The hatred of the shadow

Not so far away from the empire Twilight and Rainbow Dash woke up in their rooms in the building on top of the volcano. A guard was walking through the hallway of the apprentices. He slammed each door open with a simple kick of his front leg and walked to the next door.

It was time to eat something, and Rainbow and Twilight already had to learn the day before that. They would get nothing to eat if they were late, so both of them quickly got up and got themselves ready for breakfast.

Food was always served in the ground floor of the building. The dining room was a hall with many tables and benches, big windows let the light of the sun brighten the room. As they entered this room for the first time they had wondered why this place was so big if they were just eight ponies being trained but this place wasn't only for the apprenticed but also for the guards.

At this time of day it was time to change posts, so many guards were eating and talking. Rainbow and Twilight got their plats from the chef and looked for a free places. Quickly they saw the other apprentices sitting on a table close to the exit.

They walked up to the table and sat down to them. "Good morning."

The others greeted them except Whirlwind who commented. "So the princess and her friend have decided to eat with the peasants."

Only a second later she got a hit against the back of her head from Gold Fire. "Stop this. Here we are all just students of Eruption nothing more. They just missed the time for lunch yesterday."

She grumbled a bit as answer and began to eat her food again. The food wasn't anything special but it wasn't bad either.

Hack and Slash were already finished and stood up. "You should hurry up. I bet our uncle has already planned a lot of training to day and the longer we need the more will we have to train." said Hack before they left the building.

Twilight noticed that Magus was reading in his book while he ate and she spoke to him. "What are you reading there? I have seen you writing in there while you watched the others."

'These are some notes I made about everypony here. I plan to learn how you all fight to optimize our teamwork.' He didn't looked up while he created the words in the air.

Whirlwind couldn't stop herself from making a comment. "Like I need even one of you. I will defeat Malonex alone and will be praised for doing so."

Gold Fire was about to put her in her place again as Vortex spoke up. "I have enough of your foolish self praising. We are not about to fight a normal out of control dark mage, we are training to fight one of the most dangerous dark mages alive and if we fail no pony will have chance. So keep your tongue in check or you are of no use here!"

No pony responded and they all just looked at Vortex with surprise. After some time Vortex stood up and walked away. The rest of the group ate their food in silence from there on.

One after the other was done and left the building till only Twilight and Rainbow were still sitting there. As they left the building they quickly walked down the stone stairs towards the main platform at the cliff.

Ice Eruption was already waiting for them and the others were sitting in front of him. Twilight and Rainbow quickly sat down and looked at Eruption who acknowledged that they were all there. "For today's training you will fight each other and then you will teach each other how to improve. You will all be watched by my guards while you do so."

They all nodded and Eruption went one. "Hack and Slash, you two know each other the best and you will find your weaknesses faster than anypony else. Whirlwind and Gold Fire, you need to learn to fight other styles than the ones you grew up with."

Whirlwind growled in annoyance but Eruption ignored her. "Twilight you have to learn to fight other mages more. You will fight against Magus Token. And at last Rainbow and Vortex, you two are the fastest and probably the best fighters at the moment."

Vortex nodded slightly while Rainbow already got up. The others wanted to go to the armory too but Eruption stopped them. "You can choose your arena yourself. I guess you already know where they are, this time you can use armor. I will leave now!"

As Eruption walked away Twilight walked to him and spoke up ."Can I ask where you are going master?"

Eruption stopped for a moment and said. "I will walk alongside the borders of the empire and see if I can find anything out without entering it. I will return tomorrow!"

With that he got on one of the carriages and two guards rushed to him to pull it.

Twilight watched him flying away as somepony suddenly touched her shoulder. She spun around and saw that is was Magus. 'Come one. The others are already in the armory getting their weapons and armor.'

She nodded to them and they walked into the armory. Magus helped Twilight choosing which kind of sword was the best for her and he also gave her a bigger shield than she used yesterday. After that they went upstairs to get armor. The floor was filled with the red armors the guards always wore.

The other apprentices were busy getting their armor on, so Twilight just took one armor and began to put it on. Like with the weapons Magus decided to not wear an armor.

As every apprentice was done they got together to choose who gets to fight in which arena. In the end Gold Fire and Whirlwind took the fire arena over the lava sea. Hack and Slash went to the stone arena from yesterday while Rainbow Dash and Vortex got the arena beneath of the armory which. That left Magus and Twilight with the arena on the top of the mountain.

