The Demon's Game

Another week passed as I had Twilight reading book upon book about combat magic and having Applejack and Gilda train against each other while Pinkie trained against shadows that I had conjured.

Applejack and Gilda were just ending their third match of the morning as Gilda put a paw on AJ's back. "Woo," she muttered with a pause, to take a heavy breath, "I won. What are we at now?" She asked me.

I took a count in my head and said, "That sets it as twelve wins Applejack, twenty-seven draws and thirteen wins you, so far. You still have four more matches left this afternoon and three shadow matches tonight. However, if we look at the shadow matches, Aj has five wins and sixteen losses and you have three wins and eighteen losses. Now, both of you take a break." Gilda huffed and slowly made her way to a chair set up for her. Aj simply flopped over onto her back and breathed heavily.

Twilight came out of the castle carrying the two most recent books I had given her and handed them back to me. "There, I'm done researching these two. What's next?" she asked, happy that she had a week to binge study as much as she could.

"On that particular topic, nothing currently," I answered. "However," I continued with a pause, "I would like you to tell me if you know why I gave you all the books I handed you." I took the books from her hands and sat them down next to me awaiting her answer.

"Because you wished for me to have a more complete view of the magic you are teaching me," she answered.

"and?" I added with a wave of my hand.

"Uh... and... um... to expand on my knowledge of when to use them?" she stated quizzically.

"No. I needed you to understand that you need to study a wider variety of combat magic. The spells you have chosen to study all have their uses and work well together. However, as is, with the spells you have in your grimoire you could not protect yourself or anypony around you," I answered with a roll of my eyes. I enjoyed how much of a study-bug she was, but her naivety was getting a bit under my skin.

"I have my alicorn magic and the magic of friendship to be able to protect myself and my friends. So, why should I have to study something that seems so useless?" She quipped haughtily.

"Ok," I stated to everypony there with a huff, "everypony you know your schedules. Pinkie wait here until I get back I have something to give you." I then looked to Twilight and continued, "you are coming with me. You obviously need some one on one tutoring." Twilight looked conflicted by this; happy that she was going to have more taught to her, but iffy on who was teaching her. I put a hand on her shoulder and teleported us to a medium sized demi-plane I had created. The plane itself was fairly empty and seemed to stretch on forever in each direction. "Now, you said that with your alicorn magic and the magic of friendship that the combat magic I was trying to teach you was useless. Ok, let's test that a little." I said to her as a large blue dragon appeared in front of her. "This is a young adult blue dragon. It is an electric type dragon and it is the first age group of the blue dragons to gain spell resistance. Now, use the magic of friendship against it," I continued.

"I... I can't. I don't have my friends," she answered.

"Problem one, if you are caught alone the magic of friendship is useless. Ok, now use your alicorn magic and attack this dragon with your best spell." I put forth.

She shot a large and powerful beam of pure magic at the dragon. After the beam withered away, a black spot was left on the dragon that it brushed off like it was nothing. "What?" she put forth her query.

"Problem two, some things are immune to alicorn and unicorn magic. Now, I will use my weakest magic attack to prove something. I will use magic missile on it," I said as I pointed my hand towards the dragon. Five balls of energy hit the dragon and subsequently caused the dragon to growl at me. "Now, I can blast through this dragon's spell resistance simply because I have three thousand years of experience before I was imprisoned. You use your strongest attack spell, Melf's acid arrow." I said to her.

She nodded and took the materials she needed out of a bag I made her carry around everywhere. Finally, she shot the dragon with the spell causing it to growl loudly at her and giving it a small scar on it's chest. "But, you could have made the dragon like that." She said to me.

I raised my eyebrows and huffed. I dismissed the dragon and brought another blue dragon only it was much, much larger. "This is a great wyrm blue dragon, it's spell resistance is much higher than that of it's younger kin and I summoned it from where it was, I did not make either of them. Same spell," I grumbled and shot the magic missile at this dragon. The dragon didn't even blink. "Believe me now?" I asked.

She looked at the dragon wide eyed and admitted, "yes... yes I do."

I dismissed this dragon and walked up to her. I stated, "I am not telling you to study spells that would hurt or harm others, I am just saying that you need spells that allow you to fight on your own, regardless of the enemies immunities or resistances. Hell, you could learn spells that increase your and your allies prowess or summoning spells. Just something that would allow you to be able to not worry in any situation."

"I understand a little bit more. I'll think on it," she answered and I nodded. I, then, teleported us back in front of her castle just as the sun was going down and her friends were resting inside. She the quizzed, "We're enemies right?"

"Currently yes," I answered.

"Then why are you working so hard to make us stronger? It can't be just to waste time," She asked looking me in the eyes. I tried to give her the answer I thought was truthful, but found myself unable to speak. "Just, think on it," she said as she turned around and made her way into her castle.