The dark brother of the bright student

Several weeks later Twilight started to make progress in her training. She still lost many times but she started to use her magic in more ways than just energy bolts. Rainbows training on the other side got slower because Fallen couldn't teach her in fighting techniques for pegasi. The only thing he could do was giving her a book about pegasus fighting techniques.

One night Fallen was dreaming and he heard a voice in his dreams. "Greetings high mage Fallen Dark."

Fallen saw princess Luna appearing in his dream. "Greetings princess Luna. Long time not seen. Why the sudden visit?"

Luna nodded. "That is certainly true the last time we met was when I tested your strength."

Fallen still was curious about her visit. "I never expected to see you in my dreams. As you can see I have them perfectly under control."

Luna looked around. Fallens dream was nothing more than just a an empty nothing. "That is true. But that is not the reason why I visited you. I am here to tell you that my sister and I are coming for a visit next week. We want to see how Twilight is doing with her fist personal student. Please tell her that this visit is private and we don't want any special arrangement for us."

Fallen raised an eyebrow. "Why telling me this and why in my dreams."

"I wanted to tell you first. You once told me that you hate surprises. Tomorrow Princess Twilight will get a letter from my sister about our visit. I also was interested to see why I didn't sense any emotions coming from your dreams." She looked around to see if there is anything in this void.

"I prefer it to decide myself when I give information about myself and dreams can give very much information about a pony."

"Well then I have to go now. I am needed in the dreams of others."

"Good night princess Luna."

Luna disappeared and Fallen spent the rest of the night alone in the void of his dream.

The next day was normal till the lunch. Fallen, Bright and Twilight sat in the dining room eating till they heard Spike running in the room with a letter in his claw. "Twilight you got a letter from princess Celestia."

Twilight stood up and grabbed the letter with a levitation spell and read it. She grasped after she finished reading.

Bright looked at her with an curious expression. "What is it saying?"

"Princess Celestia and princess Luna are coming to see Ponyville and how I am doing with my first personal student."

"When are they coming?"

"Next week. We have to prepare everything. We have to prepare a parade and..."

Fallen interrupted her . "No The princesses already told me about their visit. They also told me that this is a private visit and they don't want any special arrangement."

Twilight looked confused at Fallen. "How do you now that the princesses want this visit to be private. It is not even written on the letter."

"Princess Luna visited me in my dreams and informed me about everything."

"Oh. Well then we still have to clean up the castle!"

Spike groaned. "But I cleaned the whole castle yesterday!"

"But in a week everything will be complete covered in dust!"

The week went on completely normal besides Twilight making sure that the castle was in a perfect condition.

In the morning of the day of the visit Twilight was training to dodge. She was surrounded by ten unicorn shadows who either shoot bolts at her or attacked her in close combat with their swords. Twilights task was to dodge the attacks for ten minutes but she is not allowed to attack back.

Twilight already had many wounds and bruises form the earlier attempts to finish the task.

She nearly managed to finished the task as she saw the carriages of Celestia and Luna coming towards them. Because of the distraction she got hit by an energy bolt and fell to the ground.

"Don't let anything distract you. Try again."

The carriages landed beside the arena and Celestia and Luna walked to into the arena.

Twilight wanted to walk to them but got hit by an energy bolt from Fallen. "I said try again, not training is over."

"But the princesses are here!"

"If that is so important to you should consider to finish the task instead of getting hit."

"Yes master." Twilight sighed and got ready to dodge the shadows.

Fallen walked to the princesses and greeted them with by short bowing before them. Celestia greeted him with a smile. "It is nice to see you again Fallen. As I see you really are training Twilight to fight."

"Yes and I have to say that I am disappointed in you. I thought you would have taught her about the battle of master mages and about fighting with magic."

"I hoped that it is enough that the royal guard knows how to fight and no pony noponyelse ever has to learn to fight again."

"Such foolish thoughts have already lead many great kingdoms to their downfall."

"Till know it was enough. Equestria wasn't involved in a war since thousand years."

The watched Twilight finishing the task after a few more attempts. It took her even longer because she knew Celestia and Luna were watching her training.

But finally she managed to dodge every attack for ten minutes.

Twilight walked exhausted to the princesses and tried to talk but only deep breaths escaped her mouth.

Celestia saw Twilights struggle to talk and spoke to her. "It is nice to see you again Twilight and I am curious to see how your personal student is doing."

By saying this Bright walked in the arena with the usual plates with food for Twilight and Fallen, but she stopped as she saw the princesses standing there. "Oh. The princesses are already here! I am sorry I haven't anything to eat for you prepared. I go and make something."

Before anypony could object she placed the plates on the ground and ran away to prepare food for Celestia and Luna.

Celestia talked to Twilight again. "Looks like she already learned a lot from you." She smiled at Twilight.

Before anypony could say anything else Fallen spoke up. "How about we go inside and go on with talking while we eat?"

He levitated his plate to himself and walked to the castle. Twilight, Celestia and Luna followed him. They sat down in the dining room and Bright ran inside the room too with three more plates.

