantic bolt exploded in hundreds of small bolts that rained down on Twilight. "What?"

She summoned a barrier. She couldn't see anything besides the light of the exploding bolts. Her shield nearly broke but then that bolt rain stopped.

As she could see Fallen again she immediately shoot a paralyze beam at him, he used a barrier to block the beam. The beam his the barrier and Twilight didn't stop casting the beam against it.

After some time Twilight saw that his barrier was about to break and put even more energy in the beam.

As the shield broke Twilight smiled. "It is over!" But as the beam hit him it just went through him. "What?!" The only thing Fallen did was dissolving into nothing.

Then Twilight heard a voice behind her. "Turn around." Twilight turned around and saw Fallen standing directly in front of her.

"How..." That was the only thing she could say before she got hit by a paralyze spell.

Fallen smiled as Twilight couldn't move anymore. "How did you do this?"

Fallen deactivated the spell. "I only used the rain of bolts as an distraction, I walked as a shadow behind you and summand an illusion of me. I am very disappointed, I thought Celestia taught you better at fighting."

Twilight was now a little bit embarrassed of herself. "I never learned anything about fighting besides simple magic beams."

"I definitely need to speak with Celestia. This was one of the easiest duels I ever had, but I will not complain the last duel I had was over a year ago and it was the only battle I ever lost."

Now Twilight was curious. "Do you mind if I ask who your enemy was?"

Fallen just raised an eyebrow. "I thought she told you, well it was princess Luna of course."

"What! Why did you challenged a princess?"

"First of all, I challenged you too and second, she challenged me."

"Why did she challenged you?"

"She wanted to see if I am strong enough to control dark magic. I must say that it was the longest and hardest duel I ever fought, but I still lost in the end. Well I have to work on some experiments and I am still waiting for an natural dark crystal."

He walked away towards the castle but before he got inside he stomped on the ground and the whole arena got back in the ground.

Pinkie jumped around Twilight. "This was awesome."

Applejack walked to Twilight. "Ah never thought to see somepony beat you in a fair magic duel!"

"No one of us thought that darling. How is it even possible that a normal unicorn can beat an alicorn in an magic battle?"

Bright felt like she needed to explain. "Well he is training fighting with magic since he learned dark magic and even if Twilights magic power is higher than his, he still has better tactics."

Now Twilight got an idea. "Maybe I should ask him to train me in battle magic."

But Bright clearly didn't like the idea. "You should better not ask him. If it is about magic he can get very serious and harsh and if I was you I would ask him no favors until you got him a new dark crystal."

Twilight facehoofed herself. "Completely forgot to write a letter to Shining Armor."

"You should rest now darling you have an long and exhausting fight behind you."

Rarity tired to get Twilight to rest but Bright needed to disagree with her. "To be honest that might be the shortest duel he ever fought, you may be the worst magician he ever fought and you should hurry with the crystal, I don't know why but he told me often that this is his most important experiment ever."

Twilight let her head hanging. "I know that I really messed this up. I will go and right the letter."

Bright wanted to cheer her up. "When you finished the letter can we start with the first lesson?"

Twilight lifted her head. "Of course, you still need to finish your studies of healing magic."

"Yay!"

Bright and Twilight walked inside to write a letter and study magic. The other five ponies walked back homes too.

Author's Note

And here is the next chapter.
The character Spirit Woood belongs to brother and his story Wooden Heart.
Check out his chapter 3 to read about his perspective of the party.