After they were all done they walked to the arenas they had chosen. Twilight and Magus walked up the stone stairs of the mountain to get to the arena in the snow. They entered the arena and noticed that it had began to snow and the wind had began to blow. The sky had darkened and the arena was only lighten up by some fireplaces that were build in the walls of the arena.

Magus and Twilight walked to the middle of the arena and looked a bit around. Twilight saw that a guard in the red armor stood over the entrance and watched them from above.

As he noticed Twilights look at him, his expression turned impatient and shouted down. "Hurry up you two. I don't want to stay here when a blizzard starts!"

Twilight looked away from the guards and looked back at Magus who had created a armor made of his magic. It looked like the normal guard armor but it was completely made of the blue metal. The armor was weakly glowing, creating a small bright point in the arena. Magus eyes were completely consumed with a blue glow just like his horn. 'Are you read?'

Twilight nodded and lifted her shield and sword. Twilight waited for Magus to attack while he did the same to her. They began to walk in circles around the middle of the arena.

Till at one point, Twilight rushed towards Magus with her sword ready to strike. But as she reached him he created a sword himself and blocked the attack.

Twilight on her side already expected that and swung her shield. The shield hit him in the side and smashed him a few steps away. He jumped another step back and shoot a big net at Twilight at the same time.

Twilight just flew into the air to dodge and the net flew under her, but then Magus surprised her. A few blue ropes appeared and he grabbed them with his magic. With a quick pull the net, that had landed behind Twilight, began to fly again.

It got her from behind and she was captured inside of it. As Magus saw his enemy captured, he swung the rope with the net through the air. Twilight was flying through the air but she managed to concentrate enough to teleport out of the net.

She stood directly in front of Magus but he wasn't done with his trick yet. The net lost its form and so did the rope and only a second later they had turned into a swarm of daggers.

Twilight saw the daggers flying towards her and lifted her shield. The shield was just big enough to block his attack. She was able to withstand the pressure of the daggers hitting against her shield and began to charge a strong energy beam.

As the hail stopped she lowered her shield and unleashed her magic. Magus saw the blast flying towards him and summoned a solid shield. As the blast collided with the shield cracks began to form on the surface of it.

Twilight waited for Magus next move but he seemed to just wait. The shield he had summoned was still there. Then Twilight noticed that lines began to glow on the shield. A rune began to form with the purple light of her magic.

As Twilight saw that the glow began to get stronger, she summoned a barrier to black whatever attack might come next.

Magus then used his magic to activate the rune and only a second later a rain of purple bolts began to shot towards Twilight.

Twilights barrier broke and she was knocked a few feet away and landed on her back. As she struggled to stand up she saw Magus in the corner of her eye. He was writing something in his book and in that moment Twilight felt a paralyze bolt hitting her from above.

After the bolt hit her she was lying in the snow unable to move. Magus walked up to her and deactivated the spell. Magus reached out with his hoof to help her up.

As she stood again she saw that he already had created his words. 'You did good but you have to work on your ability to predict your enemy's moves. You are tricked too easily.'

Twilight smiled a bit and nodded. "Then please help me to get better. I don't think there is much that I could teach you."

'I think that I have a lot to learn but for now let's start with you.' and began to channel his magic.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash wasn't so thrilled to train with Vortex. There were several reasons for that.

The first one was that the day before she had seen that he is a pretty good fighter, second was the arena they had chosen, the wooden platforms were only hold by a few ropes that were tied to the armory and the wind was blowing to strong to fly for long, it would only be possible to fly short distances without getting grabbed by the wind , and the last reason was that she thought that he is extremely creepy.

They stood on a platform that was build beneath the armory from where they could climb down a ladder to reach the first platform. A guard was standing there to watch them.

As Vortex began to climb down the ladder the guards talked to Rainbow Dash. "Make sure that you don't take every platform down."

Rainbow was a bit confused but just nodded and then climbed down to. Vortex was waiting for her on the first platform and as she reached him they began to walk jump from platform to platform to reach the middle of the arena.

While they jumped Vortex talked to her. "Ice Eruption says you are the best fighter besides me, I hope you aren't as big of a disappointment as the other that said they were the best."

Rainbow responded. "I think I am pretty good. I already trained for a few years and the teachers I had before were extremely good fighters themselves."

They had reached the middle but before they began Vortex wanted to ask a little bit more. "Who were your masters?"

"Well, to be exact I had two masters. Over the last two years I trained with the archmage Rising Light. But over the last year we trained less and less because he had much to do. Before him I had Malonex as my teacher."

Vortex looked at her with disbelieve. "The traitor taught you?"