She levitated two of them to Celestia and Luna and sat down with her own plate. "I am sorry you highnesses if my behavior earlier offended you."

Celestia just smiled. "There is no need to apologize. Now how are your studies with Twilight going?"

"I finished my studies on healing magic and now I am studying the magical abilities and uses of gems."

"Then I assume it was the right idea to choose you as Twilight first personal student."

Twilight and Bright nodded smiling at her.

While eating Bright came a question in mind she wanted to ask till she became Twilights student. "Why did you choose me?"

"Well you have to thank your brother. While we talked about his magic he told me how fast you were learning and how much you wanted to become the student of a princess, so I looked through your files in your school. I talked with Luna and we came to the conclusion that you would be the perfect choice to be Twilights personal student."

Fallen glared angry at Celestia. "You like to break every agreement we made don't you? I will ignore it this time but if this happened again I will break my part of the agreement too."

Celestias smile vanished and she nodded. It took some time till somepony said anything.

This time it was Twilight who had a question. "If that is not another part of you agreement can you tell me why you allowed Fallen to study dark magic and how you made him a high mage. I always thought that dark magic is too dangerous to be studied."

Celestia and Luna looked at Fallen who just nodded and Celestia began to tell. "One day I sensed dark magic in Canterlot. I sent the guards to find out what it was. They told me it was a colt named Fallen Dark who earned his cutie mark for using dark magic. I researched about him and found out that his father is dead and that his mother was conducting an orphanage. I went personally to his home and talked with his mother. I decided that, since the talent to use dark magic never existed before, he is allowed him to study dark magic."

Luna went on with talking. "After my return, my sister told me that she found somepony who can use and control dark magic. As he went to the advanced dark magic that could corrupted him, I decided to test his strength. I challenged him and after a long duel I defeated him but I thought that he has proven that he indeed can control his dark magic."

Now Celestia spoke again. "A short time later Arcanus heard about Fallen and said that he thought that Fallen is worthy to become a high mage. I trusted Arcanus advice and made Fallen an high mage and till now his decisions were always helpful. That reminds me, prince Blueblood told me to ask you again if you will let him see your experiments about dark magic Fallen."

Fallen rubbed his forehead in annoyance. "How often does he need to hear that I will never show him anything about my magic. Tell him to never bother me again about this or I will show him what I can do with my magic!"

Celestia nodded. "I will tell him that you don't want to be asked again." She completely ignored Fallens threat against Blueblood.

After they were finished eating Celestia and Luna said goodbye. "It is nice to see that you two already got used living in Ponyville."

Twilight spoke up. "Well they aren't the only new ponies in Ponyville. Spirit Wood is also new, he came from another land."

Celestia looked at Luna. "Maybe we should visit him too."

Twilight nodded. "I show you where he lives. I can tell you anything I know about him on the way."

After everypony said good bye Twilight, Celestia and Luna left the castle. Bright went back to her studies in the library and Fallen went in his laboratory.

There he opened the locked shelf with the four vials and took them out. "How am I suppose to get the blood of the last one. I have to find a way before the old blood is useless."

He put the vials back and took something else out of the shelf. It was a very old book, it is the oldest book Fallen owned. it is completely black and had a dark crystal in the cover. He shortly touched the cover and began to read it. After he finished reading for this day he put it back in the shelf locked the shelf again and began do work on his experiments.

He walked to Arachnas web to see why she didn't came for lunch and he saw her sitting there. This became normal for her over the last week. She was less aggressive and only came one time per day for food. But Fallen didn't mind it because she was already two years older than he expected her to become.

At dinner everypony sat in silence till Twilight wanted to ask Fallen something. "When the high mages were here for a meeting you talked to every single one of them. Only with the light mage you didn't talk. I wanted to know why. Do you hate him or something like that?"

"Oh you mean Rising. Well this has several reasons."

"And what are these reasons?"

"To name a few of my reasons why I avoid him. The first reason is a disagreement between us about moral and my methods. Another reason is that he once was my best friend but after I started learning dark magic I read in many books about dark magic that friends make the training harder. I decided that I want to learn as much as I can as fast as I can. The only way to do so was being a loner. Over the time I learned to appreciate being alone so I decided to keep it this way. "

"So for being a dark mage you had to give up all your friends?"

"Yes but it isn't something I would change if I could. I even think that I would have learned about my talent earlier if I never had friend."

"But friendship is important!"

Fallen just laugh at this objection. "Maybe you still don't understand it but dark magic and its users are a lot different from other ponies. Friendship, love and things like that are things that only a few of us ever have. An important rule for every dark mage is that hatred is always your best friend."

Twilight began to get upset about such an perspective on friendship. "Friendship will always win in the end. No power is as strong as friendship, it can defeat everything!"

Bright grasped in shock.

Fallen just raised his eyebrow and looked at her. He stood up. "If you think so, then let's put this to a test. Get all your friends in one hour to the arena. We will see if your friendship can beat me. If you don't show up your fighting training is over!"

He walked outside and slammed the door shut.

Twilight needed a second before she realized what happened. "Why is he so upset?"

Bright just sighed. "You called his magic weaker than friendship. That is probably the worst thing you could say. You should better get your friends if you want to continue your battle training."

Twilight flew to each of her friends and told them that Fallen challenged them to a duel and that he said he is stronger than friendship. Everypony accepted, even Fluttershy who thought that Fallen needed to learn that friendship is stronger than he is.

They walked to the arena but now Fluttershy wasn't so sure anymore. "Maybe this is a bad idea."

But Rainbow Dash was sure that they could do this. "What are you talking about? Sure we can beat him. Together no one can beat us! And you said yourself that it is about time that he learns this lesson, even if we have to beat it in his head."

They walked inside the arena and they saw Fallen sitting there. " You surprise me. I didn't thought that everypony would come. This will be interesting. That means if you stay for even a minute."

Twilight shook her head. "We are here to teach you a lesson about friendship. It can't be defeated."

Fallen gave Twilight a disappointed look for a brief moment and then he stood up. "Then let's start with the lesson."

The six friends ran in Fallens direction but he didn't made any attempted to dodge or anything else. He waited till they only were a few feet away from him than his horn started to glow with dark magic. He took a deep breath and then black clouds came out of his mouth. In a few seconds the whole arena was completely shrouded by black clouds.

They screamed out for each other but the only answer came from Fallen. "They can't hear you, this cloud is completely noise intercepting the only pony you will hear is me.

He short laughed about his work and the sudden shock in everyponies face as they began to realize Fallens plan."It is hard to defeat somepony with friendship if you have no clue where your friends are. But after what you said earlier this should be no problem for you."

Rainbow did the only thing she cloud think of she tried to find the weapons based on her memory of the arena. After she found the weapons she grabbed a spear and some random weapons for her friends but as she was about to search for her friends as all weapons shattered. "What?"

"I have created these weapons. Next time think of something better." The crystal pieces of the weapons crawled together and formed shackles.

Before Rainbow could react the shackle flew towards her and grabbed her. In a second she was tied to the ground.

Fluttershy tried to find a way out of the arena but she didn't found anything. She heard a laugh and ran away from it directly into somepony. She fell to the ground and as she looked up she saw Fallen standing in front of her. His eyes glowed with dark magic and purple mist came from the corner of his eyes. Fluttershy slowly backed away from him. He followed her and began to smile at her fear.

Fluttershy jumped a step back and landed in the pit of the arena. The opening of the pit was closed by Fallen with transparent crystals.

Pinkie jumped around in the dark and tried to find her friends. Then she saw the silhouettes of her friends. She ran to them. As she reached them she saw that they were only shadows. The shadows jumped at her and transformed into black ropes. They tied up Pinkie so she couldn't move.

Rarity began to get frustrated. "I can't see anything. If I find Fallen I will give him what he deserves!"

"Oh will you?" Fallen was right behind her and grinned evil.

Rarity turned around. "Only because I am not a master mage doesn't mean I can't fight an arrogant high mage." She shoot a beam at him which was blocked by him with a barrier.

"You call me arrogant. Of all ponies these who think they can defeat me with friendship say that I am arrogant." He shoot a rain of paralyze beams at her. She tried to block them but they broke her barrier and Rarity fell paralyzed to the ground.

Applejack took out a lasso from under her hat. She got ready to react if somepony tried to attack her.

Then she saw Fallen and threw her lasso at him and tied him up. Applejack walked towards him but as she came near she saw that it wasn't Fallen but a shadow. The shadow went in the ground and under Applejack. Dark crystals began to grew around her hooves so she couldn't move.

Twilight was now the only one left. She flew through the arena to search for her friends and to find Fallen. Then she heard them. "And now to the last one."

"What?" Twilight was confused why he said last one.

Then the black cloud disappeared and Twilight saw that she was at the entrance of the arena. She looked around and saw Fallen in the middle of the arena and all of her friend captured behind him. "This was fun but I think it is time to end this." He stomped on the ground and dark flames erupted around Twilight.

Twilight tried to fly away but she was hit by one of Fallens spells. The spell created shadows to tie up her wings. She fell to the ground, in the ring of dark fire. A prison of dark crystals grew around Twilight.

"As I said it is over."

He used a short spell to free everypony they walked to Twilight. "Let this be a lesson for you. Friendship is a strong power and nearly indestructible but that doesn't mean there aren't other strong powers. Remember friendship isn't a sword that can defeat your enemies, it is a way to be strong together. But as I said there are some that rather be alone."

Twilight was a little confused. "If friendship is nearly indestructible and makes us strong together, as you said, how could you defeat us."

Fallen looked at her disappointed that she still didn't understood fighting. "Because I didn't fought against friendship I fought against six pony with nearly no experience in fighting. Being strong together doesn't make you good fighters and it doesn't help you if you are alone."

He walked out of the arena and left the six friends alone.