For a week now Fallen could study without any interruptions.

He made great steps forward with is projects. Bright nearly finished her studies on healing magic.

Only Twilights fighting lessens didn't went that good. She didn't chose a main weapon yet and still couldn't defeat the ten shadows.

Rainbow Dash came to the training whenever she could. She on her side made great progress, she learned to use her speed better in combat and already won many fight against Twilight.

One day their task was to fight against twenty shadows, only equipped with simple daggers. The fight lasted some minutes but after some time both, Rainbow Dash and Twilight, were lying on the ground with swords against their throats.

"This was even worse than your last fight! If you two ever want to win a fight you need to be more creative."

The shadows disappeared and the mares sat on the ground. They let their heads hang. They were covered in dust and bruises.

"Since this is the third time you failed you will fight thirty shadows next time we train!" None of them responded anything. "But I think this is enough for today."

Bright came, like every time after training, and gave everypony something to eat.

While eating Twilight had to say something. "I am sorry to say that, but I can't come to the training tomorrow. I am going to the school to make a lecture about magic. Tomorrow are many other ponies going to the school to teach the foals about something."

Fallen nodded. "I suppose that you can both take a break from the everyday training."

They heard somepony entering the arena.

It was Spike and he had a letter in his claws. "Twilight you got a letter from princess Celestia."

Then he saw the food. Bright laughed as she saw his expression. "I made you something to eat too." She levitated a sandwich to him.

Twilight took the letter from Spike and started reading it. "That is bad."

Bright raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"Celestia need me to come to a meeting tomorrow. It is an important discussion with royals of other countries."

Her reaction to the letter confused Bright. "And what is so bad about meeting other royals?"

"The problem is that I promised Cheerilee to make this lecture tomorrow and there is no other pony in Ponyville that has enough knowledge about all kinds of magic."

She buried her head in her hooves. They all said nothing until Bright had an idea. "Fallen can make this lecture!"

"What!?" Everypony else stared at her, only Fallen said nothing. "He is an high mage after all and I bet he could prepare himself in one day."

Twilight thought about it. "I could ask Cheerilee if that is okay but are you sure that this is a good idea." Bright just nodded at her.

Then Twilight looked at Fallen who didn't said anything until now. "Is that okay with you Fallen?"

"Since I have nothing to do tomorrow, I can do it but then I have to talk with the teacher first."

Spike stood up. "I can show you the way right now."

Fallen grabbed his cloak and put it on. "Lead the way."

The three mares were still sitting on the ground as the dark mage and the dragon left the arena.

Twilight rubbed the back of her head. "I still don't know if this is a good idea."

As they arrived at the school the foals were outside.

Spike talked to Fallen. "Cheerilee should be inside the classroom. I have to go back now."

Spike walked away and Fallen walked towards the school. As he went inside the classroom he saw Cheerilee sitting in front of her desk, sorting some papers. She looked up as she heard somepony coming inside the room. "May I help you?"

"You must be Cheerilee. Twilight send me here to tell you that she can't come tomorrow because of an important royal meeting."

"That is sad, many students were already exited to see her at the school visit day."

Fallen walked inside the room. "Well if you allow it I would take her place and make the lecture for her."

"That sounds like a great idea but do you know enough about magic for this?"

""I am an high mage and member of the magic council, so magical knowledge is no problem."

Cheerilee was surprised. "Well this is perfect I will tell the students that you will come instead of Twilight. Your time is at the afternoon at the last lesson of the day. May I ask of what magical aspect you are high mage."

"I am a master of dark magic and I have to ask you that you ask your students to get an agreement from their parents. I am not allowed to talk about my magic to foals without the permission of the parents."

"Sure but did I understand you right? You are a dark mage?"

"Yes." Fallen turned around and left the classroom, not letting Cheerilee ask him another question. Outside he began to walk back to the castle.

The next day Fallen worked at his experiments. Twilight was already gone to the meeting and Bright went to Canterlot to meet some of her friends.

Fallen made progress with the dark crystal but not as much as he would like. As it was time to go Fallen grabbed his cloak and a box with an item for the lecture. He left the laboratory and walked outside the castle. He walked towards the school.

At the school Fallen saw many adult ponies that already made their lectures about something.

He walked inside the school and sat down on a chair that was in front of the door of the classroom. He closed his eyes and reached out with his magic. He could sense that there are only one or two unicorns maybe a few pegasus and mostly earth ponies in the room.

He also sensed a strange magic aura from somepony who was standing in front of the class right now. After some more waiting he heard the door opened and Spirit Wood came out of the room.

"Hey, you must be the next ... oh it´s you Fallen, long time not seen!"

"Yes." He raised an eyebrow at the Timberwolf besides Spirit. This was the first time Fallen could get a closer look on a Timberwolf. "Interesting pet."

"Thank you, I think? What are you doing here I thought Twilight would come after me."

"She is in Canterlot at an meeting with royals of other lands and I replace her."

"Ok then I wish you luck with them. I must go now." Fallen didn't respond and Spirit walked away.

Cheerilee told him to come inside the classroom.