Rainbow Dash was a bit surprised by the word traitor but answered. "Yeah, Three years ago I saw him teaching Twilight about magical combat and asked if I could join. Since then I started training to fight. First I just wanted to waste a bit of my time, then, as I got better and better, I wanted to be good enough to beat everypony in Ponyville and in the end I wanted to be strong enough to beat Malonex in a one on one duel."

Vortex chuckled a bit. "Looks like we are aiming towards the same goal. Since I was young the only thing that I wanted was to be the best fighter in all of Equestria. You should be grateful that you are granted this possibility. This is probably the best place to learn to fight and you will get chance to face Malonex again."

Rainbow sighed. "But this isn't the way I wanted it to happen..."

Vortex looked up a bit and his ice blue eyes came up from beneath his black hood. "I know what that tone in your voice is. That is the sound of somepony who wants to give mercy to a pony that is neither worthy of it nor would it accept it. Let me give you the first advice that I learned as I was young. Always spare your mercy for those who deserve it and don't waste it on ponies that will stab you in the back when you spare them."

Rainbow listened to every clod and bitter word. She knew that she had to get rid of her mercy for Malonex if she wanted to face him one day. She nodded slightly and Vortex was satisfied with that answer. "Then let us begin."

He walked a few feet away and jumped on another platform. He drew out his scythe and waited for Rainbow to get ready. She jumped to another platform too and took her spear in one hoof.

After a few seconds of waiting Vortex jumped into the air and made a big swing with his scythe. His cape flattered behind him and he spread his wings. Rainbow jumped backwards on a bigger platform and saw how Vortex cut every rope and the wood fell down into the abyss.

Vortex himself used the rest of the jump to get on the same platform as Rainbow. She did the first thing that came into her mind and dashed forward. As she came closer to him he jumped up again and began to swing his scythe with extreme speed. Rainbow did her best to block every swung of him. The sound of their weapons clashing against each other began to fill the air and after a while they both realized that this was getting them nowhere.

Vortex quickly changed his hail of attacks to a other strategy. He began to spin forward and turned himself into a wheel of death. The force behind his slices became stronger and stronger, making Rainbow realize that it was impossible to block much longer, so she used the next moment where Vortex had his scythe behind himself to jump away.

Vortex attack didn't stop so he cut the platform they stood on a second ago in two pieces. Both pieces were only hold by two ropes and thereby making it impossible to stay on either half. Vortex himself landed on the thin wooden that was still held in the air and grabbed one of the ropes with his free hoof.

He looked around to see where Rainbow Dash was. As he looked around he couldn't find her till he heard wing flap from behind him. He quickly turned around and lifted his scythe, only barely quick enough to block the spear from Rainbow.

He got pushed away from the thin wooden plank he stood on and landed with his back on a small platform.

Rainbow used her spear to press him on the wooden planks and to keep him there. Vortex turned his scythe around and kicked Rainbow in the stomach with it. She fell down of the platform but before she was too far Vortex used his scythe to pull her up again and threw her against another platform.

Rainbow needed a bit time to recover but Vortex immediately jumped on her platform and held his scythe at her throat. As she tried to lift her spear but Vortex stomped on her hoof with his own and she lost her grip on her weapon.

For a short moment Vortex just stared at Rainbow with his cold eyes but then he got of her. He jumped onto a bigger platform and watched as Rainbow slowly stood up and took her spear.

She wanted to say something but Vortex was faster. "You did better than I expected. You are fast and strong but you are also too hasty. Your attack, where you pushed me to the ground, would be a fast way to defeat an weak enemy but if you fight somepony who is as strong or stronger than you, this just puts you in a dangerous situation. Also your style only works as long as you have only one enemy and as far as we know Malonex has somepony who is helping him so you have to learn to change you target quickly."

Rainbow wanted to deny what he said but then realized that he was right. She nodded and locked to him. "I guess you are right but that doesn't mean that your technique is perfect! During your attacks your vision on your enemy becomes loose and a quick fighter can use that to leave your sight and attack you from behind."

Vortex looked at her a moment without saying anything but then a grin appeared on his face. "Well then. Let us begin with the real training now!"

Meanwhile not so far away in the empire, Malonex was looking into a crystal he had created in his room. He used it to see through his dark cloud everything that was inside of close to the crystal empire and only a while ago he found a very interesting place on a volcano. He smiled as he watched the ponies training in the hope to defeat him.

Malonex began chuckled a bit. "So, they are already planning to kill me with a small troop? I think it is time that somepony takes care of them." He began to laugh as he watched them fight each other, not knowing what would come to them.