While he walked inside Cheerilee talked with the students. "The the next and last pony is going to talk about the main aspects of magic. How about you introduce yourself and please take the cloak off."

"It would be a pleasure." He took of the cloak and placed the box aside of him. Some of the foals grasp as they saw the crystal hoof and his horn. "My name is Fallen Dark, I am a high mage of Equestria and I will explain a little bit about magic today."

Cheerilee sat down in front of her desk and watched Fallen. "Please begin with your lecture Mr. Dark."

He nodded. "So since I don't know exactly how much you already know about magic I must ask a question for the start. What are the big main aspects of magic?"

Some fillies and colts lifted their hooves. Fallen just randomly pointed at one of them. The foal immediately spoke. "There is neutral magic and light magic!"

Fallen was disappointed to hear that answer but not surprised. "I already expected this answer. That is mostly true but you forgot dark magic. Light, neutral and dark these are the main aspects. Most spells belong to neutral magic. There are many smaller and bigger aspects within neutral magic with different modification. Maybe you already wondered what the differences of the different kinds of magic are.."

He looked around to see if anypony has a clue.

"The main differences are the way how to use it. Neutral magic is cast through the concentration of a mage and can used for nearly everything. The other two kinds are very different, the first is the well known light magic. It is cast through emotions like happiness and love, it is used to create harmony and peace. Dark magic is cast through hatred and fear and is mostly used for curses and destruction. Even if light magic is often used for good and dark magic for evil, that doesn't mean that it is impossible to use them for the opposite. "

He waited a bit so everypony could follow his explanation. "Light and dark magic often have counter spells for each other. For a light spell often exists a dark spell for the opposite use or a spell to destroy the light. This also works the other way. Light and dark are often used against each other because their users often question the techniques of the other one."

Now that he had covered the simplest basics he started with the real lecture. "For the first half of this lecture I will talk about artifacts of light magic and answer first questions. In the second half about dark magic artifacts. Before I begin dose some of you already know some artifacts?"

Again many students lifted their hoofs. Fallen choose rand. "The elements of harmony and the crystal heart."

"These are the most famous artifacts. Can somepony tell what the difference between the uses of these artifacts is." Fallen looked around but no one made attempt to lift the hoof.

"That is a shame. Cheerilee can you tell the difference?"

"I am sorry Mr. Dark I don't have any idea what you mean."

Fallen rubbed his forehead. "Seems like I have to do everything from here. So let me begin with the function of the crystal heart, you probably all know that it is powered by positive emotions of the crystal ponies and get activated by the current crystal princess, when it gets activated it creates a energy shockwave. On normal ponies it will have no effect besides giving them a crystal coat, this a reflection of the light magic that hit them. The fact is that it mainly a weapon!"

The whole class mumbled about the statement.

A white filly raised the hoof, Fallen thought he had met her before. Fallen told her to speak. "If the heart is a weapon why was it made?"

Fallen sighed, he hoped no one would ask this. "The main use of the heart is to work against dark magic and dark creatures. When a dark mage is hit by the shockwave he can't use his magic for some time and will be very exhausted. If a creature of darkness is hit by the shockwave it will die or at last get strong wounded and nothing but that is the purpose of the heart!"

Everypony looked at him like they couldn't believe that he heart is made to kill something, even Cheerilee stared at him.

Fallen went on talking. "Next come the elements of harmony. To use the you need a pony for each element or a pony who fits for more than one of them. Between these ponies must exist a strong binding of harmony. They can only be used to bring harmony. That's why they are the perfect weapon against a creature like Discord, who is the spirit of chaos, but they can't be used against normal creatures, not even these of the darkness."

As he said that many fouls raised their hoofs but Fallen already knew what they wanted to ask.

"You all want to know how it worked against Nightmare Moon and Tirek if what I said is true, right?"

He smiled as everypony lowered their hoofs and looked at him.

"The fact is it is useless against natural creatures and creatures of light and darkness. It only worked on Nightmare Moon because princess Luna wasn't supposed to be a dark creature, she was suppose to be the light in the darkness of the night, not the darkness. Tirek is rather simple to answer, because of his magic stealing he created an unbalance in magic or with other words he destroyed the harmony of magic. Now are there any questions?"

Somepony screamed in the room. "Why can't the elements destroy dark creatures, I mean they are evil and destroy things."

Fallen chuckled a little about this naive statement. "Because darkness has a rightful place in this world and is a part of harmony. Or do you think that you have the right decided what should be a part of this world and what not?"

Fallen could hear a quiet "N-no." from the foal who asked the question.

"I thought so. Are there some more questions?"

No one said anything. "Then to the next point. Are there any questions about the high mages or me that you want to ask? I can't tell you the names of the current high mages or how much there are."

He looked around and picked a orange filly he think to remember from somewhere. "I heard that each high mage focuses his magic on a special kind, so what is yours?"

"You know more than I expected and to answer your question, I am a master of dark magic."
No pony said anything and no hoof was raised anymore.

It took some time till on yellow filly raised the hoof. Now he remembered where he know these tree fillies from. 'These are the fillies that tried to spy on me.'

He pointed at her and she began to talk. "Ah just wanted to know what happened to your hoof!"

Fallen lifted his hoof. "Oh. This, well it was one of my early experiments to replace living cells with dark crystals and you can see it worked perfectly."

Fallen looked around for more questions but there were no more questions.

"I now need to see the agreement of your parents." Fallen walked through the class and looked if everypony had an agreement.

As he stood in front of the class again he took the box. "Since everypony has an agreement, I can start now with artifacts of dark magic."

He opened the box and pulled a sphere out of it.

The sphere looked like it was filled with smoke and some small, green lights. "This is the sphere of tortured souls. As you can see there are many small lights in it, these are captured souls. A strong dark mage can take the soul of an dying pony and put it inside where they feel endless pain. A dark mage can summon them and ask them anything he wants, the souls answer any question if they can."

Cheerilee began to feel nervous as she heard what in this sphere is and wanted to end this. "Maybe this is enough for today."

Fallen shock his head. "No, there is a little thing I wanted to do before this ends."

"But I don't think the foals are ready for thinks like that."

Fallen turned his head to her. "This is not your choice. With these agreements the only ponies that are allowed to stop me from going on are the foals." He looked around the quiet room. "And they don't look like they want me to stop my lecture."

Fallen turned back to the class. "So, I will now summon a soul and you can ask them anything you want."

Fallens horn began to glow and his eyes turned green whit purple mist coming from the corner of his eyes.

A green transparent pony came out of the sphere and fell to the ground. He stood up, his legs where shaking a little bit. He looked confused at the classroom.

Fallen stood behind him and held the sphere in his hoofs. "You can ask him now and you will better answer or else..." He held the sphere closer to the ghost.

The ghost backed away and nodded.

The first question came really quick. "What is your name Mr. Ghost?"

The ghost lowered his head. "I don't have a name anymore."

"Why that?"

"This is the effect of the sphere. It first destroys your free will, then your personality. I once was a pony but the sphere destroyed everything that I was."

"Oh..."

After this no one dared to ask anything. Fallen stepped forward and spoke. "Since no one asks anything I will now show you the affect of the sphere."

He turned to the ghost. "Why did you died?"

"I was executed for my crimes."

"What crimes?"

"I murdered my brother."

"Why?"

"I don't know anymore, but I regret it."

"As you see he answers any questions even if he is ashamed of the answer. Now a new question, what happens inside the sphere."

The eyes of the ghost widened as he heard the question but didn't hesitated to answer. "Inside is nothing but pain. Every part of the body, inside and outside, hurts and your greatest fears are constantly shown in front of your eyes. You hear voices whisper the sins of your live in your ears, constantly reminding you why you deserve to suffer..."

Fallen stepped in front of the ghost. "As you can see it is a horrible place. This sphere was used as a punishment for criminals. This pony here was the brother of a king and comes from the same place as the sphere. It comes from a land far away of Equestria and was found in an ancient ruin. The other souls stated that the sphere was created by the dark magus of the king. The king used it to destroy any resistance against him but as you heard, he still died and his magus punished his brother for it."

Cheerilee was too shocked to say anything while the class just sat there in silence.

"So that is everything I wanted to show you. It is time to get back in the sphere." The ghost just nodded while Fallen started to cast a spell to put him back in to the sphere but somepony screamed. "Stop."

Fallen stopped and looked around the class. "Who said that?"

"Ah was it!" It was Apple Bloom. "You have to free him he has done everything you said. It is not fair to let somepony suffer so much."

Fallen looked around and rubbed his chin. "Then you all will vote if he should be freed or not!"

He walked to the middle of the classroom still holding the sphere. "Everypony who thinks this pony should be freed now lift their hoof!"

All fillies, colts and Cheerilee lifted their hoof. "Looks like you are lucky today. You are free."

Fallen used a spell to free the ghost. The only thing the ghost did was looking at the class and let out a quiet. "Thank you all." Then the ghost faded away.

The school bell rang and the foals walked outside the room. After everypony was gone Cheerilee talked to Fallen.

"Mr. Dark what was that suppose to be?"

"A lecture."

"I will report this to the princess!"

"I did nothing illegal, I had the agreement of the parents and you gave me yours yesterday. I must say you have taught these foals good. This is a good test result."

This confused Cheerilee, she didn't know what test he meant. "What do you mean?"

Fallen chuckled a little bit. "The whole thing at the end, that he is going back in the sphere, was a test. I wanted to see what bigger is there fear before me or the sympathy to the tortured soul."

"Does that mean you would have freed him even if no one said anything?"

"No I would have put him back in the sphere where the pain would go on for him." Fallen put the sphere back in the box and walked outside the room but before he left the room he said on last thing.

"It was a pleasure to make this lecture. I wish you a good rest of the day."

He walked away and even if Cheerilee was silence Fallen still could sense her fear towards him.

Author's Note

If you want to know what Spirit had to say at the school visit day check out my brothers story Wooden Heart

I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter.